[fanfic] Your Knight is dead.
Title: Your Knight is dead.
Fandom: Hetalia World Series
Characters: Maria Carriedo/OC!Philippines, Corazon Juliana Carriedo de Hernandez/Fem!Spain, Jose Rizal
Genre: Drama (?)
Rating: PG13
Warnings: The usual - too much monologue, as expected from my writing; also my first dabble in second-person narration. That and nonsensicality, history inaccuracies, real people, plotholes, weird tenses, general rustiness of the author, and such. OOC-ness. You have been warned.
Summary: Third fanfiction of my Nyotalia pseudo-horror series. Your Knight is dead. He has been, for the past one hundred and fifty years, and counting. The date was December 30, 1986. The time was somewhere in-between six and seven in the morning. Your name had been Maria Carriedo, but more than anything else, you were a princess with a gallant knight to call her own. And the ghost of his memory would smile at you fondly, ruffle your hair and say that even until now, that’s what you still are.
=
Si grana necesitas para teñir tu aurora,
If you need a hue to dye your matutinal glow,
Vierte la sangre mía, derrámala en buen hora
Pour my blood and at the right moment spread it so,
Y dórela un reflejo de su naciente luz!
And gild it with a reflection of your nascent light!
=
You know that Corazon had meant to spite you, when she had hauled you out of bed in the early morning, fussing over you and insisting you wear all your finest cloths, all the glistening trinkets she had given you for ‘special occasions’. You know that her special occasion is your bitter end. The rhythmic pulse of your veins tries to make you ignore how Corazon has been humming some patriotic song of her people while braiding your hair up in ways you had never even thought possible.
Once upon a time, you had patriotic songs that had been completely your own. Before, you had never had to suffer through fixing your hair and make-up for ‘special occasions’. And, most importantly, back then, you did not have to pretend to be happy, you did not have to pretend to enjoy the spectacle of seeing the man you love die.
Three hundred years under Spanish rule did not make you a princess, and even if Corazon did make you wear such voluminous frocks from time to time you still know that you are not one. From how little you’ve seen of fairy tales, a princess did not have to meet the government’s production quota, did not have to work to the bones for a living, did not have to beg for the basic rights of a human being. No, a princess did nothing but smile and curtsy and dance with handsome princes who wanted her hand in marriage, and even if Corazon sometimes lets you play the part in balls and the occasional World Meeting, it still does not make you a princess. In the same way that when Feliciana had once played with a bishop’s hat when you were younger and put it on, it did not make her a bishop.
But sometimes you wrote letters to him, and when he writes back you can almost imagine you are a princess. He tells you tales of castles and foreigners and liberty so vividly you can taste it on your tongue. He weaves words with a skill honed by practice and passion, and you imagine him as your Knight, riding on a white horse, traversing nations near and far and allying with them in your name. You are his only princess, and he is your Knight; there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that will come in between.
There are the times when he writes to you about a beautiful otome he meets in a department store, a prospective French fiancée, a vibrant English Rose who he may or may not have been avoiding. These are the times when you want to walk to the nearest wall and knock it down with a single punch, when you want to take up Romana’s offer of dueling and beat the daylights out of her.
“- utterly beautiful, if I may say so myself.” The personification of the Spanish Empire finally turns your head to face her, smile so wide it might split her face in two. “That being done, we are going now, hija.”
You do not answer, only try to compose your features into some manner of joviality as to lessen the suspicion you can see in your warden - colonizer - no, mother’s mind. To make her asserted of the fact that you are still alive, you try to nod, but the motion is lost when Corazon all but drags you to the carriage waiting outside.
She knows you visited him late last night, when everyone went home and you could slip in through the unguarded corners. She knows you watched him write for you for the last time, knows you cried in his arms as you pleaded with him to stay with you, and that he had smiled and replied ‘forever at My Lady’s service’. She knows that you could have made him escape, made him free, tried to run away. She knows everything about you and him and all of your land, because everything your light touches is hers.
Or at least, that’s what she had told you many times before.
Dismounting, Corazon is so happy with you at her side, wearing her favorite dress of crimson and gold. She makes hand gestures like a madwoman as she speaks with the highly-titled ladies whose presence you had not noticed, and whose names and faces you had not bothered to remember. They talk about themselves, about Manila’s gossip, and sometimes about how gracious your ‘mother’ had been to loan you one of her prettier dresses. This one you appear to have on is the same color as hers, crimson and gold, but the gold is darker, less regal, like sunshine mangled by its reflection on the barrel of a gun; the crimson less refined, more resembling blood than anything else.
Spain had laughed, a clear tinkling of church bells, and the ladies laugh with her. Of course they would think it is funny, that the nation of a man whose blood will be spilled is ensconced head-to-toe in blood red fabric. Maybe they think it’s fitting, maybe they think it is not the dress, but you who are laughable. You look into your emotions and see that you do not care.
The day might have been beautiful, if only it was not meant to belittle you. You look around and see flags hung from every building, little banderitas strung from lamp post to lamp post in a seemingly endless strip. The festive atmosphere could almost fool you into thinking that today was just another fiesta, another day you’d excuse herself from Corazon’s side and mingle with your people. This is the day you would be able to let yourself pretend you were really as important to the world as your people would tell you you were to them.
Drum beats weave themselves into the ebb and throb of the heart of the city, the heart you know very well. People yell and shout and “Viva la España” echoes through the streets, and when Corazon’s hold on you upgrades to a metal-shackled grip you knows it’s all she can do to keep you from clapping your hands over your ears and wishing it will all go away.
The smile on your warden’s colonizer’s mother’s face widens, and now you fully understand why you are here, not locked away in your room like the many other times before, not left in the shadows like you always were. She wants you to see this - to watch as they strip away your last hope, to watch as Spain makes you go down on your knees, makes you cry for the man whose life you may cry over but whose death you can never revoke.
You see him, and though his hands are tied behind his back, his head is raised up high, every bit like the knight he always told you he would be. He wore black from head to toe, and on his face was a perfectly calm expression. He has not seen you yet, but he is looking around him and smiling that smile he usually reserves for you, that smiles quite like a brother or a father or a friend or a lover, one so close and yet so far away. It dawns on you that he sees you in the Nation just as he sees the Nation in you, and he relishes the bleak Manila sunrise because this may be the closest he ever gets to seeing you again.
Maybe you would have truly been in love with him, had this be another life when your heart was yours entirely. Maybe you would have fallen in love with him ever since the first time he wrote to you in Madrid; maybe you would have been able to let him love you back. Maybe, just maybe, you would be more than just the muse for Maria Clara, more than just an erstwhile penpal from across the seas. Maybe things would have been different, had you been less than Perla del Mar de Oriente.
But there is truly no sense in whining after spilled milk and lost dreams, no use in crying over impossible lives and shattered hearts.
He mumbles something to the captain of the firing guard, something to which the latter reluctantly agrees to. He holds his counsel’s hand, grasps it tightly - oh, Señor Taviel. The Spaniard has this look on his eyes that reminds you of someone who’s willed himself to not let any treacherous tears fall, someone who will not let any trace of weakness show, just like the way you are, right now. Taviel looks around him, blue eyes wandering until they reach your direction, and he smiles. You are not sure why and how he knows you are there, but you know that he knows what you feel, you both know how easy it is to fall in step by this man’s side, this man who may be bound up in shackles and chains but will forever be free to comfort you through your memories.
Because that’s all he will ever be, now; memories, small and insignificant compared to the vast amount of eternity you know you have yet to live through. He will be gone, just like Burgos and Gomez and Zamora, and Corazon will beat you bloody until there is no more blood left to bleed and you have nothing more to do but wake up in a pile of extravagant linens and beautiful sickgowns, watching your mother cry crocodile tears as she apologizes for your horrible, horrible ‘accident’.
“Preparen! Apunten!”
It is time, and you want to wrench your eyes shut, want to will everything to go away and dream that you were with him, in the Heaven Corazon’s God - your God, now - promised you about. But you can’t seem to breathe, can’t seem to think, can’t seem to take your eyes off of him.
Your travelling friend, the brother fated for you in the stars, the father you never had, the lover in another life. Today, you will lose his life, but you will never lose him.
That’s what you tell yourself, and you know that it will be true. He had joked around when you last saw him, chiding ‘no anniversaries’, but you already know where you will spend every thirtieth of December for the rest of your seemingly eternal life.
You hear his voice, and suddenly you’re no longer aware of Corazon’s erratic breathing, no longer aware of the mighty Spanish empire by your side, no longer minding what you know will happen when you break free of her today. All you know now is that he is here, and he calls for you, and even if he says ‘consummatum est!’ you still need to see him, be there by his side as the last of him bleeds away. In the few seconds before the gunshots fire, you managed to bolt out of Corazon’s grasp, all but flinging yourself at the barricade of guards, flailing and screaming as he falls ungracefully, turning around, and you know he sees you, you just know, because before he dies he has the tiniest of smiles on his face.
You know he sees you, you know he does, because his voice is ringing in your head, loud and clear and not at all dying:
Adios, la Patria adorada, region del sol querida,
Farewell, my adored Land, region of the sun caressed,
Perla del Mar de Oriente, nuestro perdido Eden!
Pearl of the Orient Sea, our lost Eden!
A darte voy alegre la triste mustia vida,
With gladness I give you my Life, sad and repressed;
Y fuera más brillante más fresca, más florida,
And were it more brilliant, more fresh and at its best,
Tambien por tí la diera, la diera por tu bien
I would still give it to you for your welfare at most.
And at that moment, when his face goes blank and dead and lifeless, when the captain shoots him through the head, murmuring ‘tiro de gracia’, you finally understand.
Maybe you always doubted you were a princess, but you never had any reason to doubt that he was a knight. He was a knight - your Knight, like he said, and you finally understand why he told you ‘forever at My Lady’s service’.
Because a Knight is more than battles won and trophies earned and weapons wielded, more than skills honed and armor worn and front lines fought. The Knight is bound to a King or a Queen by honor or sword or goodwill or contract or blood; right here, right now, he has bound himself to an uncrowned Princess by mind and by heart and by soul. And now you know why he faced his death so calmly even with all of Spain looking on his death with glee, why he had kissed you on the head and told you everything would be all right even if you both know that his heart will be bleeding out on the pavement. Now you know why he had assumed the role of your Knight so quickly, so easily, like it was an actual part of him and not something you just made up in your letters to tease him.
The role of a Knight is to die so that others may live. And maybe he always did know, always did accept that he was always going to be willing to die for you.
You are Maria Isabela Carriedo, and you think you’d had enough of playing the Princess.
Maybe this time, you would stop playing into the roles Corazon had indoctrinated in you, you think as you bolt through the crowds, ruining what may had been a very pretty dress, hoping no one can see you even if you know they all do. Maybe you’d stop playing the role of a Pawn, for a change.
You are Las Islas Filipinas, the Pearl of the Orient Seas, and one day, you will prove to the world that you are the Princess many a Knight never regretted dying for.
=
Entonces nada importa me pongas enolvido.
Then it does not matter that you should forget me:
Tu atmosfera, tu expacio, tus valles cruzare
Your atmosphere, your skies, your vales I’ll sweep;
Vibrnate y limpia nota sere para tu oido;
Vibrant and clear note to your ears I shall be:
Aroma, luz,colores, rumor, canto, gemido,
Aroma, light, hues, murmur, song, moanings deep,
Constante repitiendo la esencia de mi fe.
Constantly repeating the essence of the faith I keep.
=
fin.
=
A/N: This was a blitzed fic that I honestly did not see coming. One might say it was an effect of one of my three summer subjects, Life and Works of Rizal. Anyway, while the story did not pan out the way I had originally thought it to be, I hope you’d still like it, by the way!
Lieutenant Taviel de Andrade, Rizal’s defense counsel, is mentioned here because he was my favorite in the Cesar Montano Rizal movie our professor had us watch. All throughout everything I have ever learned about Rizal, Blumentritt and Taviel have been my favorites.
The Knight bit is supposed to mirror the fairytale-ish aspect of all the other Nyotalia pseudohorror stuff, and also just because reading into too much AO3 Homestuck fics made me really hung up on the line “The role of a Knight is to die so that others may live.” Seeing as two of the males I seem to like shipping in that fandom with its Witch are Knights, one could see why I zoomed onto this quote specifically. This may also refer to the ‘Knights of Rizal’ organizations that I hear about sometimes…
Also, it seems my mind had reverted to my usual monologuing style with this one…again, apologies.
The verses of ‘Mi Ultimo Adios’ used here, and their supposed translations, come from two of my Rizal text books, Francisco M. Zulueta’s Rizal: Life, Works and Ideals, and Froilan C. Calilung et al’s Jose Rizal: A Synergy of Greatness and Heroism. And yet again, sorry for any inadvertent historical inaccuracies or translation errors on my part.
Hope you liked it somehow, nevertheless. <3 Now, back to working on that AustriaPiri…