ashenscipher | (no subject)

Who: Bitterblue and Po
What: dealing with nightmares
Rating/Warnings: Maybe some warning for mentions of past abuse

The dreams that were made of real memories were terrible. Dreams that her mind conjured up from ideas and imagined fears were awful of course; but, in the end, much more easily dismissed, because they were not real. They had not happened.

The dreams she woke up from that were rediscovered memories were the worst of all. Like bubbles trapped, forgotten in the holes her father left in her mind, finally floating free to burst their heart breaking truth on her consciousness. She never knew when a memory would come back to her, but every time, even in sleep, was like a punch to her stomach.

This was one of those nights.

Bitterblue woke up crying, and when she realized it was more than just a dream, she cried harder. Her father was dead these almost ten years and yet he still managed to cling to the life struggling to rebuild the world upon the unsettling foundation of the ashes of his memory.

All Bitterblue could think was Why? A simple question with no definable answer.

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On the whole, Po had never truly hated his Grace. His mind-reading capabilities had surfaced at an early age: some of his oldest memories were of the visceral moments when he'd been suddenly certain that Skye wanted to throttle him for innocently breaking his toy riding-horse, or when he'd understood beyond a doubt that King Ror was angry with him for making a scene at a diplomatic banquet. In those moments he had always run to the arms of his mother who, upon hearing the source of his terror, would take him into her arms and hold him. Hers had been the most comforting voice of his childhood, shushing him in her low voice and assuring him that his family loved him dearly and would never harm him, even if he was occasionally naughty. As he'd grown from a toddler to a child and learned to climb and ride and fight just like his brothers, he'd learned also how to discern between a meaningless impulse and a true intention; his sobbing moments with his mother had dwindled and eventually stopped completely. These days it was he who would comfort his mother when the queen had worries on her mind; his advice always made her smile, the curve of her lips and the crinkling at the corners of her eyes etched in his mind even when he could no longer see them.

But Po always remembered what a comfort his mother had been to him; even now there was no one in the world whom he trusted more. She had been the one whom he had first told of his relationship with Katsa, and her blessing on their non-marriage had been the first. She had been one of the first people to learn of his activities with the Council, one of the only people whom he'd told of his blindness. Even now, as the queen grew older, Po could hardly conceive of a world without her gentle voice.

And that was perhaps only one of the reasons that two o'clock in the morning found Po creeping like a thief through the halls of Bitterblue's palace in Monsea. He'd wanted to go to sleep, had been planning to get a good few hours before riding out to the tunnel under the mountains into Estil tomorrow. But as he'd been passing beneath Bitterblue's tower to his own guest-room he'd sensed his cousin thrashing in her sleep, then waking up with her body shaking in what could only be tears. He'd imagined the queen alone, always so very alone despite the guards and Helda and a thousand servants. He made a split-second decision that might perhaps have annoyed Bitterblue had she known of it: Bitterblue needed some comfort.

It took only minutes to speak with first Monsean guards and then Lienid guards and gain permission to enter the queen's rooms. The sitting room, neat and cozy, was quite silent. In her rooms, Helda still seemed to be asleep. Po stepped quietly over to the door to Bitterblue's own rooms and knocked.

"Beetle?" he called in a whisper. "It's Po. May I come in?"

Bitterblue was already up at her wash station, to splash water on her face in an attempt to push aside the tears. But when she heard the knock on the door and the voice behind it, she abandoned her futile pursuits, and went immediately to the door.

She threw the door open and barreled into her cousin, wrapping her arms tight around him.

"Oh Po," was all she could sob at first.

But it was good, grounding, to receive the comfort of a friend. Her tears slowed down, and she could breathe again, could speak again.

"I'm sorry to have woken you." She assumed, she didn't know he'd already been up. "You should be sleeping for your travels tomorrow."

Po wrapped his arms tightly around his shaking cousin. She was still so small, even as an adult; so small that she reminded him forcibly of the first time they met. Bitterblue had been shaking then too, from both cold and terror. She had not been crying, not even at the news that her mother was dead, for the grief was still so new as to turn her numb. He'd hugged her on that day too, and then tipped her over his shoulder and fled with her from her father and his mesmerized soldiers. Now he held her against him once again, his fingers rubbing soothing circles into her back. He could feel her rapid pulse and hear her gasping breaths.

"You didn't wake me," he assured her in a quiet voice. "What's wrong? Did you have a nightmare?"

Bitterblue was finding it easier to breathe again. Her cousin's hug grounded her, like all such hugs from her friends. Something about the connection to another person soothed away her fears, especially the one that was always sitting in the back of her mind, the one that said her world was not real. The legacy of her father's abuses.

No, this was real, this moment. Po, her room, she was real.

The dream that was a memory was real as well, but it seemed less terrifying now that Po was here.

She nodded against Po's shoulder. "Yes. But it wasn't just a nightmare, it was a real memory."

One advantage of a mind-reading Grace was knowing when he was being comforting or helpful to his friends. Po could feel clearly that his hug and his words were grounding his cousin; it was important that he keep hugging her until she was feeling less frightened and that he keep talking to her until she could work through what had given her such fright. Bitterblue, as one of the very few people who knew of his Grace, had the option to simply send all of her thoughts directly to his mind and unburden herself without even having to speak. But sometimes, that wasn't necessary; someties, speaking was an important part of processing the fear.

"A memory," he echoed quietly back at his cousin. "Of Leck? Would you like to tell me, Beetle?"

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Eek! I'm sorry for the late reply!