"You know something, Lady Merlin?" Alcmena said at last, his voice low. "Ever since meeting that boy, I've dreamed of being human. Of being his real, blood father. I envy them — his birth father, and Jonathan, his adoptive one. They had something I could never reach. Not with all my glory. Not with all my centuries."
"The title. The identity. Father."
"In all my long life," he continued, voice quieter now, "I never once regretted who I wasn't — not until I met that boy."
"I used to ask myself — if I had been his father, by blood, what would I have named him? What name could possibly hold all of it? Bravery. Hope. Love. Warmth. Courage. Honor. Worth. Protection."
He turned his gaze toward Xavier, who sat in the distance beside Jasmine, utterly unaware he was being watched. Lady Merlin followed his line of sight, then turned her attention back to him, waiting.
"And the name I came to love," Alcmena said, "the one unmatched by any other — because he is my strong, brave little guardian-knight—"
"Reinhardt."
— ✦ —
As the name left Alcmena's mouth, the scene shifted back to the wooden bench where Xavier had been sitting only moments before — except now he was standing, face burning red with embarrassment, every muscle in his small frame tense with the effort of staying upright.
He had been holding this back for years. Tonight, he wasn't going to anymore.
"J-Jasmine!"
"Yes, Xavier?" She blinked up at him, confused by the sudden shift in his posture.
"S-since you already know I'll be leaving the human realm soon — I wanted to tell you something before I go. I won't get another chance once I'm gone. We won't see each other for a long time after that."
"Of course. Go ahead, I'm listening." She smiled, utterly unaware of the avalanche about to land on her.
Xavier cleared his throat. Gathered every scrap of courage his small body could hold.
"Ever since the day we first met — six years ago, at the Academy — I... I—" His voice cracked, then steadied with sheer force of will. "I HAVE HAD A HUGE CRUSH ON YOU!"
Jasmine's heart dropped clean out of her chest. The smile stayed frozen on her face, abandoned by whatever had been holding it there a second ago. "W-what...?"
"I know you probably see me as just a kid, because of the age gap," Xavier pressed on, words tumbling faster now that the dam had broken. "But I don't want that to keep holding back what I've been feeling all this time!"
His voice dropped. His head bowed. Every ounce of bravado drained out of him, replaced by the full, crushing weight of what he was doing.
"I love you, Jasmine. And I don't want to just be school friends anymore. I want to change the way you see me. I want to be something more to you."
"I've always wanted that. I always will."
"I know this confession is sudden — completely out of nowhere. You don't have to answer me right away. You can wait, even — until I come back from the elven realm. Until I'm older. Until I'm someone you might actually consider."
"I just needed you to know how I feel. Because you're the most beautiful, kind, selfless, strong girl I've ever—"
He faltered, voice barely above a whisper now.
"And for now... I just hope you'll think about it. Because I — I really have fallen in love with you."
The silence that followed was absolute.
Jasmine's face had gone through three different colors in the span of a few seconds, finally settling on something between pale and scarlet, as every single awkward, fumbling, overly-formal moment Xavier had ever had around her came crashing down at once, rearranging itself into a single, blinding realization.
He had a crush on me?!
She opened her mouth — to say something, anything — but before a single word could escape, a roar of pure, deafening excitement erupted from somewhere behind them.
Every one of Xavier's friends. Jasmine's cousin. And, worst of all, the two reigning agents of chaos themselves — Teslaine and Violet — all of them visibly vibrating with the kind of joy that only comes from witnessing something this perfect unfold in real time.
Up on the palace balcony, Emperor Aleksander and Lord Graviil watched the whole spectacle with matching grins.
"He finally said it, huh?" Aleksander remarked, shaking his head. "Did he honestly think nobody noticed? He's terrible at hiding things."
Graviil wiped away a comically exaggerated tear of pride. "He really is my blood."
Down below, Xavier's face went through an entirely new shade of red as he realized — with mounting horror — that every single person who mattered to him had just witnessed the whole thing. And, in a final cruel twist of fate, his confession had been the one part of the entire conversation clear enough for any of them to actually hear.
— ✦ —
Back where Alcmena and Lady Merlin sat, she pressed a hand over her mouth, equal parts scandalized and thoroughly delighted by the scene that had just played out in front of them.
Alcmena, by contrast, watched with an unreadable calm — the only person present whose expression carried something closer to quiet sorrow than amusement.
The boy had just proven, without knowing it, that the name Alcmena had chosen for him fit perfectly. Every part of it. Brave. Honest. Willing to lay himself bare for the sake of something he believed in, no matter the cost.
A guardian-knight, through and through.