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“Okay, well, thank you for the help, Ralsei.” Susie smiles, small and just a little shy. “There’s no way Noelle won’t like Castle Town like this. Right?”
They stand in front of Susie’s door. Ralsei sees the way her gaze flicks to the newly installed door behind him, as if checking it’s still there.
It’s late. Or, he thinks it must be, up in the Light World. He and Susie have been working for hours with the other recruits—cutting garlands, putting out streamers. Doing some rather heavy-handed carpentry work, which had mostly been made difficult in regards to distracting Lancer from it even happening. Ralsei shudders to think of him within arms reach of power tools of any kind.
It had worked out well in the end, though, and the Castle Town now looks positively festive.
Susie looks tired, likely just as tired as Ralsei feels, but satisfied. She must really be looking forward to inviting Noelle, he thinks.
“I’m sure she’ll love it,” he assures her. She deflates, just a little, as if some worry left with that breath of air. She turns the door handle to her room, cracking it open. Hesitantly, she takes a step closer.
Something hangs in the air between them. Not quite anticipation, not quite something that crackles. Perhaps it’s just tension left over from the day. A lot had happened in only so many hours, after all.
“I—“ Susie begins, then seems to change her mind. She smiles with her mouth alone. “Good night, Ralsei. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Good night, Susie,” he says, as she slips inside her room. The door clicks shut. “Sleep well.”
He waits a second outside her door, only partially listening to her rummaging around inside. Then, he musters up the will to make his feet move again.
The staircase up to Ralsei’s room feels darker than ever before. Lonelier. He supposes it’s only the exhaustion speaking; it always did put him in a rather maudlin mood. He opts to try and ignore the nausea roiling in his belly, and even more so the worrisome thoughts swirling ‘round in his head.
Flashes of the day keep returning to him. He puts a hand out to the wall, just to try and ground himself. It’s cool, solid beneath his palm. He has the nagging feeling he has said too much today, been too much, but cannot conjure up any clear examples that could have spurred that feeling. He has been angry. Frustrated and too loud, he knows.
He exits onto the top floor, trying very hard not to think about anything at all. It’s difficult to say the least. As he walks, he keeps running the pads of his fingers along the wall, skipping over the little cracks, the pale blue grout filling them. With all the prophecy has told him, he should’ve known and been ready for the ways things escalated today. He knows, too, how things will keep escalating, but he supposes his reactions prove that the mere knowledge of an event is nowhere near the actual experience of it.
The day has just been… a lot. Unbidden, Flowery’s last moments come back to him. The prophecy had seemed ominous enough when hinting at the day’s events, but Ralsei had not truly been able to conceptualize the flower’s death. Up until this point, everything had seemed dire, but never fatal. The three of them, the three heroes would always find a way out, right? No matter the odds.
But they hadn’t today, and Ralsei had been nothing but cruel to Flowery. The fact that he had been entirely bothersome and annoying does little to ease his conscience now in hindsight.
Ralsei sighs as his fingers stutter against the frame of his door. He doesn’t want to go inside, not really. It will mean the end of the day, and will most certainly bring the next. He worries, the feeling forming an ugly pit in his stomach. One fatality today. How many will tomorrow bring?
He turns the doorknob and steps inside, shutting the door quickly behind him. The interior is almost cold, the window still open and curtains waving in the faint breeze. He doesn’t like being alone, especially not now, but doesn’t quite know what to do about it.
Absentmindedly he picks at the green bedspread, wondering at why he feels so exceptionally drained. The texture of the spread isn’t all that nice, if he’s being honest. It’s prickly and coarse and truthfully he doesn’t even really like it—it’s only that he hasn’t made any move to throw it out yet. It isn’t that pressing, after all. He barely stays in this room, and it is rarer still for him to sleep here.
He doesn’t have the right to feel this lonely, he decides. It’s not as if he lacks for company, even if he is technically alone right at this second. It’s a bit pathetic, actually. Susie is asleep, a single flight of stairs down. Kris is asleep, only in the Light World. They’ve been together since dusk, and even after they closed the Fountains in the flower shop, Susie still stuck around to decorate the Castle Town.
Maybe he isn’t lonely. Maybe he just doesn’t want to be alone. It has been a long day, after all. He feels a lot like crying, now that everything is suddenly returning to him.
Kris’s situation—whatever the specifics of it may be—only ever seems to be getting worse, and on top of that, their father is trying to prove the existence of Dark Worlds. They had not been able to recruit a single one of the flowers, and the Knight had murdered today. And Ralsei hadn’t been able to do a single thing to stop it.
Ralsei stands up again, suddenly needing to not be still. He circles his room, pacing. There was also the fact of Flowery’s very insistent pestering. All the nudges, trying to make Ralsei see—something. Something important. It had been terribly invasive, terribly rude of him to see so easily through the layers of denial Ralsei has shrouded himself in.
He could keep ignoring it, of course, but oh, what use is there to act stupid?
Ralsei knows exactly what Flowery had been getting at. To ignore it now seems more like an insult to his memory, rather than a necessary veil of denial. It all feels wrong: the princely moniker, the “toothpaste boys”, the “little guys” and all the other unintentionally demeaning nicknames that fit him only like toothaches. He is not a prince. He does not want to be a prince; he wills it away with all his selfish might.
Even more selfish is the fact that this is what he feels most upset about. He should be grieving the death of an innocent, if annoying, individual, or feel instead for the dozens of likewise grieving recruits and flowers. But no, each thought of Flowery and of the day’s events seems only to bring him back to this.
Still pacing, he wipes an errant tear from behind his glasses. This is stupid. He feels stupid, hot with shame. He wipes away another one.
He wants to put these stupid thoughts out of his mind by doing something useful, and wracks his brain over it. He remembers—with a feeling of exaltation wholly uncalled for—that there is cake leftover in his fridge. Yes, that is great! Susie must also be feeling a little down from the day, even behind her tough demeanor. And anyway, who would say no to cake?
———
Ralsei plans to just sneak in, leave the cake, and get out. Just to see her and know he’ll have made her happy in the morning will have to be enough for him.
He certainly isn’t about to wake Susie, he thinks as he gently pushes her door open. She’s sound asleep, as he could hear even outside the door, snoring loudly. He smiles, stepping lightly inside.
He was right. Seeing her does ease the tightness in his chest. Or, it definitely changes the tightness that’s there. His heart squeezes at the sight of her, his dear friend, drool and all. She is such a bright, wonderful presence, it’s a miracle he hasn’t gone blind from simply being near her. Or popped like a balloon, or gone entirely mad with awe, or something equally fantastical and silly.
He sets the plate down carefully, throwing one last glance at Susie. She draws in a long breath, her snore stuttering in quite the amusing way. He turns toward the door, and promptly trips over a—what even is that? The shaft of an axe?
Ralsei keeps his footing, but not without making a racket. The axe clatters and clinks against the floor, and abruptly Susie’s snoring stops. To his horror, he hears her begin to shuffle about.
For a moment, he lives with the hope that she might just turn over and go back to sleep, but it seems his hopes are worth nothing on this particular evening.
“Ralsei?” comes a groggy voice. It raises at the end, making it more a question than an address. With his shoulders drawn up to the ends of his ears, Ralsei turns on his heel.
“Hi, Susie,” he half-whispers.
“What’re you doing here?” The words clump together with sleep. Ralsei feels an inexplicable need to bolt.
“I, um—“ She looks around. From him, to the axe at his feet, to the plate at her bedside.
“You brought me cake?” If he didn’t feel so strangely awful, Ralsei might have found the way her voice pitches immediately upwards to be funny. As it stands, it just makes him feel idiotic.
“I did. I thought you’d want it when you woke up.” Even to his own ears, his voice sounds small. Susie seems to pick up on it, too. She sits up, struggling against the mountain of pillows on her bed.
“That’s nice, Ralsei, but, um—,” she squints at him through the darkness— “you don’t look too hot.”
He laughs shortly. It’s jarring against the relative quiet.
“Are you okay?” she asks, leaning forward in her bed. Ralsei thinks he should leave. Instead, his own traitorous head shakes. He feels those old tears welling up again as Susie makes a small sound, like an “oh”, and he wants to leave. He wants to stay.
“Hey, uh—“ she scrambles for words— “that’s okay! You can, um, come here.” Even as she says it, she’s getting up, throwing her blankets off and sidestepping the plate on the floor.
Ralsei sniffles, and rubs at his face, hands coming away wet.
“Wow, dude, ow!” she says, as she, too, stubs her toe on the axe on the floor. “Why did I put that there?” she mutters.
“You’re alright! What’s going on?” Her hands come up to push away Ralsei’s own, wiping away his tears far gentler than he had been doing. He only shakes his head. He doesn’t think he can manage any real words, right now.
“Um… okay, let’s just sit down.” Her hands are warm on his shoulders. She begins to lead him somewhere, presumably her bed, but Ralsei instead drops to the floor.
“…Or we could sit here,” she amends.
Her words trail off, and once she gives up on stymieing his steady flow of tears, she crushes Ralsei into a hug. He snuffles and sobs into her shoulder, grateful for the lack of eye contact. She is impossibly warm for someone supposedly cold-blooded, and the rake of her hands up and down his arms sets sparks off down his back.
The comfort only makes him cry harder, because he is about to destroy all of this. He doesn’t deserve her kindness, and he doesn’t deserve any consolation.
She keeps shifting around, tucking her legs beneath her and leaning in close. She allows him to bury his face in the crook of her neck, no doubt staining her shirt beyond belief.
“I’m ruining it,” he mutters unintelligibly against her skin. He doesn’t think she can make his words out, since she makes no reply. She only keeps rubbing his back firmly.
He is torn between wanting to expel all the ugly ruminations from his mind, to heave them out onto the floor like hack and bile, and to retreat. To flee and never be seen again. Things are getting too much.
He cannot be a part of the prophecy. He doesn’t want the role thrust upon him, and even if he tries to fulfill it, will he be able to? He, who has built his identity on knowing how things’ll turn out, the twists and turns the heroes’ story will take, now feels as if he knows very little at all. He knows nothing, and the only person who seemed to have been able to help him see something, anything of importance, he…
“He died,” he manages on a sob, “and I couldn’t do anything about it.”
Susie’s arms tighten around him at the words.
“He died and I’m going to ruin the prophecy. I’m breaking the prophecy and I can’t do anything, and—”
“Hey, what? What’s that about?” She has grown tense, her tone hovering somewhere between angry and frightened. Confused. “What happened to Flowery wasn’t your fault, it was the Knight’s, and we won’t let that slide, will we?”
It makes Ralsei feel even worse that he is the one to have sprung this on her. She doesn’t deserve it. He only continues on with that infernal shaking of his head, back and forth and back and forth, as if wearing a path into her neck.
“I’m sorry,” she says, voice more controlled than earlier. “I don’t mean to shout. But I’m serious, none of this is your fault.”
She squeezes him tight enough, then, that he cannot move at all. She stills his head with her hands, and he feels the fight go out of him.
“I can’t be in the prophecy,” he repeats out loud. The frantic energy in him has subsided, though he suspects it only leaves room for some other great calamity to overtake him. He feels himself begin to tremble, even as Susie pushes him slightly away, searching for his eyes.
He can’t see through his glasses, and they sit crookedly on his nose anyway, fogged up and useless. He tosses them to the side, quickly pressing the heels of his palms to his eyes. He’s still crying, he realizes, though the heaving sobs are gone. Tears simply keep streaming down his cheeks, quiet and uninterrupted.
“I can’t be a part of it. It’s not for me.”
Looking through his fingers he can see her furrow her brows, squinting at him. She is fuzzy now that he doesn’t have his glasses, but he still sees how she moves her hands from his shoulders up to his face, to peel his hands fully away from his eyes. Then, grasping both his cheeks she says, very seriously:
“Ralsei. What are you on about.”
And it isn’t even a question. Not really. Strangely, her almost-frustration is what finally prompts Ralsei to try and compose himself. Through a few more stifled sniffles, he says:
“The prophecy. I can’t be the prince. I don’t want to be the prince.”
Her face shifts from confusion, to relief, to something like bafflement in the span of only a second or so.
“Dude! Is that what you’re upset about?” She laughs, actually laughs, and the sound crawls beneath Ralsei’s skin.
He wants to reply, say something like “yes,” or “partly,” or “I don’t know,” or “please, I don’t think I can handle any of this”. He doesn’t get the chance, though, before she continues.
“Then we’ll just switch! I’ll be the prince and you can be the girl.” She seems to startle as Ralsei’s stubborn eyes just keep producing tears, and scrambles to keep talking. “Or we can try and convince Kris to do a three-way trade! And you can be the cage! Just… don’t look so sad.”
Ralsei’s face crumples like a wet tissue. She is so very herself, it makes him feel entirely awful.
“That’s not how it works,” he says miserably, extricating his face from between her palms. Even as he peels them off his face, she grips his hands tightly, unwilling to let go. “However much I would want it to.”
She pouts, pulling Ralsei closer by his hands.
“Figures it wouldn’t be that simple,” she says. She looks sympathetic, though. Then, she looks as if a sudden thought hit her, eyes widening.
“Wait, sorry—“ she says, dropping their joined hands to her lap— “sorry, I just want to know if I’ve got this right.”
Ralsei is helpless to do anything but stare at her face, sincere and caring as she always is, but rarely shows so plainly.
“Do you want to be a girl? Because I feel like that’d make more sense than a cage, but I might just be misunderstanding you and—hey!”
She grunts as Ralsei throws himself at her bodily, arms wrapping around her middle. He is frightfully ashamed of the way he clambers into her lap, once again hiding his face in the thick mane of her hair, but he simply cannot bear to look her in the face as she speaks. His throat constricts almost painfully, and he is honestly scared me might throw up. He hates this. He hates it.
Her hands snake over his shoulders to rub his back, softly. The angle is awkward, perhaps, but he doesn’t really think of the fact.
“Is that a yes?” she asks carefully.
Ralsei nods roughly into her hair, letting out a measured breath. He doesn’t want the tears returning, and most definitely doesn’t want to puke all down Susie’s back. And so he breathes, tries to focus on the scent of her hair, which is honestly, probably, in need of a wash.
“That isn’t the end of the world.”
“It might very well be,” he replies meekly. Her hands are warm, her frame firm. He doesn’t know how to articulate any of the things he feels, the things he thinks and worries about, in any way that makes sense.
“If I’m no prince,” he says, swallowing thickly, “then… the prophecy is incorrect. Or I have interpreted it incorrectly.” The thought has his eyes prickling again. He squeezes them shut tight, waiting for the feeling to pass.
“Either I don’t fit into it anymore, or maybe I’m breaking it by being wrong. Or—“ and this thought is perhaps the worst of all— “I’ll still have to be the prince. And I don’t want to be that.” His voice breaks on the final sentence. He tightens his hold on Susie, the strain of it setting his muscles to quivering.
“He made me realize that,” he adds, even quieter than before. He threatens to choke up again.
Susie is quiet for what might be the longest time, ever, since he has gotten to know her. His stomach is tying and untying itself in knots.
“Aren’t there— I mean, would it be so bad to be wrong?” she finally says. The words sound stilted, unsure, as if she doubts they will come across the way she means them.
Ralsei’s stomach plummets again at the mere thought of having been wrong, having been wrong all his life, about all his life, and can think of nothing to reply.
“I’m just spitballing and I’m no prophet, that’s all you—“ she says, her hands running up to his scalp, threading through his fur— “but like, couldn’t that be a good thing? You’re not the prince, okay! I for one know another prince of the Dark World, and he’s been pretty heroic as well.”
Ralsei’s body grows leaden. He wasn’t sure what reaction he had expected from Susie, but this true consideration of hers is surprising. He finds it makes him feel tired, exhausted even, as he comes down from his previous panic. She isn’t judging him, or blaming him. She isn’t brushing him off, either. She’s thinking it through. Of course she is.
“And also, I’m thinking, like… You don’t have to stay the same to comply with the prophecy. Or, if you do, then I think we’ve all messed up real bad already. Like, just think of how I acted when we first met. I was mean. But you, Kris, and all the others—you changed me. And if you’re changing, discovering new things about yourself like I did, then maybe that’s just the same thing in a different package?” She speaks slowly, picking through her words with care. “Like, maybe the prophecy has always needed a princess, but needed you to figure that out for yourself first?”
“I don’t know.” She sighs, scratching along Ralsei’s ears. He suppresses a shiver. “But you believe in the prophecy, don’t you?”
He knows she doesn’t need to hear the quiet “yes” he murmurs into her hair, but he feels he needs it said, anyhow.
“Then this is probably a part of it. If it’s really meant to come true, then there’s nothing any of us can do to stop that, anyway.”
Ralsei tries to let that sink in. He breathes deeply, saying nothing. She’s right, he thinks, on a wave of relief so great and damning he swears he feels it physically overcome him. It feels like light filling him, bright and sparkling and soft and warm. It feels like hope.
“Thank you, Susie,” he whispers. For good measure, he squeezes her tighter, sighing as she does the same.
“Of course, Ralsei.” She rests her cheek against the side of his head, before abruptly pushing him back. She finds his gaze, though she is naturally blurry in his vision.
“Oh!” she exclaims. Her hands are back at his shoulders, and he is still halfway thrown across her lap. “Do you want me calling you something else? If… um… you know. You’re a girl.”
Ralsei finds he hasn’t even considered that to be an option. He is taken aback, gaping stupidly at her.
“I don’t know,” he says after a second, truthfully. “I haven’t thought of it much at all.”
He feels a little embarrassed, now, since she seems surprised.
“Huh…” she says. “Well, that’s okay. Just let me know if that changes, I suppose.”
Ralsei is about to reply, maybe to thank her again, but she interrupts him.
“Oh, or let me help you come up with a new name, if you want one! I’ve got some really cool options, you know, just in case!”
The shift in tone might be a little jarring, but again, it is so very Susie. He can’t help but smile, a crooked little thing.
“Options like what?” he asks, because really, how is he meant to resist asking? She lights up, teeth glinting in the low light.
“You’re not even ready for these, okay… They’re the most awesome… What do you think of Tractor Destructor?”
Ralsei barks a laugh, sudden and surprised.
“What?” he giggles.
“T-Rex? Spinosaurus? Listen, don’t laugh!” She swats at him, but he can’t help it. “What about like… Bicep?”
“That’s worse!”
“How is that worse?”
Her face is suddenly very, very close, and very, very angry. Ralsei is still laughing. He can’t look back up at her face, as it only sets the fit off again.
“It’s so much worse!” he manages. She clicks her tongue, and tries to wrestle him to the ground. He goes mostly willingly, sprawling across her floor, covering his mouth with his hands.
“Super Fast Jellyfish?”
“What?” Still laughing.
“Triceratops? Super Zapper? Oh, what about Ralsei but spelled with a G?”
“Stop, stop,” he begs, sides hurting with laughter. “Why are there so many dinosaurs?”
“Because they’re awesome?” Susie says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. It doesn’t help to calm him down in the slightest.
As his laughter finally subsides, he reaches for the direction in which he tossed his glasses earlier. Susie beats him to it, pushing them into his grasping hand. As he pushes them back on and sits up, her sappy smile is made clear to him.
“I’m sorry,” he says, though he cannot tamp down the stupid grin still on his face. He has to breathe deeply to not burst out laughing again. “I do appreciate the suggestions.”
Again, he has to laugh a little at the look of faux annoyance she puts on. She joins him shortly.
“I just think I might have to come up with something for myself.”
“Yeah, yeah,” she says, reaching over to rub her knuckles into his head. “Suit yourself. I’ll save them for new recruits, and then everyone but you will have a new cool name.”
Instead of arguing, or pulling away from her, he relaxes into her touch. The heavy washes of emotion have left him tired, limp and sagging onto her. He feels safe enough to not impose some false rigidity onto himself, and thus lets himself lean into her again.
“I think I can live with that.”
Susie snorts.
“As long as you’re happy.” Then: “I’m glad you told me.”
He stills against her, feeling the weight of the words sink down onto him. Yes. He has told her, told her about this awful stressor, this thing that has been weighing on him for quite some time. And he has come out the other side alright.
“I am as well,” he says. His chest, for the first time that day, feels truly light. “Oh, but I’m sorry! It’s gotten so late!”
She nudges him in pretended exasperation.
“It’s fine, Ralsei. We can just go to bed now, if you want.” She sounds terribly fond.
In truth, Ralsei doesn’t want to move at all. He would much prefer to stay nestled against Susie, breathing her air, but alas.
“I suppose we should,” he sighs, and begins to stand up. A tug at his skirts stops him, a hand buried in the fabric.
“Where are you going?” Susie asks, looking genuinely surprised to see him stand.
“Up to my room? To let you get some rest.”
“Don’t be stupid,” she says. “Um, hold on.”
She stands, too, dusting off her clothes. Ralsei watches in consternation as she picks up the plate he left on the floor, depositing it in her refrigerator. Then, she promptly grabs as many blankets as she can manage in one tug, and pulls them all onto the floor. As she begins to toss pillows as well, she says:
“Just stay here tonight. You don’t have to be alone.”
Ralsei feels rooted to the spot, heart swelling painfully as she throws the final pillow onto the pile. She meets his eyes with a determined look.
“Are you sure?” he queries, wringing his hands. He thinks his tone must betray how badly he really wants this, because she rolls her eyes when he continues. “I wouldn’t want to impose.”
“I just invited you, didn’t I?” She flops down to the floor, almost bouncing on the plush mass beneath her. “And anyway, now I’m not picking any of this stuff back up. Might as well join me.”
“Might as well,” Ralsei echoes faintly. He thinks he must be blushing furiously as he sits down, and is grateful for the fur covering up the fact.
Without warning, Susie encloses him in what might generously be called a hug. In truth, it compares to a hug in the same way a puma might compare to a housecat. She has him wrapped up with both legs and arms curled around him, toppling them both.
“Susie, you’re crushing me,” he tries. He doesn’t fight the smile seeping into his voice.
“That I am,” she agrees, pressing somehow closer. They both giggle stupidly to themselves, mutually deciding to attempt to tuck themselves in without breaking the silly embrace. It proves quite difficult, and would look mostly like a lot of aimless wriggling to an outside perspective.
Finally, they settle beneath the duvets. Ralsei is suffused in his entirety with warmth, Susie curled halfway on top of him like a living, breathing blanket.
Ralsei finds he falls asleep easily, a very rare occurrence for him indeed, lulled by the warm puffs of breath and occasional snoring which stir his fur. The terrors of the day, and days to come, leave him unattested for the whole stretch of that night, waking feeling for once, truly safe.