#umented as far back as i can remember but like. you know how it is with (poor) public schools!

[theood]

Math stuff and like my extreme struggles with numbers is really funny because like I've just Grown To Accept it and it does lead to a lot of funny stuff. But it also still to this day despite being out the school system is an extremely guilt ridden thing for me because. Fun fact! I actually was pulled out of classes sometime in elementary school (2-3rd grade) for the year to go over the absolute basics of math. Cannot stress enough this was NOT stuff we were learning anymore at the time, and was stuff that was already expected to be known. Double digit addition and subtraction type stuff. And then the following year I got none of that extra help and continued to struggle in math until I got to a point that I felt so stupid for not being able to do what everyone else could do easily do that I stopped trying and that definitely permanently fucked me over

[antihero-writings]

Glints (Ao3 | FF.net)

Fandom: Pandora Hearts

Summary: The color silver shows up a lot during Oswald's life, namely in the form of sharp things. Only at the end does he understand the color's true nature.

Notes: This was written for @phmonth2021, Tragedy Trio Day 1 prompt: Silver. Sorry it's so late!!

If you liked this fic, please consider commenting!! You have no idea how much your comments mean to me. They make my entire week, and motivate me to keep writing stories like this!!

*

Silver glinted in the moonlight. Little Lacie smiled, mischief in every motion, and rushed at her brother.

Oswald nearly lost his balance dodging her jab, shutting his eyes and swiping feebly at air thereafter.

When he opened his eyes he saw she was standing there, raising an eyebrow as if to say Really? At least give me a good fight.

He righted himself, standing up straighter, holding out the sword to show he was ready, trying to actually feel ready…and ended up wincing and bracing himself as she rushed at him.

“Come, nii-sama.” She lowered her sword. “You have to at least try to fight back!”

“But…I don’t want to hurt you.”

She smacked him on the rear end with her sword, making him jump.

“You’re not gonna. And I know that’s not the real problem. Now really try this time. I’ll even let you take the first swing.”

He took so long to situate himself in the right position that she rolled her eyes. When he swung she smiled and parried his move.

He tried to think, and think fast. He went for her side, she parried that too.

“How did you get so good at this? I don’t recall Glen-sama teaching you.”

“That’s because I taught myself!”

When she made her own attack he shut his eyes and raised his sword, and was surprised to find it struck against hers.

He opened his eyes to find she was grinning at him.

“Practice,” she said like he’d answered his own question. “Just like you’re doing now. That’s how.”

The small victory, added to his sister’s encouragement, gave him newfound confidence.

After a series of attacks and parries, she put her leg behind his to trip him, taking his sword as he went down.

“That’s not fair!” He spluttered.

“Looks like you still have much to learn, nii-sama.” She smirked, crossing both swords. “But you’re getting better. Maybe Glen won’t totally crush you during your next lesson.”

******

As Oswald looked in the mirror, violet glinted in silver.

A new sort of darkness had overtaken his eyes.

Or maybe it was darkening at this moment.

Was it sorrow? Was it guilt? Or was it something more vicious than that?

He remembered. Silver was once such a beautiful color. Sword fights in the backyard at one in the morning when they were too little to hold the swords right. Treasure, teacups, music boxes, and clocks. The mirrors were merely there, never malicious with their words.

As he watched those chains pierce his sister and hang her suspended bloody in the air, and he spoke those cursed words, he thought that silver was a terribly ugly thing, holding reflections of even uglier.

In the days following, as he greeted the mirror in the mornings, he found it was no longer benign; its words were hissed, hurtful and malignant. His eyes looked like someone pulled the buttons off a stuffed animal’s face, revealing the holes and stitches behind them.

He wasn’t sure he’d ever see either the color silver, nor his own eyes, as something beautiful again.

******

Clanking, clashing, the glinting of sun off of silver.

“What’s going on?”

“It’s Glen-sama!”

“And Jack!”

“Jack?”

“Jack Vessalius!”

“You know, that boy who’s always hanging around Glen-sama!”

“What are they doing?”

“They’re fighting!”

“Fighting?!” There was fear in the word.

“Not like that! It’s all in good fun!”

Jack jumped back sharply, sucking in his stomach, Glen’s blade narrowly missing.

Glen tried not to smirk, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, circling his friend like some animal intent on its next meal. He knew Jack didn’t stand a chance against him.

Jack curbed his any surprise with a smile, holding his sword up higher.

“If I didn’t know better I would have thought you were actually trying to kill me!”

Glen clicked his tongue as if to say Maybe you thought right.

When Glen came at him Jack blocked it just in time clanking dotting the air as swing after swing met each other in the air.

Glen’s next move nearly found its mark, but Jack ducked, rolling along the ground to avoid it. Before Jack could strike him in the back Glen’s sword met his once again.

Jack looked up at him, violet cast over his shoulder upon his friend like he was a small worthless thing.

Jack’s attempts to get back up found him kicked in the chest and relieved of his sword. Glen stepped on the blade for good measure, holding his own to Jack’s throat.

“I win again.”

******

The silver was drunk, drunk on red, seeing orange in dizzying displays. Orange and black, gold and red. Painted roses. Purity turned to dread.

Blood drained along his sword. The blood of innocents. Of women and children.

This was the name of mercy. This was the name of tragedy.

The green of Jack’s eyes stuck out like the only living plant in a greenhouse in which the rest of the foliage burned. He always thought those eyes held nothing but water, warped reflections, and masks.

As he held out his sword, he saw his own violet eyes too. He saw them in mirrors and each day, but this was perhaps the first in a long time darkness there didn’t convict him of wrongdoing, but rather assured him he was doing right thing.

That didn’t make it any easier.

This was the work of a madman, a monster, who needed to be stopped at all costs. The damage mitigated as much as he could at least.

But that madman was his best friend.

Once he saw silver as a beautiful thing, as it symbolized late nights laughing, and early mornings singing.

Then, years later he saw it as a repulsive thing, far too sharp, too ravenous, too permanent.

Now, he saw it as somewhere in between. Sometimes the only thing that can fight the dark is with a sharper darkness, one that has been forged in the light.

That didn’t make it beautiful, but it made it something more than ugly.

The silver in Jack’s hand carved across Gilbert’s back.

Sweet, little Gilbert, who only wanted to help. Sweet, little Gilbert who never did a thing wrong. Sweet, little Gilbert who Glen always thought Jack was fond of.

That silver was teeth and tongue, and maybe it wouldn’t kill him, but it was enough to show the truth behind his best friend’s eyes.

He learned that day that silver was neither evil nor good. Silver is merely a lens of men, showing the truth behind the eyes, the appearance, the intentions. Reflections sometimes speak louder, truer words than real images. And that means the color can be both beautiful and terrible, sometimes at the same time.

And on that day, it was both sheer horror and a sheer relief when silver severed him to pieces.

******

But death, for Glen Baskerville, did not mean the end of him. His soul merely traveled, lodged itself within the chest of a young boy unable to face his own eyes.

He knew what that was like.

So afraid of his own soul, was he, that he put a silver sheen between his eyes and the world, so he could never see the world as it was, nor could the world see him as he was. The color convicted him; though it obstructed the truth, it shouted that very truth at him every morning he put them on.

And that boy was right to not want to face the truth, for once he faced his own eyes, all he could see was the dark. Once the silver revealed the truth of the boy’s identity, he could do nothing do stop Oswald, nor could anyone else. Oswald would fix the past, without a Chain, or the Abyss’ will, no matter the cost or casualty.

All would be set right. All the tragedy would be circumvented. A new world would be erected, one which was saved from all this blood, and in which silver would be but a benign color.

So on a certain day, centuries later, a day on which memories walked and nightmares daydreamed, he raised his sword above his little sister’s head.

He had killed her once before. Worse than killed her. At least now she could return to the world anew. This wasn’t some sort of previously unknown and umentioned evil act. He was just doing what he already did, except moving the date earlier in time. Early enough to rewrite his past crimes. To spare the rest of them the pain of his mistakes.

But silver is a lens and judge of men. Once you face the color, it will always tell you your true intentions.

He hadn’t been able to catch her last words, all those centuries ago, and he couldn’t stand it.

“Forgive me, nii-sama.”

She had looked at him that day—today—like she suddenly understood it all, and he couldn’t stand it.

Had she known? Had she known that her existence would be the cause of all this tragedy? Was that why she felt the need for forgiveness? Or was it something more than that?

As he grew up, had she seen in her brother, the eyes of a man who once raised a sword over her head?

Or—smiling fool—did she see today, in the man who raised a sword over her head, the eyes of her brother?

God he missed that smile.

This was the moment. The moment he’d been waiting for, longing for, hunting down. The moment when he’d set the entire universe, right.

But…the new universe may be right, but it would be one in which Lacie never got to spend those early mornings—(or late nights, depending on your definition)—teaching her brother how to sword fight.

This Oswald would never eat with his sister, or play with her, or hold her close when one of them had a nightmare.

This Oswald would never get to see his sister grow up to be a beautiful, and half mad woman, who ran about the world, giving broken men reasons to live, when they got into arguments.

This Oswald would never see his sister smile again, nor hear his sister’s laugh again, nor her beautiful singing voice.

This Oswald would never capture her song in a music box so that he could let it out on the days he felt saddest.

Silver fell with the snow.

I still have much to learn, don’t I?