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Chapter Text

"Will you not change your mind?" Yudrein asks, looking at his former Commander's face.

A small, resigned smile appears before the Commander begins to sternly remind him of his priority and even wistfully talk about 'vessels', things that don't make sense, and the connection between them that he had once promised to research.

But Yudrein doesn't fully pay attention. For Yudrein is lost in his own thoughts, remembering something different than that promise and yet not so different from that connection.

Yudrein remembers his grandfather's words, a story his grandfather used to tell him, their family blessing or curse however one saw it.

("Yuder. One day, you may meet someone who you feel a deep connection to, as if you had always been tied to the soul. Do not be afraid; this is because of an ancient magic of our ancestors. If you ever find yourself in...")

Yudrein remembers his priority: the Awakeners in the world, the Cavalry, how everyone (but Kishiar) wanted someone not him to be Commander...

And Yudrein makes his decision as he suddenly wakes from his thoughts and realizes that he is feeling a splitting (excruciating) sensation and feeling his sword plunge into a body.

His grandfather once gave him instructions for how to return to his body after accidentally swapping with his 'soulmate'. How to prevent unintentional swaps when he finds the person who shares a fate written in their souls.

His grandfather had probably never intended for his grandson to use the information like this, but Yudrein doesn't regret it as he feels even more pain, a body collapsing in on itself, looks up to see his confused, pained, but alive 'self', and passes away.

I don't care if you rebel, but it is better if you are Commander, Commander.

It feels better to keep you alive.

-

-

When Kishiar comes to, he wonders why he suddenly feels stronger - disoriented and exhausted, but so much better than he once was with a collapsing body and cracking vessel.

Kishiar wonders why he can see himself lying against a chair. A small smile on his lips, but cold, dead, pale, lifeless yet not because how could that be when he feels alive-

Kishiar trembles as he wonders why there is a sword in his hands, warm blood all over his bare (not gloved) hands, face, and clothes.

The question 'What happened?' doesn't come to him as much as the shaking, mind-shattering 'Who was he?' that Kishiar doesn't dare to explore and ask, but water appears in the air when he subconsciously wills to see and Kishiar stares at his reflection.

At his reflection.

Kishiar trembles and steps back. His mirror image does the same.

He drops his sword.

The reflection does too.

And Kishiar screams.

The reflected 'Yudrein' does as well.

Chapter Text

Letter

Kishiar makes a lot of plans. He has plans upon plans for everything written in his head and sometimes he shared a multitude of them with his adjutant who would always listen.

When Kishiar finally comes out of his frenzied trance to the cold reality that was his (his) murder scene, Kishiar absently checks his pockets, forcing himself to do something, to make sense of everything, to not think of his body (the cold corpse that may have been his love that he may have killed with his own hands-), to do anything but think of the possible horrifying implications of what is happening.

Kishiar practically pounces on the folded paper he finds in his pocket, opening it up and reading it intensely.

Please not- It couldn't be-

Kishiar is horrified to find out that it was, in fact, a letter. Proof that what is happening is really happening. Evidence that it was planned and Yudrein knew what he was doing.

Confirmation that it was Yudrein who he killed.

Kishiar feels sick, horribly sick to the stomach, but he forces himself to read the messy script, carelessly written as Kishiar imagined Yudrein, who sometimes wrote reports for traumatic events the same way he would write a reminder for what he needed to buy the next time he went into the market for necessities, would.

Except this time it wasn't a grocery list or a report about someone else, but a note to him.

Kishiar makes tons of plans, plans upon plans for everything.

Yudrein leaves him one little note:

Commander. After you kill me, the Emperor expects you back in the Sun Palace by the 12th.

And a hesitantly written scrawl on the bottom of the paper.

Also... I don't mind if you use my body, but if you have children, can you let my grandfather know? His ashes are scattered in the valley.

"What do you think of me?" Kishiar asks as the words shake, the little paper crumples in his hands.

Kishiar doesn't need to burn the paper because the words were already being slowly destroyed by the water of his tears.

"How could I use your body for that?" Kishiar asks, horrified and sick at the very thought, shaken, and yet he remembers, knows all too well that he had never told Yudrein where he went at night whenever he went to Lady Justin's to ask for updates on magic artifacts and everyone's movements.

Kishiar knows all too well that he had never corrected the rumors of all the perverse things the debauched sex maniac Duke Peletta did at night.

Still, that this would be the only other concern Yudrein had for him being in his body...

That Yudrein would even plan to give him his body at all...

Even give him his body despite thinking that he would do these things...

Kishiar begins to feel the horror of someone else planning things out for them, making decisions they didn't want for them.

I didn't want this, echoes in Kishiar's heart as Kishiar looks up at his dead body (no, not his, not his anymore). He finds himself even walking to it, wanting to shake him awake. How could... How could that body even look so peaceful?

"How am I even supposed to tell your grandfather that I killed you and stole your body? You never told me where exactly you lived and the map you drew is unreadable. You have to wake up and tell me where. Yudrein-" Kishiar starts, but his voice cracks because Yudrein isn't answering and every step closer he took, he could see more closely his closed eyes and smile.

Kishiar had never hated his peaceful, happy smile more.

"Yudrein, please-" Kishiar attempts once more, but the corpse doesn't answer.

And his hands are even more bloodied when he reaches out to touch him and the corpse falls.

Chapter Text

Nathan

Nathan is surprised to see Yudrein find him. He hadn't exactly been hiding, but he hadn't been near enough to the Castle in case Yudrein used his ability to do a quick sense of his surroundings to figure out the locations of his possible opponents for the expected assassination. Close to Peletta, as his liege asked him to be so as to clean up the scene in case his successor and chosen end didn't clean up well after his first assassination, but nowhere near the Castle.

...Though, Nathan thinks darkly as he coldly observes the blood on the assassin's clothes and body, the assassination of his liege (his friend, his lord, him who he promised his entire life and loyalty to) was probably already long since over.

Nathan tenses, ready for a fight (and so willing to give one too, even if that was not what his liege would have wanted), but to his surprise, Yudrein speaks up without looking at him, eyes still far off as if seeing something else.

"When we were little, I tried to sneak a puppy into the palace. Her Majesty caught me and thought it was my idea, but it was actually you that wanted the dog."

That wasn't true. It was His Grace that thought Nathan wanted the dog when he looked at it for a second too long, but His Grace never believed him, always insisting-

Nathan's heart stopped.

"...Your Grace?" He asked hesitantly after staring at the young man, who on second thought looked a lot more emotional than his usual impassive self.

No... It couldn't be...

"What did you name the horse you received on your birthday?"

To his shock, Yudrein began crying. "Aeon. Nathan, why does everything I name keep dying? Why do they always die by my own hand? Nathan-" Yudrein says, but his voice cracks as he begins crying, and Nathan, despite having never had good feelings for Yudrein, finds himself rushing to hold him because that is not Yudrein, that is his lord, and his lord was crying.

Kishiar latches onto him like he is the only stable thing in the whole universe.

"Nathan, I know I said you could leave and live your own life, but I think I'm going to go crazy and k..."

Kishiar doesn't finish, his breath hitching as more tears pour out of his eyes and he buries his face into Nathan's chest, but Kishiar doesn't have to when Nathan had watched him most his life and knew that his liege was breaking down at this moment, had past the breaking point and was going to go insane if he didn't have one person who knew him, who could make sure he didn't go too crazy and waste his beloved's sacrifice and very life, near him.

"Your Grace, you said that I could leave and live my own life after you died." Nathan corrected, holding Kishiar as if that would hold all the parts of him together. "Since you have not, I will remain by your side forever."

As Kishiar cries louder, hugging him in a way that he hadn't in years, especially not after that incident that nearly killed Nathan and left scars all over his body (but there was no vessel or instability of powers to worry about in Yudrein's body), Nathan holds him back and finds himself inappropriately relieved, almost to his own tears, that Kishiar is alive.

Nathan and Yudrein didn't have the best relationship, but at this moment, all Nathan could think of was thanking him for switching bodies and letting his liege live.

But Nathan could never voice that because then, Kishiar may truly break and even not want to be around him again.

"Should I gather the Peletta Knights?" Nathan asks when Kishiar is quiet, having no more tears to shed.

Kishiar shakes his head, his grip going a little tighter.

"Later." Kishiar says quietly. "Stay with me a little longer."

Nathan can tell that it's not only because Kishiar is still feeling off, but also because he does not want to think, much less, tell of the story he is still in denial of anytime soon, but nods.

It can wait.

For now, his liege is still alive.

Kishiar gives Nathan the disguise magic tool he had taken from his former body and Nathan automatically uses it, only for both of them to remember what the disguise's appearance is set as.

Kishiar's face twists and his hand instantly grabs Nathan's finger to change the spell formula for the appearance and when the reflexive action does work, purple mana appearing around his hand instead of gold, they both stare.

Then, Kishiar holds his head and laughs, "I'm going to go crazy. He never knew that he had an aptitude for magic. Nathan, he had so much."

Nathan can hear the unspoken 'potential, things he didn't know, things he should have had the chance to do and figure out, but he swapped with him-' and the moment Kishiar cuts himself off to make a broken noise again, but he says nothing, quietly waiting for Kishiar to equilibrate himself.

They both head to the capital after Kishiar practices Yudrein's ability, even tests Yudrein's aptitude for magic and laughs at how Yudrein's mana capacity was greater than his.

He should have lived, Kishiar never lets go of that thought as he struggles to move on.

Thank you for not, Nathan is unable to let go of his own as Nathan watches all of this.

Chapter Text

Katchian

Kishiar wants to kill him.

The way Katchian congratulates Yudrein for the mission of killing Kishiar (no, it was Yudrein, it was Kishiar who killed Yudrein, it was his love who d-), the words the Emperor says in the tone he says them, the way he rewards Yudrein for a mission like this with a staff they both know is so useless.

This is the way Emperor Katchian treats his greatest pawn, his newly made Count and Cavalry Commander.

The plans for rebellion had never been made, but after everything, Kishiar considers it once more.

Not just Katchian, but this whole Empire, the Imperial Family and curse within its blood (had it not been for that! had it not been for that, his brother and love-), the condescending nobles, the rotting traditions, everything-

'Yudrein' accepts the staff made of decaying black thornwood and a large mana stone that is more of an useless weight than anything else with a bow.

Kishiar plans countless things while his head bows, not in submission but to hide his face as he glowers.

Anger

Yudrein had always been the one who was both more rational, coldly efficient, and yet more impulsive, ill-tempered than him.

But Kishiar thinks again about Yudrein, his love's personality and character, his actions in the past, his reactions to some things, and some philosophical questions of whether the body one resided in could affect the soul, as Kishiar finds himself copying one of the stories he had heard about the new Cavalry Commander back when he was listening to secret reports and rumors of Yudrein in Peletta.

(‘Your anger still hadn't subsided.’ Kishiar remembered once telling Yuder as he called his then-Commander candidate to office.

Yuder, his beautiful Deputy Commander, glowered.

'Would it have subsided for you? It's because of this incident in the first place...'

'Right, it's all my fault. I get it.' Kishiar said, making his beautiful Deputy Commander stand down and soften. 'But, Yuder. I said that showing appropriate strength could be one way of gaining respect. I never insisted that it should be the only way to deal with others. Am I right?'

'…That...'

Yuder looked at Kishiar, then avoided his gaze and bowed his head.

'...Yes.')

Kishiar finds himself taking back all of his words after many days of whispers, the 'whispers' that only increased as news of Kishiar's (Yudrein's) death breaks out, and after countless provocative taunts, disrespectful looks and gestures, and mocking references to that incident.

Then, Kishiar's already fragmenting control breaks when he finds an alpha, a low ranked subordinate, in his Commanding superior officer's (love's) personal bedroom as if being a 'defective' omega automatically nullified one's worth or rights or a noble title and meritorious position and rank currently higher than even the Army General's.

As if his love was only good to be used as a disposable sleeve for some arrogant upstart.

As if his love, who he had wronged so much that week, was a 'slut begging for it'.

Kishiar's vision blacks out as he approaches the smirking alpha that is naked on his (his) bed.

When he comes to, he stares blankly at the beaten body hanging on the rafters and walks away.

When somehow that example isn't enough (and of course, it isn't because how many 'rumors' have he heard of Yudrein's cruelty and excessive punishments?), Kishiar finally finds himself considering things worse than anything he had ever heard of Yudrein.

"It should be okay if I kill them." Kishiar blankly thinks, angrily seethes as a crowd of noble alpha try to look down on him and tell him at a formal gathering the Emperor 'invited' him to that he shouldn't be 'so prude after having already sold his body once'. "It would be in character. Yudrein always razed noble fields and collapsed mansions and beaten people to near death. If I kill these people, at least they will be quiet."

It used to be him who told Yudrein not to, but he's not Kishiar anymore. He was Yudrein and was in full agreement with his love.

(The only thing that stops him from killing them is his beloved's reputation. Yudrein was dead, but Kishiar still couldn't help but dream sometimes that he would come back, regain his body, and Kishiar couldn't make things harder for him if he did.)

(The only thing that stops him from doing anything drastic publicly is his beloved's name. Kishiar had a plan, but who will go down in history as a horrible murderer tyrant whose name would be cursed and shamed forever would be Katchian and these nobles, maybe even the dead Kishiar, but never Yudrein nor him who is Yudrein's imposter.)

Counting

Kishiar changes his sheets frequently.

Despite the many mansions and even his own places of rest when he was Kishiar he has, Kishiar as Yudrein never moves out of Yudrein's bedroom.

He never changes the locks or set up Kishiar-stylized traps though he many times wants to either.

He is counting.

He is remembering.

He is learning exactly how often these kinds of things happened to his beloved when he was still alive and in his own body. He is learning what he missed and to what degree. He is learning what his beloved could possibly be thinking to come to the conclusion that he should not be Commander and make the decision to make Kishiar take over instead.

(There had to be a reason. There had to be more of a reason why his beloved died. Kishiar angrily, desperately, despairingly thinks as each day he lives as his beloved in his beloved's body hurts him more than his healthy, perfect body ever should feel.)

Kishiar hates himself for it though, scrubs Yudrein's body frequently in showers each day others look at him like that, each incident some alpha in heat gets bold enough to trespass his room or touch him with their nasty scents, each time he finds a 'gift' someone 'courteously' gives him.

Years later, Kishiar would still remain in the dorms, obsessing over Yudrein's room and each of Yudrein's few possessions like a dragon over its hoard of treasure.

He still wouldn't change anything about it, not even a single lock, and would rage over each person who still dared to infiltrate it.

He still would wash himself thoroughly after each day.

He still would hate how he couldn't avoid touching Yudrein now and yet he did touch his beloved's body, even outside of restrooms and changing, at night, trying to find and hold his beloved closely to him in apology and comfort in his dreams.

Chapter Text

Faria

Despite the new body, the body of the Cavalry Commander she had never actually got to see up close in person, Faria recognizes him in an instant when he is rushing towards her through the secret passageway.

How could she not?

She had seen this boy in all kinds of disguises, doing all kinds of things, in all kinds of demeanors and situations, and also being just as impulsive and emotional as he was today.

"Faria, I didn't know. I didn't know." Kishiar repeats after breaking down in her arms and telling her about what the former Cavalry Commander had done.

"Yes." Faria says with pain in her heart for her brother in law and the former Cavalry Commander. "You didn't know."

The relief from her words causes fresh tears to come from Kishiar's eyes and as Faria holds her little brother as he cries again, Faria wonders what she would do if she had the same ability as the former Cavalry Commander and could swap with Keilusa in those final days where he had been at his most suffering.

Although Faria thinks that Keilusa would be more important than her, more needed by the deteriorating Empire and world alive, she knows that she couldn't do it. Not to Keilusa.

Keilusa was even more of a crybaby than Kishiar.

Still, Faria finds herself grateful that at least one of the two brothers she loves is still alive.

Chapter Text

Clothes

"I made this so that you would remember me." Kishiar thinks when he dresses into the Cavalry Commander uniform he personally designed for Yudrein, had put care into every little detail and hidden symbol for his beloved.

"I used to tell you stories across this strategy game set that I gave to you." Kishiar thinks as he shoves the strategy game and all its pieces haphazardly into a drawer to never look at it again, to never remember his desperate (secret) confessions of love and guilt that his lover would never begin to care for or understand. (If he just said something, confessed the entire plot, would his beloved had stayed? Finally realized how much Kishiar thought of him, how important he was, and not done something like this and instead stayed?)

"I'm sorry. I'll give you everything you want. I'll give you the whole world. Will you come back to me?" Kishiar pleads as he silently goes to a tailor with his old Commander uniforms to get them fitted to his current size as Yudrein used to want to, having complained to him before why he needed new uniforms when he could use Kishiar's old ones. Kishiar had been desperate, wanted to re-enact that old story of a person personally making the clothes for his lover in hopes that he would remember him, but should he really have listened to Yudrein instead? Would that have changed anything?

Kishiar finds himself constantly talking to the silent, empty depths of his being, hoping that somewhere in the abyss, his love was still listening, was still there to listen and return.

"Stop hiding. Come back. I know you're there. You have to be. This is your body. Please, Yudrein, this isn't funny. Come back." He pleads every day when he is not busy.

"Commander" people would call him and sometimes, Kishiar would look for Yudrein, only to force himself to remember that he is the Commander again, he is 'Yudrein', and answer their greeting in near tears.

"You beat me again." Kishiar thinks as he buttons his clothes again, hand touching the embroidery pattern that he had designed for Yudrein. "I wanted to give you clothes that would always remind you of me. You made me wear your body and now I can never forget you."

Kishiar feels like he is wearing the wrong clothes and he hates it.

Kishiar feels like he is constantly in need of somebody and he hugs it, himself, to death when no one is looking at night.

"Yudrein. Please come back."

Mirror

Kishiar is relieved that there are no mirrors or even clear reflective surfaces around the Emperor.

The clear glass windows are replaced with stained glass, the polished ground is decorated with expensive rugs, and the closest knights to the Emperor wear monster bone armor (though that could be because monster by-products are an infamous weakness of the unparalleled Cavalry Commander).

His spies around the Palace also tell him that the mirrors in the Palace have all been shattered and taken away since the day Duke Diarca died a 'mysterious death'.

To his relief, it is also infamously known that the Emperor had also gotten rid of all the portraits of the former Imperial family, including the 'art masterpieces' that were depicted of his former body's.

It's a bit ironic to Kishiar how both he and Katchian cannot stand to look at themselves in a mirror, cannot stand to have a portrait of themselves somewhere.

The children of the Sun God were 'blessed' with beautiful faces, yet neither of them could stand to look at it.

And Kishiar had never been so relieved that outside of dull blond and dark red, Katchian had never looked like him and Keilusa, or even his father and grandfather. Imperial blood he may have, outside of pale imitations of the imperial colors, Katchian had always looked like an outsider to the family.

But that was good.

Even more than the haunting sight of his beloved in the mirror, something he sometimes stared at for long hours or quickly looked away from, the sight of his old appearance is even more sickening.

There were rumors of how much Yudrein must have hated his former Commander because of the funeral, but at that time, all Kishiar could think of when he saw 'himself' laying in the coffin surrounding by funeral flowers was running away.

When Nathan found him puking his guts out in a hidden place, his adjutant already had a bottle of water and towel in his hands.

Funeral

How are you sleeping? Wake up.

"Not even a single emotion when it's said how well the former Commander treated him."

Wake up. Why are you still smiling and resting? Why are you still laying there when they're going to bury you?

"Your Grace." A 'servant' quietly whispered to him. "It's your turn to place down a flower."

Kishiar absently went through the motions, barely remembering how to walk as he made his way to the coffin.

Golden hair, closed eyes, pale bloodless lips. A hauntingly beautiful sight of a man peacefully (lifelessly) resting among flowers.

Yudrein-! Kishiar thought as he reached out to place down his own white rose-

His fingers shake.

"What a monster. Showing up at his own victim's funeral."

"Yeah. Everyone knows who really assassinated the Duke."

"They say they were lovers, but how could that be when he did this?"

"Filthy commoner-"

"Ungrateful dog-"

"Scum"

"Murderer-"

Among the white, there is a hint of red among the flowers.

'Kishiar la Orr' is still wearing the clothes of his death, something that must have been a personal touch from the victorious, gloating Emperor. Something that causes Kishiar to fully remember the feeling of stabbing his beloved, the sight of that smile as those eyes lose light and close, the warm blood that splashes and stains all his hands and soul.

Kishiar drops the rose and leaves like his life depends on it.

'Yudrein's reputation does and Kishiar barely remembers to find a quiet, isolated place to be himself when he throws up everything that his adjutant had forced him to eat (that Kishiar had forced himself to eat to keep his beloved's body healthy in case he comes back).

(But he will never come back.)

(Kishiar la Orr (the real Yudrein Ail) is already dead.)

(Kishiar had killed him.)

Kishiar wants to scratch at himself, peel off his skin to put it back onto his love's, but Nathan finds him and reminds him with a very soft but firm hand on his own. "Remember your body."

Nathan is so very unfair. Kishiar almost wants to scream at him and how his adjutant had learned a very unfair method of making himself take care of himself when he had never more wanted to self-destruct and destroy and die.

But Kishiar cannot stand the thought of Yudrein's body among the flowers, a sight he sees superimposed on his own, and stops despite the itching.

But how he itches.

How he longs to cover Yudrein with his own skin (and then at least the funeral and who is filth and who is in the coffin would feel less of a horrible lie).

How he longs to empty his whole being out in hopes that Yudrein would be one of the things he finds within him.

Kishiar is grateful that no one expects him to attend the rest of the funeral, that the portraits are all burned, that even his brother's portraits are gone and the current Emperor looks nothing like them.

Kishiar will never forget the forgotten coffin buried six feet under ground in the graveyard, never the haunting memories that make him sick whenever he thinks about it.

Sometimes, who he sees in the mirror is not 'Yudrein', but 'him' and the blood spilling from his open chest onto his hands.

He opens his mouth to scream and reaches forth- and he sees an expression on his beloved that he had never seen before, just demonstrating just how much of an imposter he was no matter how much he tried to make things normal and move on. (He hadn't tried. He would never.)

How could he move on from this?

Kishiar realizes that he had tried to teach Yudrein many things in anticipation of his death, and yet one thing he had never taught and yet realized mattered most was this: how to move on from someone important's death.

But in the end, it wouldn't have mattered. It wouldn't be Yudrein who needed it and Kishiar, the one who did, was still barely learning and how could Kishiar teach Yudrein something he never and probably will never learn.

How could I move on from you, Yudrein? That's not how eternity works.

It occurs to Kishiar that he failed to teach Yudrein the meaning of his name as well. Maybe that's why this happened. If Kishiar just told him, would he have survived and stayed?

Would he be Yudrein (eternal)?

Chapter Text

Haunting Thoughts

("Will you not change your mind?")

Kishiar hears Yudrein ask him again, the last words he says to him before it all happens.

Will you not change your mind?

It haunts him every second he stops forcing himself to work and live. His mind would wander and he would remember that question - that question that made Kishiar answer with a reminder of Yudrein's priority (but no, Yudrein, that's not what I meant. I didn't mean that you should prioritize the Cavalry over you, didn't mean that anything - the Cavalry, me, Awakeners, the Empire, even the world should be prioritized over you. Please, Yudrein, that's really not what I meant at all. Please believe me and come back) but now Kishiar realized was a prelude to something else.

Will you not change your mind?

"If I changed my mind, would you still be alive?" Kishiar asks the phantom of his love, reaching out to that sad, downtrodden image of his beloved that day he came for (his own) assassination. "If I had listened to the screams on your heart, would I be able to stop screaming now?"

Kishiar asks as his hands go through the image again, unable to touch and hold that precious person he had wanted more than anything to live.

Why... Why was he not alive? Kishiar thinks, choking on a horrible sob, the sound from Yudrein's vocal chords making him feel even worse as he curls into himself on the bed.

What if he didn't have Yuder kill him? What if he had Nathan or someone else? Encouraged the still rather easily manipulable Emperor to choose someone else?

What if he had answered different? Tried holding himself together a little more? Tried harder to find a way to fix his vessel? Stayed alive a little longer or died somewhere unknown by himself (as he should have a long time ago when he was sent to the borderlands of Peletta) so that Yudrein wouldn't think of such a thing again?

What if he hadn't already forced Yudrein to stab himself with his ability? What if there was still time, at least one second longer to convince Yudrein to do whatever he did to make them swap again? Kishiar would beg, plead, bow on his knees, anything to convince Yudrein to swap back and not do it again.

Haunting questions, haunting thoughts, haunting what ifs filled the empty spaces of his time.

Will you not change your mind? Yudrein asks.

I have, Kishiar begs for Yudrein to believe him. I have since the moment you left. I have since the moment we switched. I have so please come back.

Yudrein does not answer. His phantom just repeats the same question.

Yudrein's ability is endless, unfathomably powerful, but sometimes Kishiar longed for his own ability in a wish that he could pull his love back.

A Dream

There were rumors of a Sage that could clear migraines and heal mental illnesses and even give people sweet dreams.

Kishiar longs for it, to forever remain in a sweet dream with all the things within him cleared, but he instead gathers information and leads his secret Peletta Knights to take out the influential cult led by the mental Awakener who called himself Sage.

People, who were brainwashed, still remained under the effects of the mental ability after the Sage's death, but Kishiar reminds himself of his duty, of the priority he once had forced onto his beloved, and of how it was not dreams that he wanted (especially not when he already was caught by so many dreams and haunting memories both at day and night) but reality - the real Yudrein he still couldn't successfully pretend to be.

Kishiar wanted Yudrein more than anything in the world.

After the rebellion succeeds, the monarchy and even aristocracy is replaced with something different and Faria, who Kishiar had hidden when things got too dangerous, is placed at the head, no reward his sister-in-law and the new government could give him after successful missions and countless achievements could ever satisfy him or attract his attention.

Kishiar only wanted Yudrein.

Yudrein

"Yudrein!"

When Kishiar finds himself in the past, Kishiar is unable to stop himself from tracking down his beloved.

It helps that the thread that shouldn't be there already becomes visible to him in the air when Kishiar longs to see him.

When Kishiar finds his beloved in an inn room, he sees startled but confused eyes (it's really him) and tackles Yudrein into a hug.

Kishiar's control over himself and respect of other people's spaces is normally better than this, but he had been feeling out of control for years and couldn't help himself from wanting to hold Yudrein, real, alive, still in his own body and not a phantom Yudrein.

Yudrein hesitates, but holds him back, asking in even more confusion. "Commander?"

Kishiar cries at the confirmation that it really is him - him from the future.

"What's wrong, Commander?" Yudrein asks him as if he is unaware of how much the swap, his death, everything had affected him and Kishiar can't help but lay out all his complaints and demand Yudrein to never do it again.

"Please." Kishiar sobs into his beloved's chest. "Please tell me what's on your heart. I promise I will never keep a secret from you again, but please don't do so to me either. Please don't make me kill you again."

It was him that did that, pulled the sword into his chest, but that didn't matter. Kishiar never wanted to lose Yudrein, especially not in that way, again.

Yudrein is quiet before he nods, "If you promise not to do that either."

Kishiar would promise anything and he does, slumping in relief when Yudrein accepts his promise.

"Now, can you tell me what you did?" Kishiar asks, never letting go of Yudrein (didn't think he could ever) as he lays on his beloved's body (not his anymore, he's back in his own, Yudrein's back in his own, they both are alive and in their own bodies). Yudrein doesn't complain about his touch or heavy body or anything, even seems to subconsciously pat Kishiar's back as Kishiar lays on him and hugs him like a stuffed animal.

Yudrein seems to have to think about it for a second, but to Kishiar's relief, Yudrein does answer, even tells him the method to block accidental switches or switch back which Kishiar desperately memorizes to each and every word.

They even switch once, Kishiar needing to make sure that it worked.

Seeing Yudrein as Kishiar above him, red eyes alive and openly concerned, Kishiar's original body being more expressive than Yudrein's, makes many parts of Kishiar ease and he reaches up with Yudrein's hands to kiss the Yudrein in Kishiar's original body.

Yudrein as Kishiar blinks, but leans in to follow his kiss.

It doesn't feel as bad as Kishiar had thought to be back in Yudrein's body.

When they switch back in the middle of the kiss, a prod in the connection letting Kishiar know that Yudrein wanted to swap, Kishiar attempts the swap and finds himself back to staring at Yudrein who is back under him in his own body.

Kishiar kisses him harder, hands tugging at the waistline of Yudrein's pants as he asks, "Can I?"

Yudrein nods, even wraps his arms around Kishiar's neck tighter, and Kishiar is relieved as he explores Yudrein's body outside of Yudrein, watches Yudrein's real expressions as he touches and do things to him.

It is not a dream.

Yudrein is not an imposter or phantom or person of his imaginations.

Kishiar is relieved and so very glad.