Private Tales Veiled Reminiscence

[Ysobel]

Nightmares had become the unwelcome guest in my life.
Tormenting me night after night the moment I surrendered to slumber’s warm embrace.
And when closing my eyes, I signed the contract with the nightmare. ​

For several weeks, Ysobel’s life had been a living hell. Every night she was ripped from her beautiful dreams- dreams of the life she shared with the man beside her, dreams of the child inside with its wild red hair and eyes of shimmering gold. Dreams of the home she grew up in, the people she loved before the academy.

Dreams which were not dreams. They were monstrous entities concocted from the darkest, shadowy corners of her mind.

Night terrors, they’d been called.

The people she so deeply loved twisted and contorted into grotesque shapes, so vividly sinister, clawed their way further and further into her mind and dragged her into a demented realm- a labyrinth of horrors.

Ripped by a blinding pain, like a hot knife slicing through her brain and a familiar heaviness in her chest, she was sent running from her bed. And every night as she paced the quiet halls of their home, she wondered if she had only dreamt that she awoke screaming, or if Gaage had just become accustomed to the theatrics.

Ysobel would sit on the cold wooden floor, head leaning against the tub in their bathroom after that pain in her head, like talons squeezing at her brain, forced her to retch until she was verging on unconsciousness. Most nights, she would fight through the fog, taking dizzy steps back to their bed where her body now cold and clammy would rejoin Gaage as he slept peacefully. Lying awake, she would count the hours until her throat stopped aching from screams that may have never made it past her lips.

Many times Ysobel contemplated sending word to Perrine once again but most times she had drifted back to sleep before she could make the effort to touch a pen to her parchment. Until a few days ago when she, in all her desperation, scratched up a plea for help- for reassurance, and sent it off with a bird in the middle of the night.

Completely normal. You’ll be fine. The letter, two days later, read. It was only stress. Something Ysobel harbored alone, never wishing to push her problems onto the man she lay with. Some Gaage had figured out and some Ysobel had complained enough about. Missing her friends, feeling nervous. Others…Could remain unsaid. How did you tell the man you loved that you were uncertain about the future- about what he wanted from her. The ‘I love you’s were wonderful. As wonderful as the moments she spent in his arms. But still, just as she had when she first arrived, she wondered if he would ever make the move to have things more…official.

She understood. After Delaney…he was probably frightened. But being with him was possibly the only thing Ysobel did not fear.

She’d told Perrine enough through tear stained letters.

Still, the promises that she was fine were all that Ysobel could hold on to as she clutched either side of the toilet and retched until she was sure her insides were out. Stars twinkled in her eyes and the familiar darkness of her impending unconsciousness crept from the corners of her vision inward. A small trail of vomit lingered just below her lip as she finally fell asleep against the cold hard tub. The pounding in her head, a relentless mockery that she could not escape those shadowy tendrils scraping at the darkest parts of her past.

And the rain pattered gently on the rooftop until the morning.

Gaage Eberwhit

 

[Gaage Eberwhit]

Something had to give.

Things had been relatively quiet since the battle in Vel Farris. Gaage had started taking less assignments from Gilram and instead had shifted his focus to staying home to care for Ysobel through her pregnancy. Zael kept in touch, making sure to visit and check up on the two of them regularly, and Perrine had kept in contact with Ysobel, as far as Gaage could tell.

It should have been a reprieve from the chaos that had defined both of their lives for so damned long, a well-deserved break for them to take care of themselves for once. And at first, it was. Those first few weeks of living with Ysobel without all of the stress of missions or work had been incredible, full of laughs, love, and a peace Eberwhit had never known before.

But things were starting to fall apart. Ysobel was starting to fall apart.

She didn't want him to know, she tried her best to conceal the worst of it from him, but it was difficult to hide a struggle of that magnitude with the man you slept beside every night. She would awake almost every night, either short of breath or with a sharp cry. She would pace the house into the early morning hours, retching intermittently into the commode before crawling back to bed in a whimpering heap. At first, Gaage had convinced himself it was merely the side-effects of a troublesome pregnancy entering it's latter half. Perrine had pulled him aside and given him an idea of what to expect, after all.

This was too intense, though, too frequent. It didn't add up, and with every passing day, he grew more concerned. As much as Yoh didn't wish to feel as though she was burdening him with her problems, Gaage wasn't about to allow her to drive herself to madness or death because she wanted to protect him. He wasn't going to turn a blind eye to her problems. Last time he'd done that, he'd been left behind.

Ysobel deserved better.

So when morning came after this latest hellish night, Ysobel would not awaken alone on the cold floor of the bathroom. She'd been cleaned of her sick and swaddled in the sheets, her head propped by pillows against the headboard with the sound of cooking meat wafting in from the kitchen. Gaage had found her, at that lowest point. There would be no more hiding the depths of her despair from him. Today, she would need face him with the truth.

"Yoh, you up?" Gaage poked his head in the door, slight bags under his eyes.

Ysobel

 

[Ysobel]

Her nightly activities knocked her out.

She hadn't realized she had been moved from her spot against the tub and wrapped gently in their fluffy down blanket until the heat of the rising sun peeked in through the windows and settled on her face. She groaned quietly and rolled over to her other side, where she could enjoy the feeling of its warmth on her bare back. From the doorway she could hear the sizzle of whatever Gaage had been making for breakfast as well as him as he moved from one room to the next- perhaps sensing that the quiet room had been disturbed at last.

Her eyes fluttered open to the sound of his voice although she did not immediately answer him. She knew the questions he had. The answers she did not want to share, did not want to inconvenience him with. So she sent one arm to the bedside table and pulled out that crumpled up letter from Perrine- the one that said she was fine- and tossed it his way.

Just after, she followed and propped herself up on her elbows so she could study him. The dark circles. Disheveled clothes. Messy hair. Ysobel frowned. He must not have gone back to sleep after picking me up. She figured based on the state of him. Still, she took a moment to decide what to say. Decide if she would give him a simple 'yes' or begin an onslaught of apologies until he was too confused to prod further into the wreckage that she had been.

A sigh. "I am." She brushed a wave of golden hair away from her face and tucked it behind her ear. It stayed only a moment before falling back in her face. "I'm sorry about last night. I wasn't feeling well. I have already spoken with Perrine about it though. It will get better." She felt bad, as though she was lying to his face because she truly had no idea if she was being honest. The letter said it, but that did not make it true.

Her stomach growled and soon that familiar pain that served to remind her of her last meal- last digested meal- being sometime the previous morning crept up. She pushed the duvet off of her and over to their dresser and threw on a robe. Her movement, despite the exhaustion in her face, the lack of nutrients in her body, and the accumulation of sleepless nights, was still as graceful as Ysobel had ever been. A little bounce in her step as always. She made it to the door and wrapped her arms around him, kissing as high up as her head reached and then pushed past to the kitchen. A clumsy attempt at dodging his impending interrogation.

At least hers ended in handcuffs.

"What are you making?"

 

[Gaage Eberwhit]

Gaage's eyes followed Ysobel as she sprang from the bed with as much vigor as she could muster. One could definitely make the argument that Gaage was a bit thick-headed, but even he couldn't miss the discomfort that was so obviously present in nearly every movement she made, the way her face would just barely avoid wincing as she bounced, the way her eyes had darkened and bagged, even as they looked into his with that same love they always had.

"Got some pretty nice cuts yesterday, turned it into sausage..." He answered, his hands slowly raising up to hold her by the waist. Gaage's touch was gentle, as if he was afraid he may actually break her if he put the slightest bit of pressure on her bones.

"You haven't been eating well, so I thought maybe something fresher than usual could help you out." Watching Ysobel waste away was bad enough, but knowing that she should have been eating for two was more distressing. The child wasn't even born yet, and already he was feeling paranoid over its safety.

Ysobel seemed to sense this worry, and quickly detached herself, attempting to slink past him to the kitchen before he could speak another sentence. She succeeded too, the slick little minx, Gaage tried to shift his body, but she was already trotting off toward the smell of cooking meats. Eberwhit felt his lips purse and stepped out to follow her.

She wasn't getting away from this. It wasn't nearly as simple as she was making it sound.

"It isn't just last night, Yoh. This has been an almost every night thing, and it's getting worse." He was only going to let this slide for so long. Moving over to where the meat was cooking, he took it off of the heat and began to cut it into portions, keeping one eye to the side and trained on her all the while. "Look, I understand you trust Perrine, but she's not here looking at you, and I am. Every day we wake up you're looking weaker, and half the time you barely sleep."

Gaage places the plate in front of her with a sigh, fresh cut veggies with equally fresh cooked meat. Sitting across from her, he leans on the table with his elbows and rests his chin on his hands.

"I'm worried about you."

Ysobel

 

[Ysobel]

She found it difficult to make eye contact with the sudden interrogation she seemed to be a key member of. Instead, she stared out the windows and watched the sun's rays catch the morning dew on the grass. Feeling backed into a corner, she wished she had made the effort to open the window and let the balmy spring breeze in so she didn't feel so suffocated when all he wanted was to make sure she was alright. "You know I do eat. A lot actually." As if her words mattered, knowing that nearly everything that entered her mouth left the same way.

"You saw the note, she says its normal." Ysobel stabbed a fork into a piece of cut meat. "I'm just trying to ride it out until..." She paused. Until I can't. She wouldn't dare say those words, but her eyes seemed to water. "Until it gets better." She offered a small, forced smile and shoved the meat into her mouth.

She felt his eyes linger on her, burning holes in her skin as though he could burrow inside and see what she withheld from him. The words she moved around to give him a better sense of security. The ways she twisted the truth into her truth. Guilt ate at her very soul until she looked like she might throw up once again. This time from all the bad thoughts swirling around her head instead of the ceaseless terrors.

I'm worried about you.

Me too.

She set her fork on the table and stared at the food for a long while, thinking of what she might say. What she could say to him while knowing nothing herself.

"I think...that this is an unfamiliar territory for both of us." But I don't want you worrying yourself sick over me. "And...I have been nightmares lately. They are so vivid, so real, so dark. Haunting and terrifying. They wake me up every time with a splintering headache. It feels like someone is driving a dagger into my skull some nights." Her voice was soft and although there was no emotion on her face as she spoke, seemingly lost trying to recall the dreams, a few tears formed in her eyes. "And I try so hard to remember the dreams and the people in them...I know my family is there, but I have forgotten their faces. It is like they are strangers.

"The faces are blurred and I am scared that I am forgetting them and losing a part of me that I cherished so deeply all my life." She blinked and life seemed to flow back into her face. She wiped her eyes with the sleeves of her robe and picked up her fork again. "I am sorry for worrying you. That is the last thing I have wanted to do and I hope it doesn't make things worse when I say I would like to visit my home while I still have time left." Her phrasing was poor, she made no attempt to correct it.

Gaage Eberwhit

 

[Gaage Eberwhit]

Gaage didn't make any attempt to interrupt or correct her. There was a time when Ysobel wouldn't get much of a chance to get a word in edgewise with him, when the chaotic energy between them would have caused this conversation to devolve into an argument. The fact that Gaage had changed so much in the last few months wasn't nearly as scary as the fact that he could recognize his change.

The man who had once been so braggadocious, arrogant, and violent sat patiently across from his lover, eating his breakfast while keeping his eyes trained gently on her own. The world around him had forced change, the violence and hatred of the war raging outside of their home had sapped the urge to hurt from his own veins. All that mattered now was her, and the child she bore.

His family.

A pained smile crossed his lips as she grew emotional, not of joy or happiness, but sympathy. Gaage understood her pain. In a way that he hadn't been able to before. Ysobel was so determined to be strong for the both of them, to hide her agony from Gaage's view. She didn't realize that the red-headed man sitting across from her could feel her pain. When she ached, he ached himself. When she cried, it took all the might that the Academy had instilled in him not to do the same.

Because he loved her so, and it hurt to watch her suffer.

"Yoh..." Gaage sighed over his food, dropping his fork and bridging his hands. "Ysobel. Everything that I've done since we reunited has been for you and you alone. All of it. This house, the battle at Vel Farris, Zael... leaving. I endure it, because I know I can fall back on you. You're the only anchor I have left."

Admittedly, that was his own fault. He'd shed any other connections, any other friends he had left. Eberwhit unlooped a pointer finger and pointed it her way, raising an eyebrow.

"But that doesn't mean I have to be your only support. I haven't forgotten what you've done, or the sacrifices you've made. All the pain you've endured for me..."

Eberwhit paused, lowering his hands to the table, and letting his eyes roam the wooden surface as he mulled over his thoughts. There was only one answer, one thing he could think to do that was the right thing to do.

"You're going home. You deserve to see the people you love while you can."

He picked up his fork and resumed eating, adding as though it were nothing:

"And I'm coming with you."

Ysobel

 

[Ysobel]

"So you tell me," She wiped more at her eyes with her sleeve. "I know that I am your anchor and I don't wish to change that. I just need you to be mine as well." The words came out almost bitterly, as if to suggest she had been suffering alone the whole time. Her emotions had never been easy to regulate, but now it was much harder for her to control. She often found herself letting words slip by that she never meant. Things that would hurt feelings. She never wished to do that to him, but she struggled to find the correct words to portray how she felt. "I know I find it hard to ask for help from you sometimes. To beg you to stop being gone for so long and just stay with me. And I suppose you have been around much more lately, so I don't need to beg for that. I just..." She trailed off, letting him speak again.

You're going home. You deserve to see the people you love while you can...

"I..." She knew the second half of what he said was impossible. The thought, the blurry memories of it all made her feel ill. The color draining from her face would tell him as much- a reminder of what she thought he would have inferred from their first mission together, in the moments they mocked one another for the equally bizarre names they were given.

“If you have an issue with my name, you can take it up with my parents…oh, wait." Such a memory still passed through her thoughts from time to time, but she never realized he really didn't know.

"Gaage, honey..." She reached her hands out and pulled his into hers. "They've been dead since the day the Dreadlords took me." She forced that smile back onto her face, but it was impossible to hide the sadness in her eyes. Although she could no longer recall their names and faces, she was absolutely sure about that fact. She would be going to her home, empty and rotting from the years of neglect.

But she would be going to her home.

"Regardless, I would be honored if you would accompany me. I could not think of anyone else I would like to share these memories with." The tears came back into her eyes. She wondered if they, her family, still lingered there as spirits. If she would feel their presence and share the changes in her life with them. Share that she was starting her own family- something she had always wanted. And although it was not the timing she had expected, and something she often did not portray very well, she was excited. Excited to see if the child, which she often referred to as her son, would have Gaage's fiery red hair or if it would be like Ysobel's golden wheaty locks. Not that she'd care either way. She knew she would love them either way. And it would be worth the pain, the enduring, and the changes they were forced to adapt to.

"How soon can we leave? I think it best we not put this off too long."

Gaage Eberwhit

 

[Gaage Eberwhit]

There was some visible confusion on Eberwhit's face as his love reached across the table and cupped his unshaven jaw in her hands. He looked up at her with a bemused expression, letting his fork fall back down onto the table as the flurry of emotions running across her face stole his attention away from his meal. Had he said something weird? He didn't think so, but... hell, it was pretty early, and a good breakfast always had him feeling a certain way.

"They've been dead since the day the Dreadlords took me."

Oh.

His eyes went as wide as the saucer his food was on. He'd misunderstood what she'd meant by 'home'. Gaage had thought she meant returning to the Academy, to see the people she'd left behind to be with him. That had been the only home that Gaage had ever had before this one, after all. How could he be blamed for forgetting that many of them had been with real families before being taken away?

He scolded himself silently, cringing at his own mistake as he leaned his cheek into her palm. "I'm sorry Yoh, I..." Awkwardly, he cleared his throat. "I wasn't thinking correctly. I knew that..." If Ysobel still had her parents, she would have mentioned them to him by now. It wasn't hard to figure out what had happened. Especially given the time period in which she was taken...

Honestly, that was all the motive she'd need to lash out against Vel Anir. If she wanted to help Gilram, she had better reason than he did.

But he understood now, what she wanted to do. No, what she needed to do. The deviation from what he'd thought she desired didn't change the fact that he was going with her. Now, he had even more reason to. After all, these people would have been his family too, eventually, whenever he finally worked up the nerve to ask Ysobel that question.

Eberwhit didn't let her tears linger long. He leaned in and stole her lips, his hand sliding to run through her platinum tresses, resting on her back of her head as he pulled away mere inches.

"I'm ready whenever you are, Yoh. I'll follow you wherever you go."

Ysobel

 

[Ysobel]

"It's okay." Her eyes still held that sadness but it was not his burden to bear. His apologies and suffering wouldn't bring them back. It wouldn't fix that hole in her heart that could not be mended with vague memories and hazy faces. But she didn't blame him for trying, nor did she hold onto any bitterness and rage that she should have. She just felt heavy as he agreed.

Perhaps it was grief rearing its ugly head now that she had the time to experience it without the threat of being beat. The time to process what she could say aloud, but never believe in her heart.

So when he agreed, ready to leave on a whim as long as she wished for it, Ysobel cried. Cried for entirely too long, refusing to let go of Gaage until their food had gone cold and even after she still did not let go.

---

Ysobel had not brought anything with her when she fled from the Academy. She had little to pack over the two days before she wished to set off, save for some clothing that Gaage had brought back from one of his many excursions and the last of her chocolates from Perrine Urahil. She ate a quarter of them, sitting in their bed while she waited for him to finish packing.

They had an hour, maybe an hour and a half before a carriage would arrive for them. Ysobel suggested they take their own horses, but felt his glare of disapproval without even a glance in his direction. It's not safe. She mimicked him, obnoxiously, where he could see her from the mirror. She despised the coddling, but knew that he did have a point in the end of whatever lesson he had for her.

So, she agreed. They would take a carriage. He was giving up his time to fuel her crazy ideas. She could give a little control to him as well. Just a sliver.

The time flew by, Ysobel critiquing several things he packed until he took them out and replaced them with items much more suitable for the old farm. She, too, planned to look normal enough that the locals supposed she was a woman from a neighboring farm enjoying the balmy spring air with her husband before they became a young family of three. The crack of a whip and the trotting of horses alerted her and soon they would find themselves crammed into the little carriage and heading home. To her home.

Forty five minutes in, Ysobel was staring at Gaage with an impish look in her eyes and an equally sly smile creeping up on her face.

 

[Gaage Eberwhit]

An impromptu trip to visit Ysobel's childhood home hadn't been in his plans, but then he'd only just now learned of the people who'd initially raised her, of their demise. If he were in her shoes, he would want to do the same thing. Yoh needed this. It was one of the only pieces of closure that she could feasibly reach out and grasp given her situation, one of the only actions she could take to ease her pain without endangering the life of the child she carried.

Gaage had taken so much from her... This was his chance to finally give something back. She deserved it. She deserved so much more than what he could give her. Sitting there and watching her as she sobbed... he only wished he was able to take away that sorrow, that his lips and his touch could rid her of every woe. They couldn't. He wasnt' that powerful. But he could do this much. He could take her home.

---

It felt like it had taken half of the day just convincing her that they probably shouldn't ride in on their own horses with the minimal space to pack and no walls to hide them. It would be faster, and Gaage understood her eagerness, but if they were going to do this, they had to be careful. Miraculously, it was one of the few arguments he could remember winning against her.

She could be very convincing.

Now all that was left to do was wait. Gaage had packed away his essentials, replaced those essentials when Ysobel insisted that he did so, and then squeezed in what he originally planned to take as well when she wasn't looking. She might get a little angry with him later, but they usually had a way of getting over those sorts of arguments pretty quickly...

Even though they were traveling by carriage, Gaage wasn't about to take any chances in returning to a place so close to where he was a wanted criminal. He stole a few minutes to duck away and shave his face, and as they climbed up into the closed compartment of the rather luxurious carriage for hire, he reached behind his head and let his long red hair fall out of the ponytail he'd begun keeping it in.

"See? This ain't so bad, is it?" Gaage sighed as he sat down on one of the cushioned seats, leaning back against the wall. "Plenty of shade, extra legroom..." No interruptions by Gilrams men trying to give him work, he added to himself. Eberwhit hadn't told him he was leaving, or where he was going. This was more important; the war could suck eggs.

Gaage didn't wear his usual clothes, instead, he'd squeezed himself into one of his old shirts from the academy, along with the dusty brown leather jacket he'd worn on his first mission with Ysobel, the one that had ended with him cradling her out of the woods with a couple of hundred volts running through his body.

They were... a little tight. He'd buffed up considerably since then.

It took him a moment to realize that Ysobel was unashamedly admiring that bulk-up. He knew that look.

"So... either you just thought of a killer fuckin' joke..." He started, his own eyes wandering a bit. Pregnancy had changed her, sure, but she still looked like the woman he'd fallen for. "Or I'm in trouble."

Ysobel