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dennou-translations · 5 years ago

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Violet Evergarden Gaiden: Chapter 5

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“The Military School of Leidenschaftlich’s Army does not inquire people’s social ranks. The gates are open to all youths, and anyone at least fourteen years old can devote themselves to it regardless of their gender. National defense means protecting everything you love.”

Where had I seen a bulletin with these contents again? If I was certain, it had been in front of our business partner wholesale store, when I entered and exited it on an errand for my family. One particular sheet had been standing out on a board where the townsfolk stuck anything they felt like, from job hunts to searches for people. While biting into an apple that I had received from the store’s owner as recompense for the errand, my thirteen-year-old self had gazed at it intently. It was a good-quality paper rendered perfectly straight, firmly nailed by thumbtacks in all four corners. Pushed into the paper at the end of the text was a gold screw, as well as red sealing wax, bearing the emblem of Leidenschaftlich’s army.

As a child, I had thought that was a pretty cool life choice. How stupid. Even I would want to laugh at myself for being so naïve. Back then, I had not yet come to know the meaning of granting and taking away lives. Truth be told, once I tried becoming a soldier, reality ended up crushing many delusions of mine, but that’s a tale for later.

Let’s go back to my current story.

There were many reasons why I had decided that “yeah, I’ll become a soldier”. One was that I’m the second son of a merchant household, and since my older brother was the one who would take over the inheritances, I wasn’t needed there. Another one was that, as I had been raised in a big family, I wanted to hurry and become independent so that I could have my own space. Yet another was that the name my parents had given me was “Claudia”, which had made me think of wishing to become manly. Lastly, well... my older brother’s fiancée was a beautiful woman just my type, so I had wanted to keep a distance from her. The most important was that I desired to protect the family I loved but wanted to depart from, I guess.

The war had been progressively intensifying back then. A resources conflict between North and South. It was that one messy Continental War of a few years ago, where a religious confrontation between the West and the East became involved.

Leidenschaftlich was the continent’s southernmost extremity. If we had been attacked at that point, our defeat would have been certain and my family would likely have lost their lives. Because I was fond of my town and my people, and because I was fond of Leidenschaftlich, enlisting had been an inclination from my spontaneous feelings. The many things that had happened to me at the time boosted them... and so, I decided to become a soldier. I applied without telling my parents, and as for the entrance exam, I took it after lying that I was going to hang out with friends.

When a letter of acceptance was suddenly delivered by a postman to my home, my Pops beat the hell out of me. I hit him back, though. Pops was surprised at that. So was I. Like, “Pops is surprisingly weak”. During childhood, people think that their guardians are damn huge existences...

Yup. My parents had probably been worried. Choosing soldier as profession earns you a higher mortality rate than from leading a normal life.

In the Military School, all officers living inside the dorms was something enforced, so no one had a choice but let go of their parents. Still, I was stubborn, so I took a photo of my family with me as I left.

Two years after that, I guess, was when it happened. I met Gilbert.

Gilbert Bougainvillea and Claudia Hodgins

Do you know the true meaning of that flowering tree’s name?

They bloom every year. They’re planted all over the country as roadside trees, and when spring comes, lovely white buds sprout on them. When the petals fall, they form a pure-white carpet that never melts away. During that time, the colors of the city disappear like in a snowy country. People who go abroad have their mouths agape when coming back. You don’t see that sight anywhere else. No matter where I go, I remember that scenery whenever spring comes about. It’s like an extraordinarily fine woman that you get to spend only a single night with. If you listened to the music playing while the two of you were sleeping together, you’d remember her. Just like that, I’d reminisce to it. Whenever spring arrives, my memories summon the past along with the white of those flowers.

Gem-like emerald-green eyes hidden under a deeply burrowed military cap. Lifeless fingertips from pale hands that would not move after reaching out to the person walking away on him. Whispered words not conveyed.

I’d recall over and over again the Gilbert Bougainvillea of that time.

Gilbert... Gilbert Bougainvillea. Right, I started this story in order to talk about him. I spoke too much about myself. Let’s discuss him.

Bougainvillea, Bougainvillea. A clan named after a flower. If you live in this country and ask about the Bougainvillea family name, you’d know that it’s a famous family of military descent.

Didn’t you know? Statues and things like that of his ancestors are all over the city. After all, Leidenschaftlich has a history of having fought other nations that attacked and invaded it since the distant past. It’s easy for brilliant soldiers to be treated like legendary existences. It went to the point where it could be said that a soldier come from the Bougainvillea family was someone sure to take up employment. Even at present, this hasn’t changed.

He’s the young master of a well-off house. Actually, his bloodline is a high-class one. It also had matrimonial ties with the royal family of the monarchy period from before the country was administered by the military. The royal family is used as a symbol nowadays, though.

If times were better, he’s a person who we would not be allowed to talk about so casually. Yup, right on. This is why you exist now. They have that much power. Why I became friends with Gilbert, you ask?

It all began in early spring at the Military Service School of Leidenschaftlich.

The Military School was located near the national border. So that it could become a shield at the very front in case something happened, you see. The way it started from an all-seeing tower surrounded by a sturdy fort was just like a fortress city. If you went inside, you’d be sandwiched by narrow stone walls in a pathway that went on for long, and after passing through it, you’d finally be able to get out at the square. The city of Leiden was made like that too, right? If there was an attack, we’d defend it at the entrance, and then engage in confront at an open space.

Did you know that there’s a height limit to the buildings of Leiden? Most buildings were erected to the same height. But public institutions built inside the country were pretty big. Yup, that’s right. High-rise buildings were intentionally constructed in fixed intervals. For the sake of long-distance snipers. That’s the kind of country we live in. Hearing it that way, you might imagine it as some ostentatious building, but it’d turn into a beautiful thing when spring came. The roadside trees in our country will bud with white flowers every year, right? Yes, that kind. Strangely enough, its name is “bougainvillea”.

I don’t know why his household has that surname, but surely it’s got something to do with the fact that those vines were planted all over the country.

The completely white carpet that can be made out of those tiny flowers falling little by little is a gentle beauty. That sight is enough to be sometimes praised as the “residence of angel feathers”. Those vines surrounded the Military School in rows.

A few years after having enrolled into it, my hobby was going on idle strolls during that time of the year, so I was taking a walk. I got greeted by a passing freshman. “The place you’re about to enter is hell~,” I thought to myself while greeting back with a smile.

It was warm and pleasant under the lively sunlight, and just as it was about to melt the insides of my head, I found an eye-opening person. What kind of person was it? He was a beauty. Yep, he was... the kind of beauty that you don’t see around so often.

It was about as lengthy as yours. His long black hair formed a lenient curve and his eyes were a deep green. He had handsome facial features that gave off an androgynous impression, but the long limbs that he was gifted with and his well-trained body looked pretty cool in the white naval uniform he was dressed in. That’s what people would say. He was the kind of man that other men would fall for on sight, so to speak. That was the kind of person he was.

He was arguing with someone. As the two were side-by-side, I could soon tell they were siblings. The big discrepancy was that the boy who was presumably the younger brother was the one with a more awe-inspiring look. The two had not noticed that a passerby like me was walking their way.

It was weird for a guy wearing a naval uniform to be in front of the army’s Military School in the first place. They piqued my interest, so I couldn’t help standing there to eavesdrop. I could hear what they were talking about in bits.

“Brother, you’re selfish.”

“It’s for your sake; understand it, Gil.”

“Why do you never tell me anything?”

“Then cut off our ties as brothers.”

“All I ever do is say yes.”

When the younger brother said so, I got sad and felt like siding with him. I was at loss, so I stayed as a spectator.

After a while, the two stopped yelling at each other, and the older brother deliberately took off the military cap that the younger one was wearing, reached a hand toward his head and patted it messily. The younger brother was making a face that seemed like he was frustrated from the bottom of his heart. As if to hide that face, the older brother buried the cap deep onto the other’s head, turned his back to him and left. He didn’t even turn to look at the younger brother, who was probably crying.

I felt bad for the boy and tried to go talk to him. But when I saw him raising his lowered head, I stopped. He wasn’t crying. As if none of the emotions that were there until just then had ever existed, his expression became cold and he went through the gates of the Military School.

That was the first instant I saw Gilbert. I had never seen a boy make a face like that before, so I just continued staring at his back as if I had grown senile.

It became the topic that a son of the family of national heroes had enrolled as the top student among the freshmen that year. I had skipped the freshmen’s entrance ceremony and didn’t see anything, so I had no idea, but thinking back about it now, that was him.

Despite all of us being fellow students, we didn’t get to interact with each other if our school years were different. Even if we had joined training, it was impossible to make a distinction since it was just men. What caused the occasion for us to properly meet face-to-face was a small incident.

The ratio of enrollment in the Army Service School of Leidenschaftlich was of seven men to every three women. The women’s duties were normally of telegraph soldiers or replenishment troops, so our curriculums were different, and of course, our dorms were separate too. Our curriculum? Running, running, running. Building muscle. Firing guns, firing, firing, running, running, running. A repetition of that. The rest was classroom lectures. We’d learn how to form strategies, set up camps and use communication equipment. There were also the subjects learned at ordinary schools like normal. The girls had it easier than us, but it didn’t change that it was hard for everyone.

Guys and girls who devoted themselves to national defense day and night getting into relationships away from the eyes of our demon-like instructors was something, well, natural. After all, we didn’t have any other form of amusement. Romance was an amusement.

I’d also played around with countless people myself, but I never had a love that went as far as making my body burn. In that point, I’m sure I might’ve never had a true love. I never stuck to only one person. I like all women, so loving just one feels weird.

No biggie for me. Romance was a diversion anyhow. But diversions can cause some pretty dangerous stuff to follow you around. There were times when it was just pleasure for me but the other person was betting their life on it.

Maybe due to that attitude of mine being the one to blame, one of the girls I had fooled around with pushed a letter of challenge onto me. A letter of challenge. Do you know them? Letters with contents like, “I hate you very much”, “I’ll send you flying”, “Be here on X day of X month”. That’s right. There are letters like those in the world too.

It seemed she was going out with me with the intention of getting married. I had no idea. No, really. I didn’t even lay a hand on her, y’know? Did we ever go as far as kissing? I’m serious, I tell you. Kissing is a greeting to me.

“I’ve got no choice but to apologize wholeheartedly for this in my own way.” Just as I thought so, when I went to the place I had been called over to, there he was. Who?

Gilbert Bougainvillea.

That boy I had seen on the day of the entrance ceremony, standing fleetingly in the middle of those white flowers with his head hanging down, was there. From the very start, he had been piercing me with a scornful emerald-green gaze as I walked over. He was fourteen, I was sixteen.

“Are you Claudia Hodgins?” was the first thing he said. Just like his face, his voice was gallant.

At fourteen years of age, Gilbert somewhat gave off the feeling of a small adult. His black hair was settled down in a way that not a single thread would dishevel. He had dignified facial traits even though he was young. From his voice tone to his gestures, the man named Gilbert Bougainvillea was already pre-made. He had come from a family of soldiers, so from his point of view, maybe the Military School was just an extension of his home.

Surrounded by trees under the shadow of the school building, those training barracks were a place that didn’t have any popularity, but other than Gilbert, the girl who had sent me the letter of challenge and quite a number of onlookers were there too.

“Don’t say ‘Claudia’ ever again. If I get called by this name, it’ll turn into a chronic toothache for me. And you are…?”

“I’m Gilbert Bougainvillea. I’m your junior, but in this situation, I’m in a position equal to yours as her representative in the duel that she requested. Therefore, I will be omitting honorifics and protect her dignity as just a man. I shall be your opponent in her stead.”

He was a kid with way of talking that quite reeked of seriousness, I thought. I was also a child with not too big a difference in age from him, but if a fourteen-year-old boy talked like that, you’d be surprised, right? More than anything, I was surprised at that fateful chance meeting. I had only seen him for a moment, but the Gilbert of that time and that scenery of white flowering trees had stayed seared into my heart, and he was a person remarkable enough to make you remember him unintentionally out of the blue.

I beckoned him with a, “C’mere, c’mere” and whispered into his ear, “Gilbert – can I call you Gilbert? Why’s an underclassman like you getting involved in the fight between me and that girl? Are you her new boyfriend and got mad after she told you about me?”

“I don’t mind being called Gilbert. You’re wrong about that. I’m not her lover. I just happened to come across her when she was crying by coincidence, and after I heard about her circumstances, I was put in charge of representing her in the duel. I’m also not willing to fight an upperclassman... one that I don’t hold a personal grudge against, to boot... but I have no choice. If she will be at ease with this, I mean. It seems you’re a pretty terrible man.”

I looked at the girl who was the source of that comedy-rather-than-tragedy over Gilbert’s shoulder. I didn’t have any memory of our relationship being anything other than drinking tea together a number of times.

��What’d she say I’ve done to her?”

“The kind of indecent things that I can’t say aloud at all.”

I was so embarrassed at being called “indecent” by that boy that I couldn’t bear it.

“I didn’t do it; I definitely didn’t do it. There’re girls who’ve slept by my side, but I haven’t slept with that one. We’ve dated. But I haven’t laid a hand on her. I guess I’ve so much as kissed her on the cheek. But relatives do that too, right?”

“Then, why would she lie to me?”

“‘Cause she wants to catch my attention, doesn’t she?”

“And probably yours too,” I added in my mind.

“If she tried to catch your attention with ill intent, it wouldn’t be effective, would it?”

At that statement, I felt the cleverness of the young Gilbert, but at the same time, I thought he was a child who still didn’t know what the crudeness of the world was like.

“Gilbert, you’ve never gone out with a woman before, have you? There’re two paths that guys and girls broken by love go through most of the times: to get attached or to hate each other. When one hates the other, they try to push the other down both social and materially.”

“Even though it’s someone they fell for?”

“It’s exactly because it’s someone they fell for.”

Gilbert furrowed his brows, looking troubled, and then turned his back to me, saying he was going to properly ask the girl once again about her story. He was a serious guy.

I grabbed his arm and prevented him from doing it. “Listen, Gilbert-boy, this is a fight that you got involved in because of some boring sense of justice. Act out your role until the end. If you don’t, you won’t get to protect her dignity, right?”

“It’s not ‘boy’. Are you... okay with this? If what you said is true, you’d be accusing yourself of a wrongdoing that you didn’t commit and fighting for no reason. And it’d mean that I’m being lied to and used by her. Seems so foolish...”

“With all due respect, Young Master, but there’s a limit to how much of a goody-two-shoes you can be to accept being someone’s duel representative in itself, and I think it’s also a foolish action, y’know?”

“It seems I’ll have to shoot your words back at you as well and I’m sorry for that, but there’s no way anyone could not listen to a lady’s story if they saw her crying along the way... even if the result of it weren’t something good.”

Gilbert had whispered coldly with a bitter expression, but I mostly got a positive impression from that reply. He was a young man with a will that you’d rarely see in recent years.

I took the hand of the arm that I had been holding and forcefully shook it. Perhaps because I swung it too broadly, his body rocked along with the swaying of the handshake.

“I agree with that. What, so you’re an appreciator too? A women praiser?”

“I was merely educated like that by my parents.”

He was just a high-pedigree dog. I felt let down.

“That so? Well, it’s fine. Anyway, from your words just now, the points that our interests have in common became clear. What’s important here isn’t the face-saving of guys who got rounded up for a fight, but the feelings of a girl broken by love. She wants to feel better by giving me a blow, right? Why don’t we do that?”

“You’re saying you’ll lose on purpose?”

“I committed the sin of making a girl cry. I can do as much as let my face lie on the ground and get some mud on it.”

The shade of disdain in his eyes of a rare emerald-green color disappeared and I could see a bit of admiration sprout in them. “By the looks of it, I’ve misunderstood you. My deepest apologies for speaking impolitely to you, my senior.”

“No problem at all. We’re the ones who got you involved in the conflict.”

“It’s my first time in a duel like this and I don’t know how it goes, so it’d be helpful if you could tell me.”

“We can hit each other however we see fit and I’ll fall down after they watch us roll over, so twist my arm or something and end it there. I’ll act in a way that the onlookers will know it’s your win.”

“Speaking of which, do you know who those spectators are?”

“Gambling customers I called over. I’ll get twenty percent of the earnings from the leader of the gamblers, so it’s half of that for you and me.”

“I take back everything I said before. I’ll knock you down.” I didn’t understand very well why, but Gilbert started referring rudely to me and clearly ruined the mood.

Then, the gong of the fight resounded with a “clang, clang, clang”. Having grown tired of waiting for us since we wouldn’t stop talking, the boss of the gamblers played a battle-start tune with a pot and ladle. My relationship with Gilbert began originally from that fistfight.

“You’d better regret starting this stupid wager,” Gilbert cursed upon me, letting go of the stand-up collar of his school uniform’s jacket onto the ground.

We both measured a chance for the first blow. In contrast to me, who firmly kept my arms glued to my sides and balled my fists, Gilbert shook his arms as if adapting them.

——What? I’ve never seen this stance before.

Since my older brother and Pops used to throw fists with me and I to throw back by way of playing around, and since there was also a time when I would do nothing but get into fights in the city, that type of fistfight was part of my lifework. I was totally thinking that my opponent would come at me with Leidenschaftlich army-style martial arts. After all, he was the son of a family of soldiers. If you were to talk about martial arts learned by men who lived in Leiden, that was it. But Gilbert’s stance was different.

My principle in fights was to first observe the other’s attitude with non-aggressive defense. Following that principle, I waited for my opponent’s move. Yet it seemed that the same applied to Gilbert, so we just sluggishly watched each other’s battle preparation. When the audience jeered at us to “hurry and start beating each other”, I clicked my tongue.

The performance was important for the gambling. Left without a choice, I struck him with a big kick after drawing my leg to behind my back as a test. He dodged once. I hit his tight the second time, but he acted as if nothing had happened. The third time, he grabbed my foot and knocked me down face-up just like that. He dealt me a series of consecutive straight punches to the stomach after dropping onto me. It wasn’t a heavy attack, given that he was a boy who still weighted light, but it could make even my eight-pack abs scream.

It’d be boring if I lost in that way, right?

Taking advantage of my flexibility, which had a favorable reputation with the girls, I squeezed his neck with my legs and twisted him upturned to the side. He was light, you see. Being light also means being astute. He escaped from my leg technique smooth and quickly. We both stood back up to readying ourselves once again.

“Hodgins, don’t play around! We’re betting on you!”

“You two, don’t get injured because of me!”

“That’s the spot! Do it, do it, do it!”

The spectators were loud, but even as I heard them, it all only came in from one ear and left from the other. That was because my senses of sight, smell and many others were directed at Gilbert Bougainvillea.

Maybe having finished studying my way of fighting, Gilbert started actively hitting me. Of course, I also counter-attacked and hit him back. Nothing to be proud of, but my fists are heavy and they hurt. An attack where I socked with all of the weight in my body, which was a congregation of muscles that I had polished, would usually cause my opponents to collapse after I hit them three times, but I didn’t manage to settle it on him straight away.

Gilbert had converted his battle style into one of simultaneous offense and defense. I hit him. While Gilbert covered with one hand, he at the same time shoved his other fist into my stomach. It wasn’t just that his movements were agile. His fighting method was something you couldn’t manage unless you had trained a lot. To top it off, even though that guy was getting hit, he had a face like he wasn’t feeling a thing.

“Gilbert, where’d you learn that stuff?”

Gilbert sleekly avoided both my kick and my question, “Well, where was it again?”

——You really fourteen?

Just as those words had come up to my throat, Gilbert said, “Let’s end this already.”

Gilbert’s fists suddenly became heavy. Annoyingly enough, it seemed he had been holding back until then. He came aiming accurately for my body’s vitals with a calm expression – so dirty of him. I became defensive-only and eventually fell on my ass. Gilbert looked down at me from above with a face that said, “Now, lose just like you wanted”.

“Gilbert, you’d better review your attitude towards your elders.”

By then, I’d forgotten that I had to lose on purpose. I surrendered my body to the blood going up my head, raised it from my position of having collapsed onto the ground, placed my hands on the soil, and rammed his beautiful face hard with a lateral kick using as much strength as possible. That was my favorite stunt. A tactic I didn’t use for just anything.

The one who had rolled onto the ground now was Gilbert. I merrily mounted him and punched his body. Enveloped in a swirl of excitement, the onlookers rose in whispers. It was also a pleasure for me to hold down the guy that had been scorning at me until just a few seconds before.

No, wait a minute. Stop judging me with those big eyes of yours! This is the past. A story about the past! Yep, yep, listen closely to the continuation, ‘kay?

While I became absorbed with self-satisfaction and beat the crap out of Gilbert, with no regard for appearances, Gilbert grabbed a handful of dirt from nearby and smacked it into my eyes. It also got in my mouth. Tasted of earth. I spat it together with saliva.

“Bastard, that was unfair!”

“Tell that to yourself.”

Unexpected, quite unexpected. Apparently, he’d do anything to win. I thought he had seemed like a more scrupulous guy.

He pushed me aside and made an escape, and after taking a large distance, he swiftly did an approach run and came back my way. What I could see with my field of vision clouded by the dirt were the shoe soles of his military boots.

First of all, his right foot sent a blow to my chest, and as my body rotated midair, his left leg kicked for the second and third times, then his right leg attacked me again after I had rotated once. Having received three kicks in a row in the span of an instant, I collapsed onto my back.

——What kinda attack is this?!

Above thinking of it as terrifying, irritating or anything like that, I honestly thought it was “cool”. Nowadays, I know there are people of superhuman fighting races such as you and Benedict, so I wouldn’t be too shocked if I were shown a feat like that. But back then, it was impactful for me. Yeah, it was impactful.

Gilbert Bougainvillea was to me a new type of human being who had suddenly revealed himself. His rotational kicks hadn’t overwhelmed just my body. He took my heart too.

What we did after that? Beat each other muddily without paying any mind to the observers. Tired of waiting for the outcome of the match, everyone gradually left.

It seemed the girl who was the center of the whirlpool at that time had attempted playing tragic heroine at the beginning, but one of the onlookers came to talk to her midway, and she hit it off with him and vanished. The only ones watching in the end were a friend of mine who the head of the gamblers had trusted with the task and people with too much free time.

“Hey, when are they gonna settle it?”

We didn’t settle it.

At last, it was decided that we were at a tie and both of us were sent to the infirmary. Our fight was found out too, so the two of us had to take penal regulations on cordial terms with each other from our group of instructors. As to prioritize the medical treatment of our injuries, the disciplinary measures were the light punishment of ordering us clean up the bathrooms of every facility.

I had done something bad to him. It would’ve been fine if I had just lost right away, yet I got serious... Well, he’d gotten serious too, so it wasn’t just my fault in that point. No, I’m sorry. It was my fault.

In a way, I apologized, but Gilbert said with a look of disdain that he never again wanted to be involved with me when we were cleaning the bathrooms. There was no helping that, since his brilliant school history, which had been about to start from there, ended up being tainted by the fight that he had with a senior as soon as he enrolled. We were of different ages and had different personalities too. The truth was that we were supposed to be alienated from each other.

You’re here now because this didn’t happen.

Ever since the fight had ended, I stalked Gilbert. Calling it “stalking” is heavy-handed, but thinking back about how I was at the time, no matter how you look at it, there’s no way of wording it other than that.

“Gilbert, I’ll treat you. See, as an apology for back then.”

“Not necessary.”

“You’re reserved with others, huh. We both took the same punishment, right? No need for formal language. You using that at this stage of the game makes me feel itchy. I’ll introduce you to a girl, then. What’s your type? And the breast size?”

“I’m begging you, don’t follow me.”

I’d invite him for meals despite his unwillingness, have him learn the taste of adulthood through alcohol that I had managed to get my hands on in secret, and occasionally bicker with him. I was also the one who taught him how to smoke. He didn’t know most of the general forms of amusement, so even when I taught him card games, the reactions he’d show were entertaining. Soon enough, the guys from my year that I hung out with started doting on him too.

Gilbert was the type that older people got attached to. But what I’m talking about is a different way of showing affection. I mean, he wasn’t affectionate. I guess the right way to put it is that he piqued my interest.

From the get-go, I had been so, so interested in him that I couldn’t help myself.

About that, the same could be said of you. I’m not hitting on you, though. Huhu, not hitting on you.

It was different from that... In retrospect, ours might’ve been a relationship where I did nothing but chase after him. He was kind of... a hard-to-figure person. Though he had a strong sense of justice, he was rather cold-blooded, and if he had a reason that compelled him to gain victory in a given situation even if through an unfair move, he’d do it just fine. He had a man-of-character side to him, but he was also self-interested and prideful. He had a charm that drew people to him, but he himself didn’t have much interest in others. He was a man who only ever thought about how he’d tread the pure-white path towards his own future that had been laid out to him.

I once asked what had been best out of the things that I taught him. “Smoking. It’s not bad as a means of exchanging information,” was what he said.

I found out why he had turned out like that later on. It feels awkward to tell you about this, but it’s an episode that can’t be left out if we’re talking about his past.

Gilbert Bougainvillea had a fiancée.

He told me that when I was about to graduate. At the time, we were in a state where the two of us hanging out with each other was something that looked extremely normal to the people around us.

What happened? Well, nothing. Just a repetition of the same stuff. I’d follow Gilbert around, tease him, give in most of the time, occasionally apologize to Gilbert... We became normal friends.

The instructions had told me severely, “Don’t pay mind to the Bougainvillea heir” and things like that, but I didn’t listen to them. Gilbert had also seemed to warn me with a “don’t get involved with me”, but I didn’t listen to him either. In that point, I wasn’t a good kid. I probably knew him better than his buddies of the same age as him did. That’s exactly why learning such new information when I was already going to graduate had been so shocking to me.

He came to talk to me during a recess day in the Military School. Said he had a favor to ask.

“I’m going to eat out with my fiancée right now... Can’t you come too? We’re in a slightly complicated situation, so I want to request the help of a third party.”

“I’ll go. Of course I’ll go. Hah? Speaking of which, you up and got a fiancée behind my back? Since when? ‘Since six years ago’? You—How old were you back then? ‘Ten’? Why didn’t you tell me?! Could it be you’ve been going on dates with her or something during the holidays without me knowing? You have? Gilbert, you bastard!” I followed him while saying stuff like that.

We properly took written permission to leave campus, making meticulous arrangements. Even though he had intended to take me along from the beginning, the part of earning consent was just like him.

The meeting spot was a small café located halfway the road from the Military School to Leiden. I’d also gone there sometimes to have tea. The shop had a nice feeling to it.

Well, we met her there. Skip. All right, next topic.

Eh? What kind of person was she, you ask? Hm~, I don’t wanna talk about that. If I were forced to say it, she gave off the feeling of a Young Mistress from a fine household. Didn’t seem like she went out... I really don’t want to talk about her. Why...? Because I feel Gilbert would definitely get mad at me.

As for why he had called me... just like he had said, they were in a slightly complicated situation.

At the beginning, the fiancée wasn’t Gilbert’s. There’s that older brother of his, and the brother was the one supposed to take over the family inheritances, but – who knows what he was thinking – he had enrolled into the navy’s Military School as practically a runaway. That even though the men of their family are set to join the army.

Since you’re an ex-soldier, you know about it, right? Though both are national defense organs, there’s this unseen ditch between the army and the navy. Like in the ratio of defense expenditures and stuff. It’s an adults’ problem.

Yeah. Looks like the Big Bro didn’t get along well with his family. I heard he had a spontaneous personality. With that, it was doubtlessly painful for him to have grown up in an authoritarian household. Thinking about it now, the man that had been with Gilbert when I first saw him had been that very brother. And the Big Bro had run away from home, so everything was pushed onto the ten-year-old Gilbert, because both his parents had decided he was going to be the family head and made Gilbert take over the fiancée too.

This is rude to both of them, but they gave off a feeling of keeping a distance from each other. Unlike his brother, Gilbert was the kind of guy who wouldn’t suffer if pressured to live as the role model of the Bougainvilleas... so everyone around him naturally chose to place their expectations on him instead of rectifying his brother. It seemed that Gilbert was also cherishing the fiancée, in his own Gilbert way. But the fiancée had a wish, and Gilbert decided to fulfill it.

Eloping. The thing that men and women would do to oppose the flow of the world and escape from their status in the social ladder to satisfy their love.

Not with Gilbert. You see, the fiancée... had tried to fall for Gilbert, but hadn’t managed to. And then she fell for another guy. A butler from her house, she had said. It was romance, after all.

Making him listen with ridiculous earnestness while his own fiancée confessed this to him and then going as far as requesting him to help her elope had been insensitive of her. But Gilbert had acknowledged it with a two-worded response and summoned me for an assistance plan.

When listening to the story, I wondered if he actually had the function called emotions running inside his body.

I wanted to scold his fiancée. Like, “You go do as you please on your own”, “Don’t get Gilbert involved”. But Gilbert started studying escape routes into other countries with shit-eating seriousness.

“The access from the border is monitored strictly. Hodgins, your home was a store that also deals with imported goods, right? Of course, it probably also has permission from the government to ship them. Couldn’t you have them mixed in and get them out of the country? If it’s possible, we could change the migration route to water transportation afterward... and avoid the conflict zones, no matter how much of a detour it is,” he said, dispassionate and business-like. “How much can you spend? It’s better for you to convert into money every possession that you can manage freely while there’s time. This or you can make wheat into products of your preference... That won’t be enough. It’s uncertain whether you’ll be able to set up a basis for your livelihood right away. I understand. I’ll provide aid too. No, this much is just... There’s the whole matter with my brother, after all.”

The more level-headed Gilbert remained, the more rage bubbled up and erupted inside me.

The conversation that had my help as prerequisite came to an end. On the way back, I asked Gilbert if he didn’t like her. If he didn’t feel even just a little bit of sadness or irritation at those circumstances – they had been engaged for several years, after all, no matter whether it was something that their parents had decided.

Gilbert, who had been walking silently, looked my way. The flowering trees that painted the roads white in early spring had lost their petals and were dyed green. Yet even though we were in a world with a different scenery, as expected, Gilbert was reflected in my eyes as a remarkably exceptional existence.

With the corners of his lips curling up just a little, Gilbert said, “The fact that there’s no meaning in chasing someone who’s departing has been drilled into my body with my brother’s case.” Again, he was aloof. His mouth moved as if being made to speak borrowed words. “I can’t say I don’t have empathy for her, but... if I were asked whether I have attachment, I don’t. That person wasn’t mine from the very start.”

“‘Yours’, you say... You...”

“Bad way of wording it, huh. It’s not like I’m referring to her as a property because she’s a woman or anything.”

“No, that’s not it... You...”

Aah, so this is it, I thought.

——Since it’s you, you’re always...

I felt for the first time right then that I’d come in contact with the essence of the person named Gilbert Bougainvillea.

——That’s why, even if you’re surrounded by a big number of people, you’re always...

That guy didn’t have a sense of attachment.

——No matter how much positivity you get or how praised you are...

It’s possible that his brother who had left was the one he had some sort of attachment towards. But even if it weren’t just that, he was surely...

——You look alone.

...a person who had gotten used to giving up on things. That’s why he treated all sorts of matters and people in a measured way. Even if his true intentions weren’t so.

“To begin with, we’ve caused trouble for their daughter thanks to my brother. Doing this much is nothing.”

——But where do your feelings go?

“Our parents will certainly have something to say about it, but mine will just match me with someone new to become my wife.”

——Aren’t you disturbed by having the person that will accompany you for the rest of your life decided for you like a board game piece?

“The eldest son of her household is the one who will take over the inheritances, so there’ll be no problem for them other than their reputation. If they can continue being related to us through my generation, it’ll be solved with that.”

No matter how much Gilbert talked in order to convince me, I never said, “That’s right”.

The one by my side was a young man still in his teens. He was a child who, as a result of being demanded reasonability, didn’t look for meaning in his own existence other than just as something “convenient” for people. He saw himself and others as nothing but assets.

“I was... happy that you had a fiancée, still. I did get pissed at you for hiding it from me, though.” For some reason, I was the one who’d gotten sad and my voice broke into falsetto because of suppressed tears. Gilbert asked what was wrong, but I deceived him by pretending to cough.

You know, I had... seen Gilbert’s future. No matter how much glory he achieved, or how long he walked through a brilliant path without deviating from it, there’d be hardly anything left in the palm of his hands. Throwing things and people away when he had no business with them and not caring if he himself were thrown away, he would merely continue treading the narrow, risky, pure-white path that had been laid out to him in a world of complete darkness. But he’d likely cross it in an extremely beautiful way, more skillfully than anyone.

What his hands were holding onto was already nothing but guns.

I’m a selfish person. Which is why I was simply sad at the truth that, even though I thought of Gilbert as my number one friend, it was probably not the same for him.

Yeah, the eloping was a success.

I have no idea where those two are or what they’re doing now, but they trampled over my friend’s dignity, so I hope they’re happy. The aftermath was full of trouble, but the problem with the Bougainvillea heir’s fiancée running away soon wiped out.

Gilbert’s Old Man had died all of a sudden.

Just as we pushed the rude lovebirds into my family’s business truck and the two of us came back with nonchalant faces like, “My, my, it’s over”, an instructor called Gilbert to stop him, his facial expression altered.

“Where have you been? What were you doing? We were looking for you. He passed away. You didn’t make it to his last moments.”

The instructor must’ve been panicking too. He bombarded the stunned Gilbert with a hail of words mayhem. Gilbert did get agitated, but not confused. He’s the kind of guy who can cut off his emotions and do what he’s supposed to do. He said he understood and immediately went back to his home.

I wasn’t allowed to accompany him, leaving the campus only with permission to go to the funeral. My relatives were mostly healthy people, so my first time attending someone’s burial was the one of Gilbert’s Old Man. As I nervously went to it, there he was before me, performing the role of chief mourner with a grounded appearance... Gilbert, who had become the head of the Bougainvilleas in both name and substance, was discreetly clearing his throat.

“Why, if I knew this would happen, they wouldn’t have had to elope... Now that their main obstacle is gone, I could have pulled out of it... I’ve done that person wrong,” he said.

He called his father an “obstacle”.

That was surely because of the way Gilbert had been raised, as a “tool” of the Bougainvillea family who would give continuation to the household. He had been treated in a way so that he’d live as a strategic arrangement for the prosperity of the clan. It had swerved him. People give back what others do to them.

The closer you are to him, the better you understand. He’s a kind-hearted but lonely guy. Even though he’s got a cute face when he laughs, he hardly does so. He knows it’s not something suitable of his role.

I thought that when I... when I... died... either this, or if I ever disappeared from before him... the only thing I didn’t want was for him to treat me like an object. I couldn’t take it.

Whenever the dices of fate rolled in his emerald-green eyes, he didn’t see anything other than a windingly stretched future. He’d just earnestly stare at a path that wasn’t the one of a human being.

Was there ever gonna come a day that a man like him would chase after someone? Somebody – anyone would do. Someone, someone. A person that he wouldn’t be able not to be affectionate with.

Would he ever get to have that?

Hodgins cut the words short at that point, reaching out his hand. His fingertips touched the hair of Violet, who was tucked in her bed. He slowly ripped off a thread that had become sticky due to sweat.

“Then, President Hodgins, after you graduated... when... did you reunite with that person?”

Upon being requested a continuation of the story with long wheezy breaths typical of those whose bronchi were suffering, Hodgins gave a strained smile. He stood up from the chair he had been sitting on, placing the blanked that stopped at Violet’s chest securely up to her neck. “Let’s continue this after you’re cured from your cold,” he whispered with utmost tenderness and a soft gaze. The ends of his statement overflowed with an affection similar to paternity.

They were inside a room large enough for two people to live in. It had light blue flowery wallpaper and a chandelier decorated with violas. On a round table sitting at the center of the room, there were boxes, bags and fruits baskets wrapped in ways that made clear they were get-well gifts. The interior of the bedroom was not too cold, yet wood burned in the fireplace, popping into sparks with a snap. The windows, which had its curtains closed, shook clatteringly due to the wind. The needles of the room’s clock pointed an hour just before evening.

“This surprises even me. I wonder if it is because I have distanced myself from the battlefields... To think I would grow this weak. My apologies for not managing to keep control of my health.”

“What’re you saying? The reason why you had a fever was that the difference in temperature got to you, right? The place you were commissioned to was a northernmost land, after all... Sorry for making you push yourself. Don’t mind it and go to sleep, ‘kay?” while speaking, he gently caressed the slightly dark circles under Violet’s blue eyes with his index finger. It was not as if they would disappear with that at all, but it was a display of his wish for them to do so. “We’re keeping in touch with the clients that booked you, and most of them want to rely on you even if you’re late, so there weren’t any cancellations to the requests. Don’t worry about anything and take your time, Little Violet. You look pretty tired.”

“I shall cure myself soon. By tomorrow even.”

“No can do, no can do. Take at least three days to rest from work counting with today. ‘Cause I’ll come over after these three days to decide whether or not you’ll be in condition to go back. Sorry for forbidding visits from the others.”

“No, it would be terrible if they caught this. President Hodgins, you too... My apologies for having you talk about so many things in addition to making you come here... I have caused you to stay too long.”

“I’m fine. If catching it would cure you, Little Violet, then I’d rather catch it. After all... I was something like your foster parent, though for a short while. Isn’t that right?”

“Yes.”

At that response, Hodgins smiled with his whole face. “The book that Little Lux asked me to give you is in the brown package. I ended up seeing the contents, and turns out it’s a popular romance novel. If your eyes get tired, make sure to stop reading immediately.”

“Yes.”

“The rest is from the members of the company. Benedict told me to say ‘take care’. Cattleya’s scheduled to be back tomorrow, but even if she comes here on her own accord, you shouldn’t keep her company.”

“Yes.”

“Tell the people here at home if there’s anything you want me to do. I’ll leave work and rush over.”

“No, Lux would cry, so please do your job.”

Hodgins bid his farewells and attempted giving her a kiss on the cheek, but his lips were blocked by the palm of a hand burning with heat. As he asked with a sad voice if she did not want it, Violet replied that he could catch her cold, so it was dangerous.

Intentionally making a noise, he kissed the palm covering his lips. “G’night, Little Violet.”

“Good night, President Hodgins.”

Silently leaving the room, Hodgins walked through the broad corridor with a quick pace. On the way, he informed a passing servant of his intention to take his leave. His aspect of haste also showed after that in the way he drove his car.

Perhaps because the residence he had visited was located away from the capital Leiden, the Sun was about to set when he arrived to the city. The madder red sky was gradually starting to envelop itself in dark colors.

By the looks of it, today was a day of strong winds. Hodgins’s classic car swayed unsteadily during the fear-inspiring journey.

The place Hodgins headed to was a lodging facilities district in a place a little out of the townscape of Leidenschaftlich’s capital, Leiden. Inside it, there were not only the types of inn that one could stop by unexpectedly without reservations but also inns that one could not pass through the gates into the site unless an inviter let them. The kind of inn that he rang the bell of was exactly the latter.

The first floor was the entrance for the residents, as well as the level of employees who carried out the administration of everything. There were five floors above it. Despite the single-storied buildings being tall and three-floor ones being mainstream, the building could be considered quite a high-rise amongst them. Only contractors could live in each floor. It was a high-class one-floor-rent inn, where the bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchens, etc. had all been designed in a luxurious fashion. Even just a one-night stay required quite a sum. Incidentally, the residents were chosen ones.

As he rang the bell of the top floor’s apartment, there were footsteps from the inside.

“Who might it be?”

Hodgins grinned at the well-mannered words. “It’s me. The little fox who saved you on that day.”

“I don’t have a fox for acquaintance.” The voice of the residence’s owner suddenly grew lower as he recognized the other person.

“Then, the one who threw fists with you in our first meeting on that day, Hodgins.”

“Wait there. I’ll open now.”

The chosen resident who opened the oak door with a gun at hand was a man past his twenties at the prime of his working life, as well as the head of a family that no one knew not of within Leidenschaftlich’s army. Despite it being the middle of the night, he was dressed in his military uniform. Only his collar was loose, unbuttoned at the neck. Perhaps due to him having no time to rest, his hair, usually combed down flatly over his forehead, lay disheveled and he had grown a stubble. He had also removed his eyepatch, displaying his lacerated eye.

“How’s Violet?”

Hodgins shrugged at the words said to him the instant their gazes met. “‘Hodgins, you’ve worked hard late into the night. Good evening.’ – Can’t you ask after you tell me that?”

“Hodgins, you’ve worked hard late into the night. Good evening... I’m exhausted.”

Unable to bear the look that said, “Just tell me the situation already”, he answered, “It’s just a cold. I told you not to worry, didn’t I? If you’re gonna visit her tomorrow, isn’t it useless getting a report from me?”

“I was concerned...”

Maybe because he had been reminiscing to the past, he felt that the current Gilbert had become quite amicable. To think that he, who used to be so prickly during his boyhood, now loved somebody. Hodgins bit down a laughter that suddenly came out of him.

“Hey, what was that? Why did you laugh?”

“I didn’t. By the way, it seems so expensive here... Did you finish paying for the place you were living in a while ago?”

“I’m renting it for a cheap price thanks to my household’s connections. I’m in the middle of looking for an apartment... so this is a temporary residence. I was... moving houses periodically so that Violet wouldn’t find me before, but the need for that is gone...”

After the train hijacking incident, Gilbert apologized to Hodgins and the Evergarden family, stopped hiding himself and continued interacting with Violet. The two were working things out with each other.

As one was a colonel of the army and one was a demanded Auto-Memories Doll, they had little time to meet. The moments and places where they could be alone with each other were valuable.

“Aah, no wonder you wouldn’t want to go back to the main residence where your honorable mother and sisters are.”

Gilbert nodded. “I don’t want to call her over there... Hodgins, you telling me about her situation directly has helped me out. Come in.”

He probably was truly tired. The words he uttered had frequent pauses.

Hodgins was let into the largest room. Perhaps because the lights inside said room were not properly lit, it was dark. Only a lamp sitting on a chest in a corner of the room illuminated the area around it.

“Don’t open the window. The papers will fly.”

The desk in front of the chair that Hodgins silently sat on had an awl, binding rope and piled-up documents. There were also other things, such as sealing wax, a fountain pen and stationery left half-written. A heap of letters tied with rope lay next to the stationary.

Showing a face of surprise, Hodgins quietly reached a hand toward the stationary. Gilbert had left him and gone to the kitchen. While reading the stationary, Hodgins asked with a placid expression, “Were you sleeping?”

The sound of a clock’s corkscrew ensued.

“Yeah, until just a bit ago. Hodgins, I’m going to make dinner, but will you eat it?”

“Huun, you were pretty worn-out, huh. It’s gonna be a feast. Gilbert, you gonna be having a drink while you cook?”

A sweet scent had suddenly drifted towards him.

“I’m not you... I’ll put it in the food.”

“So you do stuff like cooking.”

“I do it when my friend comes over at least.”

The eyes that had been reading stopped completely and Hodgins turned his head to the direction of the kitchen. Gilbert was not visible from that room.

“Liar. You’re simply hungry ‘cause you just woke up, aren’t you?” Hodgins spoke with a smile in his voice, yet he was by no means smiling.

“Then I’ll eat all this by myself.”

“Y’know, you’ve been calling me ‘friend’ out of the blue lately. What kinda service is that?”

“‘Lately’...? Is that so? But what other definition should I use? We’ve had this relationship for over a decade. Why is calling you my friend a service?”

The words smoothly replied to him pierced his chest.

“No, I mean, you... treat nice people like tools. You don’t show respect for me even though I’m older than you.”

“About the matters regarding Violet, I’m sorry. About not showing respect for you, why would I have to show respect due to age difference at this point?”

Silence.

“Hodgins?”

Despite being called, Hodgins wordlessly returned his gaze to the letter for a moment. It was his first time reading one of those, but Hodgins knew about them. After all, whenever Hodgins visited his room, there would be a sealed letter with no addressee somewhere. Hodgins knew one more person who used to accumulate letters without sending them.

“You’re an idiot.”

Just as Gilbert said, they had had that relationship for over a decade. They had also had a period of breaking contact. Within the letter that he was finally seeing again after those years, the feelings towards a certain girl that Gilbert had been unable to back from writing down were registered. He probably intended to throw away the old ones and hand over new responses. Written in them were his repeated apologies for what he had done until that point, as well as his words of gratitude thanking her for sending him countless letters.

Hodgins twisted his neck, observing Gilbert’s back as he stood in the kitchen. The same was valid for him, but Hodgins thought that both of them had aged quite some.

——To think that those two who had parted ways would meet again.

It was a common love story, which seemed like it could happen anywhere. But that was precisely why...

——...I think I want them to be happy enough to make up for their detours.

He and she. Both of them were irreplaceable people for Hodgins.

“Gilbert.”

“What?”

“Back to the topic... Y’know, I believe that friendships can also be unrequited.”

“Yeah.” Gilbert did not negate the exorbitant statement.

Hodgins felt he was giving an empty answer without actually listening to the talk. His feeling of discontentment accidentally seeped into his manner of speaking. “You say ‘yeah’, but do you really get it? I think you don’t... I’ve felt that way with you for many years. Gilbert, you can definitely make do without friends. But I’m not like that. Yet I really didn’t want us to be like... like this, with me being the only one... who wishes for you to stay that way, doing fine. Or who wants to see you every now and then to talk about trivial stuff. Like, ‘Is it just me who likes you?’... You’re a cold one, after all. That’s why I’ve been surprised with you lately. You... You probably don’t get these feelings of mine, though.”

Both knew of each other’s temperament and comprehended that their friendship existed. They also certainly trusted one another. The proof of it was that Gilbert entrusted Hodgins with the person he was currently attempting to protect by putting his life at stake. However, Hodgins nevertheless thought that, to Gilbert, he was not in the position that he had in mind. He had not once voiced it, for such attachments seemed foolish in male friendships.

After having said that, Hodgins soon regretted it. He regretted it, and yet...

“No, I understand. I don’t have any friends except for you.”

Perhaps because he had been holding the paper in his hands with force, it wrinkled a little. Hodgins desperately placed it on the desk and carefully stretched it. Still, he heard Gilbert’s footsteps approaching while he was at it and returned the letter to its previous spot.

The two remained silent once they faced each other.

Maybe finally having noticed the half-written letter, he mixed it together with his documents and quickly cleared it away from Hodgins’s eyes. Hodgins followed the letter’s trajectory from the corners of his eyes.

Upon sorting them out thoroughly, Gilbert exhaled a long breath that sounded like a sigh. “You said I probably didn’t get it, but even I understand,” little by little, his voice trailed off into silence. “You were always surrounded by a large number of companions. But you’re my only friend.”

——That’s a lie.

Even without companions that he had a relationship of associating himself with in the way he did with Hodgins, Gilbert was already a person who attracted those around him. He was not the type to act like a lone wolf. He would attend the class reunions and socialization banquets during their days in the Military School. He could flawlessly hold a conversation with anyone.

But before Hodgins was able to deny it with words, Gilbert spoke, “I have many acquaintances but you’re my only true friend. After you graduated... I thought it would’ve been great if I’d been born two years earlier for my student days.” His way of speaking seemed sulky.

The illusion of a fourteen-year-old boy overlapped with the figure of a battered man in his thirties. Hodgins felt that he himself had returned to when he was sixteen as well. Back then, he was always chasing after Gilbert and fooling around with him.

——We were always together.

The pain that had pierced his chest gradually tinged with warmth. A smile crept in his egoistic heart, unable to help itself.

——Gilbert, you...

The man named Gilbert Bougainvillea was not the kind to say such things at all. Over a long time, he had become able to show a side of himself other than being an “asset” that served for smoothly administrating himself and his surroundings.

——That side of you is unfair.

And strangely enough, the girl who Gilbert loved had also been a “tool” for his sake. Yet that “tool” was becoming able to gently undo the ropes firmly tied around her and show a humane face. Just who had been the one responsible for the biggest part of those achievements?

Claudia Hodgins, indifferent to his own deeds, merely rejoiced and smiled broadly at his friend’s bashful face. “Hu—Ahah, ahahahaha!”

“Hey, don’t laugh. You made me say something embarrassing. As if I’ll ever say that again in my life.”

“Ahahah, no... you’ve got it wrong. It’s not like I’m making fun of... Ah, Gilbert. Is the stuff you left in the oven okay? It’s kinda making a weird noise.”

“It’s not okay.”

Hodgins stood up and followed Gilbert as he clatteringly returned to the kitchen. A familiar quarrel flowed comfortably throughout the apartment, turning into a nightly tune.

And the same applied to time, no matter how much of it flowed. For two people who had a relation called friendship, it would go back to their bosom days regardless of there being a period where they had not seen each other.

“Move over, I’m gonna sprinkle the seasoning.”

“Fool, you’re mistaken, that’s not salt.”

“You’ve got no spices at all. D’you live off just salt and sugar?”

“I’ve had a long-standing habit of eating out. Hodgins, let’s stop it already. This isn’t food.”

“Don’t spout nonsense. There’s nothing that can’t be recovered.”

“Is that so?”

“That’s so. Don’t give up.”

No matter how many hundreds, thousands of years they lived, the two would go back to the versions of themselves from that time.

To the fourteen-year-old Gilbert and the sixteen-year-old Hodgins.

#violet evergarden #fyeahvioletevergarden #violet evergarden gaiden #gilbert bougainvillea #claudia hogdins #kyoani #kyoto animation #novel #akatsuki kana #takase akiko #my translation

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tomakeitbeautifultolive · 5 years ago

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2 questions (or so😬); 1) do you have headcanons of how will Jon and Danys love or romance story develop(if there is one)? Slow, over time? Or on the first sight, head over heels? One-sided, and later two-sider? Will both of them don't know(R+L=J) ? Or only Jon? How do you picture the angst between them? 2)when did Ben joined the NW and why? It's not like the NW went from a place or glory to a shit hole in a span of 15 years?! Like it's never mentioned what Ben did during the rebellion? Thx you

Wow! Thank you for all the asks! Sorry it took me so long to get to your beautiful questions. Oh you know I've got some Jon x Dany headcanons! *rubs hands together*

I believe it will be a slow burn that will resemble season seven in many ways (there's a reason season seven, for all its flaws, was still very highly rated as opposed to season eight - because while things like dialogue or timing suffered, the plot still felt like it was going in the right direction).

My prediction about Jon has always been that he'll be the *one* man who isn't impressed with Dany's beauty. Oh, he'll notice it all right, but he won't mention it or use it as a means to gain her favor with compliments. He's going to treat her as an equal right off the bat, and not as an object or a prize that he can win or woo. This is going to perplex Daenerys and probably intrigue her. They'll earn each other's respect based on merit, and I definitely predict some sort of innate bond between them because they're basically fated to meet.

Now, there's some speculation that because Jon died and is (most likely) coming back to life, we may never get another POV from him again. If that is the case (knock on wood) it will definitely appear very one-sided. I also have a headcanon that Jon absolutely resembles his true father in all but coloring, and that he's a total knockout - and we won't find that out until Daenerys sees him and we finally hear a proper description of his looks. (I also have a headcanon that Jon has his father's eyes - that everyone assumes they're grey but actually they're a dark indigo...) And in my dreams, Barristan Selmy is standing beside Daenerys on Dragonstone when Jon marches in and Ser Barristan sees something in Jon that strikes him as familiar... I would love it if, upon seeing Jon, it suddenly clicks for Barriston.

Angst between them, hmm. (f)Aegon is a bit of a curveball here. Either he's going to carry out his plan to try and wed his aunt and it could cause angst and make Jon realize he feels something more for Dany, or this will happen long before Jon is around - possibly as a ploy. Part of me suspects that if he took Tyrion's advice to heart about having a stronger claim than Dany, he might try to get rid of her or destroy her reputation somehow when she arrives to Westeros - and Jon might go to her once she's totally compromised and offer an alliance then.

I am more of a mystery theorist rather than someone who feels comfortable guessing at battle plans or strategies, I admit...

I do think that Jon's parentage will come out by some means or another, and that Daenerys will find out. I don't see this being a point of contention between them whatsoever, nor will the incest be a problem for Jon. In fact, I kind of see the pair of them teaming up to slay the mummer's dragon together. While the show really went hard with Targaryens being mad and evil, that is hardly the case for ASOIAF. This negative image of Targaryens comes mostly from, you betcha, the Lannisters (and Robert Baratheon). It was more or less a propaganda campaign that succeeded not only across Westeros, but apparently across the reader base who cannot read between the lines.

If it's true that Coldhands is not Benjen, then it could be Benjen or Howland who spill the beans, or perhaps confirm Ser Barristan's suspicion? (Assuming he doesn't die - but I really feel in my heart that he won't). I think Jon will have an identity crisis - not so much about being a Targaryen (I think he'll be proud of that honestly) but about not being Ned Stark's son as he was led to believe. I'd love for him, and the readers, to finally learn that his true father was a great man.

Now, speaking of Benjen... I believe he had a very heavy hand in what happened between Lyanna and Rhaegar. I believe he helped equip Lyanna with the mismatched armor needed for the tourney - and that he helped them, in some way, correspond in order to plan their elopement/abscondence.

During the rebellion, Benjen was the Stark in Winterfell - which I can only imagine how that empty castle haunted him during that period. Following news of his sister's death, I'd be willing to bet Benjen was utterly overcome with guilt. And for as close as Ned and Lyanna were, I believe Benjen was even closer to her. His joining the Night's Watch reads almost like a self-inflicted punishment/imprisonment, or... maybe... it wasn't that at all. His decision to join the ranks of a military order full of Targaryen supporters beyond the reach of Robert Baratheon might be a strategic one.

Benjen isn't stupid. He has to know who Jon is, right? I suspect he was even in on the prophecy that Rhaegar was into about TPTWP. So, Ned is keeping Jon safe, but Benjen might just be securing his future (or was, until his disappearance threw the plan into jeopardy).

Now... I have another little theory everyone is going to hate. But bear with me.

The Mormonts. They're a relatively small house sworn to Stark, in the middle of fucking nowhere. And by that I mean they're on small Bear Island surrounded by water - it's real out of the way from just about any and everything. They are described as poor.

So, how the hell does this small, obscure house manage to be one of the few with a Valyrian sword? Was it really written that way just so that Jon could inherit it? That seems a bit too convenient for GRRM's standards, doesn't it?

Presumably, sometime before Robert's Rebellion (though no one knows for sure), Jeor Mormont joined the Night's Watch and quickly moved through the ranks, securing Lord Commander status. Benjen Stark becomes First Ranger. Two of the most powerful positions. And Bear Island went to Jeor's son, Jorah Mormont, along with Longclaw.

What happens with Jorah, exactly? He's caught selling poachers to slavers. Poachers. On Bear Island...?

For this disgrace, Jorah Mormont fled to the Free Cities. In the books, it says during this time Jorah fights the Braavosi, but in the show, he admits to having been part of the Golden Company (this might be important considering GRRM was pretty involved in season one and writing it).

I know the story goes that the sword has been with the family for five-hundred years. But a theme in these books is that history doesn't quite add up, and I can't help but notice that while the Starks' sword Ice dates back four-hundred years, around the time of the Doom of Valyria/when the Targaryens landed in Westeros, the Mormont sword allegedly goes back a hundred years further? Curious.

The original pommel, according to Jeor, was worn and indistinguishable - which seems strange for a Valyrian steel sword. Either way, this is a hint that pommels can be swapped out.

Much like Jon, Longclaw might also have a secret Targaryen identity: Blackfyre.

I'd love to see Jon and Dany square off against (f)Aegon - Dany with her dragons and Jon wielding Blackfyre. It's absurd headcanon for me that Jon obtaining and wielding this sword will inspire the Golden Company in some way and get them to change allegiance. How? I think we're missing plenty of details but if anyone knows the fate of Blackfyre better than we do, it's the Golden Company, and if Jorah did work for them or fight against them, then his presence alongside Jon/Dany might prove the swords are one and the same.

How perfect would it be for Jon to wield the very same sword as his idol, the Young Dragon? *dreamy sigh*

Anyway. If you're following me this far, it's also curious that Jorah goes on to find and protect Daenerys, eh? Meanwhile, when Jon expresses interest in joining the Night's Watch, Benjen says this:

"Until you have known a woman, you cannot understand what you would be giving up."

"I don't care about that!" Jon said hotly.

"You might, if you knew what it meant," Benjen said. "If you knew what the oath would cost you, you might be less eager to pay the price, son."

It's just all very curious to me. And maybe we'll never get answers where Benjen is concerned, just like we'll never know exactly what Rhaegar's plan was, either. But imagining these grand schemes going on in the background make the story so much more interesting to me because I'm a dreamer, what can I say?

Thanks for the asks, they were a great way to get my mind off of paranoia for a while lol ♥

#answered #jonerys #headcanons

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littlemisssquiggles · 5 years ago

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Pinehead Headcanons: Oscar’s Royal Roots

Once more, hear me out with this one folks:

Playing off of ideas from the Marvellous Land of Oz, in that story, Princess Ozma was the daughter of King Pastoria of Oz who was given to the witch of the north Mombi by the Wizard of Oz. As the daughter of the former king, Ozma was the heir to the throne of Oz but Mombi transformed Ozma into a boy named Tip and raised her as her slave with Tip having no recollection of being a girl.

It was Glinda the Good Witch of the North that forced Mombi to reverse her spell, transforming Tip back into Ozma so that she may be crowned the rightful ruler of Oz.

From some of the musings and Pinehead headcanons I’ve shared, you guys can probably tell that this squiggle meister is an advocate for seeing more elements of the Wizard of Oz stories incorporated into RWBY’s narrative, particularly for Oscar’s side of things. That being said, I was thinking I could use these same story points from the Marvellous Land of Oz story to help forge another new Pinehead headcanon for Oscar.

Last time; I addressed ideas for Oscar’s parentage, I shared a theory that Oscar's mother could possibly be a General in the Atlesian Army. You can read the full post right here. Consider this an expansion of said theory.

What if…Oscar’s mother or at least one of his parents will draw inspiration from King Pastoria from the Marvellous Land of Oz? Imagine if…Oscar Pine, similar to Princess Ozma, is of royalty or at least the closest thing to royalty by Remnant standards.

Right now, the closest thing to monarchs in RWBY are the members of the ruling council for each respective kingdoms. In Vale, we caught a glimpse of the Vale Council during the events of V2. The Council consisted of three members. So let's say it's the same for Atlas. Three seats on the Atlesian Council.

We know General Ironwood holds two of these seats, as mentioned in V4. So let's say, whoever has the final seat is the Head of Atlesian Council as its First Chair.

For the sake of this theory, I'm going to refer to this character as Head Councilman Pastoria since I'm basing them off of their Oz counterpart.

Councilman Pastoria is currently the key 'ruler' of Atlas Kingdom as the head of its leading council. However Pastoria has a secret.

Long before being appointed as the Head of the Atlesian Council, Pastoria was part of the Atlesian military. That’s how they became affiliated with Ironwood.

I like the idea of Pastoria being the child of whoever was the head chairman of the Atlas Council who eventually retired from the council or passed away with Pastoria inheriting the position. I like the idea of Pastoria, being the child of a council leader, being groomed from childbirth to be involved in the politics and government of Atlas but still making the affirmed decision to join the military. Because despite being born into politics, Pastoria still desired a life outside of such the lifestyle they were bred in, you understand.

I even like the thought of Pastoria seeing the military as a way of forming their own identity since them being the child of a politician came with its fair share of responsibilities and burdens. Pastoria was constantly compared to their councilman father and held under a microscope to be judged by everyone for every action they made which wasn’t in accord with what their father wanted for them. Basically Pastoria’s was constantly told that their actions reflected heavily on, not just his father and the Council but also the People of Atlas. It was a rather suffocating type of life. All the more reason why Pastoria desired to depart from it and saw the military as their ticket out in a sense.

So Pastoria became a solider and a very good one to be precise. After all, they were the child of the Head Councilman so one could only expect greatness. I’m not sure how the Atlas Military works in Remnant but I’d like to think that once the soldiers reach a certain rank they can choose which military base in another kingdom to be deployed to. So Pastoria chose Mistral…or at least their controlling councilman father pulled some strings to ensure that Pastoria didn’t stray too far from Atlas and out of his reach. At least Mistral shared good intercontinental relations with Atlas so there was that.

Anyways to make this long explanation short, Pastoria is begrudgingly deployed to Mistral. Since RWBY made Ozma a genderbent version of the original Oz character in the Lost Fable, so to speak, I’m going to make my Councilman Pastoria character a woman. A leading lady at the Head of the Atlesian Council to keep up with my solider mom concept.

While in Mistral, Pastoria met the love of her life. A farm boy living on his family farm with his older sister and her husband (in case the CRWBY decide to go with Aunt Em being young). His name was Theodore Pine---my fanon name for Oscar’s papa. Pastoria and Theodore fell hopelessly in love and made plans to settle down and have a family together in Mistral. Despite her soldier duties and political ties to Atlas, Pastoria was more than ready to leave it all behind to start things anew with her Theodore. Especially following the conception of their son. Their little prince.

However things take an unexpected turning point when Pastoria is forced to return home. Her father, the former Head of the Council unfortunately passed during Pastoria's estranged absence and as his only child and heir, the one who was formerly being groomed to take his seat on the Council, Pastoria is elected as her father’s replacement.

This creates a complication in her relationship with Theodore. Let’s just say that no one else besides the Council knew of Pastoria’s alleged affair (that’s what they termed the relationship) with the lower class Mistrali Theodore. Nor did they know of their child together and thus, it was advised that Pastoria kept it that way.

To play off of the Marvellous Land of Oz, I like the idea of their being a Mombi character. Someone who was probably an advisor to Pastoria’s father and was the one who urged her to relinquish all ties she had with Theodore Pine for the sake of keeping up appearances. Something about avoiding a scandal in the political world for when Pastoria makes her return home.

So long story short, Pastoria breaks things off with Theodore and reluctantly leaves their baby boy---little Oscar in the care of his father.

In a similar fashion to Tip, I really like the idea of Oscar being raised oblivious to the truth about his Atlesian royal roots through his mother’s side. At least, the closest thing to royalty in Altas as the son of its head councilman.

This is another way to pull elements from the Marvellous Land of Oz to help mould Oscar's side of the story.

Up until V6 in RWBY, Oscar has basically more or less been dancing to the beat of Ozpin's (technically Ozma’s) drum with very little leeway to deviate and form his own individual story. Despite the Writers insinuating that he’s supposed to have one.

I'm hoping this is changed for V7; as alluded to by Kerry Shawcross which I'm holding him to.

I really would love to see some characters inspired by the Marvellous Land of Oz as part of Oscar's side of things.

Mombi, Pumpkinhead (and maybe Sawhorse too), General Jinjur, Tippetarius and now Pastoria. I really would love to see RWBY versions of them for Oscar's story in Atlas.

I've already shared concepts for how Mombi, General Jinjur and Tip can be incorporated. And of course, there's my Pumpkinhead idea. Still love my robot Pumpkinhead (Atlesian Battle Droid PMKN-4340) headcanon.

Now I got Pastoria. Not sure if we'll actually see this done for V7. Buuuuut....a squiggle meister can hope, right? It’s definitely going on my V7 Bingo Card wish list.

I just really, really like the thought of Oscar's story for V7 being him getting in touch with who he really is and who he destined to become in more ways than one.

We know he has the Merge with Oz that’s on his mind. However I also like the idea of Oscar having identity crisis issues before he met Oz. Like being raised by only one of his parents and a family who kept the identity of his other parent a secret from him for most of his life. Just like Tip/Ozma.

A potential Pastoria character can provide an excellent driver to explore Oscar's past and who he saw himself as WITHOUT it being all about Ozpin for a change. Forgive me folks but after three seasons, I’ve kind of grown tired of Oscar’s story always revolving around Ozpin or Ozma’s side of things without much exploration of his own story. Is he his own person or not, CRWBY Writers?

This is a decent way to play into Oscar’s side of things. Imagine if... all of his life, Oscar has been told he's like someone else. Like growing up in Mistral with his dad and his family, Oscar was told that despite looking like a spitting image of his dad, he was becoming more like his mother every day in terms of personality. However this statement would always confuse Oscar since he never knew the type of woman his mother was beyond what his family told him.

Then while with the heroes in Mistral, Oscar is expected to be more like Ozpin or Ozma. This is emphasized even more when he finally meets Ironwood who starts to grill him on that expectation of him.

And lastly, in the event of this theory being true and Oscar learns that his mother is a ruling party in Atlas, he has even more expectations placed on him since as the son of the Councilman he is expected to behave a certain way and adhere to certain regulations in keeping up with the political lifestyle. Something Oscar’s farm bred backstory never prepared him for and of course, he struggles. With all of it.

This can also be an interesting way to have Oscar bond with Weiss. Weiss was bred in such an aristocratic life but ultimately left. Oscar, on the other hand, was raised outside of said regime and is suddenly being tossed into it while getting to know his mother. He is expected to adjust quickly in order to impress or please his mother (and the Council) but he struggles with all of it.

Perhaps with this kind of plot, we can see Weiss developing a brother and sister bond with Oscar by using her previous life with her family to show him the ropes. This can then lead to Weiss unlocking memories of her past with her brother Whitley when the two used to get along. That could be really interesting. But who knows?

~LittleMissSquiggles (2019)

#rwby #oscar pine #rwby theories #rwby volume 7 theories #pinehead headcanons #squiggles pinehead headcanons

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you-and-i-for-forever · 7 years ago

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Plucking Petals (Lafayette x Reader) Part 1

Prompt: “Go on then, tell me. Tell me you don’t love me.”

Word count: 2.4k

A/N: I wasn’t really planning on writing any Hamilton/imagines but here we are...This is part 1 out of 2, but let me know if you want the second part!

You and Gilbert du Motier de Lafayette had been friends since you were in frilly, cloth diapers. You had grown up in the same commune in Chavaniac, France, due to both your fathers being apart of noble military lineage.

You spent almost every single day together: running around the buildings, riding horses, laying around the fountain in the middle of the estate, getting into more trouble than either of your families cared to admit.

You were thick as thieves and the best of friends. His father was a higher rank than yours so it was expected that you referred to Lafayette by his last name, but he allowed you to call him by his first name, Gilbert. You were the only one Lafayette felt comfortable talking to out of all the kids in the whole estate, most of them acting like the self-entitled brats they were with rich and powerful fathers.

It was strange for either of you to be apart from one another for an extended period of time, so when Lafayette started schooling with his tutor, you were quite lonely. You spend long hours walking in the estates shared gardens by yourself or learning from your mother how to sew; just waiting for the hour to strike six o’clock and Lafayette’s studies to be done with for the day.

“What’s wrong Y/N?” Lafayette asked after his very first month of schooling finished.

You were both sitting in the rose garden, your favorite spot, hidden away from your nannies. They had probably given up searching for you and gone inside to cool down on this warm spring day, hoping you would come out of hiding soon.

You had been sighing and picking the petals off roses all afternoon. You dropped the petal less rose you were holding before and looked down at him.

“I’m bored, Gilbert,” You sighed again

“Do you want to play A Game of Graces? Jou-Jou? Marelles?” He asked and sat up. He had been laying down at your feet, fallen petals collecting on his face.

“No…not so bored as much as…restless.” You corrected and wiped the built up pollen on your hands onto your dress.

“Why?” Lafayette stood up and sat down next to you on the stone bench.

You snapped another flower from its bush and trace its soft bloom.

“I want to go to school like you do.” You explained with another sigh.

Lafayette let out a snort and snickered, “But you’re a girl, you’re not allowed.”

You face flushed and your entire body stiffened. “I know that!” You said

“I don’t even think my tutor would allow you into the library!” He teased, seeing it get a rise out of you.

“That’s not funny!” You yelled at him.

“He’d probably tell you to go play with your dolls and leave reading to the men.” He laughed, holding his stomach.

“Just because I’m a girl doesn’t make me a fool!” You snapped at him and shoved him hard. He tumbled off the bench and you were glad to see the smile leave his face.

Lafayette scrambled to sit up, quickly realizing his offense to you.

“I may be a girl but that doesn’t mean I can’t learn everything you do. I’m tired of sitting around, waiting for you to finish your studies every day the day, I want to be learning with you.”

You abruptly stood up and threw the rose at his face, hoping its thorns would prick his skin. You huffed, gathered up your dress in a rather undignified manner, and marched away from him.

“Y/N!” He called but you ignored him as you ducked underneath bushes.

As soon as you escaped the jungle of plants, your nanny spotted you and rushed over, relieved you had finally reappeared. She scolded you on your messy appearance and ushered you back towards the house for supper. You glanced over your shoulder to the garden, spotting Lafayette watching you from under a rose bush. You turned your nose up at him and continued towards the house.

You didn’t talk to Lafayette for two whole days after he had mocked you for your desire to learn. Not speaking for two days in Y/N and Lafayette friendship time was like not speaking for 2 years. You avoided going near the building him family stayed in and the library he studied at. You sat and plucked flower petals at the edge of the rose garden, not sneaking into the hideout you and Lafayette shared. Your nanny fussed over how dirty you were getting from being outside, but you were too stubborn to get up and do anything else with your time.

It wasn’t until the third day that you and Lafayette finally spoke again. Your nanny was getting too unbearable to listen to so you finally snuck into your garden hiding spot. You lounged on the grass, watching bugs flutter by, and of course, ripping petal off roses.

Suddenly, a presence was looming over you. Before you had a chance to react an armful of heavy books dropped onto your lap.

“Ow!” You cried, thighs sore from the impact. You looked up, already knowing the only person it could be.

“What was that for!?” You demanded from Lafayette. You looked down at the books and your face redden with anger. “Come to gloat about your education. Make fun of me while you study?”

Lafayette dropped down next to you and pulled off his cap, sweat on his forehead. No doubt he was tired from caring the mountain of books from the library all the way to the gardens.

You shoved the books off your lap and began to smooth out your dress, acting aloof, but watching the books from the corner of your eye.

“You said you wanted to learn like I do right? Want to study with me? Well, I’m going to teach you everything I’ve learned so far.” Lafayette said and started pulling books out of the large pile.

“What do you want to learn first? Reading? Writing? Astronomy? Arithmetic?” Lafayette asked, summarizing the subject of the books he went through.

You turned towards him a little and raised your eyebrow.

“You’re going to teach me?”

He looked at you and raised an eyebrow, “Of course.”

If this was a trick he was trying to play, it was very mean spirited.

“Really?” You said, squinting at him and crossing your arms.

“Yes. You said you wanted an education, no teacher will tutor you, so I will.” He said a mixed expression of shyness and determination on his face.

Oh.

You face softened a little.

“Really?” You asked again, a smile slowly spread across your lips.

“Yes!” He said with a laugh, secretly worried you thought the whole idea was preposterous or you were still mad at him.

You flung your arms around him and held onto him with an iron grip, laughing. Lafayette laughed and hugged you back. You sat like that for a moment, heart racing in excitement at the prospect being taught like any boy would be. Not only that but learning from Lafayette, your best friend.

“Thank you, Gilbert.” You said once you each released each other.

“I am sorry for what I said before.” He looked down, fiddling with the front cover of a book.

You leaned in a placed a kiss on his cheek to let him know he was forgiven. A wide grin spread on both your faces.

“We need to get started Y/N!” Lafayette buzzed, patting the book cover. “You’re already a month behind me, you need to work hard if you’re going to catch up!”

You giggled as the two of you tried to decide which subject to start with.

Reading was first.

The years you and Lafayette shared at the estate were long and full of good memories. All the hours you spent learning from Lafayette in the rose garden, the games you played, the time you spent together.

A few months after Lafayette’s 13th birthday, he was commissioned an officer by the royal French military, and you knew things weren’t going to be the same anymore; you were both growing up.

Both of your fathers were in the military, all the men on the estate were military. You weren’t oblivious to the fact that one day all the boys in Chavaniac would grow up to become officers, it just seemed like the time had come so quickly.

Though Lafayette wasn’t called for active duty at the time of the war, the next few years were extremely hard for both of you to endure. Lafayette’s father was killed in action and his mother and grandmother as well as your own mother, all passed away due to an illness that overtook the estate in 1770. The illness had taken many people’s lives from the estate. Lafayette was left orphaned and you were left with only your father.

Lafayette inherited his parent’s fortune and residence so he was able to stay on the estate without fear of being sent away, not that any of the senior officers could bear to do that to the young man.

The next few years you spend together were blurred. Time didn’t have room to exist between the tears and pain you and Lafayette shared. You spent hours together in silence, hidden away from the world in a corner of an unoccupied library or against the rose garden. You shared a deep agony that only the other could understand or help to soothe.

It really wasn’t until you both turned 15 that you felt like all the pain you and Lafayette had endured was calming down. But you were both grown adults now and so you couldn’t go back to how things use to be. No more free evenings spent together, reading books to each other or talking for hours. Lafayette was the head of his house and given complete control now that he was old enough and had to take care of everything his parents use to run. You, however, were subjected to all womanly duties your mother used to carry out: instructing the maids, tending to your father, sowing, entertaining the few guests that would come by, sitting around all day not doing anything else.

You didn’t mind being a step in for your mother, it was an easy enough job taking care of the house while your father worked or was away. If you were lucky, you and Lafayette were still able to spend some time together, getting together whenever you could.

All seemed to be going as well as it could until the end of 1776.

Lafayette told you the news when you were taking a stroll together around the estate. He had sent a Page to request your company for that evening and he met you right outside your family’s residence.

You smiled when you opened the door and he beamed back at you. Lafayette had grown to be so stately and dapper, a prominent leader of the estate.

Somehow, your affections for him had grown ever more for him since you were children. He was very charming and attractive and it was very hard to not become completely enamored of him.

He turned and stuck his arm out for you. You wrapped your hand around it and set the rod of your opened parcel on your other shoulder. Lafayette began to lead you around the estate.

“You look very lovely today, Miss. Y/L/N.” He said.

You laughed, “As do you, Marquis de Lafayette.”

The affection and fondness you held for each other was palpable, grown more with age, though had never been spoken out loud.

You talked for a while and caught each other up on what was happening, which really wasn’t much.

“Y/N, I do have something to tell you,” Lafayette said as you stopped by the rose garden.

You were plucking petals from a red rose and stopped when you heard the thickness of his voice.

“Yes?” You said, frozen in place, not knowing what to expect.

“I’m-I’m leaving.” He said in a soft voice.

Fear ripped through your body. Your corset, which up until now felt was merely uncomfortable, felt like it was crushing your lungs.

“America?” You asked, already knowing the answer.

It felt like every time you spoke to Lafayette, he brought up the colonies and of the revolution there. He couldn’t seem to take his mind off of it and had told you he wanted to go there to fight, you just never thought he would really go through with it. But you knew he wouldn’t stay at the estate forever, something would eventually pull him away, either by choice or force.

“Yes. My ship is leaving soon.” He explained

Your throat felt thick and your eyes started to water. You cleared your throat and asked, “How soon, Gilbert?”

“Morning.”

You sharply inhaled and spun around to face him.

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner? Why were you keeping this from me?” Tears prickling in your eyes and hands shaking.

“I didn’t want you to be sad in the days we had left together” Lafayette explained

“Oh.” You said as tears came pouring down your face and the flower you were holding dropped to the ground.

“Oh.” You said again, voice cracked and you covered your face with your hands.

Lafayette rushed forward wrapped his arms around you and you sobbed into his jacket.

“Don’t-don’t…please. We need you here. I need – I need you here.” You begged into his chest.

Lafayette just held you, not saying a word.

You looked up at him with blurred vision and Lafayette released one of his arms to pull a handkerchief out of his pocket. He wiped your eyes and cheeks so they were tear free, though fresh ones replaced those only seconds later.

“Come now Y/N,” He whispered into your hair after returning his arm to its previous position on your back.

You simply indignantly whimpered and held Lafayette closer.

“It won’t be that long. I’ll write to you every chance I get. And I’ll think of you always.” Lafayette reassured you.

You nodded slightly and looked up at him again.

“Don’t forget me.” You begged between sobs

“Oh my darling, I could never.” He breathed and kissed you gently on the lips.

“Gilbert…I-I…” You quietly gasped, knowing what you wanted to say but not how to say it.

“Sssssh. I know.” He whispered, wiping away your tears with his hand before leaning in to kiss you again.

This man, who held your heart was leaving with it in his pocket.

#Hamilton #lafayette #lafayette x reader #hamilton imagine #marquis de lafayette

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ivbenjaminart · 7 years ago

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LEGACIES - Carcer Nox Atreha

[Entry 1 - The Fallen Prince]

This is a live document and shall be updated throughout the course of my investigation. I have granted you access so that I might get your thoughts and insight. Of all those that sit at the Black Table, I trust your judgement the most. Perhaps you will see something that I have missed. Bear with me on the more obvious or redundant details, as they could prove to be paramount later. Like you, I believe in leaving no stone unturned. All roads thus far lead to Carcer. To know him and understand him will be the key to dismantling this machine of treachery and disorder forming in the shadows. How many people did he influence? Who remains loyal to him within our empire? To what lengths must I go to bring an end to his machinations? I will begin this profile with a promise--whatever it takes, the Prince will be brought to justice. Carcer Nox Atreha was born in 764 AE on the planet Arkouda, our primary agricultural installation. He is one of less than ten cross-species offspring that claim Imperial citizenship. His father is the current Primarch, Ursor Mahlak Nox, a descendant of the Atohkthun United Tribes exiled along with the rest of our people from Diadem, while his mother is the late High Lady Eirwyn Nox--a verthandi Oracle. Suffice it to say the union of his parents was incredibly uncommon. I would not consider the Imperial people racist, per se, but we are a very isolationist culture and have little interest in intermingling with other species--save, of course, for ensuring their politics don’t interfere with our own. His birth came on the tail end of the year’s Sol Movement, just as the second unprovoked war with the Diadites, our genetic ancestors, began. The first five years of his life are nearly impossible to follow as our information networks were devoted purely to wartime use. A census taken in 765 indicates he was no longer a resident of Arkouda so it can only be assumed he and his mother were likely moving from starship to starship as his father ascended the ranks of the Ordo Militaris. (note: cross reference ship logs on all main Dreadnaughts in service between 764 and 770 for possible mentions of the Nox family--though information about the boy at such a young age may prove inconsequential, he is, indeed, a special case) (additional note: confirm date of Ursor Nox’s transition from Ordo Cultio to Ordo Militaris--were family records ever updated to reflect this? Our level of unpreparedness for war at the time is becoming embarrassing).. A psychological evaluation in 771 AE is the first time he resurfaces on paper--for my records, the results suggest he suffered very little trauma despite the chaotic prelude to war. Perhaps this is a sign of strong mental fortitude...or perhaps, given his recent foray into terrorism, something else entirely. Carcer’s life took another unexpected turn no less than an octan after the war had ended. Rather than returning home to the farmlands of Arkouda, the heads of High House Tempus bade the Nox family to stay in the capital--quite publically, in fact. In a move to openly challenge the current Primarch, Tiberius Fratrem, Lord Verum and Lady Iustitia Tempus had put forth Carcer’s father, Ursor, as a worthy successor to the throne. Traditionally, protocol for such things encourages some modicum of privacy. However, as you are well aware, if House Tempus is known to be anything other than honest it is brazen. With the support of more than a third of the High Houses, Inquisitor Celeritas Tempus presented the challenge to the Hierarchy. Unsurprisingly it took less than three solans for a judgement to be made. Ursor was given the Throne. I can recall the excitement, however muted, my mother and father expressed in that moment. As you can imagine, it was a coup for the men and women of the Ordos; a lowborn family now sat in the most powerful seat in the Imperium. And to do so they removed, not only a highborn, but a Fratrem at that, whom had spent the duration of the war, and I say this entirely subjectively, sitting on his backside, twiddling his thumbs, hoping for the best. I am sure you can empathize. It was not the first time a lowborn family had been elevated to the hierarchy, of course, let alone the seat of Primarch. Silvia Dominus (not to be confused with the current fugitive, Agent Silva Dominus) of Ordo Scientia had been found worthy of the title Primarchess in 301 AE, though unlike their predecessors the Nox’s ascension was met with open adversity. Not only was Ursor Nox lowborn, he wed an alien wife and fathered a half-breed son. No one but a full blooded Imperial can ever sit on the Throne, which meant that Ursor took the title of Primarch with no heir to inherit it, and no means to produce one. It is as such that Carcer was named Prince in title and title alone. He would never wear his father’s crown I must in good faith retract my previous statement--the Imperium does not directly encourage racism, but there is something about our culture that makes it an inevitability. It is odd to me that in search of a means to defend my people from an ultimate evil I discover more of our imperfections. I digress. From this point on I can find nothing to suggest that Carcer’s life wasn’t typical of any boy born in the Hierarchy. His family was relocated to the moon of Tartarus orbiting our homeworld of Tenebrae. He began primary education at the Schola Academia. His mother and father both seemed loving and attentive, despite both maintaining positions of vast importance (his mother, again, was an Oracle of the verthandi people. And while I do not believe in their superstitions, she was clearly a woman of great importance to them). I am left to speculate, however, that while his lifestyle may have been nothing short of traditional he must’ve met some friction while he tried to live it. After all, he could not very easily blend due to his verthandi features and, as I said, Imperial people are not fond of outsiders. The year 775 AE was one of horrific tragedy within the Hierarchy and where I firmly believe Carcer began down the path that would lead to betrayal. <Private entry begin> <Reminder set> [Review reports on the deaths of Lord Verum and Lady Iustitia Tempus, three solans prior to the following events. Has no one else of our office questioned this?] <End private entry> On Hollesti 17th, 775 AE House Nox’s shuttle was enroute from Mathaire to Tenebrae. On its final approach to their home on Tartarus it suddenly, and inexplicably exploded. Between the catastrophic explosion and debris, official reports leave the death toll at twenty-seven--four staff on the ground, the entirety of the ship’s crew, and two of its three passengers--Inquisitor Celeritas Tempus and the High Lady, Eirwyn Nox. The third passenger and the only one to survive the incident, was the Prince-in-title, Carcer. As inexplicable as the shuttle’s destruction is the boy’s survival. Scientific studies show that Obscura are capable of generating an aura of anima powerful enough to shield them from the extreme temperatures and destructive vacuum of space. Knowing this, it would suffice as an answer to how he survived, were it not for the fact that Carcer was not an Obscura prior to the explosion of the shuttle. By all accounts, it is physically impossible for a person to become one after birth. The only individuals to ever become Obscura rather than be born Obscura were the first--to that end, Carcer Nox Atreha was lowborn, and the Obscura phenomenon only ever occurs in the offspring of the originals’ descendants--thus, never outside of a High House. I am not going to pretend to understand the how or the why--I was born in the Ordo Militaris, so even rudimentary science is beyond me. Every Imperial citizen knows this is impossible, however...and yet we also all know the story of the Prince who became an Agent. Suit cameras show that it was several hora after the explosion before rescue teams pulled Carcer, then age nine, from the wreckage and rushed him to a medical facility on Tenebrae. Shortly afterwards, doctors confirmed his status as an Obscura (were it not obvious from the purple glow of his eyes); medical records show he was subsequently discharged with no reported physical trauma. Despite having a surviving eyewitness to the incident, no cause could be determined for the explosion. There is a single report--more of a side note, really, where Carcer claimed to have been attacked by a hooded man aboard the ship before its destruction, but given that forensics was able to identify all of the passengers onboard in the debris and Carcer appeared to have sustained no injuries related to struggle (albeit, hard to prove considering the accelerated healing of the Obscura), it is likely some proactive interference caused by the trauma of the incident. Regardless, tradition prevailed, despite the abnormality of his condition. Enlistment records show he was sent to the Schola Obscura for training under the ISA immediately after his mother’s rites were concluded in the Necropolis. I will not be so callous in my review of this man to say that I do not empathize with his situation. He was given little time to mourn the loss of his mother before he was uprooted from his life (which had been nothing but chaotic since his birth) and thrust into the hive of secrecy and lies that is the Imperial Security Agency. Records of his first six montreta at the Schola Obscura show nearly a hundred outbound calls from his personal chambers to his father. None were answered. His father was Primarch, of course, but….be that as it may, to leave your child alone and confused and scared and hurting on a path he did not expect to walk with abilities he does not know how to control...it was cruel. I respect His Majesty deeply and find him to otherwise be an honourable man...but it was cruel. Carcer’s path forward is, by far and large, the most documented and referenced file in the history of the Schola Obscura, and in some cases the Imperium itself--a godsend for this investigation. In short? His progression was accelerated. He was four years behind schedule, and though the Obscura are considered ageless, they seemed keen on catching him up to speed quickly. Perhaps it was the publicity. For all the work they do in the shadows, the ISA does love its time in the spotlight and having a name like Carcer Nox suddenly in their ranks gave them more than the usual fifteen centons. To familiarize him with the specialised education of the Agents he was put under the strict tutelage of Magister Silva Dominus. To help manage his stress, which, at the time, was considerable, Academy psychologists recommended additional time allotment be provided for physical training under the sometimes harsh mentorship of Magister Tactus Irae. His education came fast, expectations were high, and all the while the legend of the Prince grew. His name was on the headline of countless news stories and the subject of endless online discussion. The Imperium had suffered grave losses in such a short time that having a new, young face to focus on seemed enough to distract our people from it. He had become an overnight sensation. By thirteen, reports about the boy seem conflicting. Psychology work ups describe him as machine, tending to spend his free time studying or training rather than socializing with his peers (though a brief review of popular Arc Link searches from fellow cadets’ personal terminals show ‘Carcer Nox interview’ and ‘Carcer Nox shirtless’ are almost as popular as queries for ‘free movie download’ links). Through most of his interviews, of which there were many, he comes across as poised and confident, even charming, though avoidant of any questions regarding his family. His superiors, along with his academy test results, paint the picture of a young man who was an exceptional leader in the field, able to keep a cool head in high stress situations, and an effective detective--were the circumstances different, I can objectively say he would have made a fine Inquisitor and I am certain you would agree. In just four short years he had not only caught up with other cadets his age but surpassed them, with unit rosters showing him placed in the same class as cadets Lance Fratrem and Lex Argentum, both four years his senior. Despite being their junior it appears he somehow became the leader, if you wish to call it that, of their posse of troublemakers. Immediately following Carcer’s academic promotion, there is an increase in disciplinary files surrounding the three (note: See reports on their involvement in Project Deadzone. How they could go from dismantling a domestic terrorist cell to becoming terrorists themselves leaves many questions unanswered) though it did not appear to impede their path towards graduation, which they achieved six years later. This is where I’ve hit my roadblock. Even given the emergency powers granted to our office, it is near impossible to follow his path from that point until now. What mission dossiers and reports I can access are either redacted to the point of being unintelligible or missing altogether, though I have included them in this report (can your brother assist in these matters? He seems to have a penchant for finding information no one wants found). The Agency’s lack of oversight has been as much a thorn in the side of my investigation as it was in my dealings with them before the incident. Regardless, I must press on. Missing dreadnoughts? Stolen weaponry? Monitoring outposts destroyed? To make matters worse tension is rising in the Realtin Republic--even in the Diadite DMZ. Carcer Nox Atreha may have been the rising star of the Agency and everyone’s favourite soldier...but unless I can stop him and his allies, he may very well be the virus that leads to our destruction. --Inquisitor Apollo Trevellus Josh Hamano ©2017 Face model: Josh Hamano

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