Kishiar signs the last of the documents on his desk, placing the papers down and sighing in relief. Between the successful missions and the increasingly growing Calvary, it felt like his work would never finish on a normal time.
‘Perhaps soon I’ll be equal to my brother in the amount of overwork I’ll have.’ He chuckles to himself, knowing very well that his Emperor brother would scoff at his claim of being his equal in this regard.
Nathan, always at the ready, takes the papers and brings in a set of cakes and tea, which Kishiar knows Yuder will immediately begin eating the moment he enters the office.
Of course he isn’t completely sure when his beloved assistant would come in. On days he was training the others, his hellish regiments could go well into the evening if Yuder believed the other could make it.
Today does not seem to be that way, as the light of outside is still bright when Yuder, freshly showered walks in, hair slightly damp despite having the ability to dry it instantly.
“Done?” Yuder asks as he takes a seat on the couch, reaching towards the plate of cake.
Kishiar responds by walking over to him and leaning down for a kiss. Yuder responds opening his lips to allow him to sneak a taste of the cake, “Mmm, sweet.”
“One of these days I’m going to drown in the paperwork you all make for me.” He jokes as he sits next to him, taking only a cup of tea. He grabs the towel draped across Yuder’s shoulders and begins the painstaking process of drying his hair. Yuder slowly relaxes under the care, thanking him with another bite of cake once he was done.
They talk as they eat, discussing each other’s day, who progressed the furthest in training, the current studies of the mages, meaningly gossip, nothing was left out between the two. Of course with Kishiar sneaking in as many kisses as he could manage.
Night comes not long after they finish their tea time, and Kishiar stretches, “Would you like to join me in a bath?”
Yuder knows, if he accepts, the night would pass before they would a decent nights rest, and so he shakes his head. Tomorrow was another busy day for them both, and Yuder did not want his exhausted expression to worry Enon and the rest of the Calvary.
“Shame.” He doesn’t press further, wishing for a day off for the both, or a few or maybe a month straight. He bathes as quickly as possible, to join Yuder in their shared bedroom.
Yuder isn’t asleep yet when he gets there, writing down what he presumes are his plans for the other’s training over the week, along with Kishiar sits on his side of the bed, listening to the scratching of the quill. Figuring out it would take some time, he grabs a book from his bedside, one of poetry and begins from where his flower-pressed bookmark was at. Once Yuder was done, he places the paper inside the bedside drawer, laying down underneath the sheets and waiting for Kishiar to join him.
Of course Kishiar could not, would not, even think of resisting, placing the book aside, laying down and opening his arms for Yuder so he could cuddle his beloved. Perfectly they slot together, two pieces of a whole becoming one once again, as arms wrap around each other in perfect coordination.
A gentle breeze passes through the room, turning off the lights and plunges them into a comforting darkness. It isn’t long until both are asleep in each other’s warm love. And he falls into dreamland.
Rot. The first scent that Kishiar could acknowledge upon falling into a dream was a damp, pervasive smell of molding stone and overwhelming rust.
His eyes need time to adjust to the dim lighting, a prison cell slowly coming into focus. In the center, restrained, is a strange yet familiar figure.
A bone chilling sensation rushes through Kishiar’s body as he gazes upon his beloved assistant, chained up and unconscious. Yuder Aile. Almost nothing of his body is left untouched, scarred, broken, and left with the blood and grime of countless days, if not weeks of torture. His breath is faint, weakly straining amongst the occasional wheeze.
The sheer amount of dried blood has Kishiar reaching over to hold, to heal his beloved, but not matter how hard he struggles, his hands can only push against the bars helplessly.
A slight noise causes both Yuder and Kishiar to turn to the slowly opening dungeon door.
The guards, vaguely familiar to Kishiar, though he cannot place them in the dim lighting, approach, faces steadfast and without a trace of emotion.
One unlocks the cell door, while the other reaches for a bucket nearby, slowly filling it with water. It’s thrown over Yuder, who barely flinches as they roughly clean him. The dirt and scabs slowly mix with the dirty floor, revealing how much of the stains were actually from whatever horrific torture Yuder went through and not the constant rotation of prisoners that made their homes in the prison. Eventually they deem him clean enough, and more of the guards, waiting outside the cell approach at the leader’s command.
“Make sure the restraints on him are still tight,” the familiar man orders, “If it breaks and he manages to somehow escape its our heads that’ll roll today.”
They work fast, dragging Yuder to his feet, not caring if they dig into the wounds. And yet not a single sound escapes Yuder, face barely visible with no change in his expression.
Kishiar reaches for him, power flowing through his finger tips to push the guards away from his beloved and escape.
It fails of course. It may be a dream, but the memory of a past that hasn’t happened cannot change at Kishiar’s pitiful attempts.
Soon they reach the outer door of the dungeon and Kishiar swears.
The worst of the injuries is made apparent as the sunlight can finally reach them. One of his eyes is closed, and from the way the eyelid is sunken in, its clear there’s nothing underneath. Finger joints healed in a unnaturally crooked way, fingernails missing, knife and whip marks brandished everywhere visible. He looks much older, a tiredness seeped into his bones that’s missing from his Yuder.
‘No wonder he treated the injuries from the monster near the Western Mage Union’s Base as barely a hindrance.’
In the blinding light, the familiar leader of the guard becomes more recognizable. Sunz, who Yuder had introduced to him as one of the many Awakeners guarding the Red Stone, who the military had almost overlooked, if not for Yuder’s casual mention. The others must have been as well, though the insignia on their uniform was not that of their original military position.
‘Perhaps a new one created for a different purpose.’ For what, Kishair could not guess, but he'd expect it was nothing good.
Yuder is pushed onto a criminal’s cart, where he leans against the bars. Slowly they parade him through the town, civilians trailing behind, with looks dark enough to kill. Kishiar felt that if he could hear what they were whispering about, it’d rot his ears with how much vitriol was being spouted. What could have happened to the world outside for Yuder to be despised so?
The cart stops just outside the Capital’s square. Erected just for this moment is a platform with a guillotine, a judge and executioner already at the ready.
One step forward, two steps forward, bit by bit Yuder is herded forward, guards preventing the approach from any outsider, regardless of their intent to save or harm him. Kishiar himself can’t walk any closer, invisible wall of some kind mocking his attempts to be anything other than a bystander in this tragic play. And yet he continues to struggle, to wake from this hell he’s been trapped in and rescue Yuder.
The throne, which normally would seat the emperor, was completely empty. The crowd had clearly noticed, one near Kishiar remarking, “To think the Emperor had such a filthy traitor under his command, falling to illness when he discovered the truth.”
Instead there’s a stranger standing next to it, wearing the familiar Calvary Commander uniform, holding a staff made of a red gem. Yuder’s replacement and not a figure Kishiar could remember being in the Calvary.
There’s not a single trace of fear as Yuder is led up the steps, standing below the shining blade. In his lone eye, only resignation can be seen, acceptance that his end will soon come.
“Criminal Yudrein Aile.” The judge presiding over the event begins, their voice silencing the crowd, “You have forgone your duties as the Commander of the Cavalry, daring to claim that your conspiracies were for the sake of the world. You-”
The sound of ringing, of distortion of some kind, blocks Kishiar from hearing the words in full. To give him no information of the full extent of the so called ‘crimes’ his beloved went through.
“-Do you acknowledge your involvement in the assassination of the Duke of Peletta nine years ago, the-”
Kishiar had known. That Yuder’s clear skills in assessing and leading the Calvary were from experience, but he hadn’t known exactly how he’d gained the position.
He almost wanted to laugh.‘Was I that threatening to those in power that even with a broken vessel and slowly dying on my own, they had to remove me immediately?’
He is abruptly interrupted from his musing as the judge finished, “-Thus, according to the weight of his sins, the punishment is death by beheading today at this very spot! Long live the Emperor’s eternal blessings! That is all.” The man steps back as the crowd wickedly cheer.
Not even given a chance to have a final confession, his last words unknown to all. Yuder gazes towards the sky, accepting the end.
Flower petals begin to rain down, a sordid celebration beginning as the blade gleams steel-blue prepared to send Yuder to the next world. For a moment it cruelly mirrored the Harvest Festival of their timeline. Kishiar’s hands shake as the final moment approaches. Yuder is forced to kneel, the first trace of pain as his knees hit the floor flickering faintly in his eyes before it vanishes.
And then the blade falls.
Red coats Kishiar’s view.
Kishiar wakes with a start, a scream, a desperation nearly escaping him. His eyes unfocused as he tries to breathe. His shaking hands can’t help but cling to the nearest object in his range.
A faint snore escapes the object in his arms, and Kishiar begins to refocus.
Yuder was here. He was safe, he was asleep in front of him. It hadn’t happened yet.
The warmth of his beloved and the steady heartbeat begin to pull him away from his panic, tension slowly and slowly escaping him. A few tears can’t help but escape, and gently he presses featherlight kiss after kiss over Yuder’s face, caressing his neck to ensure it was real.
The other murmurs in quiet annoyance, but other than attempting to bury further into Kishiar’s chest, he does not wake.
He continues, pressing his hands over where he could recall the scars. Over and over, tracing the fingers and joints in their normal state.
Perhaps he had pressed with too much force, or Yuder had subconsciously known even in his sleep Kishiar’s current mood was horrible, as he sleepily calls, “Commander?” breaking the silence.
“It’s nothing, just a nightmare.” Kishiar pats Yuder, slowly trying to put him back to sleep, “apologies for waking you.”
Yuder’s eyes barely flutter open, still half lidded from sleep, leaning upwards to press the smallest of kisses on the edge of Kishiar’s lips, as clumsy as it was cute.
“It’s not real,” he murmurs, falling back into sleep after pressing one more kiss and repeating his words to make sure they could comfort his Commander.
‘It won’t be real,’ with one last kiss atop the intact eyelid, Kishiar promises to himself, ‘No matter what, together we’ll change what fate has in store for us’
The sun will rise on a new day.