~ [The Palace Graveyard] ~

To explain exactly what happened on that fateful day to the people of the world is, well… it’s a tough sell, actually. The end of days was resisted, but all of the world’s people are well shaken by it having come so close and so abruptly. Nations descend upon each other like wolves, and accusations are made regarding the black-armored soldiers who had appeared and come everywhere, being recognized as the distinctly obvious guard of the nation of Odofredus Krone, who must have been practicing horrific black magics in order to bring them to so many places at such a time.

And the association is made between their black armor and the blackness of the sky that had come to swallow the world. The belief that it was a malfunction — a dark magic gone wrong and then hurriedly fixed by the jagged crowned kingdom is the commonly held belief that begins to spread like wildfire.

Junis holds her sleeve against her eyes, letting the wetness of them soak into the fabric as the knights march past her, carrying a black-rose-covered casket to its final resting place. The elf cries, not able to stop herself even if she had wanted to, as men in armor march in the procession. A hand rests on her shoulder — Chicory.

Junis shakes her head. “Stop. I’m okay,” she says with a broken voice, obviously lying as she cries with a tight, contorted face. Her throat hurts. “I just…” she says, shaking her head and trying to breathe in.

“It’s okay,” reassures Chicory, trying to console her.

“No,” replies Junis, ugly-crying and lowering her damp arm to look at the agent’s sad but understanding expression. “I’m just… I’m just the worst at funerals, is all,” she says, breaking apart and latching onto the priestess, crying into her shoulder. Chicory pats her back, looking over Junis’ shoulder toward the casket being carried off to a regal, beautiful grave at the hill of the capital palace. There’s a pond nearby, and, unfitting enough to the somber mood, the ducks swimming inside of it just quack amongst themselves, as if they didn’t really know or care what had changed in the world.

“He wasn’t even your brother,” says Chicory dryly. “You never even met him.”

Junis howls. “It’s not about that!” she cries, looking back again but not letting go of the robe she’s clawing at. “They just make so sad,” she explains, sniffling in the snot that had begun running down her face. Chicory tries to lean away from her but can’t get far.

The casket is lowered down at the end of the way, by the tomb, where three princesses sit together in mourning, holding hands together as they look at the resting body of their brother, who had left them now. Hemlock and Parsley remain collected enough, but Manchineel, not able to deny reality this time, breaks apart and clutches onto what she has left sitting next to her as tightly as she can as the knights of the royal family salute.

And next to it all, watching the funeral, is a girl and a knight — perhaps dressed for the first time in their lives appropriately in black. Sir Knight holds a hand on Acacia’s shoulder, her own arm wrapped over her front so that her fingers can rest on top of his.

“It’s my first day and I’ve already failed,” says Acacia, shaking her head as she looks at her brother. Her sisters get up, each placing a rose or a kiss on the body. “I told you when we met, Sir Knight, what I wanted,” explains Acacia, stepping alone by herself and placing on the man’s chest a flower before stepping back to her protector. Sir Knight looks down at her as she reaches over and takes his hand in hers. “I told you that I wanted a world where nobody had to… where nobody had to be sad,” she says, wiping her own eyes. “Where nobody had to feel like I used to feel…” She laughs weakly to herself. “I guess we’re done now. Our game. It’s over.” Acacia shakes her head, blinking tightly and wiping her eyes again as she takes in a sharp exhalation.

The knights lift the casket up again, the people of the city cheering in final celebration in honor of the king, who is now leaving them in the hands of the once youngest princess and now queen of the nation.

“Hey…” he says, Acacia looking back up at him as flowers and glittering magical dust rain down around them. The two of them stare at each other, each knowing what the other is feeling. “Can I ask you something?”

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“What?”

Sir Knight looks at her, holding her hand and then out toward the world. “If you could be anything, anyone… starting right now. Right-right-now. Who would you be?” he asks, posing a familiar question.

Hearing that question, the girl suddenly stops, her hand hanging in his as his drifts through her like flowing water. Slowly, Acacia lifts her gaze, looking at the man. “…I’d like to be something,” she mutters, not sure why exactly she feels like she isn’t yet. Acacia shakes her head. “It doesn’t have to be much,” she admits. The darkness moves around writhing. “I’d be happy if I was just… anything. Anything at all.”

“And what if you already were?” he asks in counter, as she gives him the same answer she had given back then when they first met. “What if you were already more than that?” asks Sir Knight.

Acacia smiles at him, the sadness not lost in her eyes as she shakes her head. “So what am I supposed to do now, then?” asks the queen. “If you’re a zero, it’s easy to figure out what to do next. You just do anything at all,” explains Acacia. “But… if you’re past that, if you’re a one now… then what?” she asks.

Sir Knight looks at her and then out toward the crowd, cheering and crying. There’s so much more of the world to see and to know. There’s so much more of each other to see and know — and not just the two of them, but their friends and family now too.

There will be war.

The Empire is yet to be defeated. The nation of Odofredus Krone has become a black mark in much of the world. But her black-armored soldiers march the lands even now, securing her title and power by the minute in nearly infinite number. She doesn’t need to be loved by everyone who exists. As long as she has him and those closest to her, then she things she can manage to keep going for as long as her body will let her. Maybe it’ll be a year. Maybe it’ll be ten or twenty, even.

Or maybe it’ll be tomorrow.

One way or another, whether commoner, princess, or queen, there are things one cannot fight or escape regardless of power and intent. The Consumption is in her and that is inescapable. But she’s come to a point where she doesn’t need to escape it anymore. Because as empty as it tries to make her, as drained, there is now more inside of her than any such a malignancy could ever hope to take. She’s full, in every single way that matters to the hunger of the soul.

“Then…” starts Sir Knight, thinking for a while. The both of them stare at each other. “Then you pretend you’re a two,” he says.

Acacia shakes her head, both of them holding hands. “I already am,” she replies, holding him.

Sir Knight shrugs. “Three it is then.”

“…Well, I don’t know if we have time for that, Sir Knight,” remarks Acacia with a loving smile.

Sir Knight shakes his head. With his free hand, he rubs his helmet, as if thinking. “Okay. I got it this time.” Acacia looks intently as he holds both of her hands. “We’ll play pretend.”

“Pretend?” asks Acacia, lifting an eyebrow. “We’re a little too old for that now, aren’t we?”

“I’m not,” he replies very plainly, shrugging, and she starts laughing weakly, a few tears dropping from her face. His finger catches them and helps lift her head up high again, where it belongs. “You play the queen,” he explains to Acacia. “- and I’ll play the knight. We’ll make it a thing.”

Acacia tilts her head, her springtide eyes shimmer and her strands of hair move in the gentle wind around them that carries so many colors within it. “Are you sure we haven’t played this one before?” she asks. “This all sounds very familiar to me.”

“No, no, no. I’m sure,” he replies, shaking his head. “Or do you wanna switch? I could be the queen this time,” he notes, almost hopefully in tone.

Acacia’s expression falls flat and she lets out another desperate laugh in the form of a closed-mouth exhalation, her shoulders rising as she turns away from him. “You haven’t got the acumen for it, Sir Knight. And what would I ever call you then? You’d need a new name as well, and we’d need to tell our friends, and… it’s just all too much.” Acacia lifts a hand to the side in a sort of idle shrug. She sighs. “I’m afraid we’ll just have to do what we did before again.” She pats him. “I’m sure you’ll do better this time.”

“I think I did pretty good this time,” he counters.

Acacia turns her head, looking over to the others who are there waiting for them. Junis, Chicory, Hase, Kaisersgrab, Fichtenholz and Zabaniyah are all together. Pepper, the anqa, rests in the shade of a tree behind them in the palace gardens. “I suppose I have no choice but to concede that you are correct, Sir Knight.” Acacia holds his hand, waving to the others as the two of them cross over toward the people to whom they belong. The queen looks back at her knight. “Let’s do better this time though, Sir Knight. Together.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” replies Herr Ritter — the terrible Black Knight that the world lives in fear of to this very day. His tattered, monster-clawed dark cloak billowing behind them and obscuring them all from view as they turn together to go live their wonderful, shared, and full lives.

A duck quacks from the nearby pond.