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I know we will never have the right time. But I am content with the fact that, in this finite moment, when I was in your arms, I had my happily ever after.
Remnants of the Lykeion Campus
The ruins cradle them in their decay, where silence hums through the ancient stone softened by emerald moss. Vines curling over shattered walls, weaving through the bones of what once stood tall, turned now into an embrace from time itself.
Elizabeth leans against the remnants, an otherwise lone figure cloaked in longing, her back pressed against the moss with the Witch, Lady Shiori, finding her place upon the knight’s lap. The weight of her is grounding, yet ephemeral, tethering between something both fragile and infinite.
The witch’s golden eyes shimmer in the ruin’s shadow, twin lanterns holding dying stars within their depths. Elizabeth wonders for a moment if they were always this beautiful, or if the ache of knowing this moment is fleeting is what makes them shine a little more.
“So beautiful…” she murmured.
Elizabeth knows time will unravel them— unavoidably and unforgivably— she knows the world beyond these ruins will reclaim its grip. But for now, for this fleeting moment, while the hush of the lost lingers around them and the remnants of civilization crumble, she holds on.
She doesn’t resist when Shiori leaned in, closing her eyes when the distance between them started dissolving. The knight braced for the touch of her lips, for the gravity of the moment to pull them together into something inevitable. But instead— only a whisper of warmth.
A breath, feather-light, weaving between them in a shared exhale mingling like an unspoken secret. It was not a kiss, but something softer, heavier. A pause trembling with probability. Elizabeth opens her eyes, a silver of starlight looks at her as if she was responsible for spinning the constellations into being.
Shiori’s hand rose to the knight’s neck, fingers gentle as they traced along her jaw. Her other hand guided itself past her flame, to rest over her chest. Beneath her palm, Elizabeth’s heartbeat thrummed— steady, strong, insistent. Alive.
The witch leans her forehead against Elizabeth’s. She sighs— not in disappointment, but something softer. A sorrow curling at the edges, no quite grief nor regret— more like she was aching for something uncertain.
“I don’t want you to get hurt,” she whispered, the words trembling between them, as if speaking them aloud might shatter them. “But I don’t know if I can keep pretending that I don’t want you…”
It was a confession and caution, desire laced with anguish, her fingers curling against the fabric of Elizabeth’s shirt.
The knight understood— of course she did. More than she would dare to believe, perhaps.
You were destined for me. Perhaps as a punishment.
She would not dare to speak the words aloud, it felt like she would be breaking something meant to be sacred. So she simply sighs back, eyes following the path of her hands as they trailed over Shiori’s sides, pausing to give her thighs a gentle squeeze. The wind curled through the cracks in the forgotten stone, carrying the words like a confession meant only for her.
“You think I’m scared of getting hurt?” Elizabeth half-scoffed, a shaky laugh threading through her voice— soft, bitter, knowing. “I’ve been hurt by you before… I don’t recall it clearly, but I remember the feeling. And that doesn’t stop me from wanting you, does it? You’ve always been my weakness.”
Unwavering scarlet gaze met the light of the dying sun in Shiori’s eyes, a weight of devotion tethered by recklessness that the witch often found amusing. But now…
Elizabeth knew the witch must hate— or perhaps, love— that the knight knew her well enough to say such a thing. That she remembered that much. That even after all of it, she still wanted to fall into the unknown.
Slowly, painfully, inevitably, the corner of her lips started lifting from that quiet surprise as she came to the same conclusion—
— Shiori was Elizabeth’s weakness…
“Always so trusting,” the witch tells the knight in amusement. “Wanting to pet every monster…”
— And maybe, just maybe, Elizabeth was hers too.
“Love is such a violent act, isn’t that right?” Elizabeth replied with her equivalent wit, marveling at the way Shiori’s smile curled secrets at the edges. It was unnerving in its certainty, unsettling in it’s amusement. And yet— it was mesmerizing.
Without another word, Shiori came crashing like the world was ending, lips meeting in a hungry and breathless battle. Elizabeth’s hands kept her steady, holding her by the hips, pulling the witch closer to deepen the connection with a desperate kind of need.
And there was something timeless about this— about her— something Elizabeth felt like she knew before knowing. Something her soul had traced before. The ghost feeling of her hands having already memorized the curves of her body before they had ever touched her, as if something or someone had conspired to bring them back to this inevitable moment.
The world beyond was unraveling, time seeping through the cracks of history, but here they carved a sanctuary of fleeting seconds, a space that belongs only to them, untouched by fate.
And in this sacred fragment of existence, Shiori was free. She could bare her truths, strip herself of those guarded edges and unravel the worst parts of herself— and Elizabeth would not turn away.
She would hold them up to the light, study every sharp edge and every shadowed sorrow, and never even flinch.
Never abandon her.
Never let go.