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PREVIOUSLY ON EVERMORE…
He couldn't breathe, and Tommy was dying.
He was dying, he was dying, and he was dying.
"Father, Father, what's happening!? The petals, the petals, you said that's all we needed, and then he'd be fine! Why isn't he fine!?"
"Dream! King Dream, please, you told me that he would be okay and that this would pass. You said it wouldn't hurt - a painless sickness, that was all!"
"Theseus? Theseus, please, hey, c'mon, c'mon, you can't, you can't-"
"I did it! I did it! The fall of the Antarctic Empire and it's because of me! Another loss is something you can't take, something you can't handle, but I've done it! I've won it all! Me!"
A thumb, pale and trembling, treads gently over a thick book of thousands and thousands of words, a story ends, as it had always intended to from the very beginning of the traveler's tale, and a Prince closes his eyes for the very last time.
.
AFTERMATH
Wilbur felt nothing but cold. He could not move. His eyes were fixated on the small, motionless figure of the young prince. His brother, Theseus. His Tommy.
He paid no attention to the voices calling out, as he raised a trembling hand to Theseus’s neck to feel a pulse. Nothing.
“Theseus?” he whispered, ignoring how his voice crackled. No response.
The youngest prince was unmoving in Wilbur’s lap, in the mess of bloody vomit, and flowers. Flowers that came because of them, Wilbur thought.
Red, withered flowers.
As Techno slowly crouched down to place a hand on Theseus, Wilbur didn't realize he was crying until he felt something wet fall onto Theseus’s pale, colorless face. He looked so peaceful and accepting, surrounded by what he called his family, even when he was in immense pain. We don’t deserve to be called his family, Wilbur thought grimly, as he wept.
He looked up, not letting go of Theseus, and met his father’s shocked, griefed face. He felt a surge of anger, remembering that he was the one to strike up this risky deal with Dream, saying it was a “painless” condition for Theseus, which caused his ultimate demise. He also glanced and saw Ranboo and Tubbo, standing in front of them, with tears streaming down their faces. Dream was standing to the side with Sam, still laughing and chanting with victory.
His eyes went back down to Theseus’s still form, seeing Techno looking down at it, refusing to meet his eyes. He could tell Techno was crying, and he could also hear stifled sobs, which he had never heard from his brother before. He looked down at his hands, which were shaking.
Then the realization hit him. Theseus, the young prince of the Empire, his brother whom he loved so much, is dead on the ground, because of them. He cried and cried as all the emotions that were bundling up inside of him were released, anger at his father, King Dream, himself, grief that was projected at Theseus’s non-moving body, and all the love for his brother that he had to ignore and push away because of the stupid cure.
Phil tried, as a father to save his bloodline with Dream’s proclamation of the disease “Hanahaki” to be the cure for it. He intended to do good but was naive and desperate as King Dream was the true mastermind and villain of this story. Phil’s desperation for saving his family caused him to make the princes push away the youngest one, hoping that the “painless” procedure would do good for the family. He didn’t know that it was all just a ploy for the Antarctic Empire to finally fall, not from war, but from destroying the royal family within.
.
As Theseus reunites with his mother in the afterlife, the rest of the family grieves, for the loss of two.
—-
Maybe in another life, another universe, Prince Theseus might find a different ending. He could be reborn, into a certain universe where they have suffered a loss, or he could spend the rest of his days in the afterlife, with his mother. The Antarctic Empire might have fallen, or not. Or he could have even survived, by running away or making amends with his family. Maybe he didn’t have Hanahaki in the first place, and Phil didn’t go through with Dream’s proposal and lived a great life with his family.
There are endless possibilities, but in this universe, Prince Theseus, or Tommy, meets his downfall and gets sent to the afterlife, reunited with his mother, and spends the rest of his days there, leaving a grieving family.
Maybe. Theseus can now choose his own path, his own future, bad or good.
THE END