The Woman Beneath Steel

"What's your explanation this time, stupid brother of mine?"

The man before you was pitiful; Downcast eyes and hair mussed to an unsalvageable mess with dirt and mud. Though he may not look the part, he was one of the more prominent members of Luna's College and an active figure in various academic ventures. From the codification of new knowledge, to the archaelogical pursuit of knowledge long since lost, his name could easily be found in any number of rosters. Some would even respect him as a swiftly rising paragon of information... An impressive feat, for a man who had none of Luna's favour to speak of.

"...I forgot something." He admitted, running his hand back through blonde locks as a nervous habit and receiving a palm full of muck for his trouble. "...And because of it, I made a minor misjudgement-"

"You woke up the Guardian of a fucking Atelier!"
"-And woke up the Guardian of an Atelier."

You interjectedly sharply, drawing a lame agreement from him as he closed his crimson eyes with a sigh. "It's not the aggressive sort, though. It should return to sleep in a few decades, without causing any trouble. No harm done."

The sound of someone's skull being smacked with the flat end of a lance filled the ensuing silence.

"Stupid! You almost died!"
"I had an escape plan-"
"You were pinned under a fucking golem! Idiot!"
"It wasn't as bad as it looked-"
"Who in Shade's name goes into an Atelier on their own?!"
"Clara-"
"Dumbass!"

You are Clara Valen, and it would be nightfall before you were finished physically beating some sense into this stupid brother of yours. The sweat would hide the tears, because this wasn't the first time you had almost lost him to some stupid exploration he had gotten it in his mind to bound off to, and it wasn't the first time he had needed to be saved. It had been too long since his last venture, which had led to you keeping an increasingly vigilant eye on his activities... Which was the sole reason you had managed to arrive in time to distract the Guardian he had roused long enough to escape.

Even a minute later, and...

"What do you think we're going to do if you die! You're the Heir!"
"I'm sure you could-"
"Moron!"

You hit him again for good measure, voice cracking dangerously towards the end of your rebuttal of his failed attempts to appease. Your jaw snapped shut, staring down at the throttled figure of your (slightly) older brother in suspicious search of some sign that he had caught that small break. Even in the dim lighting, you could make out the fondness in the apologetic smile that was starting to creep across his face, and it was an infuriating sign that he had.

You wouldn't speak a single word to him for the following week.
____

"Clara, calm down-"
"I am calm."
"...Then put the bottle down, and let's go talk to father about this."
"No."

Your brother had been away on business until quite recently. In fact, he was completely outside of La'Fiel until a couple days ago, if you deigned to believe his haggard appearance and explanation. You could hazard a fair guess at what brought him flying back, but how he had managed to end up in a pub with you was a circumstance that left a smouldering irritation in the pit of your stomach.

Either that, or the copious amounts of alcohol you had been tossing back ever since he walked through the door.

"There has to be a misunderstanding, sister. Surely we can discuss the matter with our parents and get this resolved?"

"I am resolving it." You bit back stubbornly. "Left a formal declaration in my room before I left."

"Right..." He swirled his own, mostly untouched, drink in his mug as he muttered that. He was never one for any kind of drink, so it was no surprise he had been hesitant to sip at it. "...I can't talk you out of this, can I?" The question was mere rhetoric, and one that you didn't bother to acknowledge beyond draining more of the swill from your mug. "Didn't think so. Only thing left to do is help, then."

"You're not coming with me." You shoot him down immediately, mug slamming down unto the table. "You can't even hold your own against those paperweights in Luna's College, you would just slow me down."

"I know." His hands raised to fend off your ire, "I didn't plan to go with you, but I can still help. I can point you in the right direction, at least."

"Direction...?"

"Unless you'd rather wander East Heaven's forests aimlessly." he laughed dryly, "I had a couple associates get together information on their movements in the past few months. You're going after a Nightmare, aren't you?"

"How did you-"

"Because you're my little sister. It's been your favorite creature since we were little, there's nothing else you would settle for."

Your lips pursed wordlessly, feeling the heat of the pub properly for the first time since you sat down. Whether it was the stuffy environment, the alcohol, or something else entirely, you felt your face flush uncomfortably.

"...That's also how I knew where to find you. This is the last town between La'Fiel and East Heaven's border."

"..." Your frown set further as more unnecessary information made its way unbidden from your brother. For all his failures, he was someone who would remember things like this at the worst of times. "...Thanks."

"In the meantime, I'll go home and talk to mother and father about this. They've done nothing but worry since you left... And deploy a nation wide search party."

"Maybe they shouldn't have tried to arrange a marriage and drop it on me, then." You hiss back, drinking deeply from your emptying mug. The cup bottomed up, its contents draining down your throat tastelessly; You were drinking out of anger, rather than any sense of taste. "If they're going to try and run my life, I'll take the Rite and be my own woman. Fuck 'em."

"...Well perhaps if you didn't scare away all of your prospects-"
"Say that again?"
"..."
"Didn't think so. Not like you've got any hope either, buried up to your brows in books. Why aren't they trying to marry you off?"
"Actually..."

You stared at your brother in disbelief for a long moment before trying to take another swig... Only to remember your cup was empty.

"Unbelievable. How did you of all people- No." The cup dropped numbly from your fingers, a feeling of dread crawling up your throat. "It's not her, is it?"

"I can't think of anyone I'd rather spend my life with."

Whether it was the alcohol, the disgust at how cheesy your brother's confession was, or something else entirely, the dread finally finished crawling up your throat and left you violently retching the contents from your stomach onto the floor.

"This is what you get for drinking so much your first time..."

You had never been one for alcohol either.
____

You hated that woman.

At a glance she fit into the family perfectly, lacking only the tell-tale crimson eyes that marked Valen's bloodline. Side by side, the two of you could easily be mistaken for sisters from behind; A fact that led to nothing but trouble as the two of you clashed. She was trouble. Where your brother was an idiot, this woman seemed to deliberately court disaster without a care. At least Prias only fell into dangerous situations due to his clutziness! This woman - His Fiance, soon to be wife - All but planned the exact way she would dive head long into the fire.

You wonder if perhaps she had just mistaken your brother's habit of ending up in life threatening circumstances as a kindred spirit, rather than recognize it as incompetence.

She was narcissism and chaos incarnate. A terrific woman in the most literal sense of the word. Her involvement in something alone was the surest sign that something was going to blow up in someone's face along the way. With a serpent's tongue and enough venom to rival a viper, she was the kind of woman who personified the concept of Mutally Assured Destruction when pushed to the edge.

At first it had taken you back. You had misjudged her, thought her harmless and simple to brush aside. Someone with more ego than worth.

You had learned since then.

If anyone had any hope of actually opposing the damned woman, they needed to be resolved from the start to accept a 'Scorched Earth' outcome. There was no victory to be had in competition against her, nor rewards that could be gleaned, because she would make certain that anything she couldn't have would be worthless to anyone else.

It was fortunate, then, that the only reward you needed in opposing this unrepentant bitch was the satisfaction of shutting her down.

"Good morning, Clara."
"It was until you showed up."

Your soon to be sister-in-law smiled at you, receiving a grimace in turn.

This greeting had long become routine.
____

You met each other saving that idiot brother of yours. Then again, and again, and again.

If you had been better at reading people, maybe you'd have realized sooner that the common factor of late had been her presence. It took you too long, though. By the time you had realized she had been using your brother's clout to get these expeditions and experiments supported, he had already fallen for her. Part of you bitterly hoped that he broke his own neck with how hard that fool fell.

Frustratingly, she knew the extent of your strengths and weaknesses long before you even recognize her as an enemy. You had even made a point of saving her from the traps and enemies which inevitably were drawn to her. If you thought about it for too long, it became clear that she had been making use of you as well... So you pointedly did not think overlong about it.

Unlike your fool brother, you knew your limits though. As much as you'd prefer to take her to sword and end it once and for all, this woman had done nothing expressly... Wrong. Her battlefield was one of double meanings and implications; Precise rhetoric that tore out the ground beneath you and loosed a metaphorical poison into your veins. It was politic and socialization, and it was a stage which you'd never had talent for, nor interest in.

Until now.

Where you lacked the sheer finesse and skill that she wielded, you had the Valen name to back you. A veritable titan of force that more than made up for the delicacies which you lacked. It was enough to even the playing field - Or at least... Enough to give you a foothold. You stepped onto the stage your parents had long labored to try and groom you for, giving them great delight in your sudden change of heart.

Pity that your sole motivation for taking part was this roiling pit of spite.

At first your brother had tried to mediate. Between his sister and his wife, the kind of tension that was rising put him in a position no one could rightly envy... But you had little interest in his ails. Stopping that woman's plans would keep him safe, and that was what mattered. If he complained, you'd hear none of it. She would undoubtedly try to use him to needle your resolve away. You were prepared for any number of ways she would try to undermine your efforts; It would be too late before she realized that you had already dug in your heels to declare war against her.

At first victory was sweet. Then bittersweet. Eventually hollow. Raw influence could only get you so far, and her experience quickly made up the difference. You learned desperately, soaking in every trick or tactic you could in order to try and catch up to the league that woman stood in so daringly. Put in a position where you had little to lose, you raked over every 'defeat' to find where you had gone wrong. Where that woman had tripped you up or gotten what she wanted.

She occupied your thoughts so persistently that rumours of the saphic sort inevitably began to crop up. The notion would have been laughable, if they didn't make your stomach churn in disgust. You should have seen it coming. You already knew the kind of woman you were opposing.

"Good morning, lover."
"It was until you showed up."

Your soon to be sister in law one-sidedly called out to you, receiving a grimace in return.

This greeting would cause problems for months to come.
____

Using your family name so flagrantly would eventually catch up to you. Where you had been focused on stopping that woman, people far more dangerous than her had been watching and waiting. Even if you would never admit it, your fixation on opposing that woman was little more than a childish tantrum, and one that players in a game you never knew existed would hardly let pass without incident.

Just because the Valen name was powerful, didn't mean it was invincible. You knew well enough from your martial endeavours, that the strong attracted two kinds of people in droves: Those strong enough to contend, and those weak enough to scheme. You knew it, but you had never truly considered this stage of wordplay and favours to be anything more than a stupid game.

When you had been trapped by your own wreckless pursuit, she had stepped in with the same reckless air as always. Word for word, commanded an assembly of people whose station in La'Fiel far exceeded her own, and with the self-same venom you had grown accustomed to fending off, all but dared them to continue.

Your sister in law was not a strong woman. If put into a situation where she would be forced to fight, she would lose. Even on this stage, if it came down to a matter of throwing one's resources around as weight, there was little doubt that she would be brushed aside...  But she knew people, and she knew the field she walked. The power of society was a fickle one, and fundamentally different from martial prowess. No man was an island, and injuries could be inflicted in ways beyond simple healing.

"Let's go home, lover."
"..."

She was a terrifying woman, most of all. One who embodied MAD more than anyone else. To the strongest names in the country, she represented nothing short of Pyrrhic Victory. It was certain that she would lose, she was an unimportant piece in the larger picture... But the cost of putting down the viper was to take its venom.
____

Your brother and his fiance were up to something in the Northern Wastes.

You don't know what, but you doubted it was any good. They had slipped this by you while you were distracted by an aquaintance you met during your Rite, and by the time you realized what was going on... It was too late to stop. Given that it was too late to stand in its way, you were left in the unenviable situation of trying to pick up the pieces in the meantime.

Confronting your brother about it had been little more than a formality. You knew you couldn't talk him out of these expeditions, and that woman was just as stubborn in her pursuit of whatever pointless academia they were in search of. You knew that... So that's why the only thing you could do now was help them.

There was only so long the heir to House Valen could be out of the country without someone taking notice... Unless you gave them something else to pay attention to. You had actually been planning to keep this quiet, but...

Well, the world had to know you were getting married eventually.

Pity the world would know before your soon to be husband.
____

You were married.

The plans proceeded faster than expected once you had announced your engagement, to the point that you had actually started trying to dig your heels in and slow down the ceremony itself with everything you could manage. It was supposed to distract the annoyances in La'Fiel, not send you hurdling down the slope of matrimony as break neck speeds.

She owed you for this. You had planned on this happening eventually, but under your own terms.... Not as the public spectacle of La'Fiel.

You only just barely managed to stretch the schedule out long enough for their expeditions to finish, and if you had to sit through another 'talk' with your mother about how to calm one's cold feet then you were just dropping the family name altogether and moving to East Heaven. Or Teranford. Or anywhere but here, really.

It wasn't as if you were even nervous about what was coming; You had been wracking your mind for weeks to find some new, unimportant nitpick to buy them more time, and you damn well hope she was grateful for the trouble you had to go through to do it. When all was said and done though, you... You were happy about it. It was less intimidating when it hadn't been such a big deal to everyone, but you sort of understood now what your brother had meant by not wanting to spend his life with anyone else.

And from the front of the crowd, as the ceremony came to an end, you saw them arriving just in time to catch the tail end. It had been stressful, but you finally paid your brother back for that favour back when you were younger... And more importantly.

You flashed your ring subtly, smugly catching the eyes of your soon to be sister-in-law.
"Guess I crossed the finish line first?"

You had the perfect opportunity to show up that woman.

"Oh? From here it looks like you're the one losing?"

What?

Your confidence faltered briefly, scanning over her for some sign of what she was talking about. She had been engaged for years now, there's no way she couldn't be jealous that you... Beat... Her.

Why was she rubbing her stomach.
____

You hate that woman.

You had stopped at nothing to beat her to the punch, and had even succeeded in producing an heir first. Two days! Two days ahead of her! There wasn't anything she could do to take this from you!

And then she had twins.

How did twins even fit in there?!
____

Your brother was officially head of House Valen.

You were married.

You both had kids.

Aside from East Heaven closing its borders unexpectedly, things seemed like they were going to be flowing smoothly for a while. You couldn't quite resist the urge to breathe out a sigh of relief at that, and wonder if maybe the excitement of your youth was finally over.

You were older now. More refined. Your presence on that political stage had gained credence, and you had gained experience which you had once sorely lacked... Though you still cared little for their games. Your one and only purpose in having stepped up back then was to make your sister-in-law's life difficult, the petty disputes of nobles and royalty were a waste of time you could better spend training or handling local issues.

It wasn't as if House Valen was going to be in any trouble, since that once inconsequential viper of a woman now walked the stage with the full grandeur of House Valen at her disposal. Rather than a snake, it might be more accurate to call the woman a damned Basilisk at this point.

But it seemed that motherhood had served to curb her recklessness. She hadn't shown any inclination to pursue her usual chaotic hobbies since she had gotten pregnant... If anything, that woman had unexpectedly taken to the role of a stay at home mother. She would spend weeks at a time doing little more than watch her children, reading to them, patiently teaching and playing with them; It was a far cry from the woman you used to consider your own personal menace.

But at times, you wonder if all of her troublesome traits had truly receded. Undeniably she was a loving mother, attentive and doting to a fault...

...You suppose you were just used to being suspicious of her.

Old habits died hard.
____

Eight years of peace.

That was all it took for your guard to drop, and your attention to wander. Almost as if to punish you for your hubris, life deemed in time to hit you with all the force of a charging behemoth.

More accurately, it hit your brother and his family. Their trip to Teranford was supposed to be a diplomatic one, just a simple visit to check on their refugee problem and introduce the kids.

That's all.

That's all that was supposed to happen.

Then why...

Why did it end like this?
____

You heard that hate and love were two sides of the same coin.

Every day they grew older, more and more of that woman's traits shown through. They were the spitting image of the woman you had spent so long hating, and even their tone started to overlap here and there. Maybe it was because you weren't on equal footing anymore, but that familiar attitude failed to elicit the agitation it once had, once upon a time.

You honestly had no idea how to help them, because even as a child they took after That Woman; What should have been a simple matter left you feeling lost. You had no idea how to approach them, or what to say. The innerworkings of That Woman had eluded you to the very last moment, and this treasure she left behind was all but a black box to you.

All you knew was that Irue Valen was all that remained of your brother and that damnable woman.

You ignored the ache in your chest as you left the child and their maid-friend to your brother's old house. They took your departure as they typically did; A smile with arrogance that grew each day, and a familiar fierce sheen in their crimson eyes.

...It hurt to admit that you actually missed that woman.

So you wouldn't.
____

Years passed and the situation in La'Fiel was only getting worse.

At this point, a tipping point was rapidly approaching. Byrn and you had managed to hold a status quo so far, but the strain between the royals and nobility grew tauter with every passing week, and your ability to mediate it was starting to thin. Something was coming, and you weren't confident that coming out of it unscathed would be possible.

All you could do now was remain a rock to break the tide, and entrust your son to Alouette. Keeping him tied down near the family graves kept him well away from sticking his nose into the stage you had so stupidly stepped into back when your were a child, and if it helped keep Irue out of sight of the vultures then all the better... Was what you had thought originally.

But everything had to end at some point, and you doubted your son would just keep sitting by idly if the royalty kept up its course of dispossessing peasants of their land. You just needed a little more time to distract him from making a nuisance of himself.

...And the moment that stupid son of yours started moving, it would be too late to turn back. Irue needed to be ready to stand on their own before then, even if the only thing they'd seemed keen to do was stay at home and study Mana.

Honestly, for as much as they resembled That Woman, their hobbies were too reminiscient of your brother. You hoped they didn't inherit his damning habit of forgetting things at the worst moment. Still, between the two parents, it was clear who they took after more... And if there was one thing you were confident in, it was needling that woman into action. You needed something that would light a fire under Irue; Something to convince them into moving on their own, so that stubborn nature would do the rest of the job for you.

And you had just the thing.