Rudra stood frozen for several seconds, looking at the smiling face of Ravaan, his father, the father who supposedly adored him, who had supposedly paid unheard-of riches to stop his execution.
Rudra shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He looked down and realised he was walking around without shoes. His feet were a bloody nightmare of broken nails and bruises, and he didn't remember how he'd got them. He didn't care. Dragons heal fast. The pain was temporary. And so was Rudra's suffering.
But death? That was permanent.
"You don't mind seeing me die?" he asked finally, head down, unable to meet Ravaan's eyes.
"Life and death are natural occurrences," said the King of Partha. "There is no point lamenting them. Deaths must be forgotten and life must be carried on."
It was then that Rudra recalled that in his dreams, at his last moment, Ravaan hadn't been there.
It hadn't been a dream. A dream-Rudra wouldn't have woken up in a time he had already lived through. He had died. And then he had woken up in the past.
When he had faced the so-called "hero" with the deadly Sword of Mamon, he had been alone. When he had finally been stabbed in the heart, the sword spreading curses across his body, he had lain alone, watching his flesh rot and his bones crumble. He had bled, hurt, and died completely, utterly alone.
No crown.
No friend.
No father.
Only him.
And Tish.
She had been there, eyes swimming with tears, looming over his broken form, her hands trembling as she tried to find a spot on his shoulder where she could touch him without hurting him. And that had broken him worse than the Sword of Mamon ever could.
So his feet remained rooted to the ground even as Ravaan turned away. "Come. The weather is cold. We must head home quickly."
"No," Rudra said.
Ravaan froze for the first time. He turned. "Child?"
Rudra balled his fists. "I must stay here. To find the sword. You may not care for my demise, but I do. Nobody wants to die!" he blurted. "It hurts, it's scary, and it's..." He recalled Tish's eyes, bright with unshed tears. "...sad."
He finally looked up. "I must stay and find the sword, so that I can destroy it before Percival Leonhart finds it." He turned away. "And I am not twenty! I'm twenty-six!" He threw out that last part as if it had any significance.
Ravaan stood with his eyebrows raised. At some point, Nayan had slipped out, her shoulders hunched to make her frame smaller. "Y-Your Majesty. The Prince hit his head, so—" she stuttered, pathetic.
"Stay with him and aid him in finding his little sword," Ravaan said, and resumed walking down the corridor towards the stairs. "Hmm. One should hit one's head now and then," he murmured, more to himself than to Nayan.
Nayan didn't dare follow the Dragon King. But she inched a few steps closer to the stairs, just enough to catch glimpses of the rows of soldiers and delegates who had followed the King for physical and diplomatic protection.
Amidst them was Shia. She was dressed in formal white, her brown hair neatly tied, the gold in her eyes shining like jewels as they flickered up to look at the King. Along with the other delegates, she bowed to Ravaan, low and respectful.
Only once did she look up at Nayan. And then, without so much as a greeting, or at least a smile, she turned away and followed Ravaan out of the door, ignoring Nayan as if she were a stranger. As if they hadn't been married for the past four years.
Nayan gulped.
Shia was definitely angry. For once, Nayan was glad of the world-ending crisis, which would keep her away from her angry wife for some time.
__________________________________________
"Who was Mamon, Rudra?"
Rudra opened his eyes. Almost immediately, he knew he was back. Back in the past. Where he had died. Where Tish had cried. He looked down at his hands. They weren't bloody, so this wasn't the moment of his death.
He turned to find Tish standing, or rather leaning, against the wall of her cell. She looked pale, her eyes squeezed shut. Nausea.
She was breathing through her mouth, probably because she wasn't yet used to the thin air, which lacked oxygen.
Rudra realised he was back in the past timeline, in the early days of Tish's imprisonment, when he had locked her in a prison in the remote region of Alaka, a place over four thousand metres above sea level. For a newcomer, it must have been very inconvenient.
But Rudra couldn't help her in this dream. Because it had already happened. Because he had not helped her in his past life. And now he had to suffer watching himself hurt Tish every night when he closed his eyes.
So he walked to Tish. "Mamon was a traitor," he said, like an actor reciting a poorly written script, one written by fate itself. "Lover of the first dragon. Also her murderer."
He walked back to her. He didn't help her.
"Rumours say he was a man from Benevia. Like you." He reached out a hand, his thumb and forefinger carefully plucking a strand of hair off her forehead and pushing it back, his touch nothing more than clinical. "Do treachery, betrayal, and stupidity, all of those things, run through the blood of your people?"
Tish's lips curled with disgust. She sharply turned her head, as if even the lightest touch of Rudra's hand stung like a bad burn. Even weak, she didn't lack the fire of hatred. "A traitor? I say Mamon was a hero."
Rudra exhaled, his eyes boring into hers. "You humans are quite fond of the concept of heroism. Nobody is truly a hero, Tish. We are all villains in someone's story. So it is immaterial who is a hero. But he was indeed the winner. He defeated the first dragon." He leaned forward, not because he craved her closeness, but because he knew his very essence disturbed Tish as much as hers disturbed him. "And history is written only by winners."
Tish squeezed her eyes shut. She was shaking, and Rudra couldn't tell whether it was from fear or sheer anger.
Probably both. With her, it was always both.
"You may be right," Tish said finally, once she had stopped shaking quite so much. "But good always wins over evil, Rudra. Light will always overcome darkness. And you?" She glared at him, or at least tried to, her gaze unfocused and hazy. "You will fall."
And she fell.
Everything slowed down. Rudra watched her falling, instinctively itching to catch her. But the past Rudra had never caught her.
CATCH HER.
He only stood there, a smile beginning to bloom on his face at the irony of her falling from sheer lack of air just after she had said he would fall.
CATCH HER, DAMMIT!
Her head hit the doorframe on the way down, and then she lay motionless on the floor, barely breathing.
FOR ONCE. DO THE RIGHT THING!
Rudra kept screaming at himself, feeling trapped in his own body in the dream.
Please...
For once... hold her so she doesn't fly away.