Work Text:
This was nice.
That was what he thought at least, to himself. There was no one else here to say that for him anymore.
This was nice. He was happy.
He sat on the floor of the cabin, kicking his feet in the air as he worked on his latest piece. The Narrator was gone. Hero was…not quite gone. He could still feel Hero, but it was like he was sleeping or a long way away. He didn’t have a reason to disturb Hero, so he didn’t. He was fine like this. It was nice, and he was happy.
Hero had gotten bored pretty quickly which he didn’t really understand. How could Hero be bored when there was so much happiness? It was true that there wasn’t much to do in the cabin. He had spent a long time staring at the walls of the cabin. Staring out the window. Staring at the inside of his eyelids. It was wonderful. He was so happy. Still, Hero had earned his own reward for helping save the world, and so if Hero wanted to use the time to rest he would let him.
The Narrator was a little different. He wasn’t sure when The Narrator had left. The Narrator just sort of faded away at some point, leaving a jagged hole where he used to be. It was almost a relief, like a weight had been lifted from his soul, but he felt bad thinking that. The Narrator had been very helpful. He was a little sad that The Narrator had gone. He wondered sometimes if The Narrator had gone back to the outside world.
He had to admit, it would have been nice if he and Hero got to leave after saving the world. He kind of wanted to see what was out there, meet up with other people. He had done such a good job. He had saved everyone in the world. He had saved the plants, the birds, and the people! They must love him because he loved them. He was their savior. He would love to meet them, but he was happy to stay here, away from them. He had to be here, to keep them safe, even if he didn’t understand why. He was a hero, and that’s what heroes did; they made sacrifices.
He didn’t know how long he had been in the cabin. Days had stopped having meaning pretty much immediately, especially since the sky had vanished. Now that he thought about it, he had never actually seen a day had he? It had been night when he got here…probably. He was having trouble remembering. It had been dark…but was it cloudy or was it night? Had he seen stars? Maybe the sky was always the textured nothing he saw out of the windows, and he was just enveloped in the sky now. That was a nice thought. It must be true because this was nice. He was happy.
He had taken up drawing to pass the time. His first drawing had been of his victory over the princess. That first drawing now sat where the blade used to, in a place of honor on the table. There were several other drawings scattered around the floor of the cabin. The quality of each drawing was getting better, scribbles gradually taking on the form of the princess, and the cabin, and the princess. He had a lot of drawings of the princess. They didn’t make him happy, which was a sign that he did the right thing because the princess was evil and he should be upset to see her.
He had tried to draw The Narrator for a time, but it was hard to draw someone you had only ever heard. The same could be said about Hero, as he only had a vague idea of what the body looked like and Hero would probably want to look slightly different than that. He was going to ask once Hero woke up how he would like to be drawn. He had made a couple self portraits, but all of them fell apart once he got to the face.
After that, he had tried to draw the world he had saved, all of the people smiling, but the princess had been the only person he could remember, so he had drawn a crowd of just her. The princesses had smiled peacefully at him, and he was still figuring out perspective, so there had been one in the middle drawn much too big. The drawing made his head hurt really bad and for some reason made him sad. He had thrown it out the window, into the nothingness. For some reason, he regretted that too.
He had similar problems with his other drawings. He tried to draw what he thought an animal might look like, but she had long hair and a crown. He tried to draw a demon, and she had that sharp smirk and the confidence that she wouldn’t die. He tried to draw a ghost, and it huddled around her body in the basement, looking almost amused. He tried to draw the forest, and it cradled her in its branches.
He started drawing the princess on purpose at that point. If she was the only thing he could draw, he might as well get good at drawing her.
He held his latest drawing of her. Her eyes were serious and yet a little scared, the way she had looked when they met. She was sitting on the floor still, but she was unchained. The light from the window behind her gave her an almost angelic look, framing her brown hair in gold. It wasn’t a perfect drawing by any means though. Her eyes were a little uneven, her lips were lopsided, and he hadn’t drawn her a nose. She had the blade. He didn’t know why, but it felt right. He held the paper close to his face, studying the drawing. Something dripped onto the paper.
He was on the floor of the cabin, surrounded by papers he had filled with her face and the swirling nothingness beyond the walls. He felt like he had made a mistake, like something he had feared had come to pass. He had to ignore that feeling though. He did good. He had saved the world. He was happy.