Green Eyes
Sunset’s scroll rang. She pulled it out of her jacket pocket and opened it up. The caller ID read ‘Lady Nikos.’
Even though she hadn’t answered the call yet, the knowledge of who was calling was enough to make Sunset get off Blake’s bed and rise to her feet on reflex.
Blake was the only other person in the dorm room with her; everyone else – on Team SAPR at least – was being either a hindrance or a help in the making of dinner, but Sunset had never cooked for herself in her entire life, and unlike Pyrrha, she had no intention of starting now. Blake seemed to feel the same way, because as Sunset’s scroll buzzed and vibrated in her hand, the princess of Menagerie was able to take a step towards her and crane her head to see who it was.
One black eyebrow rose. “'Lady Nikos'?” she asked.
“It’s Pyrrha’s mother,” Sunset said, as though it ought to have been obvious. It ought to have been obvious.
Blake’s other eyebrow rose to join the first.
“What?” Sunset demanded.
“You have Pyrrha’s mother down in your caller ID as ‘Lady Nikos,’” Blake observed.
“She’s the rightful Empress of Mistral; she deserves a little respect,” Sunset explained tersely.
If Blake’s eyebrows climbed much higher, they were going to disappear completely under her bangs; they were halfway to hidden already. “‘The rightful Empress’?” she repeated, disbelief suffusing her tone.
Sunset rolled her eyes. “If you want to debate my monarchism, then that’s fine, I’ll go some rhetorical rounds with you about it, but can you let me take this call first before my lady starts to think me insolent?”
“Well, we wouldn’t want that, would we?” Blake muttered, not bothering to hide her sarcasm as she turned upon her high-heels and stalked casually out of the dorm room, shutting the door gently behind her.
Sunset tapped the green icon to accept the call. Instantly, the stern, stony face of Lady Nikos appeared on the screen.
Sunset cleared her throat. “I would wish my lady a good evening, save that I fear in Mistral it is already night; I would not expect you to call so late.”
“And I do not wish to inconvenience you by calling too early, Miss Shimmer,” Lady Nikos replied.
Sunset inclined her head. “My lady’s courtesy is appreciated but unnecessary; to speak with you is never burdensome.”
The corners of Lady Nikos’ lips twitched upwards ever so slightly. “There is a fine line, Miss Shimmer, between courtesy and toadying. The latter does not become you.”
“I hope humility becomes me at least a little, my lady, but I take your point and beg your pardon,” Sunset declared. “However, I speak true when I say that you could have called at a more convenient hour; I have not been preoccupied with anything important.”
“You did not have classes today?”
Sunset hesitated for a moment. “We did not, my lady,” she admitted. “We have-”
“Your mission was not completely free of mishap, then, necessitating some time to recuperate,” Lady Nikos observed.
Now it was Sunset’s turn to raise her eyebrows curiously. “You… the word of our mission has spread as far as Mistral?”
“Roman Torchwick, the terror of Vale, has been apprehended by Pyrrha Nikos,” Lady Nikos said. “Did you think that this news would not reach as far as Mistral?”
Of course she gets all the credit. “Pyrrha has done deeds worthy of a hero,” Sunset agreed diplomatically, “but the rest of us were… able to be of some assistance.”
Lady Nikos chuckled. “Your efforts to be humble are unnecessary, Miss Shimmer; you may be honest with me.”
“Then honestly, my lady, I say that Pyrrha has done great things,” Sunset said. “She destroyed an Atlesian war machine single-handed.”
“You mean with her semblance?” Lady Nikos asked.
“Yes, my lady.”
Lady Nikos’ brow, already wrinkled with age, acquired a few more wrinkles out of concern. “Has she begun to use it so recklessly, so frivolously?”
“I am not sure that it can be called either frivolous or reckless to use a semblance such as Pyrrha has been blessed with when confronted with a titan made of metal, my lady,” Sunset suggested.
Lady Nikos snorted. “Against some Atlesian toy, I would have hoped that Pyrrha’s native skill would have sufficed, or is the valour of Mistral fallen so far?”
“Say rather that Atlesian science has advanced so far, my lady, for these particular toys were far from child’s play to deal with,” Sunset insisted. “It took myself, Ruby, and some of our Atlesian allies to deal with one, while Pyrrha destroyed another, as I have told you, by herself.”
“At what cost?” Lady Nikos asked.
Sunset blinked. “I hope my lady does not think me too dull-witted when I say I do not take your meaning.”
“How many people now know of her semblance?” Lady Nikos asked, in a tone that did not quite become a demand but hovered upon the border of it like an army poised to invade.
Ah, now I understand. “Pyrrha’s own teammates and the students of an Atlesian team, Team Rosepetal.”
“You have mentioned Atlesians twice now,” Lady Nikos observed. “I understand it is quite unusual for any training mission to require two teams of students.”
Sunset mulled over her options. She could either say that to attempt the capture of Roman Torchwick was no small thing and that the school authorities had thought it wise to be cautious, or she could tell something a little closer to the official lie. She chuckled in what she hoped was a self-deprecating manner. “In point of fact, my lady, our mission was never to apprehend, or even to attempt the apprehension, of Roman Torchwick and his confederates; our mission was to protect a working crew making repairs to the rail line. When that was done, we found ourselves in the town of Cold Harbour, where we also found our Atlesian friends of Team Rosepetal and decided to travel back to Beacon together. We were both fortunate and unfortunate to be waylaid upon the journey.”
“Indeed,” Lady Nikos said. “There are things you are not telling me, Miss Shimmer.”
“What makes my lady say so?”
“Because I am not an idiot, Miss Shimmer,” Lady Nikos said, her voice acquiring an edge of sharpness. “However, I trust your judgement in this matter, that you would not place Pyrrha in unnecessary danger.”
Sunset bowed her head once more. “I am grateful for my lady’s faith.”
“I am not so sure I trust either your or Pyrrha’s judgement in the matter of her semblance; does she use it openly now?”
“No, my lady, at least not in the sparring ring.”
“But in the field?” Lady Nikos pressed.
“Upon occasion, yes,” Sunset conceded.
“Pyrrha’s semblance is her hidden weapon,” Lady Nikos declared. “A concealed dagger that her enemies know not of. It should not be thrown around in grand displays where Atlesians can see it.”
“Team Rosepetal are to be trusted, if any are,” Sunset said.
“Trust is not the issue,” Lady Nikos said. “Today’s allies may become tomorrow’s enemies when the Vytal Festival begins. It is said that General Ironwood’s students have good mettle in them, for all that their headmaster is rather too in love with metal. Pyrrha may have need of her semblance to overcome them.”
“With…” Sunset trailed off, thinking better of saying ‘with all due respect.’ “My lady, I fear that Pyrrha aims at other things besides a crowning glory.”
“Did it take a great deal of effort for you not to say ‘higher things,’ Miss Shimmer?”
“No, my lady. I confess a Vytal crown glimmers yet in my imagination.”
“But not in Pyrrha’s?”
“I am not sure that she would not welcome it, but she does not esteem it the greatest prize to be won at Beacon.”
“No, that would be the detestable Mister Arc, I suppose.”
“I think it would be to do some act of great benefit to Remnant, such as she – as we – have done in our capture of Torchwick,” Sunset replied. “My lady, if I might advise you, if you were to reconcile yourself to Jaune, it would ease the path of reconciliation with Pyrrha.”
“They are still together, then?”
“If I may venture to say, my lady, they make a handsome pair.” Sunset paused. “If I may venture yet further to the cliff’s edge, Pyrrha will never reconcile with you if you are obstinate in this.”
Lady Nikos was silent for a moment. “Would she speak to me if I were to accept him, such as he is, and unworthy as he is?”
“In matters of the heart, my lady, I do not know that it is wise to talk of worth.”
“Would she speak to me, Miss Shimmer?”
Sunset hesitated. “I fear she requires a little longer yet, my lady. I have urged her, more than once, but she… she, too, is obstinate.”
“Then I will continue to rely on you, Miss Shimmer,” Lady Nikos said. “Please encourage her to limit the use of her semblance, especially in the presence of outsiders.”
“I will… mention it, my lady.”
“Much obliged to you, Miss Shimmer,” Lady Nikos said. She took pause a while. “And how are you?”
“I am well and content, my lady.”
“You may speak honestly,” Lady Nikos urged. “Especially since you have already admitted to me that your mission required some rest afterwards.”
Sunset sighed involuntarily. “Jaune… took a man’s life,” she said.
Lady Nikos was as still as any of the images of her ancestors that filled the garden of her great estate. “I cannot say I like the young man, but nevertheless, I would not wish that upon him,” she confessed. “It is a hard thing to do, and a hard thing, too, to comfort afterwards him who has done it.”
How many times did your husband return from the field in need of such comfort? Sunset wondered but did not ask, for it was not her place to do so. “I endeavoured to point him in the direction of one who could offer him more than comfort, and now…” She wasn’t sure if she ought to tell Lady Nikos that Jaune was getting therapy from Professor Goodwitch; some people had old-fashioned ideas about weakness, and Lady Nikos was nothing if not old fashioned.
“I see,” Lady Nikos said, her voice quiet. “I am glad that the task of comforting him does not fall on Pyrrha alone. And yourself?”
It was all that Sunset could do not to touch her wound. “I… took an injury, my lady.”
Lady Nikos’ green eyes narrowed. “I hope that my faith in you is not already being proven to be misplaced.”
Perhaps she ought to have taken that badly, but it made Sunset smile, at least a little. Even if it did have something of a grimace in it. “I… allowed myself to be struck, my lady.”
“For what purpose did you engage in such lunacy?”
“He – Adam Taurus, of the White Fang – has a sword through which he can absorb attacks without coming to harm,” Sunset explained. “I needed to bury his sword in something so that I could hit him without him being able to negate my assault.”
“And you thought your own flesh was the most suitable sheath for his blade?” Lady Nikos asked, a note of incredulity making her voice tremble. “Are you still in your wits?”
“Perhaps not, where Adam Taurus is concerned,” Sunset admitted. “But it would have been worth it, had I managed to kill him.”
“Why? Who is he to you?”
“He almost killed Ruby at the docks,” Sunset declared. “Now he has almost killed me. I do not mean that he should almost kill Pyrrha.”
“Ah, so it is revenge, I see,” Lady Nikos observed. “That is a duty strongly to be felt, indeed, and worthy of your courteous manner and courtly upbringing.”
“A rather unique reaction, if I may say, my lady.”
Lady Nikos snorted. “I do not say that it will bring you happiness or contentment; I have never had cause to seek bloody vengeance myself, but many are the tales we tell of it in Mistral, and whatever comfort it brings to the avenger seems cold at best. But nevertheless, it… I will not say it must be sought, but I will say that it speaks well of you that you seek after it. But if I may offer you a word of caution, Miss Shimmer?”
“I will receive it gladly, my lady.”
“As I say, we tell many stories of revenge in Mistral,” Lady Nikos said. “As oft as not, they lead the avenger to their grave. I would not have you be amongst their number.”
Sunset blinked rapidly. “Your concern…” She trailed off, and when she spoke again a little of her affect had fallen away. “I am touched, my lady,” she said quietly. “I swear that I do not intend to die in this endeavour.”
“I believe that you do not,” Lady Nikos agreed, “and so I trust that you will choose your path with wisdom, tempering the wrath of Pyrrha’s namesake with the prudence of Penelope. I put my faith in you, Miss Shimmer.”
“And I will be worthy of it, my lady.”
“And now I leave you to your evening,” Lady Nikos said. “Goodnight, Miss Shimmer.”
“Goodnight and farewell, my lady,” Sunset replied as Lady Nikos hung up the call.
Sunset sighed once more as she folded up her scroll and put it back in her pocket, and as she did so, she looked up and saw Pyrrha standing in the doorway, looking at her with green eyes wider than usual.
Sunset felt a coldness in her stomach and a dryness in her throat. “How… how much did you hear of that?”
Pyrrha walked inside and closed the door behind her. “Enough,” she said softly. “My mother trusts you a great deal.”
Sunset didn’t reply. Silence had fallen between the two of them like a rockslide closing up the mouth of a cave. She turned away from Pyrrha and wandered down the room towards the far wall, the wall where they had carved their initials on their first night at Beacon. Sunset held out her hand, and her stuffed unicorn flew into it. She grabbed it by the waist and squeezed it a little bit, glancing down at the glassy eyes and the eternally happy expression.
It was probably inevitable that they should reach this point; Sunset’s decision to take Lady Nikos’ money, to take her sword, to take her part and urge Pyrrha to reconcile with her mother… yes, she should have seen this coming.
Am I the Cadance here?
I hope not.
No, I’m not, because Celestia and I were happy before that interloper came into my life and ruined everything.
Yeah, keep telling yourself that.
Or rather, don’t, because this isn’t about me. This is about Pyrrha.
Sunset turned around, her grip on the stuffed unicorn loosening just a little. “So,” she said, with a slight sigh in her voice. “Are we going to do this now?”
Pyrrha hesitated. “Do… do we have to?”
“If the alternative is you brooding on how much you dislike me, then I’d rather we have a row and get it over with,” Sunset muttered.
“I don’t want to fight, Sunset,” Pyrrha said gently, “and I don’t dislike you, far from it.” She looked away, her eyes turning down towards her scarlet sash, the sash with which both of her gloved hands began to fiddle idly. “It… it might be easier if I did dislike you. My mother… she has approved of people before whom I did not like.”
“The man she wants you to marry?” Sunset guessed.
“Yes, Turnus is one such,” Pyrrha said. She frowned, marring her flawless skin with a momentary wrinkle. “Wants?”
“Hmm?”
“You used the present tense.”
“And you were listening,” Sunset pointed out. “You don’t need me to tell you what she said.”
“I didn’t hear everything,” Pyrrha replied.
“Right,” Sunset said softly. “Sorry. She is… still not entirely reconciled to Jaune, I fear.”
“I see,” Pyrrha whispered. Once more, she fell silent for a little while, her fingers continuing to play with the red sash. “As I said… as I was saying… it might be easier if I disliked you, but… but I don’t. Do you have any idea how hard it is knowing that your mother prefers your best friend to you?”
Sunset’s eyebrows rose in spite of themselves. Her tail straightened out a little behind her. “I’m your best friend?”
“Of course,” Pyrrha murmured. “Who else would it be?”
“Jaune?” Sunset suggested.
“I love Jaune,” Pyrrha replied. “But… anyway, the point is that I’m very fond of you, and that… it means I can’t just dismiss my mother’s affection for you as evidence of her poor judgement, or at least of a judgement that is incompatible with my own.” She began to walk towards the window, until she was standing side on to Sunset, presenting her profile to her team leader as she leaned upon the windowsill. “A judgement that shines on you as… as it has never shone on me.”
“That’s not my fault,” Sunset said quietly.
“No,” Pyrrha agreed. “But it is your nature. Though your name is Sunset, I sometimes think you are more like the rising sun, to which all the flowers turn and open up their petals.” A little melancholy laugh escaped her lips. “Perhaps I ought to thank you for leaving me Jaune.”
“You give yourself far too little credit,” Sunset declared. “Someone like Jaune could never love someone like me.” After all, I loved someone just like him once, and I lost him.
“You’re too kind.”
“I’m honest, when I have cause to be.”
“My mother would call herself honest too, but her honesty is not so kind,” Pyrrha replied. “She… she has never told me that she trusted me, the way that she put her trust in you.” Pyrrha sat down upon the window seat. “She has not armed me with one of the heirlooms of our house.”
“Soteria?” Sunset asked.
Pyrrha nodded, although she still didn’t look at Sunset.
Sunset passed the stuffed unicorn from one hand to another. “Is it…? I didn’t think it was that big a deal.”
“You know that it was carried for my great-great grandfather at the Battle of the Four Sovereigns?”
“By a retainer,” Sunset countered. “It’s not like it’s your great-great grandfather’s sword that I’m carrying around slung across my back. Your mother gave me a bodyguard’s blade; there was a message there that I didn’t need to be a genius to see. At least, that is what I read into it. I think that is all that there should be read into it.”
“Yes,” Pyrrha said, “it is a bodyguard’s blade. But it is a blade that was carried for the last Emperor in the last battle of the last war that Mistral waged as a great empire. With that sword, Achates cut down the Captain of the King’s Guard and his standard bearer before he aimed his stroke at the Last King himself. That sword may not have been wielded by any of my ancestors, but it has a history as storied and as noble as any in the possession of the House of Nikos. And my mother armed you with it.”
“To protect you, in the last resort,” Sunset insisted. “Not that you need it, but…”
“Even so,” Pyrrha murmured. “She armed you with it.”
“Do you want the sword?” Sunset asked. “Because…” She trailed off, because of course it wasn’t as simple as just giving Pyrrha the sword if she wanted it. The black blade had been given to Sunset by the Lady Nikos, the head of the family, bestowed upon her, Sunset, to wield, to give good account, to honour as best she could with further deeds to add to its story that was already so heroic. If she simply gave it away, like a common trinket, she would be saying that she esteemed this great gift little and valued the friendship of Lady Nikos as being of little account. She was not willing to do that, not even for Pyrrha’s sake.
And to be fair, I don’t think Pyrrha would ask me to be so discourteous.
“It’s the principle, isn’t it?” Sunset said.
Pyrrha nodded. “You understand what honour is done to you with such a weapon?”
“I do now,” Sunset replied. “Your mother… when she gave me the blade, she told me that it had been wielded in the Battle of the Four Sovereigns… and that Achates had fought against the Last King… I suppose she told me enough that I can hardly say I didn’t understand the import. She did not tell me who Achates had slain first, but… perhaps that hardly seemed relevant.”
“Indeed,” Pyrrha said. “Miló and Akoúo̱ are excellent weapons, and I would not trade them for any blade out of our family vault, but… I know that this isn’t your fault, and I ask you to forgive me, but… I hope you can understand that it isn’t always easy to look at you and see the daughter that my mother would rather have had.”
Sunset winced. Her ears drooped down towards her hair, and her tail drooped too, hanging listless down behind her. She threw away the stuffed unicorn, guiding it with telekinesis down onto the camp bed. “That,” she began, her voice a little hoarse, “that is-”
“Don’t say it isn’t true after you’ve just told me that you’re honest.”
“I said I’m sometimes honest,” Sunset reminded her. “But honestly, I think that you exaggerate.”
“Do I?” Pyrrha asked. “She gives you a sword out of our family’s treasury-”
“A retainer’s sword, for all its honour.”
“She gives you a stipend.”
“For dust and armour and other necessities; it’s not as though she’s written me a blank cheque,” Sunset replied. “I’m a better fighter because of the things I can buy thanks to your mother.”
“Don’t you think that Ruby and Jaune might also be better fighters if my mother were to offer them her financial support?” Pyrrha asked.
Sunset felt that was a question which, far from behind rhetorical, deserved to be taken seriously. She folded her arms across her chest. “Ruby… Ruby doesn’t really need dust, although she could use dust rounds, I suppose. Jaune… he could afford some better armour instead of that amateur dramatics stuff he’s got on at the moment, I suppose. Could he use dust in his sword?”
Pyrrha nodded. “He could infuse the blade, as you’ve done with Soteria,” she said.
“You could buy dust for him if he can’t afford it himself,” Sunset pointed out. “Is he too poor to buy dust?”
“I… don’t know,” Pyrrha admitted. “I haven’t… I don’t want to pry into his finances, in case… I’m worried that, with me being… would he take offence if I asked him how much-?”
“No,” Sunset said. “I doubt that there’s much that you could do that would offend Jaune, and I’m pretty sure that asking about money wouldn’t be one of them. Not the way you’re likely to ask, anyway.” She ventured a grin.
To her relief, Pyrrha smiled back. “That’s good to hear,” she acknowledged. “But the point is that my mother-”
“Isn’t invested in the prowess of the team, just in me,” Sunset finished.
“Exactly,” Pyrrha said. She looked out of the window once more, to where the sky without was beginning to grow dark. “And the worst part is… I can see why she prefers you. You’re ambitious, confident-”
“Overconfident, at times.”
“Proud.”
“Prickly.”
“There is no need for you to be so humble,” Pyrrha said. “The truth is, you are everything she would have wished for in an heir.”
“More fool her then, when she has you to be her heir,” Sunset replied. “Not only as skilled as a hero of old but as gracious as a princess to boot and as learned as a master of lore. I… I have a fire in my belly that you lack, maybe-”
“I don’t think there’s any ‘maybe’ about it, do you?” Pyrrha asked.
“But that is only because I want the things that you were born heir to,” Sunset insisted. “You don’t need to hunt after those things because you have them already: the glory, the reputation, the fame. All the things that I am ambitious for, you already possess, so why should you be ambitious?”
“My mother would have me be ambitious for further fame and other glories,” Pyrrha said, “but that is not what I desire.”
“Then why get so hung up that she favours one who does desire those things?” Sunset demanded.
“Well, when you put it like that, it sounds rather silly,” Pyrrha admitted. She got up and walked towards Sunset – and her own bed. “I’m sorry, Sunset.”
“You don’t need to apologise,” Sunset assured her. “I get it.”
Pyrrha tilted her head ever so slightly. “You do?”
Sunset nodded. “There was a girl, in my teacher’s house,” she explained. “She arrived not long before… the final break between us. She was pretty – beautiful, even – graceful and gracious, kind and considerate, beloved by everyone who had cause to come into contact with her.” Sunset grinned. “You remind me of her, except that you’re also a great warrior on top of all that.”
A faint blush rose to Pyrrha’s cheeks. “Stop it, Sunset; you’re just trying to embarrass me.”
“No, I’m trying to say that… she was everything that was expected of someone in our exalted position, everything that I was not,” Sunset said. “I hated her.”
“I don’t hate you,” Pyrrha said.
“No, because you’re a better person than I am,” Sunset replied. “I… I don’t want you to start hating me. So if… if there’s anything that I can do-”
“No,” Pyrrha said quickly. “I mean… I’m aware that this might make it seem as though I’m complaining for the sake of it, but I don’t want you to give up my mother’s money, or Soteria. It wouldn’t be right for me to ask that of you merely for the sake of my own… concerns.”
“Then what do you want?” Sunset asked.
Pyrrha sat down on her bed. “I don’t know,” she admitted, with a nervous laugh. “I suppose… I think… I don’t know. Perhaps I just wanted to let you know how I feel.”
Sunset took a couple of steps towards her and sat down next to Pyrrha on the bed. “I can understand that,” she murmured. She reached out and gently took hold of one of Pyrrha’s hands. “I… I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to-”
“Yes, I do,” Sunset said. “My relationship with your mother… I should have thought about how it would make you feel.” She paused. “I would offer to swear an oath to her as a retainer, but I fear my pride would not bear it.”
Pyrrha snorted. “No, I doubt it would. And besides, what kind of friend would I be if I demanded that you humble yourself like that to make me feel better?”
“What kind of friend have I been to make you feel like this?”
“I’m fine,” Pyrrha said.
“Clearly not.”
“…no,” Pyrrha conceded, after a moment. “But I… I can bear it. After all, I am the one who has turned my back upon my mother; what right do I have to complain that you have her trust and I do not? And I have Jaune, I have… I have so many things to be thankful for, it would churlish to obsess too much over this one thing.” She hesitated. “I will try to remember that in future.” Pyrrha glanced at Sunset. “Will you remind me of it, if I forget?”
“Remind you not to be upset at me? Yeah, I think I can do that,” Sunset agreed. She smirked. “I’ll also remind you to call your mother.”
Pyrrha sighed. “Not now, Sunset.”