#ruvellis

She turns around, and Ruvellis' eyes lighten with hope, his blood soaking into the carpeted floor, his hair sticking to his forehead as his hand reaches for Aristia who draws ever closer to him. Of course she couldn't leave him, she was a knight for his empire, his fiancee-

Aristia stoops down and picks up the crown from where it lay after it had rolled away when Ruvellis had fallen. Her head tilts, rubbing away a bloodstain with a finger as she walks to the doors again, and Ruvellis' eyes are wide, shocked, taken aback at how she didn't even look at him.

"Aristia!" She doesn't even look back at him, and he could feel the blood seeping through his fingertips, his once magnificent clothes now drenched in the bloodline he was still so proud of, and he wonders if he had done something wrong-?

He chokes out, "Please, Aristia, don't leave me behind...I love you!" his confession, bursting out from him when he realizes he doesn't have much time left, and her feet pause, and her silver hair catches the sunlight from the windows as she finally gives him a lingering glance.

She's quiet, calm, her face not giving any of her emotions away as she ponders upon her response, her heart not even trembling, for she had someone else within it. Her lips part, and his bloodied mouth grins, hoping, praying-

"Once, I would have leapt into your arms at the sound of that. Now, my heart belongs to another." Her golden eyes blink down at him and his sight begins to fade away, his heartbeat echoing in his ears as he desperately reaches out for her, and fails to reach her at all.

When did he lose her? Was it when his gaze had followed the saintess instead of her for a time? Was it when he frightened her at her home? Was it when he had grabbed her wrist when she refused to say yes? Was it when- was it all those times and more, that he had lost all he could have ever had with her?

She leaves the body of the young emperor behind, one whose regrets weighed upon him as he died alone in the darkness, and reaches the light where cheers erupt at the sight of her, and Carsein waits for her in his bloodied uniform, a bright smile on his face as he holds out his hand- to which she places her hand in his own.