Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Ralsei, what the hell is this?” Susie asked, her voice a low rumble as Ralsei stood a few feet away from her, a slow gulp inching down his throat as the thought hit him at once.

She knew. Susie knew. She saw the final prophecy, and her reaction was exactly what Ralsei expected it to be. Exactly what he wanted to avoid in the first place.

Susie wasn’t staring at him, she was staring at it. The final prophecy. Her head was hung down low as her body shook, her hands clenched into fists as she seethed with silent rage and anger.

Ralsei froze in his spot, his mouth open with various excuses and explanations that would hopefully make any of this okay, but no words dared to come out of his mouth besides a, “S-Susie, I can explain…”

“I don’t think you got what I’m asking you.” She said, sounding ready to explode with emotion, “I’m asking you… What the hell is this?”

Ralsei sighed, hanging his head down low, “I’m sorry, Susie. It’s true.”

Susie sharply inhaled as he continued speaking.

“A sacrifice must be made, the prince of darkness is to be slain.” Ralsei somberly repeated as Susie twitched, “I really am sorry for this. For not telling you earlier, but… as the prophecy foretells, for your world to be saved, me and everyone at Castle Town will have to be-!”

“Shut up.” She spewed out.

“Susie, I know. I understand how you feel but there’s nothing that can be done. My… demise is inevitable, but it’s okay! Really! Us Darkners are nothing more than inanimate objects given life by Lightners like you, and I would be honored to give up my life to-!”

“Shut. Up.”

“Susie, please! You must listen to me! There’s nothing that can be done to change our fate. Remember, Darkners exist to serve Lightners, and this is simply the natural end result of that fact. I exist to serve you, so please don’t get-!”

“Shut the hell up, Ralsei!” Susie screamed before charging at the goat, who was unable to react in time as Susie grabbed him by his scarf and pinned him against the wall, snarling in his face.

Ralsei couldn’t do anything but yelp out in surprise and a slight twinge of fear as he could only watch in the face of Susie’s unbridled fury.

“You’re such a… goddamn lying coward, you know that!” She screamed again, punching the wall beside him, causing the prince to yelp once more, “Who the hell do you think you are, huh?”

Ralsei didn’t reply, for he didn’t know what he could even say. He didn’t know how to make Susie okay with this idea, or if he would ever find the right words to make it fully okay. 

But, none of that mattered in the end. This was simply how their story was told, and how it would inevitably end. Everything else in the prophecy came true, so how naive would he have to be to believe that the single most important part could be sidestepped somehow?

That’s why he did all that he did. Why he was so okay with nearly everything Susie and Kris had done. Why he constantly reminded them that he was not like them. That he wasn’t real like they were. 

That all he was at the end of the day was a servant for the true heroes of the prophecy. That all he was was a slave to the inevitable conclusion of their grand tale.

He was nothing.

“How could you hide this from us? Hide this from me? From Kris? How could you lie to us like this?” Susie demanded, smoke practically pouring out of her nostrils.

“I… I didn’t want to hurt you two.” Ralsei explained, “I just… wanted you to enjoy the adventure. You both seemed so happy, so… who was I to ruin the fun? Better to enjoy the trip than know the destination, right? I just wanted to be a good friend…”

He awkwardly smiled as an attempt to calm down Susie, but his attempts only seemed to agitate her even further.

“So what?! What was your plan, huh? Let us keep having fun so you spring this on us at the last second. What a friend you turned out to be, huh?”

Ralsei sighed again, “My intentions weren’t to trick you, it’s just… I’ve always wanted to have friends, and you two, have been some of the best friends I could ever dream of asking for. And so, I just wanted to help and repay the favor. I really don’t mind laying down my life to-!”

“You’re so… SELFISH! YOU KNOW THAT!” Susie thundered, slamming Ralsei’s head against the wall as she did, making the goat groan in pain as he rubbed his head.

“S-Selfish? How am I-!”

“Yeah, you are selfish. You’re the most selfish person I’ve ever met!” She shot back, “Do you even hear yourself? Talking about this… crap about sacrificing yourself and how you don’t matter? How do you think we feel, huh? Do you think we don’t care?”

“N-No, of course not! That’s why I didn’t want to tell you! I know you two care about me, but there’s no reason for me to burden you with the truth!”

“THEN WHY DIDN’T YOU LET US FIGHT FOR YOU?!”

The room echoed with Susie’s voice as Ralsei was stunned into silence, watching Susie’s chest heave up and down as tears welled up in her eyes, “You… You think you can just… come into my life, show me a great time, be a stupid, dumb lovable dork, and then just leave us behind like that? How stupid are you, huh?! Like hell would I ever let you go that easily!”

Ralsei didn’t reply as Susie continued to speak, her emotions getting caught in her throat, “My life… before… all of this… was total crap. I was… nothing but some big, scary monster that no one wanted to be around. I thought that was it for me. I thought that was just the life I was meant to live and nothing would change that.”

Ralsei closed his eyes as he gulped.

“And then you know what happened? I met you! I hung out with Kris and it was awesome! We’ve done so many things together, as a team, and you think we wouldn’t care? That we’d throw it away because you’re nothing? Do you even know who we are? Do you even know… how much you mean to me?”

Silence.

“And… it pisses the hell off to see you talk about yourself like we should be glad that you wanna die. Well, I don’t care! I don’t care about the prophecy or whatever you think about yourself or anyone else! As long as I’m here, you’re not going anywhere, you hear me!”

Susie breathed heavily as tears prickled in her eyes. She couldn’t. She wouldn’t. It wouldn’t happen. Screw whoever made that prophecy. Screw fate itself for making things like this. Everything that they had done together, that was done of their own accord! Not because it was fated to happen, but because they willed it to happen!

And, as long as their will was strong enough, they could rewrite reality itself to make a better ending for them. An ending where they would survive. All of them. And keep having adventures. Keep having fun. As a team. As friends.

And nothing was ever gonna take that away from any of them. No matter what.

And then, a chuckle.

Susie looked back up to see Ralsei laughing as he chuckled, causing Susie to snarl yet again.

“What’s so funny?”

“Oh, Susie…” Ralsei said, slowly beginning to open his eyes, “…I’m so glad you’re being so honest and open with me right now. It truly is… an honor.”

He opened his eyes, the tears streaming down his face now visible, “Truth to be told; I don’t wanna die.”

Ralsei laughed another bitter laugh, “How silly, I know. To think that I, a simple object, desire such a thing as a life is… ridiculous. With a temporary body, and a finite lifespan, much shorter than yours, I still selfishly cling to this… thing I call my life. Despite everything, despite knowing my inevitable fate… I still wanna live.”

He continued to sob through his words, “Being with you two has been the single greatest experience of my short existence, and… I-I know I should be content with that… but I’m not. I… I want more moments like this. I want to join you in the Light World and spend time with you there. I… I want to be with you two for as long as I can, even longer than that. There are still so many times I want to do and see and say… and I don’t want them to all go away.”

Another tense moment of silence passed by as Susie slowly let go of Ralsei, softly dropping him to the floor as he got on his knees and began to sob even louder.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Susie. I didn’t mean to… I just… I just want you two to be happy, regardless of what that means for me. Y-You’re right, I… I really am nothing more than a selfish coward.”

He felt terrible for admitting what he did. Why couldn’t he accept the role that was given to him? He had no reason to live once the prophecy was complete, and yet, he wanted to. He wanted to live. To have a life outside of what fate said it would be.

He wanted to be him and explore what it meant to be Ralsei in this world.

Susie was quiet now, only soft sniffles could be heard from her before she began to chuckle. A small snicker quickly turned into full blown laughter as she smiled, making Ralsei look up as he heard her hoarse laugh.

“S-Susie? What are you-!”

“The hell you crying for, huh?” She remarked, reaching out her hand for him to take, “I know you’re a big baby at the end of the day, but come on, there’s no reason to cry.”

Ralsei was confused, simply staring at her as he tilted his head, “What? But, Susie, I-!”

“Listen, you wanna live, right? Then stand up and live. You’re not dead yet and you’re not gonna die. If fate or the prophecy wants you dead, then I’ll just knock its teeth out. It’s gonna have to give me one hell of an ass kicking for me to even think about letting you go like that.”

Ralsei laughed as well, wiping a tear from his eye as he cleaned his glasses, “But, how? Susie, you do realize that everything the prophecy has said will come to pass has already happened. I don’t see a way out of this ending.”

“Then, we’ll just use this story and write a new damn ending, how about that, eh?” Susie triumphantly remarked, “And instead of you dying or some crap like that. How about… we beat the Roaring Knight’s ass, save the world, get you and everyone else into the real world as who you actually are, and then… I dunno, you, me and Kris keep having adventures until we settle down in a cabin in the woods somewhere! Just the three of us.”

Ralsei smiled again, “That… does s-sound… quite nice.”

“Good. Then I’ll be sure to make it happen.” Susie smiled, happy that Ralsei was no longer crying. That was, until she noticed his smile dropped as he turned his head to look at the final prophecy, its implications still weighing heavily on his heart.

She stared at it too, her hands balling up into fists once again. What a load of crap. As if Ralsei was gonna die. If fate wanted him dead, it should have tried a long time ago, because now it had to get through two kick-ass heroes to get to him.

Before Ralsei could even think about stopping her, she walked up to the final prophecy, stared at it in the face, raised her fists, and…

SMASH.

Ralsei gasped, jumping in surprise at the noise, “Susie! You just-!”

She turned back to face him with a grin plastered on her face, “See? No more prophecy. No more problems. All good, right?”

Ralsei didn’t reply, he merely stared in shock. The prophecy… Susie just… broke the prophecy into pieces, all now littered on the ground. It was… nothing but a pile of trash on the floor. It was nothing. He couldn’t read the words anymore. They couldn’t hurt him anymore.

And he laughed again, wiping another tear from his eye as Susie spoke, “Whatcha crying about now?”

“O-Oh, nothing…” Ralsei smiled softly, staring at the ground, “I’m just… so happy that I have a friend like you.”

He stared back up at her with that bright look on his face as Susie smirked, “Well, duh. I am pretty awesome after all.”

“That you are.” He replied, feeling the weight on his chest slowly disappear, “Thank you, Susie.”

Susie scoffed, rolling her eyes, “You’re welcome, nerd. We should probably get back though. Kris’s probably waiting for us. And I know how much you wanna see them again, eh?”

Susie said this with a smirk before lightly elbowing Ralsei in the ribs, making him laugh and causing him to blush slightly, “W-What? I’m not sure what you mean, haha…”

“Sure.” She replied, reaching her blood soaked hand for Ralsei to take, and so he did, his paw fitting perfectly with hers as they both left the room.

Together.

Chapter Text

Liar.

That word. That singular word circled around Ralsei’s head over and over again, as if it was beating him to nothing but a bloody pulp.

A forced smile creeped its way on his face as his heart sank deeper into his chest. Gosh, Susie really was right; he was a selfish, cowardly liar.

Even after she said so many nice things to him and helped him out of the seemingly inescapable slump that was the knowledge of his own impending death and destruction of the Dark World.

Susie was honest to him, so why couldn’t he be honest with her? Why couldn’t he tell her the truth? Why was he scared of seeing her reaction?

Well, how could he tell her? After all, there’s no “correct” way to tell someone that their adventures, their experiences, everything good that came from this story starting… was a fluke.

How could he ever tell Susie that she wasn’t the monster in the prophecy? How could he tell her that she wasn’t truly a hero, or at least, not the hero as described in the prophecy.

Yes, it was wrong of him. He knew it was wrong of him to keep lying to her. That’s why she got so mad at him for the first time, but this was different.

He could handle her being angry about his fate. He could handle her yelling at him. But, he didn’t want to see her face if she knew that she wasn’t in the prophecy. That she simply got here by accident and he went along with it to keep up a good relationship between the both of them.

Ralsei would never forgive himself if he told her. Not only did he lie to her for weeks, leading her on under the belief that she was destined for something greater than what she was, but it would completely unravel all of the progress she had made so far.

He had seen it with his own eyes. He had seen Susie go from a stereotypical bully into an actual friend. Someone to depend on and talk to. Someone to simply hang out with.

A hero willing to put herself before others.

She was a hero, but not the hero. That person was painfully obvious. Ralsei figured it out the moment he met her.

Noelle. That deer. It was certainly her. From the moment he laid eyes on her, he knew. Her magic power was… incredible. Nearly rivaled his own. Her power practically radiated off of her very being.

From the depths of her soul. No Lightner, regardless of how strong they were, gave off the immense amount of raw energy that she did, and Ralsei knew it.

With Susie, things were different. A lot different. When he first met her, something felt… off about her. Like something was slightly wrong. She didn’t seem like a hero. She didn’t seem like the person the prophecy said she was gonna be.

In fact, it seemed like she didn’t even belong here.

He brushed it aside at first, thinking that he merely made up what the human and monster from the prophecy were supposed to be like, and chastised himself for even making such an assumption in the first place.

People can be different than what they originally appear to be, and that was true for Susie in both ways.

But, the more time he spent around her and Noelle, the more sickeningly obvious it became, and he hated that. He hated it so much because Susie deserved to be the hero in the prophecy. 

She was a hero. She helped people. She saved people.

She saved him. And yet the universe didn’t deem her worthy enough.

Of course, it shouldn’t matter. He shouldn’t care. Susie just told him that it didn’t matter. She told him that the prophecy didn’t define his fate; only he could survive that.

Such pretty words. It was a shame that he couldn’t believe that. 

Just walking next to her made him feel sick. He wanted to tell her the truth. He really did, but he was in too deep now. If he told her now, what would happen to all of her newfound confidence? Her friendships? Her view on him?

All of it would shatter. He would only prove her self-esteem issues right; that she really was nothing but a big, ugly, scary monster and nothing more.

What type of person would he be if he did that? Granted, he wasn’t really a “person” anyway but the thought was still there.

Truly, how pitiful he was. Susie was a friend. She was supposed to be a friend, and friends were supposed to tell each other. Trust each other completely and wholeheartedly.

What a friend he was, to be too ashamed and too afraid to do what Susie wanted him to do all along; be honest. Be truthful. Let her in.

But how could he let her in if the truth was too painful? Too hurtful? Too… dismissive of her as a person? 

The guilt made its way throughout his entire body. Spreading all around him. Infecting the core of his being. He felt sick, like he wanted to vomit. To throw up all of the disgusting sludge that he called his insides.

Gosh, what was he supposed to do now? Be quiet and let Susie find out later? But, what about the prophecy? And, sure, Susie said it didn’t matter but she didn’t grow up with it like he did.

He had studied that thing inside and out, and it was gonna take a heck of a lot more than one singular conversation to make him believe that there was anything more than what had been written down long ago.

He wished he didn’t matter to him. He wished that he could just… be okay with not knowing what happens next. With not caring about a bunch of words that really should have meant nothing.

They should have meant nothing, but they meant everything to him.

He wanted to explore a different path. To see what the other side of the fork in the road offered him, but how could he when this was all he knew? 

Truly, it made him feel awful, seeing someone else carve out a new, beautiful path for him, only for him to disregard it for a familiar path that led to nothing but despair.

But, perhaps it didn’t even matter, and all because of one lingering thought in the prince’s head. One thought that, try as he might, he would never get rid of.

What if Susie was wrong?

Her words were hopeful and inspiring, yes, but they weren’t enough to quell the ache of confusion and uncertainty that was led bare inside of Ralsei’s heart.

Or, where his heart would be, if he had one to begin with.

He replayed the question over and over again, as if it was played on a broken record. What if Susie was wrong? What if they couldn’t stop the prophecy? What if everything had truly already been pre-planned and there was no way to fight against it?

What if Ralsei’s true purpose was to help the Lightners and then wither away like the piece of disposable garbage he truly was in reality?

He didn’t like thinking about it, yes. He wanted to believe that he did have a purpose outside of what was described to him. That there was a way for him to survive to the end of this tale. That he could truly trust and believe in Susie.

But, what reason did he truly have? Hope? Luck? Faith? To just trust in the fact that he won’t die at the end of the story? Compared to the undeniable proof of everything the prophecy predicted coming true.

He wanted to believe in those values. He truly, honestly, did. He wanted to believe and trust in Susie completely, but that fear of the unknown kept scratching at the back of his head. Kept crawling its way inside of him and infecting every fiber of his being.

What a friend he was, huh?

Gosh, he wanted to curse his creator. Curse his maker. For what reason was he like this? Why was he so… much like them? And yet, he could never be them. He could never be like them. He could never be with them.

He would always be a shadow, lingering behind, always waiting and watching to follow their every command. Gosh, it would have been so much easier if he was created with nothing but the desire to serve them completely.

No desires of his own. No wants or needs. Just nothing but pure obedience. Worshipping Kris and Susie as they were his gods. Hanging on their every word and doing exactly what they say when they say it, no matter what.

Of course, it was… nice to have a semblance of his own personality, but how nice was half-freedom? How good was a glass of autonomy half full? What was the point of his life if he was born solely to die?

Ralsei was born without a heart, and yet it sure felt like he had one, and it was breaking every day.

And if he had one, he’d be sure to rip it out.

He sighed, the area where his heart should be was aching to be honest with his friends. To tell them the truth about how he was feeling, but that was a silly idea. 

What friend would he be if he burdened them with his temporary emotions based on his temporary desires because of his temporary body in this temporary life?

Ralsei wanted to tell Kris, but, why would they care? They… always seemed a little distant. And whenever they interacted with him, even if it was in an affectionate manner, it felt forced.

Of course it was. What else would he expect? That they would actually like him? Care for him? Love him? Just another silly desire that he should have gotten rid of a long time ago, since it was obvious not gonna go anywhere.

Haha. Silly Ralsei. As if their relationship would ever progress into what the prince of darkness secretly hoped it would turn into. It was yet another thing he hated about himself; that he had the ability to love.

Born without a heart and yet cursed to feel like he had one.

“Hey, Rals, you good? You've been kind of quiet.” Susie asked, snapping the prince out of his thoughts.

“H-Huh?” Ralsei asked, jumping in surprise before his face relaxed back into his forced smile, “Oh, nothing to worry about!”

The area where his heart would be skipped a beat after Susie stared at him, clear mistrust in her eyes as she saw him gulp nervously.

She continued to stare at him for a few more moments before sighing.

“Okay.”