#How Many Times Can I Make Retsu React To Hakizana Before I'm Normal Again?

[redmemoirs]

thinkin about my oc hours again: canonverse retsu, captain of the lilias knights circle, sister-in-law to the current viscountess sion.

— wedding greetings.

“You can’t rely on the Viscountess’ generosity forever!”

But I can yours? Retsu thinks, but does not say. She must be nice, because the Vice Captain is standing right outside the door ready to deliver her to the Lord of Lilias’ terrible, terrible, unending lectures the moment she missteps. She already apologised for playing hooky, can’t he let her off just the once? But no, he’s standing vigil with a goddamn vengeance, and she’s stuck in this stupid soap opera of a life.

You can’t rely on the Viscountess’ generosity forever. As if she ever has. If anything, it’s Arleon’s shoes she’s been licking, and loudly at that. Then again, that’s why she’s in this situation, isn’t it? Why she’s been in this situation, again and again. It really is so hard being such an eligible bachelorette.

Because the Lady of Arleon is getting married.

Because Haki is getting married.

“Probably not,” she says instead, hiding her scowl in a demure sip of stale tea. If Dorji’s trying to poison her like this now he better have given her guest the same treatment.

Alas, Lady Silk’s tea remains untouched. The prim composure that she wore into the room has chosen to abandon her, leaving her with a furious frown so starkly different from the condescending smile that she first greeted her with.

She kind of gets it. Someone of her stature probably isn’t used to being refused - worse still by another’s discarded goods. The title of Captain can’t quite obscure the truth of her identity, Arleon’s guard dog and runaway and whatever else.

“Even so,” she adds, just as the lady’s lips part, “I’m afraid I’m quite comfortable where I am.”

There’s a resignation letter in her desk drawer, but she doesn’t need to know that.

Well, she’ll find out eventually, Retsu thinks, watching her storm out of the humble greeting room, her attendant scrambling to keep up. Dorji glares at her.

She gets her revenge within the hour, slipping out while he’s buried under the piles of paperwork she’s been neglecting that are too urgent to wait on forcing her to work. Hah.

There’s a resignation letter in her desk drawer, and Dorji will be the first to know when it’s time. Even she can admit the poor guy deserves it.

Tucked under it, unopened, is the wedding invitation.

Haki had delivered it in person.

She’d known it was coming. Was flattered, even, to see Haki here, to know she’d come all this way just to let her know, because Wistal is more her home these days than Lilias. Well, she probably had to be here, anyway, official business with Makiri and the Countess and all but- it was nice. To see her. To have her near, as if this meant nothing.

Haki is getting married. She’d known it was coming. It still feels so sudden.

“Oh,” she’d said, bland as even Haki can’t make her not be. “That’s good,” she’d tried, because it is. The Countess must’ve been ecstatic. “Congratulations?”

Haki had smiled, that patient, familiar thing. “I wanted to tell you myself,” she’d said, like it was a secret. Like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Before she left (left her behind, left her office for the last time because without her here there’s no point to Retsu being here either, to clinging to the nearest thing she can find without asking for something she doesn’t deserve), she had asked what Retsu wanted.

Because Haki was going to be Queen and it was not the King’s choice alone. She is happy. She wants this.

Retsu’s never wanted much. Peace and quiet sometimes, the ruckus of the training hall and the bustle of the city other times. A home to come back to. Haki, close as she’s always been.

(Take me with you, she does not say.

She could. She could.)

Lilias is cold and unforgiving and so very far from Wistal, even though it had been just far enough from the Arleon estate.

Haki is leaving, so she will, too. The other way.

It’s not some eternal farewell, but when she sees her off, all the way to the city’s edge, after she’d spoken to Makiri and the Countess and whatever other business she’d had to tend to (long gone are the days when Haki’s business was her business, yet it aches like yesterday) - she feels something break.

She hands in her resignation after the wedding. The way Makiri instantly curses her out almost cheers her up. Dorji breaking down in tears screaming, “Fucking finally!” does not. Rena’s crying is even worse for how utterly sincere it is. Really, you do a good deed once and you never hear the end of it.

Haki of Arleon is crowned Queen Consort. Her sister’s generosity will have to serve her for now.