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avirael · 9 months ago

Text

Stuck on Repeat

He wanted to scream.

To scream and to cry and to be anywhere but here. But the best A’viloh could do was try not to tremble and instead follow Rael‘s example, who - despite the fact of being shackled and pushed around - still maintained a certain stubborn grace. He wished he knew how they did that.

What exactly was going on? A‘viloh wasn’t sure of that yet and it would take a while for him to process all of this. Everything had happened so fast. Suddenly the sultana had gasped for air, her goblet falling to the ground along with herself, soaking the expensive carpet with its dark red content. While A‘viloh had only stared in shock, Rael had immediately jumped up and was by Nanamo‘s side only split seconds after she collapsed. The next moment there had been guards everywhere and also that mean Lalafell accusing them of regicide. They had barely been able to say anything before the guards had grabbed them both, checked them for weapons and tied up their hands.

Now, as the door in front of them opened, the soldier behind A‘viloh gave him a rough push. The miqo‘te winced and stumbled forward into the room filled with people, all eyes on him. He lost his balance and with his hands tied behind his back, he landed rather ungracefully on the hard, cold stone tiles. His head started to spin, his vision began to blur, his heart was racing. It was all just too much and also too late to stop the memories that had buried their ugly dark claws deep in his mind. Miserably he gasped for air.

Rael hadn’t fallen but still knelt down and leaned towards him, wanting to make sure he was alright. „A‘vi! Please stay calm. I’m trying to find a way to get us out of this…“, the viera managed to whisper before someone pulled them away.

A’viloh still struggled to sit up and at the same time tried desperately to see where Rael had gone, when someone grabbed one of his arms and a handful of his hair and yanked him into a kneeling position. He pressed his eyes shut and tried to breathe, tried to not let the fear and the memories overwhelm him, but a small whimper still made it past his lips. He fought against his own mind, racing and about to shut itself off from all of this.

„Stop it!“, Rael hissed angrily. What else than complain could they do with their hands tied behind their back. The brass blade turned his attention to the viera instead of A’viloh. „Shut up!“, the man growled and struck Rael across the face with the back of his hand. They gasped and when they looked up again a moment later, with a mix of shock and indignation on their face, their lower lip was split and bloody.

Ashamed A’viloh stared to the ground and tried to pretend that this wasn’t his fault while the voices and turmoil around him faded to the background. Instead his mind was filled with questions and fears. Would they be executed? Thrown in jail? What had happened to Nanamo? Would their friends at least get out of this with their lifes, if Rael and him were made responsible?

Suddenly something touched his shoulder and pulled him out of his thoughts. A’viloh gave an alarmed shriek.

„Shhh!“, Rael shushed him, leaning their shoulder against his. Worried they glanced at him. „You were gone for a moment weren’t you?“ A’viloh didn’t answer but that wasn’t necessary. Rael sighed deeply. „Give me your hands. Maybe I can loosen the knots…“

Working behind their backs Rael tried their best but it was impossible. The angle was bad, they didn’t see what they were doing and the knots were simply too tight. On their own the two of them would never make it out of their ties. “Seven hells!”, Rael cursed. “I would sooner chew through these things than get that knot open!”

It was a funny imagination and under different circumstances A’viloh would maybe have laughed about it. Instead he turned to look at them and offered a sad smile. “It’s alright. At least you tried…I’m sorry about your lip.”

The viera looked surprised and then shook their head. “Don’t worry. I can fix that.”

Suddenly the turmoil around them got even worse. A’viloh only now noticed the screams and the fighting. “What’s happening?”

“Raubahn killed Adeledji. Tried to kill Lolorito too. Panic broke out and now he is fighting Ilberd. But I honestly don't think he has a chance...”

As if to confirm this, one of the giant stone pillars exploded under a heavy misaimed hit and through the cloud of dust and rubble Raubahn was hurled through the air and landed right beside them. With a swift movement of his blade he cut their ties and only then as he stood up, rubbing his wrists, A’viloh noticed that the Flame General was missing an arm.

But there was no time to question how that had happened and what else he might have missed while dissociating. Confidently as ever Raubahn spoke up saying that he never doubted them or the Scions and that they should flee. A’viloh was still to dazed to argue against that and so let Rael pull him along, to Minfilia and the others and then out of the palace.

As they hurried down the stairs of the Royal Promenade Thancred ran towards them and with a sudden peng of guilt A’viloh realised that he had been so shaken until now that he hadn’t even noticed yet that the Hyur hadn’t been with them. Thancred warned them that Lolorito’s soldiers had already taken control of all important points in the city and that it would be impossible to just walk out through the city gates. Luckily he offered another plan. Rumours about very old secret passages leading out of the city and luckily he knew how to get there.

But just as they wanted to leave the heavy steps and yells of the brass blades got closer.

“Go ahead! I’ll handle this!”, Yda exclaimed and turned towards the soldiers.

Papalymo made an incredulous face. “By yourself?! …I suppose I shall just have to join you.”

Rael offered to help them too. Papalymo and the viera could cause quite the destruction together that was certain but the thought of leaving any of them behind made A’viloh sick. There had to be a different way. One were all of them got out of here together.

“Don’t!”, he croaked and hated how his voice sounded a lot quieter and squeakier than he had intended. Had anybody heard him at all? But before he could say anything else or before Rael could join Yda and Papalymo, the Lalafell shot a fireball at the mechanism that held the palace gate open and with a roaring sound it crashed down and cut of the path between the two of them and the rest of the group. It would give them some time but neither Minfilia nor A’viloh seemed to be willing to leave without their friends. Helplessly and pleading the Miqo’te reached through the bars with one arm and stretched out a hand towards his friends. A’viloh and Yda had quickly befriended each other after meeting for the first time. They had spent a lot of time training together and Yda had soon become one of his dearest friends among the Scions. The thought that something could happen to her was unbearable for him. “Yda! Please!”

But the girl laughed at him and locked her fingers with his for a second. “Don’t worry, A’vi! We’ll see you later!” Confidently she smiled at him before she let go of his hand and turned back around to face the soldiers that had almost caught up to them.

The others called out for them and reluctantly Minfilia and A’viloh followed. There was nothing else they could do now apart from making Yda’ and Papalymo’s efforts worth it and get out of here before more soldiers appeared.

In a haste they ran through the decorated corridors of the palace district and luckily the entrance to the secret passage was exactly were Thancred had suspected it to be. The tunnels were bigger and more complex than A’viloh would have thought and for quite a while they ran through dusty old corridors trying to find the right way that would lead them out of the city.

After a while the echoes of yells and footsteps appeared again and unlike them their pusuers seemed to know the ways down here. They tried to hurry but in no time the voices were coming closer and closer.

“I will stop them.”, Y’shtola exclaimed and abruptly stood still, making everyone else pause for a moment as well. “You go on ahead!”

“No…”, A’viloh protested, he wasn’t willing to leave any more people behind. But Thancred nodded. “Then I will stay too! It would be rude to let you fight alone…”

“No! This is all wrong!”, A��vi repeated a little more loudly. “Let me and Rael fight them, we can defeat them surely.”

Y’shtola shook her head. “Not that many of them…” and Thancred agreed, “The two of you are far too important to get captured...” He didnt say or worse but it was clearly there.

“But…” A’viloh wanted to protest but what was there to say? So he just helplessly stared from one of them to the other. Instead Rael nodded. “Alright!”

“No! Nothing’s alright!”, A’viloh exclaimed pleadingly. „There has to be another way!“

“No, there isn’t.” Thancred said and put his hands on A’viloh’s shoulders. „Listen! There is no time. You have to get out of here, do you hear me? And you have to get Minfilia to safety. Look at me A’vi!“

He slightly shook him and despite the closeness between them A’vi did as he was told.

“Can you promise me that? To get yourself and Minfilia to safety?”, the Hyur asked with a serious voice.

Pleadingly A’vi stared at Thancred’s face wondering if it would be the last time he was going to see it. He hadn’t stopped shaking since Ilberd’s soldiers had put him in chains but now it got worse again. Nonetheless he nodded slightly.

“Good.“ Thancred said and nodded too, but hesitated to let go of him.

A strange expression appeared on his face, one A’viloh never had seen on him before. A mixture of doubt and maybe fear? Thancred sighed and muttered “Just in case…“ more to himself than anybody else but A’vi was close enough to hear it anyway.

A’viloh hadn’t expected at all what happened next. Before he even realised it, Thancred had leaned down, closed the gap between them and kissed him. He was too shocked to react, too confused as well, so he just let it happen. Weirdly this made him feel better but also hopelessly sad at the same time. What was he doing here? This was crazy! Maybe he would later curse himself for allowing this or he would wish he hadn’t wasted this moment like this but before he had figured out how to feel or to react the moment was over. Thancred pulled back a little and looked like he already regretted either what he did or simply having to let him go. Or maybe that was just how A'viloh felt himself. “Consider this my lucky charm…“, the hyur whispered, barely audible, and weakly smiled at him.

Then he pushed A’vi away, as gently as the urgency of the situation allowed, and spoke up louder to all of them.

��Now, get out of here!“

„No!“, the Miqo’te whimpered, his hands tried to hold on to Thancred’s arm but he ignored him and looked at Rael instead. „Get them out of here, please. I’m counting on you.“

The viera looked annoyed, more than usually, but nodded without a word and only when A’vi felt their hands at his arms pulling him away, he realised they were all still here watching him. At any other occasion he would have felt horribly embarrassed now but all he could think of right now was that he couldn’t leave all of his friends behind here to fight, and possibly die, while he fled to safety. He didn’t want to run any longer. But Rael seemed to share Thancred’s opinion.

“Come on, A’vi. We can’t waste time now. Every single soldier in this twelves-forsaken city is after us now, we can’t fight our way out of this. There’s no way to set this right if we don’t get out of here first.”, they explained as calmly as they could in this situation, then grabbed A’vi’s hand and dragged him along as they ran. A’viloh followed on stumbling feet but only because his body had long since stopped listening to anything his brain screamed at him. Stop! Go back! Fight!

Rael’s words made sense but still… weakly he tried to look back and see what was happening behind them but then Rael and Minfilia took a turn into another tunnel and he lost sight of Y’shtola and Thancred. For another while he just numbly let the viera pull him along until they abruptly stopped at an intersection.

“There is light! The exit must be right around that corner!”, Rael announced pointing to one of the tunnels.

Minfilia nodded. “I think so too. But I have somewhere else to go. Hydaelyn speaks to me, I have to stay behind but you two, you cannot stay with me.”

Rael shook their head: “We promised to protect you and I don’t plan to break that promise.”

Minfilia smiled kindly.

“I release you from this promise. Instead promise me to flee and clear our names for us! You are the only ones who can do this. I have a different task to fulfil. Please, you must go on! You are the Warriors of Light! You are hope - for the Scions, and for all the realm! As long as your flame continues to burn, the light of the dawn may ever be relit! You must escape, and save Eorzea from those who would plunge it into darkness! This is the only way...”

Rael grimaced but nodded. “Fine…”

A’viloh on the other hand just weakly shook his head. Words had long failed him and with every minute all of this felt more and more like it was happening to someone else and not him. Like all of this couldn’t be real. Like it was a horrible, weird dream that he would wake up from every second now! How had everything escalated so fast?

Minfilia saw his expression and put her arms around him in a tight hug. “Don’t blame yourself for this, A’vi. None of this is your fault. Everything will be alright, I promise.“

Then she ran in the opposite direction and all A’viloh could do was watch her vanish in the maze of tunnels.

After a few seconds Rael took his hand again and A’vi snapped back to attention watching the Viera’s free hand point towards the light. “Let’s go, the exit is right there.”

But A’viloh refused, even if his voice was nothing but a weak whisper. “No, please go alone. I’ll follow Minfilia. Someone has to protect her.”

Rael growled. “Were you listening at all? Do you want all of this to be in vain? I know this is difficult for you, but so it is for me!“

“But-“, A’viloh tried to protest but Rael looked like they almost wanted to hit him and angrily yelled at him. “I want you to be safe too, you know?! I would gladly stay behind and fight if it meant you and the other’s were safe but the best we can do now is run!”

Before A’vi could say anything else a deafening crash sounded through the tunnels. Alarmed they both stared back the way they came. The walls and the floor seemed to tremble and a roaring sound echoed down the tunnel and came closer and closer.

“Oh no!”, Rael gasped. “The ceiling is coming down! We have to get out of here! Now!”

“The ceiling?!”, A’vi shrieked. “But what of the others? We need to — Let go of me!!”, he protested as Rael tried to drag him out of the tunnel.

“It’s too late now, A’vi. Please!”, the viera pleaded but A’vi struggled and screamed. They almost wouldn’t have made it out in time. Just as the cloud of dust and rubble hit the protective barrier Rael had summoned up to shield them they were catapulted backwards by a burst of magic the last few meters out of the ruins and into the late afternoon sun.

Both of them coughed from the dust and it took a moment until they could see anything again. The entrance to the tunnels had collapsed entirely, lots of small and bigger pieces of stones lay in a huge pile in front of what was barely recognisable as the tunnel entrance anymore.

Shocked A’vi stared at the rubble for a few seconds before he began to scream again. Quickly he jumped up and tried to get the stones out of his way, to find a way back in, but of course it was hopeless. The old broken stones were too many and too heavy for him. They wouldn't give in to his pleading. "No! Please, no..."

As calm and soothing as they could Rael took his hands and spoke to him. “A’vi. Not now. There’s nothing we can do now…”

Slowly he let Rael turn him around. He looked at the viera, his eyes filled with tears, before he wordlessly threw his arms around Rael‘s neck. „I‘m so sorry…“, he whispered after a moment of just silently clinging to them.

Rael shook their head. „Not your fault…“

A’viloh didn’t answer to that. Instead he sullenly looked at Rael for a moment before he dared to ask, „Do you think they are dead?“

Rael sighed and then grimaced. „I’m not going to lie to you, A’vi. I honestly don’t know, but it really doesn’t look good…“

The Miqo’te just nodded weakly, the corner of his mouth twitching for a second. He appreciated the honesty but he had hoped for something a little more reassuring.

Rael carefully squeezed his shoulder. „But maybe they aren’t. We will figure that out, I promise. But first we have to proof that we did NOT kill Nanamo... We should really go now…“

„Thank you. I would be lost without you…“, A’viloh muttered and followed Rael along the railroads leading towards Blackbrush station, defeated and disheartened. Silently he wondered if there was a safe place now for them at all and how they possibly could manage to clear their names…

#ffxiv #ff14 #final fantasy xiv #final fantasy 14 #ffxiv writing #ff14 screenshots #ffxiv screenshots #ffxiv gpose #gpose #Aviloh Tia #Rael Hyskaris #good luck if you decide to read all this rambling! 🙈#I’ve been rewriting this thing over and over for weeks now!#or probably months even...#I was unsure how obviously I can make this a mirror of A’vi’s past without making it seem like he didn’t evolve at all #He’s clearly out of his mind here but if he wasn’t I’m sure there wouldn’t be a way to keep him from fighting alongside the others.#And then there’s the kiss! What was I thinking?!#Apart from the fact that I can’t write stuff like this I mean...#I was so unsure if I wanted it to happen like this but in the end I came to the conclusion that this would probably be very in-character.#It’s not romantic because how would it possibly be?#I imagine this is just another stupid overly dramatic ARR-Thancred thing!#He does this with good intentions but in reality it makes things worse than better... oops!#It is what it is is now! I don't know how to write this bastard and it shows haha...#I don’t even know where I’m going with this. tbh I just hope I can make sense of this along the way 😂#the pictures have the prettiest outfit I have for A’vi. maybe ther would have been something more fitting but I forgot to look up options🙈#Imagine Rael braided his hair a little more fancy than here. maybe with flowers or jewels.#just imagine he looks really insanely pretty alright? 🥰#but he also feels very weak and defenceless here without any armor or weapon to protect himself #please also imagine Rael in these pictures 🙈#HW will be more about Rael I promise! 😅

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saetiate · 28 days ago

Text

FORSAKEN BY ALL THE GODS.

info: prince!kaiser x f!reader, enemies to lovers, fantasy au, arranged marriage, eventual smut. afab reader w she/her pronouns. reader has an established backstory and is not weak, reader’s appearance is nondescript. reader calls him “mihya” as they get closer. oliver and karasu are bffs in this lol. maybe some angst if you squint. happy ending!! plot is balanced with comedic moments.

synopsis: You will be killed by the one you love most. That line from his prophecy has haunted Kaiser his whole life. Against it all, you stand before him. Will you be the one to rewrite fate itself?

word count: 14k (please don’t let this scare you, i promise my writing is efficient)

a/n: this might be my magnum opus, i promise i poured my best dialogue and writing into this and it shows. if you consider reading like so seriously i will love you forever. also the smut is huge just like his cock <3 or my heart

Kaiser has been forsaken thrice fold. First, by his parents. His mother is said to be a beautiful woman that captured the hearts of all. His father could not bear her ultimate betrayal: leaving, causing him to wither away to nothing.

Kaiser guesses that this aspect of her runs in his blood after all.

The second and third time he is forsaken happen at once.

On the night that Kaiser is, by royal decree, anointed successor to the throne, he does as tradition dictates. He approaches the golden temple at the top of a mountain and mirrors the prophet within, sitting cross-legged in front of them.

The prophet gazes into the distance. And then, like a man possessed, they speak.

Lone Emperor who covets the throne, You will be killed by the one you love most.

Kaiser swears he feels even his heart stop at that. Cold rushes through him, the chill of it colder than anything he had felt at the front lines of war.

Forsaken by all the Gods —

The prophet stops, staring into the distance with a frown.

The silence is deafening. Noa, despite tradition, interrupts the ceremony and approaches the prophet, clicking his fingers in front of their face.

“The prophecy?”

The prophet’s eyes widen with fear. “I- I cannot.”

“What, are you afraid?” Kaiser scoffs. “The prophecy is bad as it is, it can’t get much worse than that.”

“No, I mean I cannot. The — the Fates! They’ve stopped speaking to me!”

“Excuse me?” Kaiser’s scowl is evident, and Noa swears that in any other situation, Kaiser would’ve moved for his sword and set his blade ablaze.

It speaks volumes that all he does is stare right at the prophet, fear barely contained in his eyes.

The prophet grips at Noa’s hand, forcing his gaze. “My lord, please believe me. This — in the history... it has never happened before. I swear it.”

Noa whistles, and the guards outside come rushing in. “Seize them,” he commands, and they stare at each other for a moment.

To seize and capture that which is considered holy? Is that not blasphemy?

Noa cares little, almost removing his sword from his sheath to do it himself. “What are you all waiting for?”

“My lord! I swear to you!” The prophet grapples towards Noa in spite of their hands being held behind their back, the guards barely catching them from falling to their knees. “The fact that I would admit this at all shows my loyalty to you!” The prophet gasps, breath coming fast.” I could have pretended, could have given a false prophecy. I did not. That’s the choice I made. That is all the proof you need.”

It’s convincing enough that Noa hesitates, taking a deep breath in. But he sees in the corner of his eye Kaiser’s state, sitting in the kind of stillness that you see before a battle, bent over at the bottom of the altar.

At that sight, Noa makes a single motion with his hand for the prophet to be taken away.

The room clears.

“Kaiser, I —”

Whatever comforting remark Noa might have made dies in his throat, because Kaiser laughs, a bitter and broken sound, that he would in the future rarely have his walls down to ever reveal again. He hides his eyes behind his hand and he laughs.

“Of course, my prophecy would come to something like this.” He drags his hand down across his face. “Forsaken by all the Gods.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Noa says it with conviction, and it’s enough for Kaiser to face him.

“Master?”

“You will still be the successor to the throne. As is your destiny.”

“My destiny?” Kaiser jabs a thumb to the now-empty seating. “We just heard my destiny.”

“What the gods have declared has nothing to do with me. I declare you the next to rule. That is all.”

Noa presses a hand to the crown of Kaiser’s head. “No one will know what transpired here. A tragic prophecy is a given. It is meant to be a trial of sorts, after all. Mine, too, was unpleasant. Though not nearly as dire.”

“What was yours?”

Noa breathes in deeply. “A twisted rivalry with a twisted man. One that was to be all-consuming to me.”

Kaiser scoffs. “A rivalry. Just train and win.”

Noa lets the comment pass, staring out of the temple and past the mountains. “The rivalry came and went. At the time, I felt it was the worst. I could not eat, sleep, or breathe without the thought of what he would do next on my mind. But I was lucky, that it passed.”

He motions for Kaiser to take his arm, bringing him back up to standing. “Yours will pass too, I’m sure of it.”

Kaiser waves his hand, gesturing at Noa to let go of him. It’s easy to say, easy to have faith when it is not your life that balances on the precipice.

Forsaken thrice: once, by his parents. Another, by the Gods. And third, by his own future lover. Kaiser curses the Gods and the Weaver for such a fate, for something possibly worse than death is looming over him.

You will be killed by the one you love most. That line has haunted his very being to this day.

The people do not know what causes their successor to turn so cold, as biting and harsh as winter itself. His quicksilver smile rattles bones, his sword is cutting like blood in snow.

The prophecy is on a need-to-know basis, and Kaiser has never been crueler. He trains, harder than ever. Enough that when an unmovable sword is found at the rocks of the ocean, he trains until he is able to pull it from the bank, wield it with one hand. Rumor has said it might take three men to carry, or that the night sky that shimmers across it is strong enough to kill even a god. His sole retrieval of it is proof to the people of his strength and stature, but compassion and love are rarely a topic of conversation with his name.

He focuses on his work. He does not take lovers. He barely sees others as friends. And he most certainly does not take a bride.

You appear before the throne and you do not bow. The scowl on Kaiser’s face at this says enough.

“You dare-”

“You have the sword.” You ignore Kaiser entirely, setting your sights completely on Noa.

The silence that follows is as large and wide as the ocean, but your gaze is sharp and keen, never faltering once until Noa speaks.

“Water sorceress,” Noa addresses you coldly, “or that’s what you told our people.”

“Yes.”

“You are not the only sorceress of water. Yet your power is second to none.” Noa stands, stepping down the stairs with heavy, thumping footfalls until he’s standing right in front of you. “They call you the water’s mistress, in the neighboring lands.”

“They do.”

He begins to circle you, like a hunter might before striking a deer. Standing next to you, his deep voice clear right next to your ear, he eyes you curiously. “They’re all wrong, aren’t they?”

You don’t answer. Noa takes that as answer enough.

“A power like that. Do you think me stupid?” He observes you, checks you visually for weapons, watches your hands to ensure you don’t call magic forth.

“Demigod.” He about spits the word from behind you, and yet all you do is tilt your head to catch him in your eye’s view.

“You are as well-informed as they say.”

“I am as logical as they come.”

“We are the same in that regard, then. So let’s get straight to the point.”

Noa returns back to the throne, seemingly satisfied with his observing, gesturing at you to continue.

“You have something belonging to me. A sword, heavier than most. Ancient, yet sharp. It is said to look like it contains a night sky.”

“The blade you’re speaking of was found by us, it is ours to keep.”

In the short silence that follows, Kaiser swears there must be irritation on your end, but you don’t show it. Instead, you take a deep breath in.

“The blade was thrown out of the heavens and spat out into this realm during a war between Gods.”

“Is that so? And how can you prove it’s yours?”

“I can wield it, unlike your people, who do not have the means to wield a sword as such.” You state simply.

Like rose grown blue, the impossible becomes possible. You can feel the divinity and the power that comes off the sword in waves the minute it’s unsheathed, your eyes widening. The ring of it is as familiar to you as your own skin, how could you not have felt its presence sooner? But Kaiser is fast, much faster than you expected, faster than he should be with a sword of that weight, that magnitude. Before you can turn your head, cold silver kisses your neck.

“This blade, sorceress?” He comes around from behind you, stalks around you just like his Master had, sword pointed like it may just draw blood from you at any moment. When you finally see his face, his sneer is wicked.

He takes pride in your wide-eyed gaze, your sharpened attention, but the lack of fear on your part grates at him. God-killing, they had called the blade. Yet you don’t shy away at all.

“Say we return the sword to its rightful owner,” Noa calls back your attention, “what would you offer us in return?”

“Offer in return? This sword does not belong to you. It is returned, as it should be.”

“This sword, with its divinity, could harm even a god.” Kaiser presses the blade closer to your neck, gleaming metal against your skin. “It protects this nation. What if the gods forsake us? If we return it to you, what would protect us against them then?”

“For what reason would they do such a thing?”

Kaiser barks a laugh. “Of course, there would be no criticisms from one of them. Water sorceress, demigod. Tell us, who are you, truly? What do your people call you, up there? No matter.” He lowers the sword, but leaves it unsheathed, its heavy weight balanced in his palm. A threat that at any moment, he may change his mind. “Those titles mean nothing to me. I have been forsaken, demigod. So know, I trust not even the gods.”

You sigh. Foreseeing a troublesome future has its cons, you suppose. Your queen would smile if you told her such.

“You ask for something with power in equal to or more than the blade. You asked me for my titles. I shall give you both.” The sleeves of your dress shimmer as you move them, and it’s in this moment that Kaiser notices they are not sleeves but water itself, cradled around your wrists like armor. “The Gods had bestowed on me the title Sword Maiden, and I offer myself and my services to you until the end of your line.”

That shocks the room like a bucket of cold water.

You turn to Kaiser, who stands beside the throne. You step forward once, and water rushes underneath that step, descending in waves over the floor as if it goes through it, a magic they have never witnessed prior. “You say the Gods have forsaken you? Let my presence be proof to you that they still watch over you.”

Kaiser scowls, “What sort of cheap trick is this?”

“My domain is truth. I cannot lie.”

“Oh, please.”

Your eyes narrow at him. “Would it help for you to press your sword against my neck once more?”

A goddess who cannot lie. Noa’s faith lies in logic, but he’s not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. His gaze flits between Kaiser and you before he seems to settle a decision in his mind.

“Until the end of Kaiser’s line.” Noa negotiates.

Kaiser’s gaze snaps to Noa. “You’re taking her up on this?”

You almost frown. “Fine.”

Noa quirks an eyebrow at you. “That simple?”

“Human lives move quickly.”

Kaiser eyes you curiously. “What happens when you lie?”

You blink at him. Once. Twice. Is that… almost a flustered look you have on?

He readjusts his grip on the blade. “Speak, sorceress.”

“Wh-What do you want me to say?!” You grip at your dress nervously, and that has him even more curious.

“I’m waiting here,” he sing-songs playfully.

“Before the lie can leave my voice, my neck swells up like a balloon, and chokes me.”

He smiles wickedly. “Demonstrate.”

Gods, if it wasn’t immoral, you could wring his neck right now.

You think, for even a moment, a simple lie. And in seconds, you’re almost suffocating on nothing, and Kaiser laughs. Laughs. A full laugh, bending at his knees.

“Oh gods, you’re like a pufferfish!”

You let go of the lie, taking heaving breaths. “Just because I have water capabilities does not mean I am a fish.”

In the midst of the conversation, Isagi leans against Noa’s side, a soft conversation full of worry.

“You’ll have to explain her presence to the council,” Isagi tells him, blue eyes wide with hesitation.

“Right, and your suggestion?”

“I have thought about it, considerably. If you say you hired her, with a force as powerful as her, the other nations may think you are to wage war. So… Given the heir’s… reputation,” Isagi’s gaze flits nervously between you and Kaiser. “If he is willing, she may be a good fit.”

Noa sighs. This, this exact theory, has been a conversation with the other members of his team for months. That a wife by his side would make him seem less chilling, make the transition to a new heir easier on the public, prevent outroar. It is one thing to feel that Kaiser keeps a nation safe, and another to love him as a ruler.

It’s an easy decision, but a hard conversation.

“Kaiser.”

He whips around, ceasing his antics quickly. “Master.”

Noa looks like he is about to say something to him, but hesitates, turning to you instead. Isagi nervously steps away from the dais, returning to his position.

“Goddess,” this time, there is no malice behind Noa’s words. “I accept your offer. However, your presence in this nation and in this castle must be explained appropriately. Should I bear you the title of my successor’s betrothed, would that be a title you’re willing to bear?”

Kaiser’s back straightens. “Excuse me?” he utters low.

“You do not have to bear children,” he specifies. “And you do not have to truly be wed.”

A goddess, to be betrothed to a mortal, as princely as he is, is a serious affair. Kaiser slides his gaze to Isagi, with the audacity to even suggest such. And yet, you seem to ponder it like a simple question.

“I see. As long as the sword is in my presence and protection, how you communicate with your nation is none of my concern.”

“So be it, then,” Noa agrees quickly. “I’ll have our people show you to a room.”

You nod, and are whisked away. The throne room, as if knowingly, empties quickly, guards rushing out to leave Kaiser alone with Noa.

“You made this decision for me,” Kaiser spins to face Noa, spits his words through gritted teeth. “I have been clear. I will take no brides.”

“You believe the prophecy made a choice for you.”

“The prophecy bears no mercy. Or do you wish for my death so eagerly? If so, take your sword out and do it your damn self.”

Noa lets him speak, heave his words out until there’s silence once more.

“She cannot lie,” Noa says softly. “She cannot lie to you, Kaiser. And she is a goddess, a divine being.”

“Demigod,” Kaiser corrects.

“She is divine, and she cannot lie. She is correct, to this end – that as long as she is here, the prophecy cannot come to be. For she has not forsaken us.” Forsaken you, goes unspoken. “She could be good for you, if you allowed her to be.”

Kaiser lets out a canned laugh. “Ha. How can the divine ever understand us?”

Noa stands. “You’ll have plenty of time to find out.”

Kaiser taps his hand against his sword hilt. “You really will not move on this?”

Noa shakes his head. “She is too valuable to lose, and you have a reputation for cruelty. The solution is nothing short of perfect.”

The logical comes above his feelings. Kaiser knows this, even if he hates to come face to face with it.

Noa walks out of the throne room, leaving Kaiser to his bitterness.

“Shitty master,” he mumbles under his breath to no one.

It’s jarring to all the guards, the way you don’t even stand let alone bow when Noa knocks to enter your room. But Noa cares little for things like that, if you’re truly offering what you’ve said.

“Perhaps I was too hasty, in presenting the solution before giving you the facts.” He hesitates before you in the reflection of your vanity. You don’t respond, barely even look at him as you unclasp your jewelry, laying it on the table.

“He will not love you.” Noa tells you after a breath, his surefire eyes finally meeting yours.

You give him a curious gaze. “That is likely for the best. I would outlive him, after all.”

“It is, truly, on a need-to-know basis. To tell you this-”

“The prophecy, I presume you’re referring to,” you interrupt, turning to face him.

The shock rolls quickly off him. Divinity does have its mysteries, he supposes. “You already know.”

“I asked the water, why he is so quick to believe he is forsaken. They told me that he lives under the burden of a prophetic trial. That is all I know.” You stand, moving to unzip your dress only for Noa to hastily pull a partition screen across the room and turn around.

“The water, it speaks to you?”

“It does. Though it’s worth noting that it does not make me all-seeing.” Your voice carries over the partition with the ruffle of clothing. “The queen of the Gods, who sees all fates – she is the only one who is truly all-seeing.”

You come out in a nightgown, folding the partition back. He chucks you a robe that you catch easily.

“You should learn the ways of this world if you want to pass as a simple water sorceress, especially before the banquet.”

You frown. “The prince is my betrothed, is he not? Will he not handle it all?”

The idea you present sparks in Noa’s mind. “Brilliant. I’ll have Kaiser and some of the other members of our team show you the ropes. Good night, sorceress.”

You nod to him, and the door clicks shut.

“She’s a what?”

Oliver slams his metal cup of beer down, rolling the dice once more.

“A demigod, Oliver. Gods, are you that drunk already? Keep up.” Karasu grabs at the dice as Oliver moves his pieces.

“Can you all shut the fuck up? What happened to need-to-know basis?” Chigiri slinks himself over to their table.

“We’re need-to-know.” Karasu jabs a thumb at himself and Oliver.

“They are, actually, need-to-know.” Isagi puts a gentle hand on Chigiri’s shoulder, settling down next to him. “Because she’s never been human in her life.”

“And now we’re supposed to, what, teach her to be human? Is that a thing we can do?” Chigiri twirls a strand of hair between his fingers, tapping the end against Isagi’s cheek.

Oliver snorts. “What, like a class? Some of us have never sat in one of those, you prissy little shits.”

“She can’t dance, for one.”

“Get Kaiser to teach her. Isn’t he her betrothed?”

That has Oliver almost spitting out his drink, choking on it in coughs. “He's her what?”

Chigiri scowls in his direction. “Dude, are you listening at all?”

“If she’s really his betrothed, none of us should be teaching her.” Oliver warns genuinely. “He’ll cut down everyone here, before he lets us touch her.”

“It’s just an excuse,” Isagi waves his hand, pulling out a leather-bound bind of notes. “They’re not actually together.”

“Oh, you actually got that motion to pass. Shit.” Karasu remarks admirably.

“It must be so tiring,” Bachira sighs happily, falling into place next to Isagi, “to have to actually care about what other people think.”

“The optics, Bachira,” Isagi smacks the end of his pen across Bachira’s nose, and he makes an oh! sound in response.

When Kaiser walks in, the room almost goes silent. He’s used to it, of course. Hearing only the way his footfalls come heavy, boots thumping into the stone floor as a drink is placed right in front of him immediately.

The room slowly fills back with noise as he shoulders off his coat, wrapping it around the chair before sitting. But only his table is still strangely silent.

He flits his gaze over the group. Usually, they’re the first to kill the silence in the room, yelling about the game or a duel. He looks at Isagi, specifically, who seems the most nervous. “Something you wanna say to me?”

“Uh…”

Chigiri sighs, killing the tension. “We’re deciding who gets to teach her how to dance.”

Kaiser quirks an eyebrow. “The demigod?”

Chigiri nods, and Kaiser takes a long gulp of his drink, popping it back down and twirling the top of it with his fingers. “I’ll do it.”

“What?” It’s Isagi’s turn to be shocked, sitting up straight.

Kaiser exhales audibly. “None of you could handle her. She could cut you with water the moment you accidentally step on her.”

It’s not an insult, really. They know this too. That this is Kaiser’s brand of protection, to add insult to injury just to keep others out of harm’s way. But they play his game.

“Think we can’t dodge fast enough? A bit demeaning, don’t you think?” Oliver’s grin is wicked, making straight eye contact with Kaiser, who only draws his eyebrows in at his direction.

“You think that god-killing sword is gonna save you?” Karasu asks.

“I don’t have the sword anymore.”

“What?”

It stings more than it should, he thinks. The sword that he thought chose only him, so quickly released from his grasp. But his strength is his own, he holds fast to that.

Kaiser glances at Karasu. “Those are the terms. She marries me, she gets the sword.”

Ness rests his cheek on his hand. “Man, that sounds like she wins twice.”

Chigiri scoffs at that. “She’s a demigod. Being down here is probably like being in the sewers to her.”

Kaiser stands abruptly, pushing his drink aside, his coat billowing as he wraps it over himself once more.

“Where are you going?” Isagi yells, but he doesn’t answer.

“He gone for real?” Oliver elbows Karasu. “I’m too drunk to tell.”

“Yeah, man. He’s gone”

“Great.” Oliver slaps a piece down. “I’ll bet 50 bucks right now they get married for real.”

“What the fuck?” Chigiri tilts his head back against the wall, staring at the ceiling like it might give him some reprieve.

Karasu laughs, “Okay, I’ll play. I’ll bet 20 that they try to kill each other.”

“You’re just a hater.”

“Nah, I agree,” Reo leans back in the booth. “Kaiser’s a lot of things, but a loving husband is a bit much.”

“She’s a goddess. He’s literally already betrothed to her.” Oliver takes another swig. “Y’all ain’t gonna marry a goddess if she was given to you? Damn, put me in his place, I’ll do it right now.”

Kaiser trains, every morning, from sunrise to noon.

You only know because most of the rooms in the palace outlook to a self-contained field. You see him, often, because of this, even if he doesn’t speak to you. As you walk down the corridor, in your classes with Isagi about the current climate of the nations.

“It is useless for me to learn this,” you tell him. “In a few short millennia, the border of the nations will undoubtedly change. And we will have to relearn it all again. What is the use? Why war at all over something so insignificant? Just have a conversation about it.”

Isagi makes a pointed, bored expression at you for this, and then pretends like you didn’t say anything at all.

At the end of class today, you press your elbows to the open windowsill.

Kaiser is there, sparring with Ness. Ness is quick, agile, fleet-footed and runs circles around Kaiser so much so that it almost makes it difficult to keep up.

Kaiser approaches him at bone-breaking momentum, launches strike after hardened strike. He’s shirtless, bandages wrapped around the bottom of his torso, and his body is streaked with sweat. He’s strong, clearly. Broad shoulders clear now from when they were hidden under layers of clothing the first time you met him, the muscles in his arms flexing and relaxing with each step of the friendly duel, hair dipped in saltwater blue.

You know what he looks like, now. You get a sense why Fate brings you here.

He looks like a hero.

The kind that Gods covet, watch from their merry clouds. It’s no wonder that he’s burdened by a prophetic trial, with a face as cutting as his sword, his hair framing his face and flowing.

He takes one look to the side of him and his eyes find yours immediately. It must be some sort of fighter’s sense, you think. For him to have done it so easily.

You give him the space you think he might be asking for. You turn away.

He approaches you one night, just before sunset. Karasu had just finished an etiquette lesson with you, setting away forks and knives. Whatever he sees on Kaiser’s face makes him move quicker. He nods once to Kaiser, and then hastily leaves.

“You’ve been making yourself quite at home here, demigod.” Kaiser traces the lace outline of the tablemat, every ridge under his calloused finger.

“I vowed myself to your kingdom to the end of your life. I’m simply doing what is asked of me.”

“And you’re all ready for the banquet, I’m guessing?” The sentence is almost mocking as he approaches you.

“It’s just a ball, is it not? I’ve been told I’m just to stand there and make pleasantries.”

Kaiser chuckles, more bared teeth than sweet. “It is, arguably, the worst part of being so-called royalty.”

“You’re taking this much better than I thought you would.”

"To say no to a goddess' proposal would be the greatest blasphemy, no?"

"From what I've seen, you have not minded sacrilege much at all."

“Marriage means little to me. Disillusioned, perhaps, with the prophecy.” He waves his hand like he speaks of something meaningless. But you see it clearly. Before he had even allowed himself the thought of love, it was taken from him. “Your power is great, your presence ensures the continuation of myself as an heir and successor. Even I can reason with that.”

He's right in front of you now, so close you can feel his body warmth.

“Does it bother me?” He shrugs. “Sure. As far as I’m aware, you are no wife of mine. But a protector of this nation? For that, you are an indispensable ally.”

He looks out the window, towards a coming sunset. Something indescribable on his face, like grief and guilt all in one. He takes a deep breath in and out, inhaling the peace and exhaling the heaviness of his heart, before facing you again. “A war is coming. No one believes me, but I can feel it, as steady as a river’s current. Until then, I’ll make my peace with you.”

You nod. “So be it, your highness.”

That has him stepping back, more incredulous than you’ve ever seen him, body tensed and frowning. Maybe he should’ve expected it, given the way he’s just dismissed you. “Your highness? You hadn’t questioned my lineage before, but now you dare to do so?”

You stare at him blankly. “You are a prince, are you not? Isagi says that’s what princes are called.”

One side of his mouth upturns in relief, and he bursts out a bright laugh. “Is that what they teach you in those lessons Isagi gives? Oh,” a hand runs through the front of his hair, “I thought my own wife-to-be would dare insult me.”

You scoff. “I have no need for that.”

“The title ‘your highness’ doesn’t apply to this nation because strength is valued most. I am heir to the throne not because of the blood running through my veins, but because Noa deemed I the strongest — not just in body but in mind, not just in physical strength but in adaptability.” He says it proudly, like fact, like a knowing so deep within him that it turns pride into faith. “A title like that is something used by the Itoshi brothers, let’s say,” he comments airily. “Their throne is carried by a bloodline.”

He turns on his heel, only looking back when he realizes you don’t follow.

“You don’t know how to dance yet, do you?”

You lean your hip against the table. “I can dance.”

“Come, then. If you’re to be my wife, it’ll be an embarrassment if you don’t at least act like it.”

You follow him to a ballroom – a stunning, wide area with a looping chandelier, curtains that weigh down in arches over each floor-to-ceiling window.

He swoops you from your distraction with a hand around your waist, and the physical contact shocks you so greatly that orbs of water swirl in your hands.

Kaiser only raises an eyebrow at you. “This is a dance, not a duel. Or do the gods do it differently?”

For a man who was so passive to you, he holds you so close that your chest to chest, you can feel each breath he takes against you. When he steps with you, his movements are slow and deliberate, never inefficient. He moves not with fluidity, but with each sure step. Pulls you forward, then pushes you back. Circles you, spins you around.

It’s exactly like when you see him train. Like steps to a kata.

“I thought you said this was not a duel.”

“These are steps to a classic waltz, demigod.”

“You have no fluidity to you.”

Kaiser scoffs. “Should I apologize? With the prophetic curse hanging above me, I haven’t taken a dancing class.”

“It doesn’t have to be.”

“Hm?”

“The prophecy. It doesn’t have to be a curse.”

He stops, separating himself from you, scowling.

“This session is over.”

“Kaiser-,”

“What?” He snaps. “You, of divine nature. You want to tell me how to view my prophecy?”

“I do not say this out of pity, or out of some sort of higher knowing.” You say it with conviction. “As heir to the throne, a throne that is currently being held by Fate itself, maybe I shouldn’t be saying this at all.”

“And yet?”

“To know your fate is to be able to defy it.” And maybe it’s just an effect of your divinity, but it rings like a bell, like truth itself. “Your prophecy may have made a wound, but you are the one who cuts it open. You are a man who wields a sword that cannot, should not be able to be wielded by anyone but the divine. Does that not say something? About you, about your capabilities?”

“And yet you took it from me.”

The silence that follows is thick with indecision. Kaiser lets the uncomfortableness sit, rejects every heartwarmed statement you make with a roll of his shoulders, like water off a smoothened rock, replaced with only his anger. “I trained for weeks before I could lift that sword out of the riverbank. Yet it is yours, now, simply because you are supposedly its rightful owner.”

Conflict runs through your face so clearly, he wonders that even if you could lie, whether it would mean anything at all. He watches as your hand reaches into a conjured puddle of water that floats in the air, and out comes the divine sword.

You hold it in your hand with an ease that he has spent months capturing. It strikes envy in him like a branded sear.

“My role here is technically to secure the sword. I have no need to wield it.” You hold it at the bottom of its handle, directing the top of it to him. “If you swear you won’t lose her, I can set a compromise of sorts.”

“You think I’d agree to a compromise?”

You open up your palm, and a bracelet appears. “This will help you keep the sword in a pocket dimension we can both access. If you’re willing to place it there to secure it when you’re not using it, I’ll return her to you until the end of your line.”

Huh. A safe-keeping place is a more neutral proposition than he had thought you’d come up with. To have her back kills the fight in him, and he accepts begrudgingly, testing the magic in his hands until it becomes natural.

“For the record, Kaiser, I have not always been worthy of it.”

Something about the way his name slips off your lips has him keening. “Worthy?”

“I stayed true to my course. I was given a title. And then I could wield the sword, presented to me by my queen.”

“Your queen. Heir to the throne.” He laughs bitterly, knowingly. “You’re a princess.”

“Despite your mocking tone, I’ll have you know that title of mine is of the highest regard. I don’t take it nearly as lightly as you do with yours.”

“That’s why you didn’t bow or kneel. You take what’s meant to be yours without a second thought. Not because you’re unknowing, or because of some godly pride, but because you have never been lesser.” He flicks a finger between your eyebrows. “What a spoiled thing you are. Can you even fight?”

Something in Kaiser takes pride in the way you frown more deeply, it’s almost like a pout. It’s almost…

“Well, I definitely wasn’t sitting idly in the war between Gods.”

“I’ve never seen you train.”

“That’s because you’re always on the training grounds.”

“Oh? You won’t show me?”

“I’m giving you space. I’m no wife of yours, no?” There’s a sting to it when you say it, having his words thrown back at him.

“Duel with me. Tomorrow.” He spins you, lets you out of his hold before bringing you back in.

He begins to meet you, day after day. A duel first, and then a dance. The dichotomy would be distasteful to any other, but you of divine blood do not even flinch at his request.

He may be displeased to have you, but his mouth cracked as wide and wicked as a cat’s at the prospect of a fight.

“Go on, then.” He takes a blunt, wooden sword, throwing it in your direction. “Or do you only fight with magic?” He teases.

You swing the sword, rotating your wrist with ease. “Do you forget yourself, prince? I am half divine, you will surely lose. Are you sure you want to go through with this anyways?”

His mouth widens, more teeth than smile. “Bring it.”

You know, the moment you defend against his first strike, that a singular hit from him on the battlefield must be deadly. He is surefooted, his whole weight bears down in every move. He doesn’t let you breathe once, much faster than you would’ve thought with someone of his size and height.

Kaiser was almost right about one thing, that the divine adds to your magic more than your physical strength. With enough training, in just simple hand-to-hand combat… He might have the potential to beat you.

But not today. Today, you have him pinned to the ground, makeshift blade to his throat.

“You’re awfully close,” he gasps out slyly. And it’s in this moment that you notice, too, how right he is about that, how you can feel his heartbeat underneath yours, his chest against yours with each exhale.

“What?” He grins wide, “afraid you’ll miss?”

By all the Gods, you want to knock the living daylights out of him. He notices your anger in that hesitation, your conflict between doing what is right and what you want, and flips you over, swapping your positions until his hips are pressed against yours.

Something about your shell-shocked face makes him stir.

“First rule of fighting, sweetheart,” he runs a hand through his hair before planting it next to your head, leaning into you close. “Never get distracted by your opponent.”

He’s closer than he was before, admiring the way you look under him, your hair splayed along the ground and the sweet fire of irritation in your eyes. Is the heaving of your chest from your anger towards him, or from something else entirely?

“When Gods fight, there is not nearly as much prattling.” You grit at him. He smells like the grass of the field and the winter air and the heavy musk of sweat, and when you shove him off, it feels like your hand meets the hard rock of an unruly ocean.

It is during dances that he speaks to you. Not at first, but slowly, like a river that streams into the ocean. You tell him tales about the Gods, about your friends, about wars and petty arguments. And he starts to answer you, more often than not, with every question you might have.

“I have wondered about something.”

“Hm?”

“The sheathing. It prevents even me from detecting the sword’s divinity.”

“Huh, so Nagi really wasn’t lying.”

“Nagi, who is always with Reo?”

Kaiser nods. “They say Nagi was once sought upon by a god for his talents, a god who was constantly sending him dreams. But he grew tired of it, so he found a material that prevents even the gods from finding him so he can sleep in peace.”

The conversation often leads to the prophecy, a bitterness like licorice on his tongue. Even if he skates around the topic, you don’t let him hide from it, cutting straight to the heart of the truth.

“You can live in the cold bitterness you’ve put yourself in, Kaiser,” you tell him, one of these nights. “Or you can live, and maybe even possibly die, warmed by a life you truly felt was worth living. Your own choices. Not because of a prophecy, or because of Noa, or even in spite of me.”

But despite it, he doesn’t move away. Because it is the only time he has you to himself. He sees you, always, with Isagi and Oliver and Karasu and Chigiri. How you have molded into their lives with simplicity, sit with them at meals and have easy conversation despite knowing nothing, in a way that he has never once allowed himself to enjoy. What does it say about Kaiser? That he can't stand your presence but he can't stand your absence even more? That he would rather have a biting argument with you than leave you to your own devices?

It's during duel and dance that he comes as close as he can to touching you. If he did anymore, it would become something he doesn't have the heart to name without unease settling in his gut.

On the day of the banquet, Chigiri sits you down in your vanity, braiding your hair back in his hands.

“The queen of the Gods, her lover, a friend of mine… He used to do this for me too.”

Chigiri silently appreciates that you don’t ask him why it is him that helps you with this. That divinity doesn’t hold the same notions this world does.

“He would-,” you laugh softly to yourself. You’re stunning like this, Chigiri can’t help but notice. A goddess, most casual as can be. “He would say that I was useless at it, actually. You two might’ve been good friends.”

“Me? Friends with a god?” Chigiri finishes the braid, tilting your head in his hands to admire the way the braid crowns around each side.

“Of the Fae, actually. A beautiful man he is. You would fit right in.”

That stops Chigiri, has him taking a sharp intake of breath, smiling at you through the vanity’s reflection. “Thank you, princess. Though you would do good to be more careful during this banquet to compliment anyone.”

You smile softly back. “Ah, yes, my betrothed who will not love me might get jealous. Gods are not so different than people, in this regard.”

“Is that so…”

It’s when you meet the Itoshi brothers at the banquet that you begin to understand why Isagi gave you all these lessons.

Where Kaiser is muscle and sword first, more fighter than prince, Sae and Rin are the opposite. They have a grace befitting of royalty. Instead of heavy footfalls that you can hear even in the blanket of snow, they are light-footed, conscious of it in the echoed ballroom.

Though you suspect, from the way Sae grips Kaiser’s forearm as they shake hands, from the way Kaiser regards Sae, that he is somehow just as strong of a fighter. That royalty is an illusion Sae and Rin put on, for peace’s sake.

Something indescribable flits over Sae’s face as you curtsy in front of him, but it’s gone in a moment, replaced with his nonchalance.

“The betrothed of the banquet. We are most pleased to make your acquaintance.” Sae bows his head to you, and Rin follows in his stead.

You smile, something beaming and sweet. “The pleasure is all mine.”

“Would you mind, Kaiser?” Sae’s eyes only leave yours for a glance, to check in at Kaiser’s now furrowed look. “I’d like to take your wife-to-be for a dance.”

Kaiser’s back straightens, a hardened gaze with gritted teeth. But he says nothing. You swear Sae almost grins.

“I’ll return her back to you.” He says it like a favor, and Kaiser is only held back by Karasu’s hand on his shoulder.

“It’s just one dance, Kai,” Kaiser looks at Karasu, then to you, and then back to Sae. He barely nods once.

“Are you sure?” You ask him.

He scowls. “What do I have to be worried about?”

Well, it’s not like you want to anger him further. You let Sae take your hand, leading you to the floor.

“I almost didn't think you were who you said you were, when I saw you,” Sae tells you, breaking the quiet of the dance.

You lean back so you can see his whole face, your confusion clear. “Your highness?”

“When I had heard of you, they told me that waves flowed off your dress like water itself holds you sacred. Yet here you are, as regular as can be.”

Sae twirls you away from him, then brings you back into his arms. “They say you shook the earth with a single step. Where is all that power you were said to hold?” He holds you close, watching your every reaction with his crystal gaze. “This place. They’ve placated you, tamed you.”

He brings his mouth to your ear, the body warmth of his entire chest seeping into yours. “If you were mine, I would never force you into a box you didn’t belong. I’m not afraid of you. I’m not afraid of Kaiser, even with his god-killing sword.” He spins you again, capturing your waist. “If you were mine, I wouldn’t be afraid to demonstrate your power to the world.”

“Sae.” He looks at you in a way that feels meaningful. You don’t know the pleasantries of this nation or his in-depth, but you know, somehow, that this feels like this is something you should shield from.

“Oh? No honorifics already? We’re that intimate, are we?”

To fight is one thing, but this is something entirely different. Being able to hurt others with a play instead of a sword, you’re not sure if you can shield others from something like that.

As the song ends, Sae takes your hand, brings it to his mouth to kiss the back of it. “Consider my proposition, princess. Before your marriage solidifies, and becomes something you can’t escape from.”

With his hand on the small of your waist, he brings you back to Kaiser dutifully. Kaiser links his arm with yours immediately, before any of you can spare a goodbye.

“What did he say to you?”

You hum. You get the sense that maybe…

“Nothing of importance,” you tell him instead.

“Hm?” He tilts your chin up to meet you eye to eye. “Is my own betrothed keeping secrets from me?”

“He said I don’t seem all that powerful.”

That makes Kaiser smile, not something sweet but with teeth bared, like a wolf. “He hasn’t seen you in action.” He pulls you in, hand wrapping to the back of your neck, a slow and deep whisper. “Do you want to show them?”

“Weren’t we both told that’s inappropriate? Isagi said the optics could make your allies scared.”

Kaiser rolls his eyes. “Isagi this, optics that. Our country has always been about the brawl and brave. Let the nations fear us, then. I, with my cruelty and a god-killing sword. You, a sorceress second to none. It’s a pretty picture, is it not?”

He straps his sword to his back and brings you to the middle of the room, and as the guests of honor, the crowd gives you both a wide berth. He circles you, just like you practiced. Makes you center stage.

“Go on then, princess.” He lets go of your hand and bows, sweeping his arm out. “Show us who you really are.”

“Kaiser,” you whisper. “We have very clear orders-”

“I make the orders, not follow them. So make your choice, princess. Wasn’t it you who said that it is worth living a life warmed by your own choices? Tell me, then. Do you want to show them? Or do you want to play nice?”

This play, to have ego and pride dive head-first into a situation, is so very human. And yet-

You let water overcast your body from your waist, let it roll off in layers like waves into the floor. Anyone who has had experience with magic can see your ultimate control over it, how the floor isn’t wet at all, how the water was conjured from nothing. Your hair is silken with dampness, framing your face like gloss. Gasps and awes from the audience makes Kaiser grin even wider.

“There we go.” Kaiser reaches behind him to unsheath his blade, and the galaxy within swirls. He spins it in his hand, and it’s almost like he’s never been happier.

In seconds, he strikes at you. Your hands move up instinctively, blocking the blade with a stream of water. The sound it makes, divinity against divinity, is like a low bell. The floor beneath you shakes with the strength of the strike, water dispersing around your feet in cascades to cushion the impact. You hear screams of shock, a glass breaking.

“Kaiser,” you grit, but all he does is widen that wicked, quicksilver grin.

And then he laughs, stepping away and sheathing the blade back. He holds one hand out to you instead.

“Next time, I want a duel in front of everyone. But this time, I guess a dance will suffice.”

You exhale gratefully, taking his hand in yours and retracting your water. “Let us dance, then.”

And with none of a prince’s grace, with movements that feel more fight than dance, he drifts along the floor with you.

Isagi collapses into the booth, a palm pressed to his eyebrows. “Our allies thought they were about to fight each other.”

“Can I cash in on my bet now?” Karasu rolls a skewer stick between his fingers. “Because they might’ve almost killed each other.”

“Nah,” Oliver leans back. “I think that’s just foreplay.”

Isagi opens his eyes to find Chigiri and Bachira standing before the booth. Chigiri’s not meeting his eyes, his mouth perching to one side in a way that squishes one of his cheeks.

“What happened?”

“They’re gone.”

“Ha?”

“We had one drink. One.”

Oliver has the audacity to laugh, hand over his mouth. “Don’t worry, Isagi,” he pats him on the back. “I’m sure they’re just fucking around.”

In another corner of the hall, royals speak in low tones.

“We can just take her if you like her,” Shidou tells Sae with the sweetest smile a man like that can muster. “No need to ask poor little Kai-Kai.”

Sae says nothing, eyeing you quietly as you step out of the hall.

You are sitting at the edge of the ocean, letting the slate-crested waves wash over you, when he finds you.

“You can dry me in a moment’s notice if I am to sit with you, right?” He says it almost reluctantly, even though he’s here anyways. He’s dropped his off coat somewhere along the way, and there’s something so naked about seeing him in just a shirt. He almost seems softer, without the harsh lines of battle-ready clothing or the fur that drapes around him, relaxed in a way he wasn’t in the banquet hall.

You smile. “I can keep you dry whilst you're sitting.”

He relents, then. Allowing the strangeness of sitting on wet sand without getting wet.

“Was the banquet up to your expectations, then, Kaiser?”

Expectations. He’s had none of a party like this. Being allowed to dream is a privilege, and privileges were not granted to him.

“You are officially my wife-to-be,” he says instead. “Shouldn’t you call me something a little more intimate?”

You gaze out into the horizon for a moment, and something in your eyes unfocuses, like you’ve gone somewhere else and then returned. “Very well. I shall call you Mihya.”

It strikes a chord in him, like a teaspoon hitting a glass. “Mihya? Where did that come from?”

“The water.”

“She speaks to you?”

“She says in another life, you are given a nickname like that.”

“Another life…” He lies down in the sand, watches the streaks of sunset in the blueing sky.

“Ask then, Mihya,” you lean over him slightly, until all he can see is the sky and the way your features soften. “The question we both know is on your mind.”

He almost wants to reach out, hold your cheek in his hand. It’s a foreign feeling to him, so foreign it almost feels like unease – to want to extend a gentleness like that to another person. “Won’t you just tell me?”

You breathe in the sea-salt air, and breathe out a heart-warmed truth. “The prophecy does not hold you captive in another life.”

Kaiser, for once, lets himself dream. Of a different life, where he is unburdened by a prophecy, and burns brightly.

“It would seem strange if you weren’t together, with all the other guests in the palace.” That’s what Oliver tells you as he gestures for you to take his arm, leading you to Kaiser’s room.

It’s both plainer and more furnished than you thought, like someone who isn’t him had chosen the furniture and the color of the walls. But the items in the bookshelves seem well-loved, items taken out and put back haphazardly, scrolls and books placed back half-way. The bathroom door opens with a flood of light.

“You’re here.” It’s rare to shock Kaiser in a way that doesn’t make him immediately reach for his sword.

You turn to look at him, taking in his half-dressed state. “Were you expecting some other woman?”

“Oh, so you’re the jealous type?”

He almost wants to laugh at the clear discomfort on your face. Gods don’t tease, he’s guessing?

The bed gives way to you as you take your place. “I hear it’s common for princes to take many lovers.”

The moonlight spills over the bedsheets as the room darkens, and you summon the sword to float right above you, looking into it. He joins you, wanting to see exactly what you’re seeing.

“It’s not a night sky.” Your voice is so soft in the blanket of night between you both.

“Hm?”

“Inside the sword. Your people say it looks like the night sky. It’s not. It’s a galaxy.”

He reaches his hand out, tracing over the glass along the middle of the weapon, a silent remark for you to continue.

“At the beginning of all worlds, the first-ever contract was made between the first-ever forces, and with it, this sword was said to be conjured out of the galaxy. And so, a part of the galaxy at the beginning of all worlds was contained in this sword.”

The stars in the sword move within like they’re responding to your words, borne witness to all the events. But instead of watching them, you turn to him.

“You have held and wielded a primordial piece of this world. It has allowed you to hold it, granted you its blessing.”

Blessed. That is not a phrase Kaiser would have ever used to describe himself. But coming from you, he can almost believe it. Almost hope to have a little more than he’s ever had.

The sword disappears with a movement of his hand, and he rolls to lean over you. Silence drops like a curtain. The only sound he knows is your breath and his.

During a fight, his feelings can almost be mistaken for adrenaline. But even under the shadow of the moon, with the cushioned silence between you both, the way you cut straight to the truth rings like a silver bell.

He can’t hide from you. Or maybe. Maybe he’s tired of hiding at all.

He is a man who has only known war and battle, was born and bred into it. War-forged, is what they call men like him. His hands know weapons, know how to kill.

He does not know if they know how to love. And yet-

He cups your face, and drinks you in.

He kisses you with caution, like you might melt from his grasp if he held too tightly. Presses his lips against yours slowly. He runs his hand gently over your hairline as he parts from you.

Is this okay? He wants to ask. But instead, he says: “Tell me what you want.”

You wrap your arms around his neck, your lips brushing against yours when you answer: “You.”

And then he kisses you like a man starved, never known by this feeling that gets caught up in his throat with every noise of yours he swallows.

“Is this… is this what you want?” You try to ask as you part from him for air, but he presses his mouth to the space behind your ear instead, laying kisses down your neck. “Is this a decision that you are making for yourself, by your own hands? That is entirely for you?”

That makes him stop. But when he looks at you with a surefire gaze…

He knows it, undoubtedly. That this, for once, is his.

“There are no lovers,” he tells you between kisses, to your shoulder, down your collarbone, to your breastbone.

“What?”

“I take no lovers.” He unclasps your bra, lets the material fall from his hands to cup your supple flesh. “I’ve never been princely, after all.”

“You- Kai-”

He runs his thumbs across both your nipples, admires how they perk up at his administrations, flitting his gaze between them and your face as he brings his mouth down over one of them.

He presses kisses down your body, cups your heat in his hand like he’s begging you to respond, like he’s saying let me have this. The inside of your thighs is soft as cream under his calloused hands. His thumb moves along the outside of your underwear, from your slit up to your clit with his fingers pressing tentatively against the fabric until you’re grabbing at his wrist.

“You’re so tense,” he teases, pressing a kiss to your cheek. “Want me to take care of that for you?” He runs the knuckles of his hand over your clothed slit, bumping into your clit with his thumb until your breathing gets heavy, your hands gripping his shoulders.

“Kaiser,” you breathe, and he clicks his tongue.

“That’s not what you call me, baby. Not anymore.”

“Mihya.”

“Mm,” he slides his fingers into your panties from the side, a huff of breath leaves him at the wetness he finds. “Good girls get rewarded, you know?”

Heat coils hot deep in your stomach. He can’t take the restriction, pulling your panties down and revealing your core to the cold air. He lets his slickness pool on his fingers, collects it before bringing it to your clit. It’s like a drug, watching the way your face gives way to pleasure, how your body arches into him.

“Mihya,” you gasp again, like a chant, a prayer. Is this what the gods feel like, to be asked of?

“Let me watch,” he says it like a demand but it aches with desperation, a thing he won’t admit outside these four walls. He presses with more confidence now, slides one finger into you, then two. There’s little resistance with the way he’s riled you up, long fingers pressing into you until he reaches something that has you making a broken moan so pretty he can’t help but tilt into it again.

“I want to see it,” he tells you. This is something he makes happen to you, with his own hands, his own words, his own body that shares its heat with yours. That notion alone runs arousal straight through him. Your panting breath, the way your body shakes with each swipe against your clit.

“I want to see you fall apart in my arms.” He whispers, and you respond in kind. You always do to him, don’t you? He’s been seen too surely by you, now it’s his turn. Your body tenses entirely, tightly, gripping him as he grants you reprieve. A soft whine leaves your mouth along with something like his name, and the rough pad of his thumb circles over your clit until you crash, coming around his fingers.

He swipes a thumb over your cheek, allows himself the gentleness that he’s held back for so long with you.

“One more, okay?”

Your eyes widen. “Mihya,” this time it’s like a warning, but the way you say his name is so breathy it has him pressing a hand over his pants.

“Yeah, say my name just like that.” He shuffles down until his mouth is pressing to your stomach, just above your mound. Then again to the inside of your knee, trailing up until the inside of your thigh, his breath ghosting over the sensitive skin there.

“You’re-, wait, we just- I just”

“Mm, and you’re gonna give me one more.” He kisses your clit first, like a promise, and then he laps at your core generously, from the bottom of your slit all the way to your clit, his flat tongue against the whole of you. Every drop of slick from your previous orgasm is taken in by him with each moan he makes against your core. If he had known this feeling was going to enter his life, that it would’ve felt like this, maybe he would’ve readied himself better for it. Instead, he finds himself starving at the table where it’s served. The taste of you on his tongue wraps him in a heady pleasure, but it’s every sound he takes out of you that has him pressing a little more insistently, tongue laving over you.

“Pl-please,” your words break between gasps, and it has him lapping into your clit with more pressure.

“I can never say no to you, can I?” he mumbles between your legs. And then he’s flipping you over, hoisting you onto your knees and skimming his hands over your rear and thighs before diving in again. Your face is pressed into the pillow, hands grabbing the sheets. Kaiser almost seems dazed as he moans into your cunt, swollen and wet like a siren’s call, hands wrapped so tightly around your plush thighs that it feels like it might bruise.

“Let me taste,” he mutters, mouth still lodged into your cunt, like that isn’t what he’s already doing. “Come on baby, give it to me. Let me taste it on my tongue.”

Your hole clenches and flutters around nothing as another orgasm rocks through you, your breath coming short as you break apart on his tongue with a whine.

He flips you over again, and the look on his face takes your breath away. Your slick shimmers on his mouth as he trails his tongue over his lips, like he’s addicted, like he can’t get enough. He tilts his head with a grin so cocky that if you weren’t so blissed out you might just punch him.

“There something you want, pretty?” He leans over you, hand to the bedpost, and how broad and tall he is becomes that much more obvious. You let yourself look, at the way his tattoo drapes over his arm, run your hands over the muscle of his torso down to his v-line. You hear a sharp intake of breath as your hand moves lower, running under his loose sleep pants to the base of his cock.

He grabs your hand in his, bringing it over your head and circling both your wrists. “Ask.”

“You-,” your eyes narrow and you huff at him, but it only makes him smile. “Won’t you just-”

“Nuh-uh.”

“I could cut you down here.”

He drops his pants, pumping his cock once and then sliding it along your slit. “You could. And then who’ll give you what you want?”

You want to roll your eyes, but then he has one hand tapping against your clit, the other gripping either side of your cheeks.

“You begged so pretty for me earlier when I had my mouth on you,” he rasps. “What happened to that?”

The harsh look you give him under those fluttering lashes of yours makes something stir in his gut, arousal shot through his veins, pupils wide. He plays with you, warm hands against your skin and between your legs, the soft skin of his cock sliding between your thighs until you’re gasping in his hold again, grinning like a battle won.

“Please, Mihya,” you sigh.

“Mhmm. Please what?”

“Please- please fuck me.”

He gets off on it, watching you yield to him, spreading your legs, dripping your hot slick onto his cock. He presses the head against you, petaled folds opening up to receive him as he slides into you slowly. Just the first few inches is so thick inside of you that your hands wrap around the muscles of his arms, nails digging in.

“Shh, baby, you can take it,” he hushes your little whines, tracing your hairline with such gentleness it contradicts the way he pulls out of you just slightly only to push in again.

“You’re- oh,” your body gives into him, even more so when he brings his hand down to tap on your clit, his mouth over your neck, to the side of your mouth, until he’s kissing you and taking in every noise you make. It’s almost a distraction, helps your body to relax so he can press into you deeper. You think you feel every inch as it enters you, all the way until the hilt, until the head is pressing deep inside of you and his hips meet yours.

He lets out a rough, deep moan against the expanse of your neck, breath coming short as your walls tighten around him.

“Fuck, baby. You gotta let me move.” Your arms wrap around him tighter, a whimper falling from your lips as he tilts his hips up to plunge into you again. It’s hard and slow and deep and if it wasn’t for his grip on you, you might’ve hit the headboard. But he’s careful about it – more than you might’ve thought he’d be. Pressing your body into the bed as his hips meet yours again and again.

“It feels so good,” you tell him, and it has him pressing a kiss to your cheek in return. Makes every moan you make that much sweeter, to know it’s out of your pleasure, to know it’s because of him.

“Good girl. Tell me again.”

“Feels- you’re so big, so- please, I need-” Your walls can barely clench down onto him with how he feels inside of you. Chest to chest with him, the contact of skin on skin-

“You drive me insane,” he grumbles it into your skin; a confession, exacerbated with each thrust of his hips as he picks up the speed, until he’s slamming into you with a kind of strength that has you seeing constellations behind your eyes. He wants you- needs you to feel the way he feels. Needs to have you lying in his bed, thinking only of him and how he makes you feel. Heat pools in your core until you’re arching your back, and he knows it now – knows it like the back of his hand.

“Give it to me.” It’s a command, a need, if you listen closely enough. “Come around my cock. Show me.”

“Mihya, it’s so much, it’s so so much.” It’s treacherous, the way it works through your body, being on the brink.

His thumb is slick over your clit, pressing just a little more, until your thighs are tightening under his unrelenting body. “Come for me.”

You chant his name until the words start to become nothing in your mouth, until you’re breathless, until your whole body tenses under him and his hold against you gets that much rougher and your walls clamp down and then your body shakes as you come. You almost scream, only silenced by his lips on yours. He comes quickly after that, his eyes never leaving yours, taking in how you look underneath him as his cock gets more sensitive and paints the inside of your walls. He doesn’t stop, doesn’t slow until he feels your body start to relax under his.

You can barely process coming down as he’s kissing you again, deeply and with force, like he’s etching the memory of you into his mind and onto your lips.

For once, he lets himself recognize – how tiring the emptiness has been, to be devoid of this feeling and instead be filled with the fear that it’ll be turned against him. For once, he lets himself feel – to have something that is wholly his. to know and be known. To give and know you will receive. Not an offering at an altar but a hand in his, not a prayer but a soft word spoken in return. Kaiser does not want something as untouching as approval or attention from the divine. But he does want your waist in his arms, your forehead against his.

“Just like this,” he whispers it, a kiss placed to your forehead. You don’t know what he means, too tired to ask.

This is exactly what he’s always wanted. Just like this.

Not unlike a parent, Noa notices the closeness of your relationship. In touch, in stolen glances, in longing. A private conversation with him over afternoon tea is not unique, but the heaviness that weighs on him is.

“As the goddess who cannot lie, I have to ask you.” The hardened look on his face makes you straighten your back, putting down your teacup. “You know, that I have to ask.”

Silence sits between you both like a shoe about to drop.

Noa yields. “Has he truly been forsaken by all the gods?”

You are strangely silent as you look at him, then away, then back.

“Answer me, demigod.”

“I don’t know.”

“What?”

“I. Don’t. Know. I have told you before, that I am not a seer, or an oracle. Water holds memory. I can see the past, I can even see other lives parallel to ours, but I cannot see the future. This is the limit of my power.”

“You are of divine nature.”

“I had said what I said at our first meeting, and that has not changed. As long as I am here, the Gods have not forsaken him. For I have not forsaken him. Is that not enough? How many Gods would travel to your realm, vow themselves to a human kingdom? Even if it is I alone that stands before you, is that not enough?”

Noa sighs, more exasperated than you’ve ever seen a serious man like him. “He deserves more, that boy. For what he has been put through.”

“All greatness comes with a price. All heroes face tragedy. He, no matter how much you may care for him, is not the exception to that.” You tilt your head, like a cat with curiosity. But unlike that sweetness, your words are cutting. “You made him a ruler. You made him a hero. So, stand by that. Or does it make you uncomfortable? To consider the role you, too, have played in his life?”

Noa, of course, has thought about this too. Had he not chosen Kaiser to rule, would he have had the prophecy weighing on him like a second shadow?

“If the prophecy holds true, you will inevitably leave him.” Noa swallows, hand flat against the table. “He will inevitably be forsaken, even by you.”

“Then why,” you ask, genuinely, “did you ask me to stay?”

In the weeks that follow, you learn exactly why. Like Kaiser had predicted, talk of battle comes.

“We suspect a neighboring nation wishes to wage war with us.” Noa looks out to the slate-blue ocean from the window of the war room.

“A man who wants control of this whole world,” Karasu huffs. “There’s never a lack of them, is there?”

“He thinks himself a god. Or that’s what Sae has told us.”

“You’re sure Sae’s information checks out?”

“Shidou and Otoya like to visit neighboring nations for uh… fun, let’s say,” Chigiri rolls his eyes, then plants his face in his hands. “He said something along the lines of “you don’t wanna know how they found out” and “Shidou sleeps with both men and women, so it’s been cross-checked too.””

“And then we asked him about war,” Isagi throws his notes down on the table. “He said, and I quote, ‘I already have more land than I know what to do with. What could another few acres give me? What a hassle.’”

“The enemy are bold to come for us first.” Kaiser frowns considerably. They are possibly the one nation blasphemous enough that would not blink at the thought of fighting a god. “There’s something we’re not seeing.”

Isagi nods in agreement. “We still don’t know the reason they’re coming here first. It could be the sword, or the goddess.” Isagi frowns. “I told you not to make a scene at the banquet.”

Kaiser gives him a curious look with a smile he fails to hide. “The point of a banquet is to wow the people. The people were wowed, were they not?”

“It could be, it could not be,” Noa kills the conflict there. “That information would have been made public regardless of the spectacle. It could even simply be the throne itself they seek. An army like ours could parade into the neighboring nations and lay waste, our people are used to much harsher weathers.”

“Or maybe he means to make a statement,” Karasu shrugs. “If he wants to be a god, maybe he means to punish the disrespect we’ve shown.”

“What do we actually know?” Chigiri taps the map of this nation splayed across the table.

“We know he wants to take control of this world, and we know his plan includes something from us.”

“He knows once he controls the world, he has to take care of it, right?” Oliver rests his jaw in his hand. “As in, it’s not just about buying the house, it’s about cleaning it too. The plan – it has to be bigger than this, no?”

“Won’t happen once we kill him here. So as far as we know, there are three things we have that he could want: the sword, the goddess, the army.” Chigiri holds up his fingers as he counts.

“So we’ll meet him with all three at the front lines. Fear does not wield us, after all. Only strength.” Kaiser says it like a mantra. You suspect it might be exactly that.

“What a pleasant surprise to see you again so soon, princess.”

As an ally, Sae arrived on the day of battle without question. He is much different from the first time you saw him, chainmail armor wraps tight and sleek around his body, clearly of a weight underneath his clothing. He stands straighter, shoulders broader, badges clipped to his outer jacket. It’s clear to anyone who looks at him, that it’s almost like he was born into them – meant for them.

“You’re both on the front lines then?”

“Idle hands,” Kaiser starts.

“Devil’s workshop.” You finish. You hear a horse galloping, then a voice.

“There’s something wrong.” The people give a wide berth as Oliver arrives, with a sleek black mare that’s obedient as can be. “The majority of the enemies’ troops are not in front of us.”

All of you turn to look, but it’s on the front lines that makes it most difficult to tell where the crowd begins and ends.

“I did a rough head count from the tower. This isn’t the count we had observed just the other day. They’ll die easily, like this, against us. And I don’t mean that from an egotistical standpoint. I think these men are here to die, meant to die. It serves to mean –”

“This is a distraction.”

Karasu appears at your side, with an utmost silence only he is capable of. “They’re headed for the main castle, from around the edge of the border.”

You and Kaiser look to each other with a whole silent conversation, and Sae sighs.

“Go on, then.”

You turn to Sae immediately, with a seriousness he doesn’t expect. “You’ll be unprotected.”

“We chopped liver to you, girl?” Shidou sneers.

Oliver drops down from his horse. “I’ll take over here.”

“Your care for me is truly touching, princess,” Sae’s voice lilts touchingly, almost revealing how much he likes it. “But you swore a vow to this kingdom, so go fulfill it.”

Even in the middle of a war, it gets Kaiser all worked up, his chin jutting as you both run back to the palace. But Sae understands duty, stands by it. It’s what makes him worthy of his own title in his own kingdom.

Oliver waits until you’re both out of sight before turning to Sae. “Did you really plan to steal her?”

“Well,” Sae shrugs. “Did you plan on letting her go so easily?”

Your water runs in cascading waves through the whole of the palace, like the ocean itself comes rushing through the walls. It knocks all the soldiers down as you and Kaiser run through, and he picks up any stragglers with ease.

“The throne room?” Kaiser slams the hilt of his sword into the guy behind him, and he collapses instantly.

“It is the safest room.”

“That makes no sense. If you knew anything about our people, you’d know we never hide ourselves there in a battle.”

“Go anyways,” you tell him, as another man gets thrown off his feet. “Go, Kaiser!”

He takes one final look at you, at the strength that you hold in your hands, and then he runs.

The man he finds sitting on the throne has black hair cut blunt to his chin, a white mask over one side of his face. Kaiser unsheathes his sword, pointed straight and true.

“That throne doesn’t belong to you.”

“It will. Along with that sword you’re holding.”

Kaiser chuckles, the kind that has madness interlaced in it. “If you wanted the sword so bad, you could’ve asked for a one-on-one combat duel. I haven’t had a satisfying fight in a long time, I’d be happy to lay the sword as a winning prize.”

What must be the man’s most elite fighters drop down from the ceiling, crowding in on all sides.

“Ah, I see,” Kaiser stands straighter, reaching behind him to unsheath his second sword. “It is your capabilities that do not match mine.”

When they come for him, it’s clear to even the heavens that he is exactly as he is fated – a force to be reckoned with. He moves like a spider-spun silken web, capturing each of them blow by blow. His swords cut like butter through them with impressive speed and strength. His breath comes fast and hard when he finishes, sweat dripping down his back.

“I see now, prince,” the man approaches him, and it’s closer up that he realizes he’s simply in a suit, no armor. “Why they praise you, despite your blasphemy. You, a prince famous for cursing divinity at a whim’s notice, are a powerful ally. Kneel before me, then, and I’ll cease this all – let you join our cause in a war against the gods, in stealing their divinity from them. I’ll even forgive this transgression of bedding one.”

“Me? Kneel?” The canned laugh that Kaiser lets out echoes. “I kneel to no god, let alone a man who wants to become one.”

“So be it, then.”

Kaiser hears something above him. By the gods, what’s with this guy and ceilings? Is that why he wants to fight here? A dust of something shimmers down, he pulls his cloak over himself-

From the doorway, you throw your water across the room, shielding Kaiser from whatever it may have been. And in the same moment, a poof of shimmer bursts over your own head and tumbles down around you.

“That’s the problem with you gods, isn’t it? You always think you’re infallible.”

You cough, falling to one of your knees. Dread fills inside of you, like a faucet you can’t turn off. You can’t move. How is that possible?

The man taps two fingers to the top of your head, and your world goes dark.

When you blink your eyes open, the first thing you’re aware of is the way your vision swims. Your mind feels clouded, stuffed with cotton. You press your palm to your head, and even that feels muted.

“I’ve made her mine now. She’ll do exactly what I say. Does that make you upset?” Is what you think you hear, through the ringing of your ears. “Let’s see you put that god-killing sword to good use then, shall we?”

“It’s. Magic.” You spit out the words as your hands press into the ground. Your legs cramp from the way you’re forcing them to stay down. “Mihya. Run, please.”

“Awh, worried about me?” Kaiser teases as he logs the odds. There is no water that swirls around you, so it begs to reason – you can’t call it. The only weapon you have is a dagger.

Kaiser tilts his head until his neck cracks. “Have some faith in me, princess. I’m not afraid, even against you.”

He breathes, in and out, until the calmness of battle seeps into him, raises his sword pointed right at you. “I’ll win, even against you.”

And then he reveals that cocky, surefire smirk. “You should worry more about not dying yourself.”

When you launch at him, it is without mercy, makes him realize how your kindness seeps into the way you fight. His weapon is bigger, larger, and he uses it to keep you at arm’s length, to wrap around towards the enemy. But he sees his problem almost immediately. Like a puppet on strings, you’re protecting the enemy.

He knows it, the moment the prophecy solidifies into place in his mind. That feeling of being lost on a path, gone with the reigning down a light. The final puzzle piece in the picture.

You will die by the hands of the one you love most. So, it truly was this feeling, after all. Love. An aching thing, something so undoing. An open wound that can only be tendered by you.

For once, the prophecy is not a curse but a guiding starlight. He corners you with strike after strike, until you’re as close as can be to the enemy. And then he approaches you with no defense, lets you strike at him. In the same breath, his sword lands behind you and takes off the enemy’s head.

None of the fight felt as clear as this moment, when your blade presses into his heart.

He collapses, right in front of the throne with you on top of him. The throne that should be undoubtedly his, belonging to him as heir. Tears fall from your face before your mind can clear. Like you know, soul to soul, as his lifeform slips through your fingers. He brings his hand to cup your cheek, as he had wanted to do when you laid like this above him in the sand.

“I did not expect a death so gentle for myself.”

His smile is so bittersweet that it aches all the way to the bottom of your heart. His hand slips down from your face as you finally come to.

“You will not die on me.” You gasp out, a statement said with so much conviction that the silver bell of truth rings in return. You call to your water immediately, a stream so fast it cuts into your skin but you don’t care.

A magic that can only be done once. You take the divine sword from the ground, aim the blade carefully at yourself – your own soul. Only this sword can make a cut like this, with the hand of the divine. You slice your wrist, and instead of blood, pure golden lifeforce pours out.

You separate your divinity from yourself, and you feed it to him. It will not turn him divine. You are only half-divine yourself, after all. What you can give is not nearly enough to turn a man into a God. But it will hold his soul in this world, let you do an unspeakable magic: an exchange of divine power for life, a process long enough for the water to heal his heart back together again. The hand you lay against his mouth shakes more and more with each second that your golden blood pours into him, but your other hand lays steady as ever over his heart, until you feel it beat once, twice. Hear him spurt out a breath.

You collapse on top of him before you can see him open his eyes.

“I see the prophecy has been completed.”

When Kaiser wakes, there’s a split second where he thinks he might’ve just ended up wherever souls go at the end of their line. There’s what must be a full-fledged goddess standing right over him. It’s only your warm body splayed across his chest that tells him otherwise. His hands are lightning quick, sitting up and moving to your neck to check your pulse, only exhaling and relaxing once he feels it.

Golden threads extend down the sleeves of the goddess’ arms. He’s seen the paintings. Fate itself stands before him.

“How could you do this?” He makes his disdain clear, lacking any respect one might give to the queen of the gods herself.

“I am sorry.” She answers immediately, and that makes Kaiser’s eyes widen just slightly. “Your grievances, you may relay them to me, if you wish. There is a bigger picture at play here, bigger than you or the water sorceress or even myself. The threads of fate are not woven selfishly.”

“You gods up in your clouds play with the lives of mortals. That has always been written in history. But to her? To one of your own?”

“She is more one of mine than most. The heir to the throne of the Gods, I would’ve entrusted her with my life. It’s why she complies with Fate in every life, without complaint.”

“So she lends you her loyalty, and you take advantage of her. And you dare put yourselves above us?”

“Heavy is the head that wears the crown. Heavy too, are my hands, that weave the golden threads. You and her are one of many that have suffered by my hand. For that, there is no apology I can give. What I can give, well… Would you like to hear your full prophecy, prince?”

Lone Emperor who covets the throne, You will die by the hands of the one you love most. Forsaken by all the Gods but one, Re-emerge, awaken, as the ruler you are meant to become.

In any other circumstance, he would be eager as ever to finally hear the full prophecy. But his eyes are only on you, your slumbering state as he holds you in his arms.

“What will become of her?” He asks quietly.

“She will be a water sorceress, as she had initially been.”

“She will die, then? Like a human does?”

“All things die, hero.” Hero. That’s what he is now, having been trial-passed. The title burns like bourbon down his throat. “Even the divine dies. But yes, she will die as a human, and be reborn again as the cycle permits.”

“A life of such simplicity is not befitting of a woman like her.”

“Who says it would be simple? Besides, she has gone through the trial of the divine once before. Don’t you have faith she could do it again?”

The trial of the divine. He had not known such a thing prior to you. But if anyone could pass it, it would be you.

“I will make her my wife. I care little for the words or respect of the gods, even a queen like yourself. But it is my duty to inform you. If she will have me, I will wed her as has been planned.”

“The prophecy is complete. What happens now is too inconsequential for me to put effort into. However…” she watches you, teartracks streaked down your cheeks. “I’m quite fond of her. I hope for her an easy life.”

In a blink, her form disappears.

“Kaiser!” Oliver’s voice echoes through the halls, taking big leaps with Noa to his side, skidding to a halt when he finally finds you both.

“The goddess-”

“She lives,” Kaiser cups your head into his chest. “Though she is goddess no more. A trade. Not a fair one by any means.” His thumb traces across your cheek, a state of his so vulnerable it renders Oliver speechless.

Noa approaches the threshold where Oliver does not dare. He rests his hand on the crown of Kaiser’s head. “Another chance at life is the greatest gift, and she has granted you as such. That is a debt you’ll never be able to repay her for..”

“I’ll spend the rest of my life trying, then.”

It’s only in the aftermath, that you find out how deep in you truly were.

Kaiser takes a big inhale of the winter air. It’s fresh and cold. And with him, the nation breathed a breath anew, and the trial laid in ashes under his feet.

You’re facing the horizon of the sea when he finds you.

In the catch of the light, sometimes he swears he sees the divinity that had shimmered off of you before. It’s almost hard to believe, with the ring of water that floats around you, that it had ever left you at all.

“What are you doing?” His voice is soft, as it always is with you now.

“Relearning the water.”

“What does it say?”

“That I am still its mistress. Still a sorceress,” the water around you drops into the wet sand. “That its loyalty with me is not dependent on divinity.”

He places a hand to the back of your neck, easing out the tensions there. “But?”

You smile weakly. “I have to strain to hear her now.”

“Guess we can’t do that spectacle again for our wedding.” He cracks a smile, something to ease the ache. “Water holds memory, right?”

“That, it does.”

He grabs your hand, pulling you up and towards the waves. You yell for him, but the ocean crashes loudly around you both, and he drags you into the water anyways. Once you’re deep in enough that the waves drape over your knees, he pulls you in close.

“Let her bear witness, then.” He whispers it against your lips, brushing your hair away from your face. He kisses you, deep and with so much heart you might burst from it.

A prophecy unfolded, a fate changed, a life saved.

There’s a part of you that can feel an oncoming future. A sheathing that can block even the eyes of Gods. God-killing weapons that have descended from the heavens themselves. A potion that can cause madness in the minds of the divine. A war between mortals and Gods is coming, you’re sure of it.

But not in this life. In this life, you are a water sorceress, and he is a trial-passed hero. And like in every life, you find your way back to each other, every time.

author's note: ohmygod THANK YOU FOR READING PLEASE tell me what you think!!! this is my longest fic ever so i really hope you enjoyed

extended author's note -- know that this is an incredibly realistic note about the perception of love that will take you out of the fantasy lovey-dovey space. it's a disclaimer for the parts of the fic i romanticize and how u should not romanticize them in real life, as well as some notes about kaiser's characterization if you're interested

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