Chapter Text
Highdusk, 1191. Mid winter.
When Catherine looks up from the bundle of string cheese she’s wrapping to see a Candian soldier standing at the counter, instead of asking How can I help you? or What do you need? her traitorous mouth says, Oh, hello.
As the seconds tick by and the soldier stares at her with wide eyes and she stares back with a pasted on smile of panic, she prays for the Bulb to take her away because she’s really done it now, but instead the soldier just keeps staring at her until he’s elbowed in the side by one of his friends and he snaps out of whatever trance he was in.
Then he takes her hand and she lets him and he kisses it and all of this is horribly improper but instead of snatching her hand away and shoving him out, which would be well within her rights, and he wouldn’t even be the first soldier she's done it to, she just stares at him, blushing.
He smiles at her and says, My name’s Amethar and Catherine chuckles and asks, Like the prince? Sounds like your parents had high hopes for you.
The soldier laughs and it’s loud and booming and so full of joy that Catherine can’t help the way her stomach swoops. Her eyes trail along his face as his shoulders shake, and she is terribly aware that these feelings are a bad idea and will only lead to heartbreak, she’s seen the other girls in town who make moon eyes at the pretty soldier boys, she’s knows what’s going to happen, and yet-
As Amethar says, still laughing, Yeah, like the prince, someone from outside yells Rocks! Come on, we don’t have all day! and Amethar winks at her as he leaves and the bundle of string cheese is utterly forgotten as Catherine runs to the back to shake her sister by the shoulders and dazedly say, Lis, did the prince of Candia just flirt with me?
The next day Catherine spends her shift plucking petals from savarin daisies and daydreaming, much to the chagrin of Lis, until the door opens and the one person she didn’t think she’d see again enters.
Amethar sees her and waves awkwardly and she laughs, and he comes up to the counter and says, I never actually got to ask, yesterday, but what’s your name? and Catherine knows her cheeks are darkening and she says, What’s my name to a prince? and maybe it isn’t the best decision to be smart to a prince but she’s always fallen back on sharpness when she’s surprised.
Instead of getting angry, though, Amethar looks surprised, and pleased, and then he smiles again, and Catherine thinks that smile just might kill her, the way it feels like the tides are crashing over her head every time he flashes it at her. He rests an elbow on the counter and leans forward and says, I’m only fourth in line, you know, and he says it like only matters when you're royalty, like being in line for a throne is as simple as being the first one to find a ripe apple tree and getting the freshest pick rather than something Catherine can’t even imagine, and Catherine looks into his eyes and realizes she’s falling in love and she says, Well, I suppose if you’re only fourth in line…
Amethar stays until Mrs Pardano comes back and shoos him away, but as he leaves Catherine slips a sheet of parchment into his hand and a few minutes later Amethar opens the note in the privacy of his tent to see the words,
Meet me at the west coastline at midnight? - Catherine Ghee
The rest of the day Manta Ray Jack teases him about the girl he’s going to see and Amethar shoves him in the shoulder and smiles like a sap all the while.
Midnight comes and Amethar is not very good at sneaking out and Catherine Ghee is better at it than her sister expected, and they’ll meet on the coastline and sit on the sand and feel the yogurt tides rise and fall against their toes and they’ll talk until the barest hints of the Bulb have begun to rise in the sky.
They’ll both go back to their respective proper places and the next night they’ll come back to the shoreline and they’ll come back again and again and again and again, until it’s been three months and Amethar has become a common fixture at the Ghee Apothecary, until it’s been four months and Catherine waves at Manta Ray Jack on her way past the camp when she runs errands; they’ll keep meeting until it’s been five months and Amethar and Catherine are lying together on the sand and the Bulb is rising in the sky and she has to get back to open the shop and Amethar has to get back to camp before drills start, but instead of doing that he’ll turn to Catherine and take her hands in his and say, Catherine, I love you.
After he does this, Catherine will squeeze his hands and say, Amethar, we should get married, and Amethar will ask, How do you always know what I’m gonna say before I say it? and Catherine will ask, Is that a yes? and Amethar will say, I mean, yeah!
It will be several minutes later when Catherine is running back to her home for the best dress she owns and Amethar is pulling on his cleanest uniform and dragging Manta Ray Jack out of bed and toward the church, and Catherine will knock on the church doors in her finest dress and Father Buttercream will smile at the young girl who he’s watched grow up be flushed with love and when she asks him for this favor he’ll acquiesce, despite the early hour and the edges of propriety they’re skirting.
Amethar will arrive at the church and when he catches sight of Catherine standing at the altar in her best dress holding a bouquet of savarin daisies that still have dirt on the stems he’ll know in his heart that she is the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen, and when Catherine sees Amethar standing at the door of the church in his dress uniform, hair loose around his shoulders, looking at her like she’s all the moon and stars, she’ll know what it is to feel like a princess.
Neither of them will say any vows because the love they see reflected in the other’s eyes speaks louder than anything either of them could say, and Catherine will say I do and Amethar will say I do and as Father Buttercream pronounces them man and wife there won’t be any confetti to throw or crowds of well-wishers, but there will be Manta Ray Jack, wiping a tear from his eye and clapping Amethar on the back and welcoming Catherine to the family, and he'll take out his stick and poke kit and a few hours later Catherine is late to her shift at the shop and Amethar and Manta Ray are going to be in for it, but Amethar and Catherine have matching daisy chains around their ring fingers. The yellow pops on Amethar's pink and the opposite is true for Catherine, and it's not proper by any measure but Catherine thinks that she never would have been happy with proper, and they spend the rest of the day sequestered from the world, and for just one day they’ll forget about the war and about consequences and about everything but each other.
The bliss of newlyweds will last for a week, until one day Amethar doesn’t come into the apothecary and Catherine has no ring to twist nervously around her finger but she’ll feel make the motion anyway, and a knot of worry start to grow in her belly. She’ll head out to collect swiss ferns and she’ll wander the fields with basket in hand for hours and when she returns to the shop she won't see Amethar but instead, a note left on the counter.
It will be written in Amethar’s chicken-scratch hand it will say:
We’re leaving today. Just got word. I love you. I’ll be back.
It won’t be signed and Catherine will feel ghee-golden tears well up in her eyes and she’ll hide in the back of the shop amongst the storage crates until her hands stop shaking, and all the while she’ll tell herself she should’ve known this would happen and she’ll tell herself that she’ll get over it like all the girls who moon over the pretty soldier boys do, even as she knows that she won’t.
Two months later, Catherine Ghee will learn that Amethar didn’t just leave a note, and this time when she hides in the back room of the apothecary, as hard as she tries, she can’t make her hands stop shaking.
Mrs Pardano will eye Catherine’s growing belly with a frown and a tsk of disappointment, and Catherine’s father won’t look at her and Catherine’s mother will smile at her but it won’t hide the shame, and Catherine has nothing else to do but wait and work the counter and wait and wander the fields collecting herbs and wait.
Nine months of waiting and it’s 1192 and Catherine is sitting in a stiff wooden chair behind the counter when there’s a horrible pain in her belly and she knows.
Catherine gives birth alone in the back room of the apothecary with nobody but Mrs Pardano who shows her how to lie down and drops a sachet of herbs at her side and tells her to pray and then leaves.
She’s too busy screaming to pray but after several hours of blood and sweat and tears and screaming, the air is broken by another person’s high-pitched wails, and Catherine will hold her daughter against her chest and think of crooked smiles and too charming for his own good and she’ll name her Saccharina.