Chapter Text
The girl in her arms weighed heavy like stone.
Marsha usually found this cute, how she'd petrify sometimes, as if in hibernation when she slept. But when the knight wakes, the rough, cold patches of skin and the solid weight only serve to strain her already gasping breaths.
Marsha had promised not to use her arcane skill when she laid in this bed. It was unfair to herself, and to the gargoyle curled into her chest. This was a place of rest—of honesty. Not another battlefield to suppress. Not another place she had to endure.
However, Marsha thinks, just this once, twice, or five past times, Marie wouldn't blame her for it.
Once she realizes what room she's in, just who she's with, and that logically, she is safe, her numbing activates like second nature to protect them both from her awful thoughts.
Night terrors were not uncommon. The war, the field hospitals, and the lives taken and lost were all burdens Marsha could never imagine her life without. However, a new one had taken root—one that made her hate herself for even considering.
Sentinel would hurt her, in these dreams.
Marsha would weave through the tight trenches, fire and adrenaline rolling over as if they’d flooded in from above the walls, distant screams hushed in a murmur. When they’d meet face to face, the moment would then clarify—her steel plate boots would slip against the wet, wobbling wood foundation. Her armor would become heavy against her own tightening chest. Sentinel would not hesitate. And always, Marsha would die on her back, unable to retaliate. Perhaps it was love that paralyzed her each time, or just plain fear. She would let it happen.
As her mind swims, Sentinel nuzzles into her while sleeping, trying to get even closer than than close. The gesture reminds Marsha of how dogs might intuitively comfort those who are distressed around them. It probably wasn't very kind to compare her lover to a dog. Yet, again, if it'd get Marsha's mind off of the worser idea—of Marianne likened to that ruthless bayonet—then Marsha was sure she'd understand.
Yes, yes. Marianne was a very gentle soul. If Marsha needed to suppress a little to maintain this embrace, surely, she would understand.
Marsha couldn’t remember if she fell back asleep that night.
“Agh! He’s bluffing!” Windsong threads her hand through her hair, taking in deep her every loss and triumph of the hour. She grasps the hand before her, like a lifeline, of the only player losing worse than her: Marsha. “He’s bluffing, right?!”
“Hm?” Marsha remembers who she’s talking about a few seconds later. Charon has an excellent poker face, and a mounting pile of chips before him. If her heart is broken any further, Ms. Windsong may be brought to tears. Meanwhile, Flutterpage stands on her chair, trying to use the fact that she was too short to sit down as a means to peek at the other players’ hands.
“The battle… is over. ” Charon repeats his quiet, yet powerful declaration. “Like the young fool this body once housed, I will go all in.”
Windsong glances at the other players incredulously, looking for anyone to share in her madness.
“Just do ittt!” Flutterpage eggs her on.
Marsha shrugs. She has no reservations for what will happen.
Her trust utterly shattered with the child from rounds past, Windsong, out of pure spite, will do only the opposite. She sighs, resigned to her fate. “Alright, I’ll back down.” No one else challenges him. Charon nets a truly gluttonous amount of chips, although he cares not much for them.
He flips his hand.
“Your hand was terrible!?” Windsong’s voice comes out high like a broken whistle. Her palms hit the table, trying not to be loud, though the silent outrage looks as if it will kill her. She gets out of her chair with such a velocity she almost trips, and paces up and down the hall.
“Why… did you go all in with such a bad hand, Charon?” Marsha asks.
The cloth clad head slowly looks down at his cards in recognition. “Oh.” He plucks the card as if he hadn’t seen it before. “I forgot.”
Flutterpage laughs, flying over to his shoulder in violation of the “NO FLOATING!!” addendum Windsong had scrawled into the rulebook. “You had a good hand last turn, not this one!” Then, she floats to Marsha’s. “But Miss Knight, you had a really good one. Why’d ya back down?”
“Ha,” though she’d laughed at Charon briefly, Marsha promptly realizes she’d made the same mistake. “I guess I forgot too.”
The absent minded admission does little to quell the child’s confusion, and moreover, a small hint of concern spots her face. She accepts the explanation regardless.
“Ekaterina? Play nice.” Vila’s voice comes muffled from another room, clearly having heard the ordeal.
“I am! I have literally done nothing…!” She trails off into the room with her.
Marsha chuckles at the antics, a dull anxiety creeping back in.
On one hand, it was pretty helpful to never panic or stress that often. She kept a cool head in situations where others would be frozen—she scaled the balance to her side before she could ever let out a cry of frustration. Yet, at times like this, it left her poking and prodding at her own heart, forcing her to guess “well, what’s wrong this time?”. Like performing an autopsy on your own brain, examining causes and effects in a mystery novel all about you. Was that quite the metaphor? Well, the harder you think about it, the more wrapped up you become, thinking about feeling.
Those two, the researcher and rusalki, were a nice pair, is all. For a moment, it makes Marsha wonder what her and Sentinel would’ve been like if they weren’t baptised in blood and glory. Though, Marianne had a relatively normal life before the war. And she was getting better. Perhaps there was only herself to blame. Already, for such a small, defeated emotion, the knight’s mind habitually wants to channel numbness. Marsha could call it an addiction, if it felt any good.
No. She cuts the train of thought down quickly. Marie would hate this. It was about time they spoke.
Marsha rises from her chair. “Sorry, friends, I’m a little tired. I think I'll take my leave now.”
The second she turns, she finds Charon staring deeply into her. Or, at least, in her direction. Probably. It wasn’t quite an intent that drained the life from the living, nor meant to make her shiver in fear, though the silence built a creeping anticipation regardless. Slowly, his hand reaches upwards. He can’t be unmasking, can he?! His hand then lands back on his chest, gripping the stem of his poppy.
“Would you like a flower?”
Marsha sighs in relief and gives a gentle smile. “Why not?”
He plucks it from his chest and hands it to her. She pockets it, thanks him, and walks off into the hall.
“Bye-bye Mrs. Knight!” Flutterpage hops over the table so Marsha can see her wave.
‘Mrs.’? She waves back, a little embarrassed. She didn't have to walk far before she collided with the very woman the arcanists loved to tease her about.
“Ah!” Marianne stumbles into Marsha, conspicuously strapped with her rifle and side bag full of knitting tools, several balls of yarn in her hand.
“Easy, Marie.” Marsha holds her fast, catching the fallen yarn, arms wrapping around her to keep the balls from unfurling entirely.
“Apologies,” Sentinel apologizes first for whatever reason, gingerly taking the supplies back into her hands. After she’s settled, she smiles up at Marsha, seeing her dazed expression. “Was the common room very busy?”
“A little,” Marsha scratches her head sheepishly. Seeing her was like a breath of fresh air, despite her image being the one that had sucked it out of her night previous. It was nice, that there was someone she could make smile so easily. It was nice to be known.
“I was to retire to my room. Madame Corvus gaveth me a challenge.” Still nervous to ask such things, she meekly suggests, “if you should wish to join me, my door remains open. Physically, locked shut in spirit of privacy, though, as you know…” she trails off, scrutinizing Marsha's expression.
“Hm. It would be nice, but,” Marsha wrings her hands. “Well, if you’re working on something, I don’t want to distract you.”
Marianne scans her face again, before her brows knit slightly, and she nods in a newfound determination.
“You should spend the eve with me.” She shifts the yarn balls under one arm, and drags Marsha’s hand in the other. Marsha laughs, never having seen her this bold.
A sudden realization makes her tug back. “Wait, wait, if that's the case, could we go to mine?” At least in her own room, she might feel more at home in case the nightmare strikes.
“Absolument,” Sentinel turns the two of them, arms locked, disregarding the clumsy smack of her rifle on the wall.
After they’ve surely walked off, Windsong and Vila snicker from the other room.
Marsha hesitates, faced to her shelf. Inside are the discrete, neatly organized painkillers she’d been prescribed as of late. Next to them, an old bottle of water to help get it down. It’s laid out so easily for her, yet she finds herself unmoving, stuck in this exact spot rather often.
“Mon cœur,” My heart, Sentinel reminds, putting a pause on her unpacking for a moment to wrap her arms around Marsha’s waist from behind, “please, endeavor to whatever makest thou most comfortable.”
Sentinel knew where Marsha’s wounds lay, as buried as they may be. She knew this wasn’t a simple choice. On some nights, in warzones and the aching first few days of leave, these pills were indispensable saviors to Marsha’s body. Where arcanum could not—or should not—remain active, Marsha may sleep under the painkiller’s haze. But they were a thief’s bargain; they traded the nightmares and burning pain for, at their worst, a heavy, out of body, viscous apathy. Perhaps these drugs were simply the ‘human’ alternative to a knight’s skilled suppression, trading one numbness for another. Regardless of her choice, Sentinel sees it as imperative that Marsha knows it's not for her choice to judge.
“I know.” Marsha sighs, a signal for the gargoyle to release her after having given a small press of the lips to her spine. “I’m not in that much physical pain by now. It'd be best not to let my body over-rely, so…” She exhales through her nose, a faint lilt in her voice, the smirk on her so easily readable even without seeing each other. “...good luck.”
Good luck to Marie for how… enthused she might become off suppression. Because when pain binds to desire, and numbness takes just one step back, she’d be remiss to waste the opportunity. In lieu of a drug, or a skill, not something, but someone becomes that painkiller. Trading one fire for another.
“D'accord.” Marsha can just about hear the roll of her eyes—imagine the fond line of Marie's lips without looking.
This was her imagination put to better use.
…
Sentinel is not easily distracted. She could enter a battlefield and still remember to pick your favorite flower. She could shoot, be shot, and wring her hands of gravel time and time again, yet still recall how to sew. And she is not the type to let what she’s noticed go unsaid.
Ere long, the confession is pulled from Marsha. But, contrary to what she may have feared, Sentinel doesn’t take it terribly hard. Because, inwardly, Marianne puts aside that guilt, knowing it’d only make it harder for the knight to speak honestly. Confidence is a new look on her, one she hadn’t thought she’d don for a long time. For someone else’s sake, though, it came as naturally as breathing.
“If it truly is the case that I frighten you, in which I’d gladly lay my love bare to prove otherwise, then that is one matter. But I scantly believe you are afraid of me,” she soothes. She seems to have parsed it better than Marsha could. “Rather, tis the guilt of imagining it that irks you, non?”
Sentinel’s hand reaches out for a moment before hesitating, unsure if her touch is warranted.
“Mm.” Marsha nods, to both queries in a sense, and takes the stone-flesh hands in her own, pressing soft, chivalrous kisses to the knuckles. “It usually just takes talking to you again to remember how silly you are. It’s not like you’re terrifying me right now, per se."
“It is of no sin to think these things. They need not hold a profound meaning.” Marianne looks down at her fondly. “It’s made your affection overtly saccharine as of late, too.” She raises a hand to run it through Marsha’s hair, down the line of her bowed neck.
“Really?” Marsha murmurs into the wrist before raising her head again.
“Hath it gone unnoticed?” Sentinel face warms. “It was not… unwelcome, although, I loathe to imagine it came from a place of guilt.”
“Ah,” Marsha rubs Marianne’s palm with her thumb. She didn’t know her gestures were received so sweetly. From her perspective, they were like desperate brushes to wake her own cold heart from that nightmare. “Then I’ll have to keep doing it,” she smiles. “It's far too easy to spoil you.”
Sentinel clears her throat. “As nonsensical a vision it may be, tis my visage you see, rooted from a sin of mine own. It will be my directive to dispel this demon. The weight shall not fall all to you.” Marianne straightens, drawing Marsha’s gaze up to her eyes.
“How might I assist?”
Question of the era, Marsha thinks. And, so wishing to ‘repay’ the knight's chivalry, it is often asked.
They pause in that contemplative silence, waiting for Marsha's answer. Yes, Marsha is waiting too. If she could press on like this, without the pain, guilt and frustration her dreams will bring, she would be happy. If her mind would be kind to her, and could continue to see Marianne only for who she truly is, she'd have no worry. But those goals are out of their scope; life is not so fair.
This will happen again.
Oh well.
“You mentioned something once, a few nights ago,” Marsha prompts, holding Marianne’s wrist as if she might drift away. “But you saw how tired I was and bit your tongue. Could I know what it was?”
“Oh, ce n'est pas–” Sentinel’s eyes widen in a manner entirely separate from the pressing conversation. “Some self-indulgent fantasy, I’m certain. I’ve all but forgotten it by now.”
“A fantasy?” Intrigued, Marsha leans into Sentinel who shrinks backwards. “Have you really forgotten?”
Where Marsha may be thoroughly pressed to bear her heart for answers, Sentinel will buckle freely in redhead’s gaze. “I did not forget, only,” she hesitates, weighing the idea in her mind again before shutting it down. “It’s scarcely appropriate given our context. A trivial burden on its own.” Before a long pause she clarifies the slightest. “A carnal matter.”
I was too fast, Marsha chastises herself. “I don’t mind that,” Marsha shakes her head. “Just, if you’re up for it, maybe I’ll challenge you a little.”
“Comment ça?”
“Distract me. Give me yourself to focus on, so that these dreams won’t reach me anymore. Be ‘selfish’ or whatnot—I like it when you are, just…” Marsha finally looks up to behold Sentinel’s tentative expression. “So that I can try to really see you.”
What a mess they made—two women in the eternal attempt to ‘hold back’ when the other only wants to push forward. When neither would mind being taken from entirely.
Marianne breathes in, stretching out her fingers as if preparing for a mission. “I will tell,” she declares in spite of the flush she’d so easily acquired. “But swear to me one clause.”
“What is it?”
“If I am near, and tis comfortable, please wake me in the eve of these terrors. Let me show you again and again who I am.” The sight of Marsha’s slight frown spurs her to continue. “If this is a nightmare you must endure, the Lord ought to cast it upon me tenfold. Lucky I am, that my penance could be so sweet as to hold you.”
Marsha is stunned into silence. She couldn’t help it when Marianne got so sentimental. The conspirations of doubt, anxiety and shame paled in light of the pictures Marie paints with her words. The knight’s protests quietly grow bored of themselves, eager to listen for more.
Marianne might mistake the silence as reluctance. Her final tactic, untried but earnestly true, is to purse her lips, gaze shot down. “P-pleeeeease?” She sounds out, so dull-tonedly that the vowel exits her mouth like a hanging, awkward whisper.
“Wha–” A sharp exhale of air escapes Marsha’s closed lips, tumbling into a shocked laughter. “What was that? Were you trying to be cute just now?”
Marie only hides her face—hinting to her subtle, deep, reserved pride at having cut the knight's tension. “Had I succeeded?”
“Terribly,” Marsha beams, all but wanting to smother the bashful gargoyle with affection. “Terrific work, mein schatz.” She settles for pulling her into a still embrace.
Sentinel nods dutifully, taking the knight’s praise like a badge of honor. Marsha's earlier claim—that hearing how ‘silly’ she was would dispel her nightmare—seemed to be a resounding success.
“Don't worry, Marie. I admit, I was a little reluctant, but… don’t feel like you have to pull it out of me. I'll try to be more honest with this.”
“Then I am glad.” Marianne nods, nuzzling Marsha’s hair. “Merci beaucoup, for telling me this.”
“So, can I know? What this ‘carnal’ matter is?” Marsha pulls away and looks down at her, hands kept at the gargoyle’s shoulders.
Sentinel tries to begin but can’t get a word out in the warm attention. She closes her eyes, pressing her hand to still Marsha's eager face. “Do stop your giggling first, ma mignonne”
“Right, right.”