code_geass ◾ [fic] Hime no Namida (The Princess' Tears) (Reply)

crossposted from

cg_flashfic (sorry for the double post in your flist, if ever)

Title: Hime no Namida (The Princess' Tears)
Author:

darksage29
Written For: vicks111
Characters/Pairings: Guilford/Cornelia, appearance by Schneizel, mentions of Lelouch, Clovis, Euphie, Nina, Suzaku and Glaston Knights.
Genre: Romance. Angst
Rating: PG-13
Notes: Post R2 turn 19, because we all know what happened there.

There she stood, not believing what she was hearing. It seemed too impossible, too ludicrous, that her mind – Cornelia Li Britannia’s superbly rational mind – can only dismiss the fact as some sort of twisted joke.

“He’s dead, Cornelia. Your Knight was with the casualties of the FREIJA blast.” Schneizel calmly said. Cornelia’s purple eyes widened in horror as she tried to let it sink in... No, Guilford... He couldn’t be dead, could he?

For the longest time, Cornelia was on the move, trying to get at the geass cult for creating a power that destroyed her sister Euphemia. So much was her determination that she left behind those that were so loyal to her: the Glaston Knights, and her personal knight, Gilbert GP Guilford. In the process of her supposed revenge, she was captured by the Black Knights, under the control of his rouge brother Lelouch, but subsequently escaping before the nuclear blast that wiped out a significant portion of the Tokyo Settlement. And now she was in the Avalon, her brother’s flagship, still in denial of her Knight’s death.

She excused herself from her brother’s presence and retreated to chambers furnished for her. The room was far from simple simple: It had a red marble floor covered in a crimson carpet, renaissance furniture in the form of a desk, a four-poster bed and a couple of chairs. The bed’s linen was immaculate white, at an odd contrast with the rest of the room. She lay down on the bed and closed her eyes. “How many of those whom are close to me must die?” She thought to herself. She has lost at least three siblings in this war, and now, him. It baffled her that his image, his very death was earth-shaking for her. It seemed even more painful than Euphie’s death. Why, of all people, should he be of special mention to those who died? And what was this he-defected-shortly-before-he-died crap they kept telling? She needed answers, she needed closure. Avenging Euphemia was already done with. Should she avenge Guilford now? Who was to blame? Was it Nina Einstein, that genius of a subordinate her brother had for inventing the thing? Was it Kururugi Suzaku, who fired the weapon in self-defense (and partly on the commands of her brother)? Or was it Lelouch, who had been the architect behind the death of Clovis and Euphie? She had so many questions, and too little answers. She felt miserable.

She rolled to her side, going into the fetal position as she imagined her loyal knight, dying in an epic nuclear blast, his knightmare disintegrating in midair. She heard rumors that moments before dying, he was pushing Lelouch’s knightmare out of the warhead’s range. If that was the case, she thought that there were two reasons why she should hate her younger brother even more. One, was that Guilford was probably under the control of Geass, that wretched power which led to the death of her sister. And the second reason, she felt was so trivial and juvenile she blushed, albeit it failed to amuse her. For that second reason was akin to a bad joke: She was jealous at Lelouch, that her knight’s dying moments were in protection of her brother, and not her.

Jealous? Why on the Emperor’s name should Cornelia be jealous? The idea seemed to disgust her as much as it made sense to her. She was no longer (and frankly didn’t look like she was) a little Britannian girl living out little girlish crushes. No, she was a strong and capable woman, formidable in the battlefield, idolized by many, just like Marianne Lamperouge. The thought seemed to repulse her, when she came to think of it: her idol being the mother of the sibling who at the moment she loathed the most. But, going back to her original train of thought: Why would she be jealous? She was a princess, and he was her knight. It was too cliché for princesses to fall in love and live happily ever after with their knights-in-shining-armor like in those equally clichéd fairy tales, so she shrugged of the idea. It seemed so ridiculous that it began to annoy her. But the more she tried to get back into contact with reality, the more the mental image of those powerful blue eyes behind oval spectacles, that long pony tailed hair, that determined look, that maroon outfit, burned into her consciousness. She didn’t like it, but deep in her heart she knew that every single inch of her soul was yearning for that image like parched land thirsts for water. It was anguish; no, it was hell and she tucked herself tighter in retaliation to her feelings. More and more Guilford would shine through her mind: his smile, his voice, his devotion to her... It made her long for him, allow him to give her strength through these troubling times, to hold her in his powerful arms...

She snapped; her resolve finally slipping away. She clutched a fistful of hair and pulled relishing in the fact that it was a vain attempt to somehow ease her pain; her free hand clutched her bosom, hoping that she could end her suffering if she could rip her heart out. Either that, or she was mimicking the claws that were ripping the said organ out of her chest. Either way, both did absolutely nothing to soothe the unnatural, irrational suffering. It was too much. Too much pain. Why should she be going through this torture? Why did he have to die?

She began to sob. The normally strong woman began to get teary-eyed. Then, when will could no longer block them, tears grazed her once strong face. Her purple hair was in disarray, as she cried.

“I... loved him.” It was all she could say. Then, she let all her held-up tears fall down, some dropping into her lips, giving her a salty taste in her mouth. Salty... It was almost the perfect word to describe what kind of life she had to go through from now on.

His image came into her view once again. It was him, in full knight’s regalia, whispering with his usual determined face, “Hime-sama”...

And she cried through the night...