Title: Last Breath
Game: Fire Emblem 7: Blazing Sword
Challenge 003: Yield
Word Count: 563
Pairings/Characters: Lyndis
Warnings: I dunno. Author’s Notes: Unlike western culture, where white is generally considered to represent purity and innocence and other similar traits, it is considered very unlucky in many eastern cultures. Some regions even go far as to use it as the color worn when in mourning and use it to dress the deceased before they are buried, cremated, etc. ALSO. I have an entire back/companion story planned for this that I may (or may not) put up later.
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sweet raptured light // it ends here tonight
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She faces the open window. Bright sunlight streams through it, flooding the room with warmth and light—she wonders why she still feels chilled. “Dress me.” Her voice is soft, but commanding. Spoken like a true noblewoman.
The chancellor would be proud.
She is still and silent as the maids bustle around her, chattering and gossiping amongst themselves. She does not gasp when the corset is tightened and her ribs strain from the sudden pressure and her head begins to spin from the lack of air in her lungs. She doesn’t cry out when the tangles are brushed out of her hair, when they dig countless pins into her scalp.
They sit her in front of the vanity, facing away from the mirror, and she does not struggle or fight back as her face is powdered and painted. When she finally sees her reflection, the face looking back at her is a strange one indeed. Her skin is too pale, the lips too red, hair piled on top of her head in a style that the maids assure her is the height of fashion in the Ostian court. (She vaguely wonders if the powder hides the sun-browned skin of her face well enough.)
She is put into her gown, a confection of layer upon layer of silk and lace cut into the latest style—“This type of neckline is all the rage, now.”—and the strings of the bodice are tied tightly, tightly, so tightly she cannot get free. She glances down once; her feet are hidden by countless ruffles and petticoats. She feels as if she is imprisoned in waves of white cloth.
(For the plainsfolk, she remembers, white is the color of death and mourning. But when she thinks about it, black hadn’t suited him, either.)
One of the maids gives her a pair of delicate silk gloves that reach far past her elbows. “They make your hands and arms look so dainty and elegant, milady.” (The gloves, she knows were specially made to cover the scars and calluses and hard, lean muscle that years of swordplay and living on the plains have given her—a lady’s body, after all, shouldn’t resemble that of a farm boy’s but should instead be soft and delicate.)
“Thank you,” she says.
Strings of heavy pearls are placed around her neck, weighing her down so that she cannot lift her chin proudly the way she has since birth—the way the people of the plains hold their heads high, for they bow to none but the Sky and the Earth and the spirits that surround them all.
A knock at the door catches her attention. One of the maids goes to answer it; she manages to catch snippets of the exchange.
“…entourage is waiting. Lady Lyndis…?”
“Just… bit more. Thank you… Sir Sain.”
She hears no more after that; the maids are putting her headpiece on, bustling and squawking around her as they make adjustments, stabbing more and more pins into her scalp. The added weight forces her chin down even further, until she is looking expressionlessly at the floor.
The veil falls softly around her, imprisoning her even further within herself.
One of the maids puts painfully tight shoes on her feet, pinching skin and flesh and bone so tightly that she can barely walk, let alone run away.
But, she thinks as she moves towards the door, there really is no point in running anymore.
Lyn, she knows, has breathed her last today.
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