Taran Brunner: I was rolled into the Royal City on a beautiful iron chariot while wearing an absurd amount of bandages and slings to support my extremely broken body. The Royal City was where all the nobles, government officials, and the family of the emperor lived. If we wanted to find the correct person to deliver a declaration of war too–that person would be in this city. Aurora had gone first with the declaration and told us that she would meet us at the Royal City. I had contacted Professor Vylen and he had contacted some of the Royal guards and set up a meeting where we would deliver the official declaration. The only problem was that if Aurora had held up her end of the deal she would be inside the Royal City already and we would be the ones meeting up with her, but the one teeny-tiny issue was that Aurora wasn’t here. I shuffled out of the carriage and Mena, Millen, and Deven also hastily got out with their eyes peeled–looking for the flashing streak of bright blue hair dancing across the skyline. Mena’s eyes started to open with panic as she spoke in a hasty voice, “Where is she? She said she would meet us there right? Are we in the right place?” Deven’s eyes filled with worry,

“She had a 24 hour head fucking start and she’s nowhere to be seen…. You don’t think something’s happened to her right? I’ve literally never seen her be late to anything in my life–we should start looking for her–” a giant crash of golden light smashed into the stone courtyard floor as we all covered our eyes to avoid the giant dust clouds seeping into our lungs and face. I started to tip over as a sharp pain went off in my leg and I felt my body tumble to the ground. A flash of golden light spun around and dashed behind me as I felt a pair of strong hands hold me in place. I looked up and saw Evay, or maybe not Evay…. He looked so different that it was hard to believe he was the same kid. He had bright white hair and glowing golden eyes as well as a weirdly good looking face. He smiled and spoke in a confident voice,

“Sorry for being late–or I guess she should be the one saying that.” He helped me up and I got back to my feet as I saw Aurora racing into the inner royal city with Deven, Millen, and Mena right behind her. I looked up at him and he looked very happy–way happier than I had ever seen in my life. Something had happened before he had got here and that something was so good it could cheer up someone that had just recently died. He looked over at Aurora with such an entranced look in his eyes that it seemed like he was trying to kiss her with his eyes. I gave him a grin and spoke in my best teasing voice,

“Oh, so you guys really got into it huh?” His eyes went wide with fear and his hair and eyes went back to their normal color as he let go of me. My eyes went wide with panic as I crashed to the ground and a giant pang of pain coursed through my entire body. He refused to meet my eyes and spoke with panic and haste,

“No! No! We didn’t kiss! We were just hanging out and we got a little sidetracked because there were a lot of things to do in the city! We weren’t doing anything bad, you know!” I rubbed my side and my legs as I looked at him with humorous eyes,

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“I never said anything about kissing, man. Hmmmmmm, I guess you guys did get really freaky–is that why it took you so long to get here? Because you two were getting your faces into–” Evay dashed over to me and covered my mouth as he stared into my eyes with panic,

“NO! That’s not what was happening. Let’s just get to the others–we have a declaration of war to deliver.” He helped me up and I let out a little wince as his eyes filled with regret,

“Sorry about that. I heard that you saved the school by beating that Raga soldier. He got you good–or at least it looks like it.” I smiled and tried to laugh but laughing just made my lungs shrivel up and die. He looked at me with appreciation and sadness as he helped carry me into the Royal city. “You did a nice job–without you the school probably would’ve been shredded. A lot of kids lived because of you–I hope you know that.” I nodded absentmindedly and focused on walking as Evay kept me on my feet. I wasn’t ungrateful for his words but I had heard it all. You did a noble job, you did a good job, you did a good thing, don’t feel bad about what you did, you had to do it, you weren’t the bad guy. It all became sort of mundane and cold as everyone treated me like some type of unstable bomb that was supposed to go off. It wasn’t like what I did was rotting me to my core–I wasn’t suddenly some maniacal dude ready to end it all after one battle. No one really acknowledged that and no one really said what I wanted to hear…. It was a little–

Evay looked at me and spoke, “Hey, are you….ok. Um, Taran, how are you?” My eyes went wide and I looked up at Evay who was focusing on supporting my weight. He continued to speak while walking forward, “Listen I ... .Everytime something bad happened to me I would always hear the same stuff. I’m sorry for your loss, I hope you feel better, it wasn’t your fault, you did what you could do. I eventually got really tired of it and it made me want to shut everyone out after bad things happened to me. I always wanted someone to just ask me how I was doing in a normal way, you know? I guess I thought it would help me feel better and maybe it will help you too.” I looked at him with gratitude and gave him a pat on the back,

“Sorry for blowing shit up and getting you hurt on opening day. I wanted to apologize at your birthday party but I couldn’t. My bad.” He let out a small laugh as we slowly made our way up the huge Royal Palace stairs.

“It’s ok, I almost forgot that that ever even happened–and even if I did care I guess it’s all good now because karma really came back to bite you.” I let out a small laugh as we entered the Royal palace. Aurora, Mena, and Deven looked back at us as everyone took in the absolute spectacle that was the emperor’s residence. The palace was absolutely huge and it looked even bigger on the inside. Giant marble pillars, black, gold, and white marble-tiled floors, huge rainbow colored windows, a giant domed roof plastered with beautiful roses, tulips, and ethereal vines, and multiple giant staircases leading to huge hallways filled with meeting rooms and living spaces all met our eyes. Everyone stood still for a moment before Aurora shook her head and beckoned all of us to follow her,

“We need to find the Royal Guard–which might be harder than we thought.” That weird and mischievous smile that always gave me bad vibes crept across Deven’s face as he began to get really jittery,

“So we get to crash through the Royal Palace in the name of stopping war? Best day of my life.”