October 7, 1453
Thamara city
Wind elves kingdom
"Off with his head!" King Athar yells.
"what?!" Robin is taken back from the man's blunt request.
"Your highness, I don't think this is the right thing to do." The King's advisor rushes to say, stuttering in his speech.
"I don't care, just kill him." The man waves his hand before his face, really, not taking any of this seriously. Robin has always wondered how can some folks take the lives of others so lightly, he guesses they're all probably that wasted.
"your honours, this is a war declaration against the winter elves kingdom, we can't, with all do respect, just kill him." The advisor tries again.
The king has taken him plate of fruits between his lap, staring down at Robin, who's now surrounded by the royal guards of the castle, spears pointed at him.
"what do you suggest to be done then? I don't like him." the king says as he swings his fourth glass of wine since Robin has arrived, god knows how much he has drunk before Robin's arrival.
"we should escort him to a room for him to rest, then we could talk about the peace offering tomorrow, right?" The advisor asks the rest of the attendees, including the queen, and although they all look petrified for their own good, they nod nevertheless.
"Fine, whatever you say." The king lifts his legs to sit cross-legged on the throne, eyes piercing Robin's soul.
The advisor bows to the king multiple times before he runs up to Robin's side and bow to him as well. Robin goes to touch his elbows, to keep him upright in respect.
"You, please take general Robin to the room next to the library, " the advisor calls out one of the guards, who hits his chest with his fist in obedience.
Shortly, Robin is alone in his room, well prepared with food, hot tub, varieties of perfumes and scented soap.
The first thing he does is taking off his clothes, because a winter elf is not supposed to live in a kingdom built in the middle of a desert.
He adds the ice in the bucket of champagne into the tub, pointlessly trying to cool it off. Why would he ever need a hot tub in this kind of weather, Robin wonders.
He takes off the last article of his clothes before dipping into the tub, adding a bath bomb with the scent of a blizzard.
Robin almost dips into deep sleep when he hears a knock on the door and it's squeak when being opened.
He lowers himself further into the tub, collecting bubbles to hide his crotch from whoever decides to ruin his first moment of peace in weeks.
"hello?" he calls out when the person doesn't say anything.
Suddenly, Robin sees her, long ash brown hair, grey orbs, white blushed skin embodied with freckles.
"Hey." She smiles at him as she enters the bathroom. "You're blushing." She snickers at him.
"No, I'm not." He goes to say quickly, he's pretty sure it's the weather and the hot tub.
She stares down at him for a good minute, smiling at him, "Whatever you say." She shrugs as she sits at the edge of the tub.
"I'm naked." He spills out.
"I know." She wiggles her eyebrows at him and leans forward.
"Reema, no."
"Oh come on! when then?" she pouts at him.
"not now and definitely not in your father's castle." Robin points out.
"Fine." She huffs and gets up. She sits next to him by the tubs structure, head resting at the edge of it.
"What are you planning on saying tomorrow." She asks, eventually.
"Whatever I can to win them over." He whispers.
Reema blinks while staring at the ceiling, hands placed on her knees.
"I wish this could be over, as soon as possible." Reema mumbles as her eyes close shut, listening to the water movement around Robin's body.
"Even if it was over, will they ever accept us?" Robin says in defeat.
"They will come around, I know they will." she whispers at him, rotating her head to look at him. Robin moves his hand from under the water and holds her face, and Reema leans into the touch, leaving her head heavy in Robin's hold and unfazed by how her hair starts sticking to his hand due to the wetness of it. "Maybe our love could bring together the two kingdoms one day, like in the ancient times."
Robin snorts. That would be quite the solution, wouldn't it? Two lovers coming together to stop war from happening.
Its poetic and magical, but it's also fictional and impossible.
If Robin had a saying in this, he'd kill both kings and end this madness, although, part of him doesn't find his king as crazy as king Athar, but it would only be fair to kill them both.
"let's pretend it does." Robin smiles gently at her, the love of his life, his first and last, he believes.
"let's do." She smiles back and leans in for a forbidden kiss they can savour for now.
*
March 26, 1911, 18:02
The war elves kingdom
Celebration hall
"I now pronounce you husband and wife, you may kiss the bride."
They room is full of cheers and ecstatic faces, not what Robin has expected his wedding to be like.
He has always imagined himself saying his vows in his knight armour, covered in blood, dying in his lover's arms. He has to say, this is a far better version.
Reema looks the happiest he has ever seen her, her eyes free from the sorrow and weight they have always carried.
"tears of joy?" Dylan asks Robin as he approaches him. He didn't realise his eyes were getting glassy until it was pointed out.
"I have never seen that smile on her before." Robin says as he watches Reema dance in the middle of the hall, her smile stretched and as beautiful as ever, but something about it is different, it's raw and unsaturated with any other emotion, its pure joy and happiness, one they haven't experienced in a while.
"You deserve it dude, don't take it for granted and enjoy it as it lasts." Dylan swings the glass of champagne he had in his hand in one go.
"Thanks." Robin leans onto the table, his eyes never getting off his wife.
Robin doesn't think this can get any better, and it scares him, it scared him to a tremendous extent. He fears this could be all a dream he has always needed. But it all flies out of the window along with his sanity when Reema's eyes meet his, crescents of marvelousness and beauty looking over him with so much love he doesn't think he deserves.
He's happy and content, he's beyond pleased with what his life has come to. He thinks he can die peacefully if she was there, that he dies after granting her every wish she has ever wished for, but knows her all too well to know that all she has ever wanted was him, and so he gives himself to her, all of him between her small palms as she takes him by the arm to the dance floor, eyes never looking away from his.
"I love you." He whispers, and she whispers it back.
*
July 15, 2021, 02:53
The meet up dungeon
By the time LiQin's group reaches the dungeon, Evdokia's wound have expanded to the size of a tennis ball, and she's still knocked out.
Valodya watches in defeat as her skin eats itself slowly.
He has accepted that he can't do much that can help her at the moment, not with how he can't tell what the hell did they curse that bullet with.
YuNing is on his back, clutching his shirt the same place at Evdokia's wound, Jean trying his best to recite numbing spells on him.
Reema, who is now wide awake, is an elbow deep into Evdokia's pelvis, helplessly trying to stop the bleeding.
LiQin is reciting every healing and time reversing spell he has ever known, but none work, not a single one. She's losing too much blood, and there isn't much they can do about it because there isn't a single moonfolk in all the groups that can transition her blood.
Jean is a mess and is struck with unsaturated horror. He has been walking around in circles since LiQin arrived. He thinks this is it, but he also likes to believe it isn't exactly. He knows Evdokia is a fighter, but this isn't a battle She's participating in, but rather her unconsciousness. He knows if she gave up on regenerating she'll die, but he knows she's better than that, he knows she wants to do this with all she is, even if it was only in her heart while her brain still haven't made peace with it.
He isn't sure what spell was added to that bullet, but he knows for a fact it's a banned one.
Jean is biting his finger off when he sees one shapeshifted kitsune woman perking up her ears, her ears moving quickly towards noises next to them.
It tenses him up further, they never know if it's Robin's team or Markian.
"What are you hearing?" Valodya asks.
The kitsune shifts back to its practical form.
"screams and guns firing." She says in a worried voice, and Reema's face falls.
"Fuck, they must have caught up to Robin." Jean curses in a whisper, and Reema's walls fall down on top of her like an avalanche.
The crowd starts muttering to each other in fear. They've all let their shoulders relaxed since they arrived at the room, feeling the relief of reaching it safe and sound, but now, its a different story.
Valodya doesn't know what to do with himself, trying to calculate and weigh the situation. They could leave them be, lose a lot of people but guarantee a bunch alive, or they go back and save them, but the possibility of losing everyone is still out there.
"Valodya, do something, please." Reema screams for him, who's now on his feet. She can't move a muscle, her hand probably the only thing keeping Evdokia from dying.
Valodya looks around him. They have one of the best fighters in the agency, but they've also refrained from using magic in the human world, while the other party are clearly using strong banned spells, looking at Evdokia's state.
But he makes up his mind.
No man or woman left behind, no matter how much it costs them, they should at the very least try.
"Stay here with LiQin and Jean, who's ready to come?" he says to Reema then switches to ask the crowd of folks, who look at each other in terror.
"listen, I know this isn't an ideal situation, but we have to help, we can't just...leave them to die."
Valodya knows those people, he knows they've put their needs and selves second in the first place when they entered the CPA.
A silkie boy steps up, quite young and youthful. A second hulijung woman stands from where she was standing and comes forward. A vampire, a merman, a craw demon, an incubus, an elf, a jiangshi, a melalo.
One by one, they all stand up front, ready to put their life at risk for the sake of greater good, even if it's a loss case, they'll still die for it.
Reema doesn't get to disagree, because she knows she can't help, not now.
Valodya and the others are all out of the door in less than two minutes, all prepared with their weapons and spell books that they have never used before. In this world, they don't have an upper hand, and it fucking petrifies her.
Tears start spill out of her eyes, and she tries her best to keep them from falling into Evdokia's open abdominal cavity. LiQin tries abating her but to no use. Because how could she? How could she when all she knows is that her husband of a hundred and ten years is fighting with his life on the line at present?
YuNing places a comforting hand on her shoulder, keeping her grounded and aware.
The screams and clicking stop at some point, and it reflects a sense of disquieting on all three of them along with the four staff left, until they hear the sound of steps nearing the dungeon.
Jean pulls his gun out, ready to fire if he sees a stranger's face.
And he does, not fire, but sees a new face. A new wicked face, and he's holding Robin and Valodya at a gun point. Jean recons it's Markian.
"Robin!" Reema hollers, frightened, from where she's sitting on the ground, still keeping her composure and not moving her hands. They're all covered in glistening blood.
"Don't move a single muscle or I'm shooting him." The man with the gun says.
None of them see it coming when Andy emerges from the shadows from behind the man, his face as solid as ever.
"You fucking traitor!" Jean moves to punch Andy, and he does. He expects someone to shield him from him but they're all just...staring down at him.
Andy seems to be taken back by the blow too. Because he stays on the ground, baffled. Jean, on the other hand, takes a step back after realising that Robin and Valodya are dead if he moved again.
Andy dusts himself off as he stands up. Reema could tell he's avoiding her gaze, and it hurts so bad.
"Andy. " she outcries to him, and he finally meets her eyes.
They're as glassy as hers, and she doesn't get it, why would he do this to her, why would he ever do this to them?
She gave him a hand when no one else cared for him.
She gave him an embrace when he cried himself to sleep in misery some nights.
She gave him a home when he was left out on the streets to die.
She gave him a family when he was deprived from the moment he was born.
She gave him love. Unconditional love.
"why?" she whimpers in mental pain. She has taken him as a son to her and Robin. She has built a family with him in the picture always.
"I'm sorry, Reema, he has promised me something you never did." Andy says coldly, his hands behind his back.
"And what the fuck would that be?" Robin spits out, Markian sticking the gun into his temple.
"His parents. His real parents." They hear a voice, with an unclear face, but a very real familiar voice of the doomed Edgar. It's fucking Thomas.
"I fucking knew it." Jean spits out, YuNing clutching his pants in fear, coming to the same realisation.
"You fucking snake." Valodya snarls at him, but stands by, because he knows if he died, he'll ascend and blow this place to shambles with everyone in it.
Reema moans in pain, and she's falling apart with every single word Andy talks of.
"We did indeed." Markian affirms, "however..."
Markian lets go of Robin and passes him to the guy next to him, who instantly pulls his dagger out and places it between Robin's neck and collar bones.
Markian walks up to Andy and stands before him.
"however, you're quite stupid, kid. " he whispers in Andy's ears.
"what?" Andy asks.
Markian pulls his sword out and slits Andy's neck.
Reema howls and slaps a hand onto her mouth as blood splatters out of Andy's neck. His legs give out and he falls to his side, his eyes straight at Reema, a look of fear and desperation, the same look he had when she met him. His hands are on his neck, trying to stop the bleeding, pointlessly.
Reema doesn't know if she's seeing stuff or if it actually happened, but she thinks he mouthed I'm sorry, mom.
Reema starts rocking her place, her body unable to contain the pure agony of her loss, as she looks into his brown eyes, which are now staring into nothingness, free from the light of life.
She can't even run and feel him in her arms one last time before he losing his warmness too, no, she can't.
She thinks this can't get any worse, that just like that, its over for her, but when she sees Markian nodding with his head at the guy holding Robin, she knows they're far from done.
The man pulls out his sword and pierces Robin's body from behind, the blade going through right into his heart, like a needle threaded with the sharpest yarn.
Reema thinks she has passed out for a second, that she has lost touch with reality. But she regains conciseness the moment the man pulls the blade back out of Robin's body, allowing the blood circulation to be cut off and drying him out.
Reema doesn't give a fuck anymore and removes her hand from where it has been sat for the last hour. She runs into her lover's arm, but she doesn't get quite as close as she wants to be, because the moment she's about to hold his face, the same man slaughters her neck wide open. She doesn't get to hold Robin one last time, as her hands travel up to her neck, trying to mindlessly stop herself from bleeding out, but its over, she finally realises.
She watches as Robin's body hit her thighs on its way to the ground, head heavy, and she recons, hers isn't any lighter when she topples over Robin's body, black is all she sees.
*