Chapter Text
It’s been months since Espresso made his home there, in a quaint little cottage by the wood.
The Coffee Mage drew curious eyes wherever he went. With his dark flowing robes, brusque speech, and callous demeanor, he had a haughty enthusiasm about him as he conducted experiments with their (affectionately dubbed) hometown menace, Strawberry Crepe. The two scientists engaged in complex formulas and invention designs as they entered the inn for Espresso’s regular order; a truly unique combination! After a while, the kingdom-folks’ hearts couldn’t help but soften at the pair.
Pure Vanilla’s amiable nature with the Espresso continued to instill a sense of ease within the kingdom’s denizens towards this outsider. The Coffee Professor took pride in his inventions and innovations, occasionally providing lectures on magic at their school. While his mannerisms were strange and his demeanor severe, it was clear that he had good intentions and a kind heart beneath his impatient and particular nature. It wasn’t long until he was considered one of their own,
Which brought about another concern altogether.
The Vanilla Kingdom natives generally agreed that they were not… too fond of the boisterous Knight Commander. In the beginning, the fanfare and exuberance he brought added a sense of excitement and celebration to their growing and recovering kingdom.
However, they found the Knight Commander was as quick to charm just as he was to infuriate. At times his boastful words (and his impetuous remarks) would incidentally offend. He greeted others too familiarly and often didn’t appear to recognize he’d blatantly insulted others!
And yet…what really turned the tides from a sea of enthusiastic smiles to a glacial pool of glares was this simple reason:
This handsome yet arrogant knight from the Republic was accosting their new resident scientist!
He’s—leading him on! He thinks he can just waltz into their peaceful kingdom with trinkets and baubles and false promises to keep Professor Espresso complacent while he goes off doing witches-know-what with whoever! They may be a small community rebuilding their place in the world, but they’re far from backwater ignorants!
It's known that the popular knight from overseas has gaggles of fans! A rich, popular nobleman ! Is this why he believes he can so easily string Professor Espresso along?!
With every visit, the denizens of the Vanilla Kingdom watched like a hawk, ready to intervene at a moment’s notice if they saw their Professor growing uncomfortable from the obviously unwanted advances.
Even Black Raisin had to scoff.
While the affair was none of her business, it’s plain to see the flagrant gesture here as the Knight retrieved yet another glittering jewel to what must now be an amassed trove of empty, gilded pleas promises he’s made to their Coffee Mage.
Yet she could only shake her head when Espresso, as brilliant as he was, accepted the trinket with a (defeated) sigh.
“Fine. I’ll keep it with the others. When shall I expect your return?”
“As soon as I am able to!” A blatant lie! He only returned every few weeks to ensure Espresso remained tangled in his wiles.
“Very well. I shall keep it safe for you in the meantime.”
“Thank you, Espresso! I will return before your heart begins to ache in my absence.”
“Please leave.”
Professor—your heart is worth far more than what this man is offering it for!
It’s been months since Espresso moved from their glittering Republic to the backwat— err , rustic and provincial lands of the Vanilla Kingdom.
He had begged and pleaded for Espresso to stay, only erupting of a terrible fight between the two, and before Madeleine could swallow his pride (a bitter brew Espresso delighted in serving him, coming only second to coffee), he’d come to Espresso’s warehouse— apartment —heart in his throat and all sorts of confounding ways to compromise,
Only to meet a room empty of all its furnishings, gone as the ghost of the man he loves.
He’d eventually gather himself, picking up the slivers of his own splintering heart, reminding himself of his own haphazard promises to travel to new lands and…
Broaden his horizons. Learn new things. Meet new people and see new places. Experience what this wide world has to offer.
To evoke that smile—that sense of pride in Espresso once more.
It was with that thunderstrike of inspiration that Madeleine faced the shadows of an uncertainty with radiant exuberance and the unwavering faith that the Divines were with him—
Even when Espresso wasn’t.
Of course, in Madeleine’s travels, his darling stayed close to his heart. His visits were sporadic, but it was comforting knowing that wherever Madeleine may be, he always knew where to return. Always knew where his heart truly belonged.
Though…Madeleine has been feeling a bit strange whenever he visited his darling. The locals had been kind in the beginning, but he's wondering if his welcome had staled. He felt glares on his back, the curt end of conversations whenever he began them, and frankly—the lack of hospitality whenever he dined out with Espresso!
Madeleine prided himself as not only a romantic, but a fearless knight! But even this wordless judgment was making him antsy! He'd never felt a place so unwelcoming! Why, oh, why did his beloved choose such a kingdom to settle down?! Hadn't their Republic been a much better choice?!
Nevertheless, Madeleine will never stop seeing his darling! Come rain or shine! Come Hell or high water! Come cruel Vanillian native and army of Wafflebots! He WILL see his Espresso and spoil him again!
…Even if the spoils came in the form of curing "cursed" baubles from his expeditions.
Madeleine prided himself an amorous lover, an utter romantic. It took some mindful maneuvering, but when his love was so adamantly against receiving luxuries befit the crown jewel of Madeleine’s heart, calling them “a waste of coin and a grotesque symbol of excess,” Madeleine took to…a different approach in gifting his darling rarities picked for him by Madeleine’s own loving hand after hard-won battles and perilous journeys.
And given Espresso’s acceptance with every heartfelt reunion, Madeleine congratulated himself for his own genius!
What can he say? He knows Espresso best, and Espresso wouldn’t accept a decadent, opulent gift if it wasn’t something of interest to him, especially in the field of constructing and deconstructing magic. Espresso's brilliant mind needed something to tinker with! And Madeleine accepted any excuse to utterly spoil his darling with fine riches and drape him in jewels as he regaled his adventuring feats!
…sure, he hasn’t seen Espresso wearing any of them, but he spies them scattered in his home, and that alone warmed his heart. Each piece Madeleine brought him contained a memory, a part of Madeleine that he wanted to give to Espresso, even when he’s off to other skies, living his life in other lands,
A promise that he’d return unfailingly, until he can bring Espresso to a place both of them can call home.
It’s been seven months and fourteen days since Espresso left the Republic and settled in the Vanilla Kingdom.
Seven months and nine days and six hours and twenty-three minutes since he and Madeleine ended their relationship.
Espresso believed it would be a clean break. Moving here, relocating his life, away from the city that celebrated and villainized his efforts—a city of glittering mansions built upon the foundation of mud, a city of contradictions and innovation—to the quaint and quiet life of the Vanilla Kingdom where Espresso found himself with more inventive freedom with Magic Candy and all his academic pursuits than he sometimes knew what to do with.
And yet, Espresso found himself in this position once more. It truly was a wonder how the idiot kept finding new blighted trinkets, and just carried it around without any protection.
("The Divine protects me!"
"Another day of keeping this on your person would have resulted in an irreversible curse bound to you and your bloodline.")
Was Madeleine truly tempting his favored position by the Light? Arrogance aside, Espresso dutifully relinquished the baneful magics lingering within the greed-gilded golds while Madeleine chattered on blithely of the newfound adventures that unraveled before him once he left the Republic—
—once Espresso left him.
Espresso wondered if this is what he's been reduced to in Madeleine's eyes: a mere tool for dispelling the parasitic enchantments clinging to magical relics.
‘Fool,’ Espresso thought as he meticulously drew out the dark energy, dousing it with Coffee Magic before it could retaliate. ‘Eclair would have been a better choice for this…’
But maybe Espresso was the fool in the end. After all, it was Madeleine that walked in and out of his life as he pleased, and yet…it was Espresso who hadn’t let go. Even when it seemed that Madeleine had effortlessly moved on and was now just using Espresso’s time and talents to further his adventuring and reputation.
Their would-be anniversary’s date floated infuriatingly around in Espresso’s headspace and he lamented that the storage it occupied would have been better served for his latest formulas. It was difficult not to perseverate. They hadn't even made it a year before their differences caught up with Espresso, and he decided to end their relationship by moving to the Vanilla Kingdom.
Nevertheless, he was sure Madeleine had forgotten about the date.
His arrival was likely naught but coincidence, after all.
Madeleine always did make a fanfare out of his visits, but he might have actually outdone himself: riding atop a majestic white sugar horse with its flowing mane, armor polished to the point of blinding brilliance, his hair hung in a ponytail— a style that Espresso once secretly adored—
(It's no secret anymore.)
—Espresso was once again faced with the infuriating fact that Madeleine was a gorgeous bastard. A fact that was taunting him.
He came bearing flowers and a stunning smile, and Espresso’s heart ached from this newfound cruelty as he spied in his hand was yet again—
Another trinket. A brooch.
But of course. What else could bring the knight here? O h, is it a lovely one, Expresso could admit. The loveliest of all he’s seen by far: the whimsical floral motifs with its shining thorns, glittering sapphires and rubies twinkling ominously, and drenched in poisonous magics.
Expectedly, Madeleine launched himself into the tale of how he came across this piece on his journey:
A lover betrayed,
An unrequited love,
How many trinkets has Espresso cleansed for Madeleine now?
The sheer anguish consumed them!
They say the curse infects those with a single touch,
Should one’s heart suffer the exquisite torment
Ten? Twenty? A hundred?
Of a love unreturned.
Erasing what they had for this transaction.
But Espresso did that to himself. If he no longer held Madeleine’s heart…He might as well be useful, right?
Thoughtlessly, Espresso took the curse into his own hands, thorns curling against the soft flesh of his heart, its tendrils making one deep laceration after another, radiating straight to his chest before blooming in dreadful, beautiful pain—
“Espresso!”
It laid heavy on his chest, a grip so tight, it could have embraced his entire heart before bursting out of the cage of his ribs in the most stunning bouquets of bloodied roses.
Espresso awoke in the Sanitorium. The scent of lilies gave it away before he could open his eyes.
“Awake, I see.”
Espresso sat up slowly, twinges of an exquisite ache reverberating from the mound of bandages that laid just left of his sternum,
Where the bloody brooch had embedded itself into his heart.
“Where did you come across such a thing,” the Ancient sighed, eyes weary, downturned in concern. “What was the nature of this exchange?”
“Madeleine,” he tried to say, before thorns pressed deeper into the soft, bruised walls of his chest. Keeping the knight’s name strictly out of his mouth, Espresso tried once again: "He finds cursed items throughout his journey and he brings them for me to fix."
The healer remained unconvinced, wretched sympathy bleeding into his infuriating and clinical empathy. "Is...that all?"
Espresso coughed into his hand, a bloodstained petal fluttering from his lungs.
"That's all."