#shiningalphonse

"....I'm sorry. I'm sorry... I... you... were truly... a wonderful knight."

OLLIE KNOWS THIS BUT.... WAKANA AND ALPHONSE WERE ACTUALLY PRETTY CLOSE PREDESPAIR. He was always a bit lost and Wakana was good at understanding English and wanted to make him smile and just bit by bit she became??? Strangely attached to him. She didn't understand how, or why... but sometimes she'd just cling to his sleeve, or show up at his house and they'd stay together. She once turned up in the middle of a storm... with a box full of kittens and no place to stay because her 'home' on the riverbank had washed away in a flood.

Wakana probably.... to some degree, loved him... but she didn't understand what it meant, and so she erased his memories and went right back to being strangers, without ever thinking that she'd lost anything. In time, of course... he would have understand she was a monster. And Knights slay Monsters.

Congrats, Alphonse, you gave Rune his first ever taste of what it feels like to actually lose a friend!

Alphonse was one of the first people to call Rune a friend in casual conversation, especially since they hadn't known each other very long, so that really shot Rune's opinion of Alphonse up in the rankings quickly!! Rune was really worried about him too, but didn't say anything in fear of being too nosy, and as a result, he felt extremely guilty and that he could have done so much more when the knight turned up dead not long afterward.

And it could have ended there, but Rune actually did get to ""see"" that one letter Alphonse sent from the dead!! The one that mentioned Alphonse was sorry about not being able to help Rune out with his laundry, Rune actually did encounter that letter!

After Kikuyo was executed and he brought Wakana up to his room to treat the injuries Kahori had given her, Wakana read that letter to him because it really freaked her out whoa!! Basically, Rune's reaction was that he was just starting to come to terms with Alphonse's death, even though that pile of laundry continued to haunt him whoops, and he was actually really confused not only that Alphonse remembered, but that the laundry was something Alphonse was concerned about??

(Also if anything, Rune thought that he should have been the one apologizing, not Alphonse.)