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Yae Miko loved Raiden Ei with everything she could.
She loved her Archon, her friend. Ei had been with her through everything and Miko wanted to repay that in every way she could. She would do anything for her Ei.
She would be there through the nightmares and the hard decisions. Would help her smile and heal.
She was aware of this. Aware of everything she would give up for her Archon. She was completely aware of the reasoning behind the first petal that ended up being coughed up after a night spent with the regal woman.
She knew the odds weren’t completely in her favor. But perhaps the story would work out alright in the end? Everyone liked a tragedy with a happy ending, after all.
Yes… She would get through this.
Yae Miko was in love.
“Come on, Ei, Darling~ don’t get so twisted! I was only joking!” Miko giggled, a hand covering her smirk as she leaned over the Archon’s desk to poke at the woman.
Ei raised an eyebrow, a hand reaching up to push Miko’s hand away, “Ah, yes, only joking about marrying me.”
“We are not even dating, why would marriage be an option at all?” the kitsune replied, a sharp feeling twisting in her gut, like she was just run through by a spear.
“Mm, sounds a bit like you’re in denial,” Ei said.
Miko giggled lightly again, even as the feeling of a cough bubbled in her throat, “My, my~ are you teasing me, Raiden Ei~?”
“Perhaps,” Ei hummed. The woman stood, pulling Miko off the desk and wrapping her in a hug.
Miko blinked for a moment, hugging the Archon back tightly, pressing her face into the taller woman’s shoulder and breathing deeply. Her shoulders slumped slightly, the feeling of petals trying to escape lessening.
“...I love you, Yae.” Ei murmured. Miko could feel the movement of Ei’s jaw pressed into her head as she talked.
“Last name basis?” Miko whispered into Ei’s neck, trying to keep her smile as the heavy feeling that something was wrong deepened in her chest, “Am I in trouble?”
“Always.”
There was a beat of silence. Miko simply melting into Ei’s embrace.
“...I really do love you, Miko,” Her friend whispered into her hair.
“Love you too,” the kitsune mumbled back. The sharp feeling disappeared almost immediately, but there was still a lingering pressure deep in her chest.
Miko would explain the truth behind her words in the morning. For now, she would sink deeper into her Ei’s embrace, and wish the moment of peace would persist forever.
The next morning, Miko woke to find her Archon gone.
She hadn’t even left a letter.
Miko couldn’t do this anymore.
Every passing day, everything seemed to get darker. Continuing on seemed to get harder. She wasn’t even living at this point. Just going through the motions of someone who still had the will to keep going. She was turning to the next page without reading the words on the last.
The flowers kept popping up more and more, never completely full, and always speckled in blood. There was nothing Miko could do.
She was too far gone.
And Ei wasn’t there to bring her back.
Miko wished she could have at least said goodbye to Ei. The puppet that replaced her didn’t have the same warmth. The same companionship.
Miko was alone.
Just one more time, she wanted Ei to hold her close.
She wished she had confessed everything. Maybe then Ei would have stayed instead of leaving choking flowers in her wake.
All her memories of Ei were far gone, surrounded by purple petals. The same shade of purple that reminded Yae all too much of her dear Archon.
Her Archon that had left her.
Why couldn’t she just move on as her last friend had?
Why couldn’t she open up to others like she had to Ei?
Would they leave her like Ei did if she did?
There was no point left in lamenting her loss, Miko knew that. Ei wasn’t even dead. She just didn’t care about Miko enough to stay.
Ei promised Miko a life too good to be true, and in the end, it withered away. Just like the petals that rested on Miko’s tongue, reminding her of everything that Ei had once been.
There was no point grieving.
She had to move on.
Things would never be the same.
Miko couldn’t even sleep anymore. She spent every moment waiting for the telltale sign of her Archon returning. But all she received in return was persistent headaches, bouts of flowers, and the sharp glare of a puppet wearing her Lover’s face.
If she had ever been her Lover at all.
They were certainly more than friends... Right...?
Miko felt like she was drowning in her grief. Left alone to struggle through the ocean she and Ei used to wade through together. Her lungs were corrupted to never allow her to heave in enough air before she was washed under another heavy wave.
She missed when Ei would embrace her tightly.
Wipe away her tears.
Kiss her forehead gently and rock her back and forth until her sobs subsided.
But all that was left was an empty force tearing Miko apart.
Miko wanted her Ei back.
Maybe this was just how destiny planned it.
Her final years forced through strangling flowers, suffocating waves, swallowing darkness.
She was hopelessly in love. A side character in a story that went on without her.
Truly having no one left for her, Miko wasn’t sure what to do other than accept what had happened.
She had even been banned from the Tenshukaku with the Shogun coldly saying something about the price of eternity not being worth her.
It stung, even if it wasn’t her Ei saying the words, just someone wearing her face.
Miko had accepted how the ending of her story was to be written. She just wanted to see the real Ei one last time.
So she stumbled to one of the Statues of the Seven, dropping to her knees in front of it. She had done so many times in the past, hoping and praying that Ei would hear her and come back to her.
But she never did.
This time felt different, Miko mused as she was forced to double over in a coughing fit, flowers escaping her lips.
It felt like the ending.
Full flowers laid in front of her.
Platycodons. Of course.
She should have known it would be the same flower that Ei kept the closest to her. Should have known that the ending to her story would be so telling.
Platycodons.
How… touching.
Miko stared at the blood drowned blooms for a moment. The universe truly was writing a tragedy with her as a fate bound character.
Her arms shook with the force of holding her body weight up. She slowly let them drop her to the ground, forcing herself onto her side, staring at the purple swallowed in red. Her gaze flicked upwards slightly, to focus on the statue of her Electro Archon, looking down on her so elegantly.
She never was enough for her.
Her eyes slipped closed slowly and she succumbed to the darkness fully for the first time in centuries.
Purple blooms and a marble gaze the only audience.
Ei truly lost everything in her search to keep it all.