Enough

[endless_natterings]

Day 7 Prompt: Free Choice

Summary: Learning she's going to be an older sister would hard enough to process. The political implications behind it make it worse

Author's note: Another Finduilas piece! This one isn't even sad (there's some frustration but no tragedy)! And this is another one that got inspired by an ask (we were doing a hypothetical fic game and they ended up less than hypothetical for the most part, I think I acquired like four extra WIPs after that

“Are you sure you should be hiding out here?” Of course he was the one to find her. She had been running to this hiding spot since they were kids.

“I’m the Steward’s daughter, I think that gives me leave to hide out wherever I please in my father’s citadel.” Was it childish of her to pull rank like that? Yes, of course it was, especially when he had probably been sent out to look for her by her father.

Gwindor took a seat on the ground next to her. “I never said you couldn’t, I just mean that this might not be the most structurally sound hiding spot to have ever existed.” He chuckles, “I’m pretty sure that section of wall above us is just one bad storm away from collapsing on us.”

“Then maybe you shouldn’t sit here with me. It would be embarrassing for you to be bested by some falling stone.” Him leaving would be easier than deciding if she wanted him to stay. “And my father would miss your presence in his council.” Because Gwindor was useful, and he was important, and he would be missed if he were gone.

He sighed, “If you say he’d miss my counsel then you must know he would miss yours as well. You’re his daughter, his clever and stubborn daughter. He loves you.”

“It’s not enough. Not for him and not for anyone else.” She knew it was selfish. Of course she knew, she wasn’t a child anymore. And maybe that was part of the problem. “If it were then we wouldn’t be here. You wouldn’t have been brought to live here, and I wouldn’t be hiding out here.” She pressed her fingernails into the palms of her hands. “I’ve decided I’m going to hate it when it gets here, they can’t make me love it.”

“No one would dream of trying to make you do anything, you know-”

“Yes they will!” She didn’t like to raise her voice, it always made it so much harder to try and make her point, always at risk of being dismissed as hysterical. “They want me to smile and love this thing that’s honestly just an insult at this point. My parents were perfectly happy with just me for this long. So why would they need someone else all of a sudden? They’ve realized something, or all the pressure has finally gotten to them, or they’ve gotten tired of waiting for me to grow up and do the one thing everyone was expecting of me to fix the mess they made in the first place!”

It was unfair and petty. She didn’t particularly care. Not when she was standing on the edge of being cast aside.

She expected Gwindor to try and argue with her, to tell her that it wasn’t true, even when it felt like it was. Or even to reassure her again, to repeat some empty platitude about her parents love being enough to outweigh everything else. He did none of that, instead-

“Did you know Gelmir left me in the chicken coop when I was an infant? I don’t remember any of it, but my father has never stopped telling the story.” She blinked at him and he laughed. “Apparently he was so upset at having a younger brother all of a sudden, he tried to leave me for the chickens to eat. And he was more than a little angry when it turned out the chickens had actually behaved for once and I’d just taken a nice long nap. Perfectly unscathed, though our nursemaid had to spend our plucking feathers out of my hair. Though Gelmir still threatens to feed me to the chickens now and again, he says I’m way less cute now and they’ll eat me for sure.”

Finduilas had promised herself she was going to be angry and sullen for the rest of the day at the very least. And then her idiot best-friend of a betrothed had to go and make her laugh. She clutched at her stomach, doubled over herself as she tried to breathe through her laughter.

“Are you trying to give me ideas on what to do with the baby? Because I just might take you up on it.” She leaned back against the mossy stone. “How are you not more upset about this? You’ve seen the letters and the envoys that have arrived since the announcement. A lifetime of study and practice, and one little baby could wreck all that. They just spend nearly two centuries lecturing us about duty and responsibility only to then pull the rug out from under us.”

“I wasn’t aware you were that attached to all that future duty and responsibility. Last time we spoke on the subject you said they were rushing us.”

“That’s because they were rushing us. I don’t want them to push us to get married before we’re ready, or to send letter after letter asking when we’ll be having children.” It had been a constant refrain, every time her parents had been too stubborn to bend under pressure, all eyes had turned to them. The pair next in line, the reckless gamble that had paid off. “But that doesn’t mean I ever wanted to be sidelined and powerless. If the baby is a boy, they’ll have the heir the court had asked for all those years ago and we’ll-”

“We’ll be his regents.”

“What?”

“Your parents are sick of all this, they have been for years, and I doubt they’re excited at the thought of having to wait another century or so until the new heir is old enough to take the reins. They wouldn’t take much convincing to leave it to us.”

It wasn’t a terrible idea, that she had to admit. Even if it was still a little half-baked. But it could work. “Maybe they can stay for a decade or so, it’d be too cruel if not. But they could retire like they’ve always talked about, and if we were to raise my sibling. Be regents for the future steward...” It’d make the change easier, she could keep the ambitious courtiers at bay and make sure she was still listened to. No matter what. “He would trust us, rely on us, we would get to be free without losing influence.”

“And if he doesn’t you can always put him out with the chickens. It might even work out better for you than it did my brother.”

Giggles bubbled up past her lips again. “Yes, that works.” It would, she’d talk to her parents and they’d see her side of things, they would agree with her. And then she’d be able to love her new sibling, properly, like everyone said she should.

All she needed to do now, was to stop worrying.


This is perfectly happy and fluffy just don't go looking at the timeline.