To You, Who Shines

AN: Ayyy, after lots and lots of fog, snot, and rest, I'm finally better enough to post again yay~! (The keyword here being 'enough' lol, so please don't be too hard on me ^^;)

I did my best, I hope you enjoy, thanks for being here~<3

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“Dear sister…? I heard you were in here, so-”

Without a knock, the door to Eris’s training area opened. Siffia’s eyes immediately whipped towards the sudden movement and voice that followed afterwards, locking gazes with the boy who’d invited himself in. The boy, not much taller than Siffia was, had lovely golden curls and beauteous features. The smile he wore as he looked for his sister was enough to light even the darkest of rooms.

-Which made the way that his expression fell once his eyes landed on Siffia all the more devastating.

His displeased gaze stayed on her for a few beats longer, seeming to analyze her, before finally zooming towards his original target, causing his face to blossom into a smile once more. As if he’d never even noticed Siffia in the first place, the boy made his way directly to Eris, not sparing another second for anyone else that might be in the room.

“-I came to see you! Since you were here, I thought we could possibly train together-”

“No.”

As if spitting in the face of his warm smiles, Eris only looked dissatisfied with him. If the expression she wore weren’t enough to display it, the way that she immediately put away her greatsword and crossed her arms at him all but announced it.

“You are unwelcome here, Streiss. As I’m quite sure that you are aware, I currently have a guest with me here; The very guest that you so rudely decided to ignore and not greet. Have your etiquette classes been teaching you such manners recently? Do I have to have a talk with father about this?”

Her stern, parental tone caused Streiss to flinch, his smile dropping straight from his face. He couldn’t help but tap his fingers together nervously, seeking respite from her gaze by turning to look glance at Siffia once more.

“Ah, yes, I’d heard you had a… guest. And that they needed to borrow my pants, for some reason.”

Overhearing this, Siffia, whose gaze had been locked onto Streiss from the moment he entered, finally tore her eyes away and looked down at the pants she was wearing with a squeak. Despite knowing that these pants weren’t hers, she’d still collapsed down onto the dirt flooring of the training grounds earlier. Repeatedly smoothed and swept though it may have been, that didn’t make the dirt that she may have gotten on it any less… dirty.

Though she couldn’t spot any visible stains, she still reflexively pulled a decorative pillow from the couch to cover her lap with, attempting to feebly hide whatever evidence might be found.

Eris simply chuckled in amusement at Siffia's cute antics. Her brother on the other hand still looked decided unimpressed.

“....Hmph.”

His lingering disappointed gaze quickly tore away, returning back to his sister.

“...Regardless, now that I’m here-”

“Striess.”

“-And seeing as how you’re currently training alone-”

“Streiss, I already told you. I’m with a guest right now.”

“-We should train together!”

“I told you no, Streiss.”

As if finally hearing his sister’s repeated refusals, the face that had been lit up finally dropped down again. This time however, instead of the disapproving glare that he’d been shooting towards Eris, it was a much more pouty look, one more befitting of his age.

“Why not? Why won’t you train with me? I know we trained for a small while a few days ago, but that was for barely any time! You can’t possibly-”

“Enough of this, Streiss! I will not listen to such childish demands, especially not in the presence of a guest that you have repeatedly chosen to be so rude to. Now go! Remove yourself from this place!”

For a moment, Streiss only stared up into Eris’s unyieldingly stern face, until his eyes eventually strayed towards Siffia once more, seeming to look her over again afresh before looking back at Eris.

“...I don’t understand this, sister. Why do you insist on paying any amount of face to this riff raff when your own flesh and blood is in front of you?”

“...What did you just say?”

As if hiding from the fiercely contorting face of his sister, Streiss turned around, making his way towards Siffia.

His eyes seemed to pin her down like a bug that he was about to swat.

“This woman. I’d heard you’d been spending time with someone lately, but never would I have guessed that it would be some nothing woman like this! Someone so unworth your time... Someone so… unbefitting.”

“Streiss.”

“My sister might be too soft-hearted to let someone as pitiful as you know their place, but I’m not. You see-”

He leaned in, stopping only a hand’s width away. It was as if his hate-filled eyes were all that Siffia could see.

“-My sister is going to be queen someday. She doesn’t need someone like you around sucking up all of her time, wasting it-!”

“Enough!”

Before the last syllable could finish leaving his mouth, Streiss suddenly flew back from Siffia, lifted roughly up by his collar into the air. Held like a naughty cat, he was marched to the door he’d come in through and unceremoniously tossed out like a bag of garbage. The door slammed in his face before he could utter another word, Eris turning and bracing her back against it as if desperately holding it closed.

After a moment to catch her breath and calm herself, her gaze shifted towards Siffia, noting her shocked and blank expression.

Soon her feet couldn’t help but be pulled along as well, taking Eris over to her side.

“Ahem… Hmm… Please do not be too troubled by Streiss’s treatment of you today, Lady Siffia. …He looks up to me a fair amount more than he should, and perhaps that led to the rudeness that he showed to you. You see, after mother passed, and my brothers were still so young, they wouldn’t even listen to their nannies, much less anyone else. They only cared to listen to father and I… Perhaps because we were both a-”

Eris abruptly stopped herself, an awkward expression akin to having eaten a lemon spreading over her face. She had to pause for a moment, letting her eyes jut nervously around the room, before she was able to pull herself together again.

“Ah… Excuse me. I seem to have forgotten what I was about to say-”

But as her gaze refocused on Siffia, she quickly shut her mouth again, her typically stern and composed eyes going wide with astonishment.

There, in front of her, sat the previously blank faced Siffia, now covered in the most distraught look that Eris had ever seen from her. Not even when she was being bullied at the banquet or mistreated by her father had she ever made such a tearful, worried expression. It was as if her eyes were overfilled lakes, at the cusp of overflowing their watery contents. Her bottom lip even trembled constantly, as if words or a cry were threatening to escape from them, only barely being held back.

It was an irresistible face, as quieting as it was charming, leaving Eris only a step away from holding and comforting her. Perhaps if she weren’t so lucid, if the harshly ingrained propriety of a noble weren’t doing its utmost to hold her back, Eris would already have reached out and placed a finger on those trembling lips in an attempt to gently still them.

For now, it was all she could do to hold back the urges by cautiously offering a question.

“Lady Siffia? What-”

“...Is it true? It’s… It can’t be, right…? You’re…”

Like a madwoman, Siffia’s tear-filled gaze blurred as she spoke. Before Eris could even try to ask what she was talking about, Siffia lowered her head, hiding her face before her falling tears could be seen.

“I… I c-can’t… Ah, f-forgive me-”

And just as quickly as those tears fell, Siffia sprung up and dashed out of the room, leaving an absolutely stumped Eris behind.