Gentle Eyes of Evil

Chapter 22: The Act Of Truth

The next few days went by in a blurr for most of the family. Sophie was having the time of her life by spending all of Leo's money and avoiding all responsibility, so not much had changed for her regarding her husband's death. Jace spent the next several days training with dummies and fighting out his aggression, trying to help himself get over the death of his father. Eclipse and Luna spent more time together and they both seemed to perk up during this time. Despite Luna's words of encouragement to her, though, Eclipse always resorted back to her two forms of coping.

Eclipse had learned very quickly, after Leo cast his spell, that she couldn't go to her family for help. Leo was always busy trying to maintain his failing marriage to his wife, Harriet was busy worrying about Luna or Josephine, Jace was never around any of them for long enough, and Josephine's too innocent to understand the complexity of Eclipse's emotions. Sophie wasn't even in the question. She understood that the only person who would listen, the only person she could really rely on, was herself. Eclipse liked herself best when she felt free, when she didn't feel the weight of everything crashing down at once. She liked herself best when she forgot who she was. Leo's death didn't exactly mean anything to her. Sure it was gruesome, sure it was sudden, but in the end he didn't care about them, so Eclipse's response to that was to not care about him.

As for Harriet and Josephine, they began to spend more time apart. The only reason why, is because Harriet knew that Leo's funeral would be taking place soon which meant her new stand as queen was on the horizon. She needed to learn her duties and get herself prepared to take on this new title. However, any time that Harriet wasn't working on her stature as queen, Josephine was glued to her side again as the pair spent every possible minute together outside of Harriet's practice. Harriet always made sure that Josephine was kept away from her work, and away from the crown. She did this to keep Josephine unaware of her father's death, and unaware of her involvement.

Josephine didn't think a whole lot about the situation. All she knew was that Leo had gone somewhere and might not come back, this didn't bother her though. She knew that her family wasn't fully okay, but was also unaware of the full extent. She knew they felt sad, she knew Luna had been hurt, and she knew that her body was broken. Other than that, Harriet had kept everything else hidden from her. She didn't understand the concept of death fully as she had never been exposed to it outside of killing supposedly 'bad' people. She was an innocent minded girl who was kept well out of touch with the world, she saw what Harriet wanted her to, nothing more.

During the late hours of the night, around 11pm, Harriet was outside on the balcony of her room. As it had been a rough few days of planning, manual labour, and late nights, she had snuck some booze from the storage and wasn't quite feeling herself. Her eyes, alongside their usual pink, had a slight green swirl that blended with the pink. As to not be a bad influence, she had made sure that Josephine was asleep before she went out in order to have a moment alone. However, like all other 'alone' moments, a shadow loomed behind her. To add to this already annoying interruption, the person standing behind Harriet was that of the one sibling who she was most likely to throw off the very balcony she stood on given the chance.

"Ya doin' alright there H?" A familiar cocky voice perked up, this voice broke the otherwise peaceful silence of the night. Harriet didn't jump at this sudden break as she normally would, instead she turned to face the figure slowly with tired eyes. Rather than the normal annoyance that Harriet would feel towards this individual, she found a smile creeping its way up her lips. "Yeah, yeah. I'm...I'm doing just swell" she replied to the girl with a nod and a slightly skewed thumbs up. The girl giggled and stepped more into the moonlight that the night provided each of them with, which revealed the figure to indeed be that of Eclipse. "Yeah...ya sure look it. Gotta say, I ain't ever see ya as the kind to sneak a quick one, or rather sneak anythin' at all" She commented with a smile.

Harriet turned back to face the moon, she tilted her head upwards just a little to look at it fully, the bright blue moonlight only highlighted the green in her eyes. Eclipse walked beside her and glanced over in Harriet's general direction. "So...what's all this for then? This to do with dad or...?" Eclipse asked her. Harriet covered her mouth as a drunken snicker slipped from her mouth, her head fell once again as she looked down to the stone surface of the balcony, a balcony of which was clearly aged as parts were chipped and moss had grown along the walls where the balcony connected to the main palace. Eclipse seemed confused as to why this question was greeted with laughter, she kept a smile on her face however and just raised an eyebrow as she folded her arms and rested them on the balcony. "I could tell somethin' was up cause ya ears are down, 'nd since dad went pretty recently I thought ya might be a little upset about it...I know he ain't a good guy by any means but..." Eclipse paused and shrugged. "I dunno...he's still our dad. Just thought it might be affectin' ya more than ya show." Eclipse told her with a sincerity in her voice, like she was trying to help.

Harriet shook her head as her laughter subsided. "No noooo, it's nothing to do with dear ol' dad! Haha!" She took another drink from the bottle in her hand before she looked over to Eclipse. "Would...would you believe me if...if I said...someone close to dad was the...the one to do it?" Harriet asked her through the occasional hiccup and deep breath. Eclipse was a little surprised by this comeback, but then again she wasn't going to fully believe the words of a drunken woman. She shrugged in reply "Guess not. Can't say I've thought 'bout it that much." She told her. Harriet giggled and rested both her hands on Eclipse's right shoulder and leaned her head closer with a smile as she now spoke through slurred giggles. "What if...wh-...what if I said I had done it? How...how funny would that be!" She exclaimed with a laugh. Eclipse smiled weakly at that comment, she reached two hands down and kept Harriet stable by holding her torso. "Oh yeah? And how did ya do it then?" She asked as she found this whole act amusing. There was no way Harriet could've gone through with something like that.

"I did it...with a bow...and...and an arrow...well, more than one arrow. Quite...quite a lo-...there were a lot of arrows, ok?" Harriet told her with a giggle every so often, it was now clear to Eclipse that Harriet wasn't mentally with her at all. So, she gave a giggle alongside her and kept both hands on Harriet. "That sounds really intense. H, I'll give ya that." Harriet then raised her hand and put a finger on Eclipse's lips. "Shhhh...the...the best part, you don't...yo-...you don't know the best part!" She insisted. "And what would that be?" Eclipse questioned, her voice was slightly muffled due to Harriet's finger. "The bow...the bow was made by a special woman. A...a really pretty...special woman. She took me to...to a place of nothing! But...but then the next day...I had this cool weapon! It...it's really cool and I...I really like it".

Harriet spoke about Purgatory, Ikuna, and Veratine with such an excited voice and in an almost childish tone. Eclipse giggled and nodded at what Harriet told her, she still took this entire thing as childsplay. Nothing more than drunken ramblings of a dream from a broken girl. "That sounds great, H, it really does. I'm sure that land of nothin' was very interestin'. Who knows, maybe one day ya can show me that there weapon ya talkin' 'bout. But, for now, how 'bout we get ya off to bed, huh?" Harriet didn't reply to her, instead Eclipse looked down and saw the girl's head rested on her shoulder with not a single atom of consciousness.

Eclipse sighed to herself and picked Harriet up in her arms, she carried the girl inside her room and laid her down in bed. She made sure to tuck her in and remove any remaining bottles of booze from both Harriet's hand and her room. There weren't too many bottles around, just the odd couple on the bedside table, the one in her hand, and a couple on the floor. The one in her hand was half empty, whereas the others were either fully gone or had little remains. After seeing the bottle on the floor and crouching down to pick it up, Eclipse noticed the golden glow of Veratine's arrows under Harriet's bed. She felt her heart stop as she realised Harriet may have been telling her the truth.