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As Prince Gerald watched his fiance, his favorite person, the light of his life, digging in the dirt as she was wont to do, something flashed through his mind. He barely suppressed a wince at the odd sensation; it was strangely painful. Why would staring at Katarina farming give him that feeling?
The feeling had long since disappeared by the time Katarina finished in the garden for the day.
It reappeared when she started practicing the sword.
Gerald put a hand to his head, causing his servants to fret over his health, asking if he needed to go back to the castle. He refused. He wanted to continue watching Katarina and, maybe, understand these strange pings of pain.
When the sun started to set, Gerald decided it was time to head back to the palace. After saying his farewells to his fiance and her parents, he entered the carriage to take him back to the palace.
Alan was glaring at him when he got back. Gerald wasn’t happy about it, but he paid it no mind today. The painful feeling had only gotten worse on the carriage ride home.
Maybe he could sleep it off. It seemed like a good idea, at the time.
Gerald’s sleep was not pleasant at all that night. He had no recollection of doing any of the things the servants said he did that night, but Gerald didn’t remember much from the two days after the dream that changed everything for him.
Gerald stood at the end of the hallway of what appeared to be a school. There was a commotion going on at the opposite end, so he began walking that way.
He heard a voice that sounded vaguely familiar screaming, “YOU TOOK EVERYTHING FROM ME!”
Gerald increased his pace, as it was highly likely something terrible was about to happen.
He turned the corner and saw something that made him freeze on the spot.
He saw something that would scar him forever. It appeared to be an older Katarina running at a blonde girl with a knife. He was going to step in when what appeared to be an older him interceded in probably the worst way possible.
A sword strike straight up the chest, almost seeming to cut her right in half. (It probably would have if this older Gerald was stronger or used a different weapon.)
There was a gaping wound in this older Katarina’s chest, and she collapsed to the ground. The blonde girl ran forward, and her hands were illuminated with a pale yellow light.
Oh, that girl had light magic. Why would Katarina-
“Don’t die. Please, Lady Claes, don’t die.”
The older him did nothing to help. In fact, he seemed happy with what had just happened.
Gerald wanted to say something, anything, but his mouth wouldn’t move. Or, maybe it was that he wasn’t making any sound. He wasn’t sure, but he didn’t like this, not one bit.
Suddenly, everything around him shifted. Everyone from the hallway was there, except for the older Katarina. Gerald looked around and suddenly realized why.
They were standing in front of a grave. Etched onto the gravestone were the words “Here lies Katarina Claes, former fiance to the Third Prince of Sorcier and Daughter of Duke and Duchess Luigi and Miridiana Claes”.
Oh.
Gerald felt something in his eyes that he had never felt before. Was that liquid? Was he- Was he crying?
He was able to hear what the older him was saying, “I have killed my fiance, dearest. I must leave this kingdom. Farewell.”
The blonde girl looked sad, and Gerald could tell it wasn’t just because of older him.
Gerald wasn’t sure what he had just witnessed, other than an older version of him murdering his dearest person in cold blood, and then calling some blonde girl “dearest”.
He felt sick. He stayed in front of this older Katarina’s grave long after the blonde girl had left. Just as he felt he was able to say something, this reality seemed to break apart.
He found himself outside. The sun was shining brightly, but Gerald had a bad feeling. He moved quickly towards where he heard the newest commotion.
It was a similar scene to before. However-
“I WILL NEVER LET HIM BE HAPPY! HE CAN’T BE! HE RUINED MY FAMILY!”
The older Katarina ran at the blonde girl, knife in hand. This time, however, there was no older Gerald to stop it. The knife embedded itself in the girl’s side, and older Katarina’s deranged smirk dropped for a second before it returned.
“If you’re so special, let’s see you save yourself,” older Katarina sneered before walking off.
The girl’s face was panicked as light sprung to her hands. Gerald didn’t know much about injuries, but he could tell now that it was deep. This older Katarina must really hate this girl, huh?
The girl did manage to stop the bleeding, but that didn’t stop someone from spotting her on the ground panicking over a knife wound.
Gerald didn’t recognize him, but his face showed extreme rage as soon as he had seen the girl’s suffering. Gerald opted to follow, mainly because he felt something compelling him to see what was about to happen.
The man, whoever he was, confronted the older Katarina, who glared at him with a scowl on her face. (It looked much eviler than Gerald had ever thought Katarina’s face could ever be.)
“Oh, it’s you,” Katarina sniffed, disgusted.
The man’s face twisted into an even more furious expression. Gerald wanted to intervene, but, again, he felt like he couldn’t move his lips or make a sound.
He wanted to shout at this older version of his fiance to run. That this man was bad news. But he couldn’t. Something was forcibly holding his voice back.
“It’s your own fault, you know,” the older Katarina said icily. “If you hadn’t gotten involved with her; if you hadn’t tried to be happy; maybe she wouldn’t be bleeding out in the courtyard.”
Gerald felt like screaming. He couldn’t, though. Whatever was holding him back was doing quite a thorough job of making sure he couldn’t interfere with anything.
The man’s face shifted into one of absolute fury, one that appeared to have been holding back all the hatred he felt for the person on the receiving end of this look for a long time.
The man’s hand glowed with a brown color, and the ground began to shake.
The older Katarina’s face contorted into something much less confident as a large doll made of dirt and earth emerged from the ground.
Gerald really wanted to intervene now. He still couldn’t.
He watched in horror, unable to do anything, as the dirt doll approached the older Katarina menacingly. He was unable to do anything as the dirt doll stepped on this older Katarina, the man laughing crazily in the background.
“YOU BULLIED ME FOR ALL MY YEARS IN THAT STUPID FAMILY, SISTER! THIS IS MY REVENGE!”
Gerald’s jaw dropped. Sister? This man was older Katarina’s brother? WHEN DID THAT HAPPEN?!
When the dirt doll finally moved its foot (how long had she been under there? A few minutes by now, certainly), the older Katarina had already died. Her dead body lied there on the grass, in a small indent in the ground that the doll had caused when it stomped down. Her body looked scarily flat, and Gerald felt sick.
As the blonde girl came running up, also looking quite sick at the sight in front of her, the man turned away.
“It’s time I get revenge on those idiots who dared to abuse me.”
Gerald didn’t want to know what that entailed, but he prayed that the man wasn’t talking about Katarina’s parents.
With the sound of glass breaking, the reality around Gerald broke again.
This time, he was in what appeared to be a dining hall. Reality didn’t seem to know which of two people it wanted to show, so the older him and the man that had just killed the older Katarina kept being switched out for one another in an odd glitch effect. (Gerald didn’t know what a ‘glitch’ was, but the word fit the situation fairly well.)
He watched as both men descended upon the older Katarina, blaming her for bullying Maria in every way under the sun, it seemed.
It was only after older Katarina had fled the room crying did the scene change.
It was a courtroom.
Wait, they seriously went to court for bullying?! That’s stupid!
“Katarina Claes has been accused of bullying Maria Campbell in ways that border on criminal.”
Gerald just stared at this scene, feeling a sense of dread. This seemed rigged, and not in the favor of the older Katarina.
“I hereby declare that Katarina Claes is stripped of her noble title and exiled from this kingdom!”
Gerald gaped at this. Exiled for bullying? How did that make sense?!
Reality seemed to break apart again, and Gerald was thrown into darkness.
A voice. That’s all he could hear. It sounded...familiar. Not like someone he had met before, but as someone he had heard from afar, had been close enough to distinguish their voice, but not who they were.
“Please, don’t let this happen again.”
“Please, let her live.”
“Please, don’t let her live in misery again.”
“Please, help her live a happy life.”
These sounded like wishes. Were they related to what he had dreamed earlier? Those nightmares felt too real for them to just be dreams, though, so, maybe, they could be real?
“She won’t be okay unless you help her.”
“Please, save her.”
“Don’t let her die again.”
“She was too young.”
Gerald wasn’t sure how much of what he saw was even possible. However, if those dreams (nightmares) held any semblance of truth, he needed to protect her. To save her.
Gerald would devote his life to making sure Katarina never felt like she was in danger with him. She would be safe with him. He’d make sure of it.
Gerald shot out of bed. He had things to do if he wanted to save his fiance. She needed to feel safe with him.
If she knew about any of this, she would be afraid of his sword. Maybe he should get rid of it. He doubts his parents would ever agree, but he wanted his Katarina to feel as safe as could be.
She really had become the light of his life, and he’d be damned if he let her die or get exiled, whether it be by his hand… or someone else’s.
He needed to find out who that man was.
He called Katarina “sister”. Maybe he could stop it.
He had forgotten that Keith was already with the Claes family. So, stopping it was off the table. However-
“Keith, I need to talk to you. Alone,” Gerald said one day when Katarina was out in her fields. Keith looked confused, but he agreed anyway.
They were in the parlor, and Keith had just closed the door behind him.
“What did you want to talk about, Prince Gerald?” Keith asked, slightly suspicious.
Gerald understood why; after all, Gerald usually spent all his time with Katarina when he came over.
Gerald took a deep breath. “Did you get them too?”
At Keith’s confused expression, Gerald decided he didn’t. In that case, his belief that Katarina knew of these possible futures gained even more credibility.
“What are you talking about?” Keith asked.
Gerald shook his head. “It’s nothing. Forget I said anything.”
Keith was obviously still suspicious of him. Gerald understood, and that was fine. It didn’t matter what Keith thought of him, he just needed to keep Katarina safe.
Yes, everything Katarina did made sense with the dream’s information (farming to sustain herself if exiled, learn the sword in case Gerald turned on her, etc), but the fact that she had to worry about it at all made him feel bad. If he could, he would take all her worries and place them somewhere she couldn’t reach. He’d take the burden of preventing those endings on himself. Katarina was too sweet to worry about death and exile, especially when she was only eight-years-old.
It was only a matter of time until she said something that would solidify his theory. It was Katarina, after all.
It was as he thought. Katarina knew about it. She knew everything.
The book on the table was proof enough, although he couldn’t read the code within for the life of him. The pictures told him enough.
She thought herself evil in some way, although that couldn’t be farther from the truth. She was a light, his light.
Befriending Keith must have been one of her plans to escape the endings he was shown. He wondered if he should break off the engagement, if only so that Katarina would feel safer, considering the older her was killed while still engaged to him.
He dropped the idea almost as quickly as it appeared. If he stayed engaged to her, he could protect her. He could protect her from her brother, other men, and… himself.
Maybe he needed to share this with someone, just in case.
Mary Hunt, Katarina’s first real female friend.
She was obsessed with Katarina, from what Gerald had been able to tell. She loved her.
Normally, Gerald would never tell his rival in love something so… earth-shattering, but, in this case, he thought it necessary.
The main factor in this was that she wasn’t involved in any of the endings he had seen from his dreams. That made her almost the perfect candidate to help him.
(Granted, Alan might have been able to as well, but Mary was a better bet. She could get closer to Katarina than any of the boys could. He wouldn’t trust Keith with this sort of information in case it gave him any ideas.)
So, here he was, meeting with his fiance’s best friend, who was also his brother’s fiance.
“Prince Gerald, what do you need?” Mary asked. She said it sweetly, but it sounded fake. Of course. She probably thought he was here to tell her off of Katarina.
“I would like to discuss something with you, in private,” Gerald said in reply, gesturing to the servants.
Mary raised an eyebrow, but the servants left nonetheless.
“What is it you want that you needed everyone else out of the room, Prince Gerald?” Mary asked, her voice taking on a hidden barb that Gerald didn’t think could come out of the usually-shy-when-not-with-Katarina-nine-year-old.
Gerald sighed. “I need your help, Mary.”
Mary visibly flinched back, clearly shocked by Gerald, of all people, asking for help.
“With?” Mary asked after she regained her composure.
“I am about to tell you something I have not yet told anyone else, and I need you to know that I am not crazy,” Gerald said.
Mary raised an eyebrow at that.
Gerald took a deep breath and began to explain everything from the day before the dreams, the dreams themselves, and the days after (although, he couldn’t remember why one of the servants started calling him paranoid). He also mentioned that Katarina knew of these endings, and she was trying to avoid them.
By the end, Mary was gaping. All appearance of a proper noble lady dropped from her, and she almost pounced on him.
“What do you mean, Katarina could DIE ?!” Mary screeched, shooting to her feet almost faster than his eyes could register.
His ears might need to be looked at after that, but he felt it was well worth getting someone else to help him protect Katarina.
“I won’t let it happen, but if something ever happens to me, I need you to take over and protect her, Mary. I don’t trust Keith enough, and Alan would probably tell Katarina what I told him to do,” Gerald reasoned. Mary sat back down, folding her hands.
“Well, if it’s for Katarina,” Mary nodded. “I’ll help. However-”
“You want time with Katarina by yourself, yes?” Gerald interrupted.
Mary frowned. “No, I can get that whenever. You’re telling me this so that you have help protecting Katarina or if something ever happens to you. Why don’t you want Katarina to know that you know of these possible futures?”
Gerald took a second to let the silence following the question set before he answered. “Knowing I know of any kind of future that involves killing her would probably make her more afraid of everything than if she didn’t know.”
Mary frowned. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to tell her, though? So she knows you’re on her side?”
“As wonderful as that would be, saying anything would result in a misunderstanding that could prove disastrous.”
Mary nodded slowly. “That is the kind of misunderstanding I would expect from Katarina. Especially with something so important.”
“So, we have an agreement?” Gerald asked, holding out his hand.
“Indeed,” Mary replied, placing her hand in Gerald's. They shook firmly once before releasing.
In the coming year, Katarina had made friends with two other nobles, neither of which were involved in any of the endings Gerald saw.
However, he and Mary saw to it that one of them was with Katarina at almost every hour of the day. After all, they never knew when Katarina might do something to trigger one of the endings.
It was probably fine, but it was better to be safe than sorry.
In the few years to come, Katarina had almost gotten herself killed more than a few times (mostly by trees and stray sword strikes; Gerald would never let her forget the time she actually threw her sword to the roof and had to call someone to get it down for her).
Other than that, everything went perfectly. However, the Magic Academy was surely another thing entirely.
Gerald and Mary held one more meeting before the start of term.
“So, you said this blonde girl was a student, correct?” Mary asked.
“Indeed. It didn’t seem as though she started any conflict herself, however, so I suggest we simply watch and make sure Katarina doesn’t do anything too stupid.”
Mary nodded. “Time to commence plan ‘Keep Katarina Alive At All Costs’.”
Gerald ran into the girl who was present in all those futures on the first day. The light magic-user, Maria Campbell.
Gerald had seen the name etched into Katarina’s journal, under something in her secret code. He had wondered if it was her name in code, but he wasn’t sure why she would write it twice if that was the case.
Gerald shook his head. He had seen a drawing of this. Miss Campbell was climbing a tree (Gerald wasn’t sure why, but Katarina had drawn it, so maybe she knew more than just the dark futures).
She was embarrassed when he saw her. For him, though, this meeting was met with dread and trepidation, even if his outward appearance and voice didn’t make it look or sound that way.
He mentioned his meeting to Katarina and Keith and immediately latched onto the fact that Katarina stopped what she was doing and started muttering to herself.
She definitely knew of the things that led up to the possible futures, and, knowing Katarina, she had come up with something absolutely outrageous to avoid it.
Gerald needed a way to convince Katarina that she’d be fine without letting her know he knew something.
Oh, maybe he could avoid Campbell.
If they never interact, there was less chance of Katarina freaking out. He had to make sure Keith didn’t interact with her either. He couldn’t let even the smallest chance of that horrid ending exist. He had to kill all chances of Katarina getting hurt.
Yes, that’s what he’d do. If he and Keith never interacted with Miss Campbell, then maybe Katarina wouldn’t feel like she was in danger.
He nodded to himself. Yes, that was a good plan. Time to put it into effect.
Maybe this wasn’t working as planned. Things involving Katarina usually went that way, but still. He was hoping that Katarina would stop freaking out at every opportunity, but that wasn’t the case.
According to Mary, she had somehow gotten it in her mind that Gerald, Keith, Alan, and Nicol were in love with Miss Campbell. He had no idea how she had gotten that from “avoid Miss Campbell at all costs unless you must interact”.
Gerald sighed. This wasn’t working, was it? Katarina had it in her mind that he was going to fall in love with Miss Campbell, didn’t she?
There had to be a way to tell her otherwise, right?
The student council was supposed to be an honor. Gerald saw it as a curse.
It forced him to stay in close proximity to Miss Campbell for at least one hour a day, and he wasn’t happy about the things Katarina was thinking because of it.
Don’t get him wrong, she was nice, but he couldn’t and wouldn’t allow himself to get anywhere near her. Katarina’s safety came before everything else.
So, when Katarina and Miss Campbell started becoming friends, Gerald wasn’t sure what to do. He saw the look in Miss Campbell’s eyes whenever she looked at Katarina. He wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or a bad one.
Things were progressing quite well this year. Katarina was safe, he and Mary were doing well at keeping her safe, and it didn’t appear that anything bad would happen. But it was better to be safe than sorry.
That book that Katarina had found, the magic one, almost outed the secret of the endings to Maria, according to Mary. She had to jump through so many hoops to not let Maria see what was going on during Gerald’s desire.
(He was protecting Katarina from every single bad ending he knew of. Katarina was probably going to question him about it later, if she remembered.)
Either Katarina forgot or didn’t want to ask because she never came to ask him about what his desire entailed.
It wasn’t long after that that some girls decided to accuse Katarina of bullying Maria, reminding Gerald too closely of that dream in the cafeteria.
He hated how similar it was. He shut it down immediately.
And then Maria when missing.
And Katarina fell asleep and wouldn’t wake up.
The world around Gerald was black. A vast expanse of nothingness.
He walked around until he felt his foot hit something. He looked down and felt something he hadn’t felt since he was a child.
It was him. Except, he wasn’t breathing.
He looked around. A few feet to the left was Alan, also not breathing. To the right was Nicol, the same. Keith was also there, some ways away.
The girls were all lying on the ground as well. Gerald could only assume they had shared whatever fate had caused this.
He noticed one missing body. Katarina’s.
He felt a hand on his shoulder. “Hello, Gerald.”
Oh. That voice was too familiar for comfort. It was the same cold voice he had heard from the dream Katarinas.
He turned around sharply, only to see a Katarina that most definitely wasn’t his.
“You made it, then,” this Katarina nodded. “Good. Now she’ll finally stop pestering me about it.”
That confused him. Then, it finally registered.
Those voices who were begging him to save Katarina - they sounded like Miss Campbell. Were they- Were they those Marias he saw?
The Katarina in front of him clicked her tongue. “I see you’re finally getting it. Good. That’ll make this simpler for me.”
Gerald didn’t get it. It looked like the Maria from this dream was dead, so how-
The Katarina in front of him frowned. “Listen, her spirit made me contact you, got it? I wouldn’t have done this if it didn’t get this idiot off my case !” She gestured wildly with her hands to the space around her, but Gerald couldn’t see anything there.
“What’s going on?” Gerald asked, surprised he was able to speak at all in this dream.
“Ugh, you’re hopeless. How was I ever in love with you?” this Katarina scoffed. Gerald blinked, brain working overtime to figure out what exactly this Katarina meant. “This was a possible ending for the world. Apparently, there were others? I don’t know how it works. Your Katarina had a dream similar to this a few nights ago, I think, but no one talked to her.”
“She- she knew this could happen?” Gerald asked, shocked.
The Katarina in front of him shrugged. “Don’t ask me. I’m not your Katarina.”
Gerald blinked, then glanced at the bodies behind him. “What do I need to know to avoid this?”
The Katarina sighed. “It was a dark mage that did it.”
“Do you have a name? Who do I need to find?” Gerald asked.
The Katarina opened her mouth, about to say something, when there was a cracking sound.
The Katarina clicked her tongue. “Out of time, I guess. Just-”
Gerald found the ground underneath him breaking, about a second away from dumping him into the abyss of darkness below.
“Look for red!”
The ground broke, and Gerald fell, his last sight of the dream the grief-stricken face of this Katarina from another reality.
His head shot up, and he ran to the door of the room holding his Katarina. Anne dropped a small pitcher of water to the ground, but Gerald didn’t care. This was important.
“Katarina, I know you know. I do too. Please, I saw something. She said you saw it too. Please, Katarina, wake up and help me fix this.”
Moments later, Sophia came bursting into the room, yelling about wanting to stay at Katarina’s side until she woke up. Everyone else followed, and Gerald backed up and met eyes with Mary. She nodded.
He knew something important, but he couldn’t talk about it right now.
Katarina woke up with the words “Don’t cry, Sophia” about five minutes later. Mary tacked her, crying in happiness.
Her eyes met Gerald’s for a moment, but she quickly looked away.
“I’m going to save Maria.”
With that, Katarina explained who the dark mage was (“look for red” suddenly made sense), where Maria was, and how she knew.
“It came to me in a dream!”
Gerald and Mary met eyes, both nodding, while everyone else (except, oddly, Sophia) voiced their doubts. After all, Gerald had had dreams that gave him information regarding Katarina, so why couldn’t Katarina have a dream regarding Maria?
And, so, they headed to the storehouse created by the Dieke family.
Once there, they found Maria, just as Katarina had said. They went down to confront Sirius, but no one was able to stop Katarina from approaching him.
Rafael, which was Sirius’s true name, was able to stop the dark mage from controlling him, and everything was happy.
Until, of course, Katarina confronted Gerald.
“How long?” Katarina asked, voice low, almost threateningly.
“What for how long, Katarina?” Gerald asked. He assumed it was to do with the futures he saw, but he wasn’t sure.
“That-” Katarina took a deep breath. “I heard you, you know. I didn’t acknowledge it at the time, but I heard you. You saw something. I’m assuming it involved Rafael.”
“Hmm, yes, I did,” Gerald nodded. “A dream, nightmare, really. Everyone died. I, uh, met another version of you?”
Katarina blinked. “What?”
“She said there were other Katarinas, all suffering from terrible fates,” Gerald said, watching Katarina’s face drop.
“Y-you know about those?!” Katarina asked, panicked.
“I’ve known since I got engaged to you,” Gerald said, taking her hand.
“B-but, if you’ve known for that long-”
“I don’t care what your other-selves did, alright, Katarina?” Gerald interrupted. “I’m not sure how I gained this knowledge, but I do know that I would never do such a thing to you. I love you, Katarina.”
Katarina looked confused for a moment, then her face shifted to conflicted.
“But- Maria-” Katarina started.
“I was never in love with Maria. It’s been you all this time, Katarina.”
Katarina stared at him. “I- Gerald- That’s-”
“Take all the time you need to get back to me. I’ll still be here. I won’t leave you, Katarina.”
Katarina nodded dumbly.
Gerald just hoped that Katarina would consider him when thinking of who she wanted to spend her future with.