It was bad. I was starting to enjoy this feeling; it was delicious.
I watched as the sky cried grimly while I lay across her body.
My hair slowly began to turn white, white so that her blood could stain it, making it a dark shade of red.
It was deep, her soul, something I could no longer reach out to or bask in its light.
I could still hear her voice screaming to me as she died, telling me not to cry. "Oh, don't cry," she ordered, even as her breath left her.
Soon, I realized I had to stand. What about our children? I couldn't stay here forever. It would be cruel.
[Nicholas already went back on his word, I was a terrible person.]
The rain did little to rid her blood from my hair, nor did her face do little to calm me.
Strange, yes, her face should have made feeling sad impossible. It's written in the divine law!
[This cardinal law which he had seemingly created was broken, leaving me terribly burdened.]
Time passed with the slow rhythm of rainfall, each drop pressing against my skin like a quiet judgment.
The faint hum of mana returned to the air, whispering its presence around me as if rebuilding creation itself.
From that shimmering mist, something came to greet me.
It was a dark bird, gliding toward me at the speed of light, defying nature and logic as it shimmered with a black radiance.
And soon, Cassio walked toward me, Malachi holding her hand as she did so.
They approached cautiously, as if the air around me had become something unnatural.
I didn't know why, but I felt the need to reach out.
When I did, Cassio appeared in my arms, embracing me tightly, her small body trembling.
She pressed her lips close to my ear.
"You don't have to worry, Daddy. I will protect you. You and your happiness."
Her voice cracked at the edges, pure and trembling.
Miraculum appeared next, his eyes filled with tears as he knelt beside his mother's still form.
My vision began to blur, something that should have been impossible for me, but in that haze, I swore I saw Malachi crying.
Crying as if I was the one dying, as if Mirabel still lay in agony, as if even the kingdom itself had begun to mourn.
I looked down at Cassio as she clung to me.
Miraculum's sobs echoed softly through the storm, not healing me but deepening the ache that pulsed through my chest.
"Why do you wish to protect me?" I asked, my voice hollow. Malachi knelt beside her, his expression a mixture of reverence and despair.
Cassio looked up, her eyes filled with unwavering light. "You are hurt, Daddy. Fighting is impossible, is it not? Therefore I must be there. I am your shield."
[The Shield of the End, a fitting name for this child of mine who held me so close, as if I were frail.]
"My king," Malachi said sharply. "I shall grieve to the Heavens. I shall seek out her resurrection by any means necessary!"
In that moment, all things came to an end.
Every last drop of life, every thread of reality, every place and point.
The entire tapestry of existence unraveled, and then snapped back.
Earth reformed out of necessity, unwilling to let its own destruction stand.
Cruel. I couldn't even kill myself or all others. Not that it mattered. I aimed to spare a few lives. I didn't.
I smiled faintly as my heart reached its final pitiful beat. "That won't be necessary. It seems she had a plan."
I reached down, lifting Miraculum in my other arm, and turned away.
With a single step, they both drifted into slumber, resting safely within their beds.
And then, she appeared in my arms once more.
Mirabel.
She would not be buried in this world, a world that had forsaken her.
So I stood outside the boundaries of the creation He had given to His pitiful children.
I looked down upon Earth from above and sought its rivals.
I gazed upon the spirits, the painful darkness, the unending void.
I saw history folding upon itself, dreams bleeding into crevices of forgotten time.
Beside these realms, I extended my hand and shaped a new one, a place untouched by suffering, a realm for those I held dear to rest eternally.
"Paradise," I called it, as a vast sphere of light and still water formed beside Earth, floating in divine symmetry, rivaling its might.
Griffin might roll over in his grave. Or perhaps he would laugh at my theft.
I entered Paradise and laid her body upon its waters.
The seas rippled with the motion of time itself, carrying her to the ocean's floor where the barriers of space dissolved.
Then I sat upon the shore and stared at this world I had made with reverence and sorrow.
"Mirabel, did you want another child?"
I whispered. "I have decided to lament in silence, so as not to disturb your heart. So please… you must come back."
[You are sad, sad very much Nichoasl was, I was a sad person.]
"If you do not, I might give up on life. I might frighten what we have created. So you must. This is my one order as your husband."
[And so time passed, time passed in a blur in which did not seem real, Nicholas was lost to himself, and so when he returned to Earth it was estranged.]
Time passed? Well, it was to be expected. Paradise did not move by the same rhythm as creation.
Its flow was quieter, slower, so still that eternity could feel like a breath.
Yet surely not so many years could have passed. I had not sat so long that I abandoned transcendence, had I?
I moved across the realms, letting the shimmer of each world wash over me as I drifted between what once was and what now stood in its place.
And then I met a terrible sight.
My eyes fell upon the castle I had grown up in, or rather, what it had become.
The proud marble walls had changed, warped by time and vanity.
Gold lined its towers, and the banners no longer bore my crest but some diluted imitation.
Smoke rose from the grounds, not from battle but from torches of celebration.
Laughter echoed through the air, joyous and wild, a festival where solemnity once reigned.
The people, my people, were laughing.
I stood at the gates, and silence rippled outward. Their laughter faltered. Cups fell. Dice froze mid-roll.
Every smile collapsed under my gaze. I felt their eyes on me, confused, uncertain, afraid.
My yard, our yard, the same one where Mirabel once walked barefoot through the dew, had been turned into a parade ground.
Music halted, dancers fled.
I scowled. "Must you disregard my presence like a plague? I know I was gone, but this is too much!"
For a moment, no one moved. Then a single noble, trembling, fell to his knees.
The rest followed like a wave, their jeweled foreheads pressing to the soil.
The yard that had once been filled with laughter was now overflowing with weeping and prayer.
"The king has returned!" one voice cried, breaking the silence.
I looked down at myself and felt something stir, my hair, long and pale, trailing across the ground. I had aged.
The skin of my hands was faintly bolder, my gear tattered and stained.
The mass of years clung to me like smoke.
[Nicholas did not realize, but he had lost everything when she died, including his pitiful power.]
A strange nausea washed over me.
Blood, faint but fresh, stained the old fabric of my clothes.
I stumbled forward, my vision trembling. The world spun.
Then hands caught me, strong, steady hands. A man stood before me, and my breath caught.
He looked strikingly like my son, but older, far older than he had any right to be.
His eyes were the same, his presence calm and commanding.
He pulled out a small vial that shimmered with silver liquid. "Father, you must be very ill. Please, sit."
I obeyed without thought.
His voice was a command, not through authority but through something deeper, power. And suddenly, I was sitting upon a throne.
The nobles surrounded me, kneeling in reverence, their heads bowed so low they could not see my trembling hands.
Malachi stood before me, regal and tall, holding the crown of Anstalionah as though it had always been his to bear.
[Nicholas had gone insane, he had lost his sense of direction, his sense of order and place, it seems that he had become the cat.]
He placed the crown gently in my lap. "Your return to Anstalionah is greatly precious, my dear king, my dear friend, my dear king."
My eyes lifted, and for the first time in what felt like centuries, I saw them.
Leon knelt beside Ouroboros.
Gabe was there too, his armor blackened by time but his loyalty undimmed.
Ouroboros's serpentine eyes flickered upward only briefly before bowing again.
And Lancerial, proud, radiant Lancerial, knelt with her head bowed in solemn grace.
My breath caught. These were not visions. They were real.
And then I saw them, my son and daughter, standing at my side.
Cassio's eyes were colder now, wiser. Miraculum's shoulders bore the gravity of rulership.
I realized the impossible. Her death had undone me so completely that I had lost my power.
My majesty, my order, my everything, gone.
I looked around the throne room, every shining column and silken drape foreign to me.
The air was stiff with reverence I did not deserve. I couldn't help but stare, in awe, in fear, in shame.