Chapter Text
Ringabel sends letters that will never arrive.
He pours his heart and soul onto letters and words and apologies that will never be read, apologies to his friends and to even Karl and Egil and especially Edea.
The ones to Edea are often stained and warped with tears, and the ink is often smeared or scratched out or even rubbed raw until the paper is flaking in a desperate attempt to erase the ninth “I’m sorry” he’s written in that sentence. In his home with the Dimensional Bureau, he hasn’t seen Edea or Tiz once; he’s not even seen Agnès since her taking of the popehood. Sure, there are endless Agnèses in endless universes, but none of them are his Agnès, which makes every brief meeting with the Wind-Vestal-turned-Pope so much more bittersweet. None of them are quite so kind or gentle, none of them are as in love with Tiz, none of them even know of his existence except for her.
That’s the same with Tiz as well, he knows, as no other happy-go-lucky and tenderhearted but protective Norende boy would burst into a wide smile at the sight of the person that no other Norende boy had come to recognize as an older brother. He also knows that the one Norende boy currently “sleeps” in an Eternian vivipod, slowly wasting away while his one and only beloved Edea and Tiz’s own one and only beloved Agnès simply watch and can do nothing but pray to the crystals that Tiz will wake up, and hoping that Eternia’s medical system will advance enough to awaken the boy that no longer has anything to awaken.
And, of course, there is Edea. The girl he was madly in puppy-love with as Alternis, and then developed a real, adult love for as Ringabel, where he developed the most precious, most sacred love for only one most precious, most sacred Edea, stuck in the same world with the other two Heroes of Light he left behind. He cannot bring himself to seduce or even flirt with any other women, simply because he feels the deep twists of regret and betrayal of the girl worlds away. The girl he has not seen in so long, and could leave nothing but D’s Journal for when he left. He wonders if she has ascended the throne by now, or even made it to Captain of the Ducal Guard yet. He’s certain she’s made it that far, at least—her skill with the sword was virtually unmatched by the time they had parted after the first journey.
Sweet, sweet Edea. The only candied thing he had ever learned to love.
And so, as an apology to Edea, to Tiz, to Agnès, to everyone —he writes letter after letter, apology after apology, “I love you” after “I love you” and leaves them at the shore of the Dimensional Bureau, knowing that they will simply be swept away and lost before they would even ever be theoretically delivered—interaction outside of the Bureau is forbidden, anyway, and any interaction must be under the most poolproof of aliases. In his case, he parades around as Alternis Dim, who is him but not him and certainly not loved by the three that he loves most anywhere close to the love that they have for Ringabel. As Dimensional Officers, they are unique identities—souls that have accidentally become someone else, usually by the unintentional transversal of worlds or some other obscure method. While they may look the same, they are unique in the universe—or multiverse, Ringabel thinks—there are infinite Alternis Dims, but only one Ringabel.
Ringabel, and all other Dimensional Officers, are not supposed to exist.
In reality, there are likely far more unique identities that exist outside of the Bureau, although the President has classified these unregistered existences as a problem, since they have the potential to disrupt the natural harmony between worlds when their parallel existences start to collide. Ringabel himself was only caught intentionally transversing worlds after another adventure, following a failed attempt to return back to the one Caldisla inn that he had come to truly know as “home”. He had been informed of his identity as a unique existence, and how, despite his status as a Hero of Light, his continued unmonitored existence could result in serious problems, especially involving anything that could potentially affect the flow of the world. Therefore, if he wanted to continue serving as a “hero”, the only choice would be to join the Dimensional Bureau. While it would not allow him to return to his previous life—that was far more complicated, the President explained, and perhaps not an option for Ringabel at the present time—serving as a Dimensional Officer would at least al Ringabel to protect his friends and his friends’ world. Besides, if he was sent to eliminate a presence on their world, while he may not be able to interact with them as himself, he would still be able to interact with them nonetheless, as long as he didn’t let his true identity spill.
There were grave consequences for that, Ringabel was warned, and certainly none that he ever wanted to find out.
Therefore, it is much to his chagrin and joy when he learns he will be parading as Alternis Dim in the very world with the three people held most dear to his heart.
The three of them are complicated in terms of what Ringabel likes to refer to as dimensionality; as Heroes of Light, the three that saved every world, there are clear differences between the existences of themselves in alternate worlds and the existence of the Heroes of Light versions of themselves, but the differences aren’t enough for them to be classified as threats. However, if the three of them were ever to find out about the Dimensional Bureau and the Bureau found out about it, they would be forced into becoming Dimensional Officers—that is, unless Ringabel reveals himself and the existence of the Dimensional Bureau to them in a pocket of spacetime created and watched over by an entity, in which case the Bureau would not be able to moderate Ringabel without being there in person, and that would be far too suspicious, especially if Ringabel’s disguise was to be the infamously solitary and mysterious Alternis Dim. If he were just able to find a spot like that...
Ringabel pauses and shakes his head.
After all, that would make leaving so much more painful.
Although he works with people of all genders in the Bureau—even people who look like Edea—he hasn’t fallen for or even flirted with any of them. The most casanova thing he’s done in his entire time at the Bureau is simply purchase a drink for the one who looks like Agnès, where they sat silently next to each other and somberly sipped at red wine that that tasted so much like the wine at Karl’s inn but not enough to be of any comfort, doing nothing—not even talking—in a silence comfortable only in a melancholic kind of way.
He won’t be deployed for a while yet, but the fact that he’s been assigned to a mission at all means he’s relieved of his general rounds around the Bureau headquarters, so he takes his extra time to sit down and write a few deep, meaningful letters to his friends, his three fellow Heroes of Light who have no idea where he’s gone, only that he has gone, and nothing to remember him by except D’s Journal and the teachings of, well...the teachings of everything. The four of them are more or less living legends, so it would be impossible for them not to have heard at least a peep about certainly not what he’s doing now, but at least what he did with them back then. They at least have some reminders of his existence, and he’s comforted by that—but at the same time, he doesn’t want to bother them with the shadow of his existence, so he wonders if them not forgetting about him is perhaps truly any good at all.
Perhaps they think he’s dead.
This idea leaves a sinking feeling in Ringabel’s stomach and a bitter taste in his mouth. If Tiz ever does wake up, he’ll assume he’ll never see his “older brother” again, and poor Agnès likely has no one to confide in like she did to him, and then there’ll be lovely, darling, heartbroken Edea...
Ringabel’s throat tightens, and he decides to start writing letters that he will really, truly deliver. Perhaps he will deliver them as Alternis Dim instead of himself, but he will find a way.
He decides to start off by writing one to Tiz.