Second
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She'd never liked wearing armor, much. While she lacked much of a typically feminine frame, it still wasn't a particularly broad or sturdy one: the weight of metal and the stiff layers of quilted cloth and chain made it hard to move comfortably in the manners which she was used to. Even with all the other… factors of her stay in Chateau Montsegur put aside, it made her feel quite unlike herself.
But what's what the Countess wanted out of her Second.
Someone who Constanze most certainly was not. She'd made that explicitly clear since she first brought her in. And the weary, broken woman wasn't in a place to reject the mold she found herself loosely and fluidly slipping into like unset mortar more and more as the days passed by her. It's what the Countess wanted for her. And what she wanted… was important. Because she loved her. Didn't she?
The Chateau was a nice place to live. It overlooked a more mountainous region of Ithania in the northern reaches of the country, where snow just occasionally fell in the higher reaches of the craggy landscape and the watery runoff from the melting caps made for delicious, fresh water. There was even a vineyard the Countess owned just some ways down the mountain, and that was where Constanze found herself one afternoon: armor ensconcing her form, her Lady's sun-emblazoned crest gleaming in the real sunlight which casted gleaming rays unto the ornate etching and painting that formed the house's sigil on her hauberk.
She quite liked the smell of the grapes. They were sweet, but not cloying: an earthy sort of scent that very well complimented the scents of the healthy soil they were planted in and the gentle numbing of her nose brought about by the crisp and wintery mountain atmosphere. Constanze wandered through the orderly lanes of wood-supported vines rather often, finding peace in the solitude of it. It helped her think, about things. Whatever was troubling her, whatever she needed to mull over or consider carefully. She'd thought about owning one herself, someday. The vineyard was also the dictated rendezvous with her Lady, for on Saturdays the grounds were unattended.
On that one afternoon, just like every Saturday she'd spent since arriving at the Chateau, she stared at the verdant eyes set above high, honeyed cheekbones she was used to gazing at: but with much less trancelike adoration. Their owner had just said something to Constanze, yet her ears were ringing and she didn't remember what it was. The Countess frowned; her lips pulled down in a gentle and disapproving way, similar to the manner in which one looks upon a child who's misbehaved in a trivial way. She let out a sigh, and then repeated herself. Constanze heard her that time.
"I'm getting married."
"To-- who?"
"What? Arthane, of course. Who else?"
"I-- right. Sorry. I don't even know why I asked."
"... Are you alright?"
She'd prepared herself for this conversation within her own mind ad nauseam: using either her mirror or the isolation of her private bath as the venue for her unseen rehearsals. Each and every time, she'd convinced herself it would come and it would be just fine. She'd been here before, hadn't she? This wasn't the first time, so it'd be easy.
It wasn't easier the second time.
"Yes. I am, I--"
"You're crying, Constanze."
"No I'm not."
"You are."
Agatha was sweet. Too sweet for her own good, someone more cynical might have observed. Constanze liked her for that: it made her feel safe, it gave her the impression that the plucky Anglian wouldn't ever do a thing to hurt her. This was turning out to be anything but true at that very moment, but she couldn't really blame her. It wasn't her fault. It was just how things were. Wasn't it?
She was crying, though, Agatha was right about that. A hand first offered a lace handkerchief out to her, which she graciously accepted and used to dab at the beading tears which threatened at any moment to burst through the weakening dams of her eyelids and flood forth. She caught eyes with Agatha, then, and saw pity within hers. This made it harder to keep herself from weeping, and then she couldn't anymore.
It was a pathetic sound she made, in the common occasions when she cried: a sound that despite its repeated occurrences, had quite rarely graced the ears of any but herself. She hated it, though, the way she hyperventilated breaths in and out of her quivering and choked throat and the raspy noise it made when she strained to let those anguished whines come free. It was a palpably reluctant affair, any time Constanze cried, and now Agatha was privy to it all.
The to-be-wed pulled the to-be-dead into her best attempt at a comforting embrace. Her best was rather good, admittedly, and immediately she felt a trembling wash of warmth fall over her quivering body. Her dress and body were just as soft as she'd imagined while lying in bed while staring at the canopy. So tender, feeling so safe, that she let her portcullis rise for just a moment: long enough, however, to say something she'd regret for ages to come.
"I love you."
"Don't you believe me?"
In that moment, Constanze found it hard to. Everything the Countess had told her in the months since they'd met had come crashing down with three words: a declaration that what she thought her life would be from then on would be no more. Her Lady approached her, then, gently lifting her skirts within her painted clutch.
"I love you very much, my little rose. And I do not intend for this to change anyth--"
"Are you kidding? It changes everything!" she spat, stepping back and away from the highborn. Her sudden hostility had a palpable effect on the Coun-- no, Lucrèce, she wouldn't give her any power here-- an effect that showed in the creasing of her brows and the twitching of her lips. Constanze was familiar with the expression, because she made it rather often: whenever her food wasn't cooked correctly, or she didn't like the grape harvest, or Constanze acted in a way she didn't approve of. She could reasonably assume the contortion of her features was prompted by the lattermost occurrence.
"... Constanze. You know I don't like it when you raise your voice."
"Well, I'm fucking upset, so I have every right to raise my damned voice."
"I simply don't see what you're so upset about. Nothing will be different."
Those elaborately-decorated nails of hers scraped against her cheek, and then clutched her face in another familiar gesture of possession. She didn't let it linger, though, and she flung herself backward with a guttural hiss and a fire burning in her chest.
"Everything will be different. You'll marry some poncely lord and then I'll just be your toy. I'll just be second to him, and-- I won't matter anymore. This was your intention all along, wasn't it? For me to-- entertain you, until you were ready to marry."
The pity in her eyes was one she'd seen time and time again: when the doctor woke her up after her fall, when the huntmaster found her after the first night, the last time she'd seen Her, too.
"Do you even love me?"
She took quite a while to speak. In reality, it was only a hesitation, but the opening and prompt closing of her mouth felt like the passing of a generation in its entirety.
"I-- love you as much as anyone could love someone like you." She smiled, sadly.
"I'm sorry."
"If only things were different."
Constanze sat side-by-side with Agatha, now, staring at the floor while she ruminated the results of her unholy confession. It wasn't what she hoped. Then again, when did anything go as she hoped? She took the lace handkerchief and cleaned her face once more. It was alright. She'd be fine. She always came out just-- fine.
Agatha smiled sadly at her, and for a moment it reminded her of a time and place she visited quite often in her nightmares. She couldn't fault her for that, though, just as she couldn't fault her for doing her duty and marrying the Count of Brilonde. Even if she could wager that she wouldn't be happy, what did it matter? What sort of gambling reward did she have to win, but simple vindication and validation that her feelings were correct? At the cost of her dear friend's feelings and happiness. She watched the Anglian simply leave the house thereafter, offering a brief embrace in farewell, and Constanze was left with nothing but her liquor and her empty home and a nagging, insidious feeling in her core.
She was in love with Agatha: or an idea of Agatha, a sort of hollow silhouette she'd woven from threads of past heartbreak and unrequited feelings for fair faces and bodies she'd gazed at longingly before. A simple sleeve that fit anyone sweet and willing to speak to the fractured failure she was, and one that matched Agatha very well at the time. She was a beautiful idea, but an idea nonetheless, and ideas are only good company for lonesome thoughts.
Constanze stood and took the usual walk to her liquor cabinet. Her eyes were dry, but her mind was made.
She would never be second again.
