Clementine awoke slowly. She shivered, the nightmare still fresh in her mind even with the weariness of sleep slowly wearing off.
It wasn't unusual for her to have nightmares, especially ones this lucid. She was beginning to suspect that she had indeed begun losing her mind, it was inevitable in the darkness of the Mireu castle's oppressive dungeons, and the war wasn't ending any time soon, at least as far as she knew.
However, something was off. The bed sheets underneath her and around her were too… soft. Had she truly lost her mind after all?
She sat up and rubbed at her eyes, but when she opened her eyes, she wasn't met with the darkness of her cell - but - a random bedroom? A grand bedroom, no less, the bed she was sleeping in was probably the size of her entire cell back in the dungeons.
She frowned deeply, scrunching the sheets in her fists. The silk felt soft and sleek between her fingers - notably not wrapped in bandages. She held her hand in front of her and looked at her arms. No cuts. No scars, even. Was she-? Her arms weren't nearly as thin as they once had been.
She abruptly stood up, tossing the sheets off of her as if they were burning her. She was dressed in a long nightgown that felt soft on her skin, nothing like the scrape of the woolen shift she had gotten used to all these years. She looked in the large mirror at the vanity, and saw herself - but healthier, softer. Her cheeks were round and red, her eyes lacked the eyebags she had come to expect from herself as she felt at her own thinning face in the darkness.
No, this wasn't the face of the maiden trapped in service to the Great Emperor for five miserable years - no - this was the face of who she was before that.
This was the face of Lady Clementine Althea Levici - five years ago, at the start of the War. Before she knew of a Usurper or the decree that every noble house would have to supply a son to command- and fight in the Emperor's army in the war. She gazed behind her in the mirror, at the grand poster bed, the windows with their soft translucent curtains and the walls guilded in white stone and painted with flowers. This was her bedroom once - a room so opposite to the cell she had called home that it became almost odd. To think she had once thought of these luxurious quarters as commonplace? It felt like she was in heaven now.
Was this heaven? Another feverish dream?
She grabbed the nearest sharpest object she could find - a comb from the vanity with a sharp edge meant for parting hair. She grabbed it in one unmarred and soft fist, breath quick and frantic as she used the sharp edge to press into the white skin at her wrist. She felt a stinging pain - almost inconsequential. She had grown so used to the ache and sting of blades drawing her blood that she barely noticed it - but she still felt it, and tears welled in her eyes as she realised-
This wasn't heaven or a dream. Had everything else been a dream?
Had those five horrible years been nothing but a nightmare? A long, feverish, painful nightmare?
She had to hold a hand over her mouth to stifle a whimper. She could scream. What kind of a nightmare was that? What kind of a dream was this?
She flinched at a knock on the door, dropping the comb.
"Lady Clementine, are you alright?"
Mira, her maid. She sniffled, wiping the blood from her wrist as much as she could. Her wrists - clean of cuts or bandages. Even the little puncture she had made with the comb was inconsequential. "Come in, Mira.." she said, her voice was whole and soft, not thin and worn down from years of silence.
She could have wept when the door opened and her maid stepped inside. Mira had always been the closest thing Clementine had to a mother, a soft and kindly woman with strong hands and a gentle, round old face. "Lady Clementine, what's the matter? Mira asked, her eyes soft.
Clementine took a breath, clenching her fists in the gentle material of her nightgown. She couldn't act strange now, as much as she wanted to weep, fall to her knees, or even embrace the old woman in front of her, she had to save face. She wiped at her eyes and smiled. It was just a nightmare- a bad dream.
Granted, a long, painful bad dream, but a bad dream nonetheless. There was no other explanation for why she was standing in her old bedroom, in the Levici manor, basking in the morning sun with no mention of a war or armored men that would take her away to the Great Emperor.
"It's nothing, Mira, just a rough night, I suppose." She sighed, sitting down at the vanity and resting her head in her hands.
"My, Lady Clementine, that is truly a shame. It wouldn't do for a fine lady to wake up frazzled because of night terrors. Tonight I'll fashion you some lovely chamomile tea, maybe that'll do away with dream fiends, hm?" Mira said, moving past Clementine to the back of the room, pulling open her grand closet filled with dresses she hadn't seen in years. Mira pulled out a lacey white gown with blue ribbons, laying it across the bed before coming to stand behind Clementine.
She picked up the comb off of the ground. If she noticed the slight drop of blood against the wooden end, she said nothing, just sighed and put it on the vanity, grabbing a brush instead, and gently starting to comb out the tangles in Clementine's hair - so white that it almost seemed blue in certain lights. In the morning sun, it glowed like sunlight itself. Clementine just watched it glow in the mirror. Her hair had grown so dull and tangled in those dungeons… to see it so full of life, still caught in its original wavy curls - it was surreal. She remembered once being so upset at even the slightest knot tangling her hair - now she was amazed that the brush glided without catching on one every stroke.
"You really should braid your hair in the evenings, my lady, it would help with the tangling." Mira softly chided her. Clementine just watched in silence, feeling almost lightheaded as the woman she had last seen five years ago gently braided her hair and pinned it up into a crownlet around her head, letting some hang loose over her shoulders.
She remained wordless even as Mira helped her into the lacy white gown and tied the blue ribbons into neat bows at her shoulders and chest. Mira looked up at her a last time, asking softly, "Are you certain that you are well, Lady Clementine? If you've caught a fever-"
"No, Mira, I am completely and utterly alright…" Clementine said softly, managing a smile before she turned and hurried into the halls, still in her slippers and not caring any less.
She half walked and half ran through the familiarly foreign halls of the Levivi manor, eyes wide as she saw the walls and portraits still intact, every piece in its place, not yet raided by the Great Emperor's men.
She was so bewildered that she didn't notice another maid rounding the corner, Katherine, and almost ran straight into her. Katherine gasped softly but managed to regain her balance gracefully, not dropping a single item off of the tray she was carrying. "Lady Clementine - you're up late-"
"Katherine-" Clementine was almost breathless, gripping handfuls of the skirt in her hands so it would not impede her pace. "Do you know where my father - I mean - Duke Levici is? I must see him - urgently."
"Of course, my Lady-" Katherine said with a slight frown. "He's in the gardens having his tea-"
"Thank you - Thank you, Katherine." Lady Clementine said, barely remembering to be polite as she all but ran down the hall towards the Levici gardens. She pushed open the terrace door and ran out into the sunlight, gasping softly. It felt so nice on her skin - she had not known warmth in so long. She ran down the steps, her breath frantic as she turned at the hedges.
There, under the round and guided gazebo, sat Duke Frederic Levici, her father.