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Lythos Castle, for all its brilliant grandeur, still has its shadows. Rafal prowls through them on a moonlit night, cloaked by their darkness. His every step is dogged by flashes of ruin: broken swords, tattered banners, the dying echoes of fallen soldiers.
Nil's memory digs its claws into his heels, and he bleeds red upon pristine white marble floors. He darts past repaired columns and restored stained glass windows. He can't bear to stand in the light. The darkness he wears as a shield threatens to suffocate him.
Burnt wood. Dying Corrupted. Clouds of smoke and ash. Such torment is where his path was supposed to lead him. For what is he, if not a devil of Sombron's making?
The mirror in his room lies broken. He should at least clean up the mess before the stewards cause a fuss. His feet carry onward, away from his room.
He's in the gardens. Starlight shines silver on a blue-haired figure dressed in white, kneeling by the fish pond.
He doesn't join them. There is nothing for him there, aside from his and Nil's face twisting into some distorted amalgam of every scar and ghost he's ever created in the water's surface.
The anemones sigh as he passes.
The door to Gradlon Palace's throne room creaks open. Rafal doesn't turn from where he kneels by the altar.
"Rafal." Alear's voice is soft, as it always is when they just woke up.
Why are they here? Why can't they just leave him alone? Don't they have better things to do than concern themself with—
A trail of devastation through an idyllic port town. Dull red eyes, tired and devoid of hope.
"Rafal," Alear calls again, and oh, they're definitely more awake and annoyed, "I know you can hear me. Can you at least—"
Rafal shoots to a standing position and whirls around to face them from across the room. He folds his arms and doesn't bother to give a response. Alear squints at him in frustration. He squints back, just to be a little shit.
Even then, he can feel his mask of ice fracture. He stuffs the desperate sorrow bubbling through the cracks back down into some deep, deep crevice that stores the rest of his soul.
"Why the fuck," uh oh, "are you here?"
"You don't understand," Rafal says automatically. He ignores the way his voice cracks. "I need to—"
Alear marches across the stone tile until they're standing right in front of him, their glare burning its way into his eyes. His mouth shuts on its own. Their gaze softens then, but only by a fraction.
"You don't need to do anything," they say, their voice gentler than their face. "You don't need to continue punishing yourself for whatever sins you think you've committed."
"How many times do I have to tell you? I have committed those sins, I caused immense suffering, I made a nightmare of my promise to Nil, I shattered the world I was supposed to protect, you and Nel—"
"And how many times do I have to tell you?" Alear's quiet words cut across his rising voice with ease. "That doesn't make us care for you any less."
Rafal's shoulders slump. How long does he have to teeter on this knife's edge? How long will Alear continue to pretend to act like he was blameless? He chose to embrace Sombron's power, to wield it with a heart hardened against any thought of redemption.
Only he can see the noose tied around his neck.
He makes to continue this well-tread argument, to repeat the words he's said so often before—
"Besides, I would be a hypocrite to condemn you."
Alear is going off-script. This is new territory. Alear's eyes dart to the side, their body ever-so-slightly turned away from him. For the first time since the end of this Elyos' war, the Divine Dragon is nervous.
Rafal feels that it's in his best interest to listen to them.
"Let's sit down." Alear gestures to a stone bench nestled in a corner of the room.
They take a seat. Rafal does not indulge them, electing to lean against the wall nearby. They pay it no mind.
Alear smooths out invisible creases in their nightdress, picking at imaginary fraying threads. Rafal waits. In all the time that he's known them, he's never seen them look so small.
"I was a defect," they say, venom lacing their voice. Rafal's head whips around to look at them, and he almost recoils at the shadows creeping across their expression.
In that moment, Rafal remembers that this Alear wasn't a Divine Dragon at birth.
Alear closes their eyes and rests their head on the wall behind them. "But I was still Sombron's strongest soldier, long ago. That, in itself, is a sin."
Rafal wants, so desperately, to argue against that. He wants, so badly, to argue that even then, they chose to be kind. Alear's eyes open, and they shoot him a knowing smile. They look so tired. Rafal doesn't think being up at the ass crack of morning has anything to do with that.
"I cannot undo the destruction I caused," Alear confesses, their eyes now fixed to the ceiling, their voice barely a whisper. "I cannot bring back the dead I created. I cannot repair the damage I did." Their eyes turn to him. "But you wanna know something?"
Rafal doesn't. "What?"
The smile falls, leaving their face empty. "I never faced the consequences. At least, not in the way I probably should have."
We are not the same, Rafal wants to snap. You can't just say you deserve my level of retribution. You can't just act like you're anything less than perfect. No one remembers those mistakes anymore. Not even you.
He knows what they'll say in response, so he doesn't.
Their smile is back, and the light in their eyes is so bright that he feels the urge to look away. He doesn't.
"We've made mistakes, Rafal. But Mother gave me a chance to make things right. I gave that same chance to Veyle. And Nel and I, to you."
A childhood that was never supposed to be his. The warmth of a bond forged in lies. The pain of losing something he never had.
Can he really have all of that, stripped of the deceit he tainted them with?
...
Alear releases a loud yawn. "I'm going to bed." They stand and stretch, then look at him expectantly.
"Me too," he acquiesces.
He decides that he needs the sleep anyway.