crossfortune: lacie, pandora hearts (never is a promise)
the androgynous keeper of plushfrogs ([personal profile] crossfortune) wrote in [community profile] rainbowfic2017-06-18 03:35 am

broken heart for a broken girl

Name: Mischa
Story: tales from the drowned world
Colors: elvish green (All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us), warm light (You're thinking about how someone died that day, the you that was so carefully planned), silver screen (love means never having to say you're sorry).
Supplies and Styles: graffiti (red carpet day #1, indie film, shojo-ai/shonen ai), canvas, pastels (origfic bingo, prompt illness (major/minor).
Word Count: 819
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: none, I think?
Summary: Given the choice, Melantha chooses for both of them. .
In the aftermath of her brother's death and their lover's exile, Melantha Valeth clings to life and chooses her own future.
Notes: ...wow, I finished and posted something for the first time in like, a year. Holy shit. Also it probably shows that I haven't done much work in so long, rough and kind of incomplete.
Also needs a color tag for "silver screen".


Melantha Valeth refuses to wear anything but white for her wedding, and ill-luck as it was, no one, not even the most gossipy, interfering old elders, dares to gainsay her to her face. The girl had clung stubbornly to life for days, months, past the death of her twin, past his funeral, when everyone around her had expected her to die: no one had expected her to live this long, much less live to be married.

(There is no joy in her wedding, even the transient joy that characterizes House Valeth. Bittersweet, at best, between her brother's death and her broken betrothal: Melantha stands, still and empty-eyed as her half-sister Tasia laces her into her white wedding robes. White for death, white for the broken heart of a broken girl more than half a walking ghost-)

She does not love the man that she marries: half her heart and half her soul went beyond the great river, the souls of twins bound with their lives, and the half that remains is still with Kyrion Taviot, with an exiled man who would not take her with him when he left. Grief and guilt between them, unresolved, and the edges of a choice unasked.

(Melantha lies, delirious, drugged, and dreaming, drifting between life and death, when Kyrion returns his betrothal ring to House Valeth but does not ask for the ring on her motionless, fragile hand back. The Emperor gave him his life, but Lucien Solana's mercy does not extend as far as allowing him to remain long enough to see if his betrothed will live or die. If she lives - and no one believes that she will - her days will be short, at best.

"Let her follow you," the High Lord of House Valeth says, from behind their mask: they do not beg, or implore, but merely ask Kyrion to rethink his decision on behalf of a favored daughter of their house. "When she is well enough to travel." and lets the alternative hang between them, unsaid. "We will honor the betrothal, for her sake. She loves you, and for what time she has left, that will be more than enough. There is little enough that will brighten her days, now."

"What kind of life can I possibly give her now?" the Stormbringer shakes his head and holds out his empty hands, tears in his new-blind eye. "I failed her. I failed Myca. I failed them both."

Kyrion leaves her his reasons and a crystal teardrop pendant for remembrance, when he goes. The letter waits on her bedside table until she wakes from her enchanted sleep into a broken life, broken time, and thorns, thorns, thorns. When Melantha can write again, her handwriting unlovely and shaky, she writes her beloved a single line: "would you have asked us, if you could?"

She never gets a reply.)


Arthit Abjit does not love Melantha Valeth, as she does not love him: he loved Myca Valeth, who did not love him either. Their betrothal is not one of love, but necessity: the returned Empress Sana weaves her threads to bind the Houses in webs of kinship, diplomacy, and marriages that they cannot escape, and the seers of the House of Shadow bow to her will to try to avert the coming future that they see. Melantha's new betrothed is plain and indecisive, trying to see the ghosts of another in her face, and turns away when even he cannot: there will be no children, no consummation, the only clauses in the marriage contract that he agrees to without hesitation.

(Kyrion had chosen for her, trying to protect her. This time, Melantha chooses for herself, to protect herself and the secrets scrawled on her, their, skin.

Valeth's High Lord nods approvingly. "I would have asked you if I could," they say to Melantha and the invisible third in the room, their mask hiding their expression. “I am pleased that this time, I can give you that choice.)


Blue for marriage, red for war, white for death: Arthit wears blue when they are married, and says nothing about her white robes or the white lilies in her hair. A necromancer marries a dead girl, a not-quite-dead girl, a girl who walked the river and came back, and cannot see the ghosts he so longs to see in her until he turns his back.

For a moment, Melantha's delicate lips twist in a way hers never have, into a very different expression as she watches her husband, sharp and sarcastic. "And none of us are wearing our own faces," she mutters, almost seeming to be a different person for a moment. "Not seeing. Never seeing." She meets the knowing, masked eyes of the High Lord of Valeth, who gravely inclines their head, before her face goes blank again, still and silent.

Blue for marriage, red for war, white for death.

(Melantha chooses for both of them.)
bookblather: A picture of Yomiko Readman looking at books with the text "bookgasm." (Default)

[personal profile] bookblather 2017-06-24 10:00 pm (UTC)(link)
This is beautifully written, heartbreaking, and empowering at the same time. Welcome back. :D
kay_brooke: A field of sunflowers against a blue sky (summer)

[personal profile] kay_brooke 2017-07-09 12:08 am (UTC)(link)
This is so well done, with all this grief hanging over everything and the necessity of Melantha making these choices.