Work Text:
Catarina surreptitiously checked the clock as she passed through the reception line into the manor. She had made all her preparations – bags packed, the captain of a small ship paid to wait for her in the harbor and take her safely out of the country in the event that she wound up exiled. Now all that was left to do was wait. Wait the last few, fateful hours until the game's final event triggered at the end of the ball.
She passed through the crowds, determined to enjoy her last free evening, the last ball she'd get to enjoy. As she walked through, however, time suddenly seemed to come to a standstill, her foot still raised as she passed from one step to the next. In that moment, the real world fell away and the council room she had envisioned in her mind for years now resurfaced, her five selves falling into debate.
One corner of the room had a banner happily proclaiming CATASTROPHIC BAD END AVOIDANCE STRATEGY MEETING in large font printed letters, with the handwritten addition Seven Minutes To Midnight Meeting!!! added in red paint across the bottom. Her five typical selves were seated around the table, as the latest – and obviously last – meeting of her strategy council occurred.
“Why are we even going to this ball?” Timid asked, pressing her fingertips together. “We should just head to the docks now.”
Aggressive shook her head as Timid finished speaking. “No! This is our last chance to go to a fancy ball and wear a nice dress and eat amazing food. We should take advantage of it!”
“Actually, she might have a point,” Intelligent said, pushing her glasses up her nose and they caught the reflected light from the chandelier over their heads for a moment. “If we go to the ball and trigger the event, the best case is that we get exiled anyway. The worst case is that we have missed a doom flag and wind up dying. If we just head down to the docks now, we have gotten a head start on our exile, but if we were going to die, we manage to turn that worst case eventuality into survival.”
“Yes, that seems like a good strategy!” Timid said, desperately. “If we go now, we have no chance of dying!”
“But she's right!” Happy finally chimed in, pointing at Aggressive. “Food! Amazing rich people food! Lots of sweets! We even got our dress let out so we could eat more!”
The others seemed unmoved by this declaration, so Happy continued. “Besides, we've managed to clear all our doom flags, right? We can celebrate! So there's no way we will get killed or exiled!”
At her proclamation, everyone else turned and stared,with identical looks of terror on their faces at her hubris. The Chairman banged the gavel on the table.
“All in favor of running away now?” she asked, raising her own hand, along with Timid and Intelligent.
“I can't believe you would jinx it,” Aggressive said, shaking her head, and raising her own hand as well.
Catarina's foot fell, her heel clacking against the ground as her stride continued, unbroken. She had yet to enter the building, and no one was paying attention to her. Her retainers had already left with the carriage; everyone else would be looking for her in the reception line, or wondering if she had already arrived. Now was the perfect time to slip away. She slowly snuck around the corner of the building, heading towards the gardens – as she had done many times in the past – to avoid any suspicion with her well known love of plants. Then, when she was out of sight, she quickly gathered up her skirts and started running for the side gate, where no one was, and out, escaping into the night from the terrible fate that awaited her.
---
Catarina finally found her way down the wending cobblestone roads to the docks, after a few minutes. She patted herself on the back, self-congratulatorily, for having memorized the route to the docks, letting out a pleased little sound and skipping a step. She huddled a little more into her cloak, trying to make herself a bit more anonymous, as she walked down the wooden planks to the ship she had previously found and negotiated with for passage. Just as she found herself on the gangplank, she heard a familiar voice call out from behind her that made her freeze in her tracks.
“Catarina! Wait!”
Catarina remained perfectly still, as if hoping by her not moving the person who was there would be unable to see her, like a dinosaur. After the sound of a throat clearing, however, she slowly turned, sheepishly, facing back down the gangplank and wincing at the sight of the familiar blonde in the pink dress.
“Maria? What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be at the ball?” Catarina asked, laughing nervously as she injected a false note of sincere concern into her tone, hoping that she'd be able to deflect Maria into forgetting what she'd just seen.
Maria simply stared her down, and Catarina felt the sweat breaking out on her forehead. “Yes,” Maria said, “And so should you.”
Catarina laughed sheepishly and rubbed the back of her forehead. “Ahaha, well, I just figured I would get a head start on things, and avoid some embarrassment and get out here to my ship ahead of, you know, the whole ugly scene that would play out there.”
“What – what ugly scene?” Maria asked, clearly confused. “Wait, your ship? Are you – are you leaving?”
“Leaving makes it sound like my choice, and not, you know, what it actually is, but … yes?” Catarina winced. “Please don't tell the others! I just want to disappear quietly, and that would completely defeat the point of my coming out here early!”
“You're … you're leaving? F-for good?” Maria asked, her lip trembling. After a moment, however, she seemed to firm up, nodding her head to herself, and staring up straight into Catarina's eyes. “Then I want to go with you. Please allow me to stay by your side from now on.”
Catarina took a half step back, stunned. She had never expected anyone to find her out here, let alone Maria – the other girl should be off having her romantic confession right now, too busy to find her out here on the docks! She should be off saying those exact words to the guy she winds up with in the end, not saying them here to Catarina!
Wait. She shouldn't be saying that to Catarina. There wasn't even a Catarina ROUTE – was there? Catarina scrunched up her forehead as she thought. Despite being the one who had introduced Acchan to romance games, her friend had always been the one with perfect grades and always well-dressed and with her hair done up impeccably and who had STILL managed to find time for being farther ahead in romance games despite never being late to anything in her life. Acchan had told her that there was a secret route in the game, for some guy, but … maybe there was a second secret route? Where Maria rode off into the sunset with Catarina as she was sent into exile.
As Catarina considered the possibilities, lost in thought, she suddenly heard the authoritative thump of a foot landing on the gang plank as Maria strode right up to her.
“Heh … I don't suppose you're willing to head back?” Catarina asked, and then slumped her head at Maria's fierce look of determination. “Oh, alright, if you insist.”
Catarina continued her journey up the gangplank to the ship, and gestured with her thumb over her shoulder as she faced the captain. “I don't suppose there's room for one more passenger?”
She then turned to face Maria. “Not that I know why you want to come along, it's going to be really boring and a lot of hard work.”
There was a long pause as Maria processed that, and then stammered. “W-wait, where are we going?!”
---
The captain had dropped them off on the dock of the tiny village that would serve as their new home, and Catarina picked up her own meager possessions to carry, Maria wrestling one of the suitcases away from Catarina so she would have something to carry herself. As they made their way up the walk from the idyllic beach along the dirt path towards the village, a man came to approach them, with a prodigious mustache and a top hat upon his head.
“Ah, you must be the mayor of San Helene!” Catarina proclaimed loudly as he approached and was rewarded with him blushing a bright red.
“Ah, yes, in point of fact. Mayor Dennis at your service.” He sketched out a quick bow, before continuing. “However did you know?”
“Yes, how DID you know?” Maria whispered to Catarina, who just waved her question off.
“Ahaha, well, I came out here with my grandfather when I was young,” Catarina answered, rubbing the back of her forehead at the obvious lie.
Maria frowned and leaned in to whisper into Catarina's ear. “You did?”
“No,” Catarina whispered back. “Don't be silly, that's just how these things work. It's always your grandfather.”
“Ah, of course, that makes perfect sense,” Mayor Dennis answered, nodding his head, as Maria stared on in disbelief. “Well, I would be happy to escort you lovely ladies to your farm, if you like.”
---
As their small procession passed through the town, Catarina pointed to a small building off to the side, that, to Maria's eyes, seemed indistinguishable from the others.
“Let me guess,” Catarina said. “The library?”
“Indeed!” Mayor Dennis beamed, looking proud. “You have an excellent eye!”
Catarina nodded to herself, smug. “And that would make that building over there the bar?” She pointed to a building with a porch along the entire front side.
“Oho! I see you have some architectural training,” Mayor Dennis chortled.
“How do you know all this? Have you been here before?” Maria asked, confused.
Catarina rolled her eyes. “I told you, it's how these things work.” She dropped her voice to the whisper that she always thought no one else could hear, but was actually easily audible. “I've played plenty of farming sims, they're basically otome games with some extra grinding added in.”
Maria blinked in confusion at the nonsensical words coming out of her crush, but was well used to them by now.
“The fields at the farm are gonna be covered in sticks and weeds and rocks, of course,” Catarina continued. “And there's gonna be a shy wallflower librarian, and a tomboy bartender, of course, both of whom are single.”
Mayor Dennis did a double take, but seemed to take this in stride. “I see Heather's and Claire's reputations preceded them.”
“Oh no,” Maria moaned to herself. “Not AGAIN!” She instantly firmed her resolve to make sure Catarina realized her feelings and not let her assemble a harem of suitors. AGAIN.
---
Catarina hummed to herself as they crested the last ridge, leading down to the farm she had purchased, seeing the small cabin and the field it bordered. Sure enough, just as she had predicted, it was covered with weeds and small rocks and random sticks. She already felt the anticipation of working in the fields, doing something with her hands, starting to raise vegetables and feel living things grow that she had made. She had started farming as a way to make sure she would survive when in exile, but had grown to genuinely love it.
They said their goodbyes to the Mayor, and made their way down into the cabin to drop off their bags. Catarina had planned to head back out to the fields to start work immediately, but as she glanced around the cabin she noticed a problem she hadn't anticipated.
“Ah – I hadn't planned on anyone else coming with me, so there's only one bed. We can request another one in town, but it may be a few weeks or a month or two before we're able to afford it and get it in here,” She gave Maria an apologetic look. “I guess in the meantime we can do sleepover style, and have one of us sleep on the floor, or the couch? We can alternate, of course, I won't make you take the couch all the time.”
Maria gave her a curious look, and then nodded to herself, taking a step forward into Catarina's personal space. “We will share the bed,” she said, voice firm and not brooking any compromise or dissent.
“Or we could do that,” Catarina said, shrugging. “I just thought you might prefer your personal space? I can be a real blanket monster overnight.” She thought back to the many times she had woken up in the night to find Anne tucking her back in with a forlorn smile, already missing her friend. Well, as much of a friend as Anne could be, given that she didn't actually like Catarina and merely tolerated her as her employer.
“Then I'll just have to deal with it,” Maria said, voice still firm.
---
“Look, Maria, the first crops have come in!” Catarina hustled into the house, a basket full of tomatoes and lettuce and carrots in her arm, and a wide smile on her face. She had done it, all her hard work had paid off over the years, and she now had managed to succeed at that which she was most scared of, managed to prove that she was able to live on her own, to survive when she needed to.
Maria hurried over from where she had been doing the laundry – the small amount of clothes they had meant that they were washing near constantly until they were able to afford some more. “That's wonderful! You did amazing work, Catarina!”
Catarina beamed under the praise, rocking on her heels. “More importantly, it means we can sell them in town and start getting some money soon. We'll be able to afford that second bed in no ti-”
“No,” Maria said, her voice flat, cutting Catarina off. “We won't be buying a second bed.”
“But … don't you want -” Catarina began to ask, before Maria cut her off again, by shaking her head in negation.
“If we have some extra, we can sell them for money for new clothes, maybe,” Maria allowed, before plucking the basket out of Catarina's hands. “But for this first batch, I think we should celebrate by making some sweets with them.”
“You know the way to my heart!” Catarina proclaimed, pressing her hand to her jumpsuit clad chest, and humming in delight at the mention of desserts.
“If only,” Maria muttered under her breath.
---
“So, will you two lovely ladies be attending the Starlight Festival?” Marcus asked, as the mild-mannered doctor pushed his glasses up his nose.
Catarina laughed and nodded her head. “Yes, for sure! We've heard so many great things about it. I can't wait to see all the meteors!”
“You can't wait to eat all the food,” Maria sighed, shaking her head as she teased Catarina good-naturedly. Catarina responded by elbowing her in her side.
“Well, perhaps you would do me the honor, Miss Catarina, of saving me a da-” Marcus started.
“No,” Maria said, her voice flat, cutting him off, in the exasperated tone that Catarina was coming to recognize but still couldn't quite place the meaning of. “She will be dancing with me.”
Catarina saw Marcus' face fall at her declaration, and she gave him an apologetic smile, as he apologized and quickly made his excuses to leave the conversation.
“You didn't have to be so short with him, Maria,” She chided her companion. “Or with Heather. Or Claire. Or Nancy or Adrian or -”
“Yes, I did,” Maria muttered to herself.
---
Catarina sighed to herself in bliss, as she patted her lips with her napkin. They had been celebrating their one year anniversary of their arrival in San Helene, and Maria had outdone herself with the cooking this evening.
They had fallen into an easy rhythm, Catarina working out in the fields and taking care of the crops, and Maria handling the cooking, and they had split the rest of the chores evenly. The first few months had been a little tight, as they had been short on funds, and there was so much that needed doing. But they had managed to get their feet under them, and were now selling enough vegetables to the town to easily replenish the money they had spent when they moved out here, and also afford some extra niceties, like some new clothes for both of them, and a few decorations for their small cabin. On top of which, they had been making some friends in town – even if Maria still didn't usually trust her to go into town by herself for some reason. It wasn't like her lack of noble manners would bother Maria or the townsfolk here, unlike back in Sorcier where everyone, especially her mother, was constantly disappointed in her lack of proper etiquette.
All in all, it was a really nice life she had settled into, and while she had been doubtful when Maria had first barged her way in and insisted she come along, it had been nice to have a roommate and someone to split the chores with, and just to have someone to talk to in the evenings.
“That was amazing, Maria,” Catarina said, and watched Maria's face beam with pleasure at the compliment, humming to herself. “I just wanted to say, since it's our anniversary of being out here, how much I appreciated you coming along. You've been such a huge help, that I just wanted to say thank you. If you do want to go back, you can, you don't have to stay here with me, really, but it's been so helpful having a good friend come along.”
Catarina got more and more nervous as, despite her genuine appreciation, Maria seemed to grow more and more disappointed and her face fell with every word Catarina spoke. Finally, when she finished speaking, Maria followed it by leaning forward, banging her head against the table. A long moment went by, before Maria lifted her head, planting her forearms on the table, and staring straight at Catarina, speaking slowly so as to make her meaning perfectly clear.
“I didn't come out here with you because I like you a little, like a friend,” Maria said, extremely patient. “I came out here because I like you a lot.”
Maria stood up, and started walking around the table to stand next to Catarina, who stood up in turn at her approach, still confused by what she was saying.
“I came out here because I like you … romantically,” Maria said, finally abandoning any pretense of subtlety with Catarina's obliviousness. “I wanted to be with you. I want to stay by your side, for the rest of our lives. I love you.”
Catarina blinked, confused. Her confusion continued, her brain frozen until Maria stepped forward, right into her personal space. Maria wrapped one arm around the other girl's waist, and used her other hand to tip Catarina's head up and back, leaning in to kiss her, rewarded with Catarina blushing a bright red on her cheeks.
As Maria finally pulled back, and Catarina could breathe again, her brain finally rebooted, letting her process the romantic confession that had come out of nowhere.
“Oh,” she said, lifting one hand up to press against her lips gently. “Oh.”
She turned her gaze on Maria, suddenly appreciating the other girl in an entirely new light.
---
The next morning, Maria and Catarina lazed in bed, cuddling, turned into each other. For once, Catarina let herself relax and not push herself to be out tending the fields. She ran her hand up and down Maria's arm, stroking her lazily as she drifted in and out of the near sleep like fugue state when she wasn't tired, but was feeling lethargic. They stayed like that for hours, as the sun rose and shone into the window, and then further still. Finally, Maria half sat up, looking over at Catarina with a look of confusion on her face.
“There's something I've been meaning to ask you forever,” Maria said, her voice serious, and Catarina turned to look at her with sudden concentration. “Why DID we leave Sorcier?”
Catarina shrugged her shoulders, not seeing the harm in telling her now. “Well, I mean, I guess you left before everything happened, but – they were planning to exile me.” Her voice dropped to a speculative whisper. “Or maybe kill me … I'm still not sure which.”
“W-what?” Maria asked, her face paling. “Why didn't you say something? Who is after you? We could have told Prince Geordo and Prince Alan and Nicol! They could have done something to stop it!”
“That would have been silly,” Catarina told her, rolling her eyes, and booping Maria on the nose patronizingly. “Considering they and all our other friends are BEHIND it.”
Maria froze, for several minutes, long enough for Catarina to think the topic was dropped.
“... what,” She finally spoke, her voice completely flat.
“Well, I mean, I assumed you felt the same way, until like, you ran away as well, but,” Catarina shrugged her shoulders sheepishly, her tone expressing regret but not disappointment. “I thought you knew? Everyone sees me as the villainess and a bully and the architect of all their problems.”
“Noooo,” Maria said, the word trailing out, her tone as if explaining a simple concept to a child. “They all have crushes on you.”
Catarina laughed until Maria continued, her voice completely sincere, instantly shutting Catarina up. “I'm serious. Geordo, Alan, Nicol, Sophia, Mary, heck, even Keith. They all have massive crushes on you. You, you're not the villainess. You're the romance novel heroine they all want to be with.”
There was another long pause, and then, in a voice loud enough that the birds fled from the trees surrounding their homes, Catarina finally responded.
“WAIT! YOU MEAN WE'RE NOT IN EXILE?”
---
“So, everyone back home, they think, what do they think happened?”
“Well, I guess they probably think we ran away, to be together.”
“Okay, okay, we'll just tell everyone, uhh, PIRATES! Yes, there were pirates, and they kidnapped us and we finally escaped and made our way back home.”
“...”
“Okay, yes, and we fell in love while we were kidnapped by the fearsome pirates, we can tell everyone we're together, and now we're in love. But we can't let anyone know we thought we were exiled! We, umm, were captured by … the Dread Pirate Roberts?”
“Catarina, that's the dumbest thing you have ever said.”
“No, you're right, that's a terrible name for a pirate. How about … Oh! Silva Bastide, the pirate captain! That's a much more fearsome name!”