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Redemption.
People used that word or variables of it around Lucette ever since her mother died. Only for the second time, far too fearful to mention it the first; all they saw in Lucette was a portrait of Hildyr, still alive and growing like thorns over Angielle’s gardens as she roamed them.
Lucette herself still sees her mother’s portrait hanging in the halls from afar and feels her heart stutter.
And now she… understands.
Understands redemption could be something so awful.
She could almost peg it to be cruel, with the way they would say it.
She’s been redeemed.
It was meant to be a praise – a testament to her willpower. It was meant to show her how far she’d come, and to tell her that she should appreciate who she is now.
Even so, the path to hell was paved with good intentions.
The her that faded away during her curse – the Hildyr inside of her – rolled in its grave. She feels the wave of motion in her chest, enough to constrict her lungs when she thinks of it.
She thinks of it now, laying in the darkness of her bedroom staring out of the open window. A pale streak of moonlight illuminates her doll shelf, their empty eyes staring blankly at the wall. Sometimes, just as she was closing her eyes, she would see Delora upon the shelf, pale porcelain face staring at her through the moonbeams. Judgement was always in her glassy eyes; a kind of judgement that Delora herself would never set Lucette with now.
Because she’d been redeemed.
Her hand curls into a fist, wrinkling the silk of her pillowcase.
Lucette wears guilt like stains.
No matter her attempts to wash clean, this shame was tattooed onto her. It was an epitaph written in bold, scrawled on the inside of her skin where no one but her can see.
No one reads her prophesy, because only someone who has torn her apart from the inside out would be able to see what her mother had carved into her. Lucette is the only one who knows, viewing it through eyes covered in ink and wool.
But the gray was all that was left. Half-lies and goodness stitched themselves together, creating the good and the bad and… her.
Lucette still isn’t sure which she is, or if she’s neither. Perhaps it was a mistake to label herself to either. The confusion haunts her until she hears it again.
“I’m so proud of you, Lucette… You’ve redeemed yourself.”
Lucette inwardly cringes, her stomach flipping on the spot, but the sourness upon her face goes unnoticed. Maybe it was because her expression was always that way. Habits broke only once in a blue moon, and Lucette has already broken dozens in six months. Her luck runs low, if it were every truly luck.
She stifles her doubt with a hand over her mouth, pretending to cover a small smile. Waltz’s eyes twinkle at the sight, fooled-
and she almost pities him.
----------
She breaks into a cold sweat, hands shaking over papers that her mother would have burned. She is only a shell shed from her mother’s death in the war; her mother’s death being far before Hildyr’s.
She tells that she mourns only the image, letting the reality rot.
Or not.
Guilt turns into armor where shame turns into shields. All the while she chokes on the broken glass of a promise that she makes to never turn away again.
If only they knew how trying it was.
To turn your sins to the light to be counted and then be praised for overcoming them. Bearing her wrists to the tearing of invisible claws, the victory that she should feel is clouded away by regret and locked under key.
And in that moment, she wonders…
if she is any more alive than Hildyr.
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Solitude was familiar to Lucette. Hours spent alone reciting teachings she would one day renounce ringed useless, proving only to push her further away from people who want nothing more than to help her.
Even if they fail.
Even if she fails.
Fails to be what they think she is, or what she would like to be. They are one in the same, and so is she to her predecessor.
Or perhaps not, with the way Lucette regrets and Hildyr did not.
Her heartbeat sounds a little louder as she curls her hand tighter around the silk, nails indenting. Her chest rises and falls with short gasps, heard loudly in the silent room, and she briefly wonders if her heart will stop.
Lucette wonders what Hildyr regretted. Was it the heads that rolled or the lies she told, the lives she tore down, or the shine of deceit she built up, or… none at all?
She regretted her; she knew. Lucette was an expense to a kingdom, and a means to an end.
A means to her end – and that’s what Hildyr regrets.
Her mother’s evils line up to her own, and she knows that given time, she would have repented nothing.
And then it’s Parfait who tells her that once upon a time Hildyr would have regretted.
(But what a difference 'would have' and 'did ' made. To her, and to everyone else.)
She tells her this with a small sad smile, no longer reliving the past and instead seeking the future in Lucette.
She imagines it’s quite nice.
To be rid of all the shame and not have to feel it on the inside. Lucette knows that Parfait grieves, but she grieves evil that is not her own.
Lucette grieves herself, and in that, her selfishness shows again. Where she once wouldn’t have listened, she finds herself unheard. She once would have told herself that she should not be ashamed of what she was, but now…
She is redeemed.
Which means there was something to be redeemed of.
The injustice of the things she cannot change crawls on her, disgust reverberating in the way she curls into herself. No accusations were thrown to her – everyone was far too tricked; she never thought her own deception would hold her captive when deception was her loath – but her own accusations to herself were enough to bring on nausea.
It was enough to make new carvings and a new epitaph. This one might be on her own consciousness, her own grave, and not Hildyr’s.
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Guilt was less of an emotion, and more of a morose illness.
Years ago, Lucette held no fault, no blame, and surely ignorance was bliss. Years ago, she wouldn’t have minded. Be that as it may, dreams were for those who slept through the night.
Meals were left uneaten and rumors flew of her walking the palace hallways past midnight.
Past her curfew, as someone she isn’t sure she’d like to forget just yet might have said, once.
But he isn’t here now… and she is.
She is no Cinderella; not anymore… She is a Princess, and she accepts her isolation with not half the will she had before. This time, she accepts it not to protect herself, but to protect others.
Maybe not as selfish as she once was, no, but she’s still not what her knight sees when his brow creases in worry, and he is still not what she once saw.
The symptoms of guilt were enough for illness to be suspected, however, Lucette knows that no doctor can cure her ailment.
Though surely, one might try. One such as Chevalier, that is.
And so instead of a pill, he prescribes forgiveness, though Lucette’s weary eyes tell him there is none to be had. Not for her.
Years ago, she would have minded, but not now.
---------
Guilt was less of an emotion, and more of a punishing curse.
So, next to blame was magic, and Lucette thinks that this conclusion was right if twisted. She wonders what life would have been without magic, without witches, without fairies.
Part of her knows no peace would come, and that wars would rage no matter the reason. Guilt would rise no matter the cause.
Still the thought was pretty, like flame to moths.
She fantasizes of it no more. Such things were placed on her doll shelf, along with other things that she was perhaps too old for but carried with her anyway.
She was too old for dolls, but far too young for the thought of death and guilt.
She sets them aside, but even with her power, she cannot let them go. With that power, she can tell there is no curse but one of her own design. It was a poetic torture, and perhaps a curse more fitting than Cinderella.
She might joke of it if Delora’s expression weren’t so solemn.
Instead of an elixir, she recommends mercy, though Lucette’s stained hands tell her that there is none left for herself.
Years ago, she would have minded, but not now.
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She’s told that she gives hope,
and she could give a thousand reasons she should not.
She’s told that she gives happiness and light, and she wonders how that can be when she doesn’t feel it herself. If it were a lie, then surely, she would be found out.
Lies never went unraveled, even if it took years and a war.
But instead of telling the truth, she nods, letting him see her as the little star she was – to him, if no one else. The guilt comes back stronger than ever, and she doesn’t sleep that night.
Still, she speaks of what they like to hear, because she’s learned over years.
Lucette is older now, burdened.
Knowledge could be poison, just as wisdom could be venom to an open mind. …if only she did not feel like a thief, wearing stolen valor.
And as she stares out into the whispering crowd, she thinks: if only closed minds came with closed mouths.
If only the crown came with the strength needed to wear it.
-------
“I still can’t believe what happened.”
“I know, it all feels like some fairytale, doesn’t it? I heard that the Princess’s coronation will be soon…”
“Do you think it will be before or after she weds?”
“I’m sure her father will find her a suitor once he’s well again. The wedding will surely be a grand one… as much as it’s nice, it’ll be a lot of work for us, you know.”
“I’m just glad that curse set her straight… we could have had a second coming of Hildyr.”
The maid shivers. “I was in the palace when she was here… it was awful.”
At the sight of the upcoming Queen, they fall silent. At the sight of the leader of the Order of the Caldira, they flash nervous smiles. They bow to both before taking their leave.
As they scurry off, Fritz smiles at her.
“…It’s hard to keep people from finding out, I suppose.” He laughs uncertainly, worrying over the blankness of Lucette’s gaze.
“Yes.”
“People are excited for the coronation, at least. Even if it hasn’t been announced. That means that they’ve grown more accepting, right?”
“…I’m not sure how they heard. I still haven’t spoken with my father over it.”
There’s a beat of silence as they both stop walking.
“…You should, Princess.”
Lucette’s stomach churns, the dread welling up. He was sick… he had been for quite some time now. Once again, the guilt comes back to haunt her, making itself known through flashes of memory. Through closed doors and sharp words. Through all that she was, once upon a time.
She feels sick.
Fritz sets a hand on her shoulder, a reassuring smile crossing his face. “The past is the past, Princess.”
Lucette swallows thickly and nods. The past is the past.
…but only if she had known how she would regret it.
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It happens just after sunrise in December.
Her father breathes his last, and Lucette feels part of herself fade with him. She stands outside the door of the infirmary, staring at the blank white walls. The smell of alcohol and disease lingers strong in the halls, sickening.
Is this what redemption felt like?
Her father hadn’t called it redemption. He had called it recovery… he had called it healing.
Healing indeed, because she never once felt the weight of her malice on her own shoulders before now. She tries to breathe in, fails, and ponders if this is how her father felt when her hatred was thrown on him.
Ponders if this is how everyone who tried to love her felt when she pushed them away.
The others are by her side, but she suddenly feels so… alone.
And then it comes to light that she can’t change it.
She can’t change who she was. She can’t change the pain she caused him, and she can’t make up for the years away. No matter her power, no matter her impending Queen-hood, she could not order her father’s life brought to her.
She could not order the past erased.
And suddenly Lucette-
hurts.