#while this is the last of the mainline rgb stuff

[rpsquad]

The Road Not Taken: The Past Is Different; Changed For the Better - An Epilogue

This world is one where many hopeful and wonderful things happened. One stumble this way, one trip that way, an extra domino tipped, and many changes were made. Thim spent the latter half of his life surrounded by love, instead of watching it from afar. Aeno got everything he had ever wished for, rather than wondering what might have been. Shula finally had a family that didn’t threaten to split apart at the seams. Their children, wonderful and beautiful as they were, didn’t live their lives with a curse hanging over their heads and clouding their thoughts.

Love can heal much, fix many things. Love has brought together the most different of people; it has kept hearts open when they might have closed; it has broken the most powerful of magics.

Love, I am sorry to say, could not save Thim. 

Agares was saved by love only to die as he planned. Malladus carried the guilt, and the spirits took the blame. Love between three could only do so much, and it could not save these things. 

War went on between two nations with no reason to fight, and in the chaos of battle the Lord Commander of His Majesty King Malladus’ Armies fell, and his light faded away. His light faded away from their minds, and they knew when it happened. They felt his apologies, his love, his i will miss you’s and his take your time’s.

Aeno and Shula felt it in their minds as their love, their husband, died on a battlefield for a war that should not have happened and could not be stopped.

The dominos may have still fallen, same as they ever did, but to say they fell in the same way would be incorrect. Because while Thim still died, his funeral was not attended by only his men and a handful of friends. It was attended by his husband, his wife, his closest friends, and eight children who would all miss him dearly and by whom his memory would survive.

Naisthim Skyos died all the same, yes, but many dominos would land differently anyway. After all, Thim’s life was not singularly defined by his death, and it never had been.

It was not Shula, who would die next.

Aeno was still traveling with the boy king, with two of his children, when the final battle broke out. He had not been called to Shula’s side from sickness, because Shula was not sick. She was waiting at home, waiting to see if her husband would come home. Anchietia was at home, waiting with worry like a knot in her chest to see if her only still living father would come home, while her twin brother sat beside her and bit his lip until it was raw and bleeding.

Aeno took up his sword one final time, and stood on the battlefield alongside his children, fire bright and raging and, in the end, not enough.

He fought brilliantly. He fought proudly. He fought fiercely, to protect his children and avenge his husband. Aeno Ignes was a formidable fighter, and many spirits would fall by his blade. Many would fall by his children’s blades, so young but taught so well. 

The family would fight so hard, to protect each other and protect their home. But I’m sorry to say that two more soldiers, no matter how smart and powerful and good, are not enough to change the course of this battle, this war. 

Aeno could not save Linus, though he had listened to Miskra’s warning. Aeno could not save Delmera, though he tried his best to fill her seat when she was gone. Aeno did not know that the spirits planned to lure them out of their city, and left its walls with only a handful more guards than it would have had otherwise. 

Aeno was only one man, one soldier, and so he fell alongside his children and his king.

Shula, alive and bright and always smiling, outlived both of her husbands by many, many years. 

She watched as Ancheitia became the Lady Ignes, chin held high and eyes hard not from any inner coldness, a poisonous curse that had not been seen, but from tears held at bay. Ancheitia was still quick and efficient and cutting, she still had lightning in her veins, but she was not cursed. She was not broken in ways she couldn’t even see.

Adonis took the title Lord Skyos, dark brown hair but the same chameleon eyes as his father, and the sea was still cold but the halls were warmer. They were filled with the laughter of visiting brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews, and he always made sure his children felt loved. 

And Shula. Shula Lucir, Shula Ignes, Shula Skyos. 

Shula Ignes-Skyos split the rest of her life between the two keeps, on the road almost as often as she was under either roof. It would have been a lonely life, without the family she had raised. It still was, in the quiet moments. Once everyone had gone to bed, and Shula recalled a time when she didn’t just rely on blankets to keep her warm. When she recalled a time that it hadn’t just been her emotions flitting through her head.

But she lived on. Shula lived on for another 93 years, and passed gracefully in her sleep. A kinder fate than what it would have been, without love. A kinder fate for the whole of the Ignes-Skyos family, even with the loss of their fathers and brother and sister. 

This world is kind, and full of light and hope and love. A stumble, a trip, a domino which fell just right. It could not fix everything, it could not save everyone, but it still mattered in the end, didn’t it? A life was still spared, a family was made happy, even when they were no longer whole. 

Love could not save the demon kingdom from war and disaster. It could not save Thim, it doomed Aeno to an early death. But it existed. Love was there, and that made everything that followed worth it.

I hope you enjoyed.

#this #uh #youre not ready for this #im not ready either #im posting this rn and it still makes me sad #i wrote this over a year ago #honestly #short works wise #this may be my best writing #i wrote this early bc i could not get it out of my head #id be goin about my day #and a line would repeat over and over in my head until i found the perfect version #i was going insane #'love im sorry to say could not save thim' #also #while this is the last of the mainline rgb stuff #i ill definately be taking a break from rgb #i do have some interesting aus #(of this au lmao) #so #yk #not the last we'll see of this little what if #the entire doc is 42k words #this one is #1k words #anyway #for the last time #hope you enjoyed #prompt #loz rp