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“I’ve read about it,” Stella says quietly. “That if nature can’t conspire to bring lovers apart, they’ll affect themselves with some tragedy.” She smiles. “My apologies.”
“My lady,” Shiro implores. “Please don’t- you have to stay awake.”
“Shiro,” Shiori says quietly, slowly lowering themselves beside her.
“My lady, please stay awake, please don’t-”
“Shiro,” Shiori repeats, placing a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
“She can’t. She can’t.”
“I’m sorry to do this to you, as well. But one of us must die here.”
Shiro’s head shoots up at that, staring at Shiori with wide eyes. “Then-” she holds out her hand gripping the knife, bloodstained.
Shiori places theirs on top. “It’s not going to be you,” they say.
“How?”
“For Stella’s murder, I will have to have you executed. Or else, if you kill me.” They don’t finish their sentence. They have no need to.
The story of the dying king is one of a dead man, retrieving the symbols of his life and accepting that he will never return to the land of the living. Accepting that he is dead.
This is not that.
Stella Siegfeld is dead. Yet, Stella is alive.
It happens exactly like Minku said it would. Minku looks like she stabs her, and despite the fact she’s been noncorporeal, unable to feel the wind or cold or crunch the leaves under her own feet, she doubles over in pain.
“Don’t drop the stone until it’s over,” Minku says. It’s the last thing she says before she disappears. Stella falls onto her side, squeezing her eyes shut, willing her body not to wretch. She’s been stabbed before. It’s not a feeling you get used to.
It happens exactly like Minku said it would, except neither of them had known it would start raining. And one moment, Stella is desperately trying to handle the pain that has become unfamiliar, rain falling through her, the next she is shivering, and the rock tastes like dirt and vaguely of iron, and her hair is clinging to the back of her neck in a way that makes her so distinctly uncomfortable.
The pain disappears.
She hadn’t exactly mentioned when the stone should leave her mouth. So Stella tries to move with it still in, pushing herself onto her knees.
She cannot help that it leaves her mouth as she throws up.
That subsides too, finally, and she starts moving again, slowly. Minku pitched the tent before she left, so maybe she had known it was going to rain, and failed to mention it to Stella, considering she hadn’t needed to know that before. Stella might have not realized she’d said it. She’d spent most of the time desperately trying to talk herself into and out of doing this in passing turns.
She unties the flap of the tent from the spoke in the ground, hoisting herself inside and falling on her back, coughing. She needs to sit up and close it again, but first she closes her eyes, takes a deep breath. It’s a familiar smell, rain.
She’s surprised by how overwhelmingly tired she is, but she supposes it’s to be expected. She could just sleep like this, but there’s a pressing voice in the back of her head that sounds eerily like Shiro that reminds her she’ll get sick if she doesn’t find something dry to wear. A part of her in the back of her mind itches, thinking about how she’s excited by the idea of getting sick again, but she should leave that for later. For more stable times.
She pushes herself sitting up, looking around the small tent. There’s only enough space for one person to sleep. Minku’s placed a set of clothes and an overcloak on top of the sheets. Stella works on the tie on the tent flap, then unfolds the clothes slowly. They’re similar to ceremonial robes. She supposes, until this is over, she’ll have to keep playing out the role of the Prince. That’s fair. She’ll change and sleep. And then, if the rain is over, she can start moving again.
Shiro steps out of the room. No guards are stationed, a good sign.
She walks quietly down the hallway, turning right to reach the rooms there when she bumps into someone.
“Ah! You’re bleeding!”
Shiro’s eyebrows shoot up. “You’re back,” she says.
“Huh? Oh.” Minku laughs. “Just got back.”
“I hadn’t heard.”
“Snuck in!”
Shiro frowns. “Why?”
“Testing my abilities, duh. Gotta be useful to the Crown and all.”
“I see.”
“I was just coming to see you, don’t worry. But, you’re still bleeding.”
“It’s fine.”
Minku seems unconvinced, but she says nothing.
“Disregard it. It’s good you’re back. She’s talking in riddles again.”
“Oh! Is she?”
“I need you to decipher.”
“Did you write them down?”
Shiro gives her a hard look. “Talk to her.”
“She might not say the same words to me,” Minku says. “Plus, while I was out, I learned something really embarrassing about her. I don’t think I’d be able to see her without laughing.”
Shiro’s jaw sets in frustration. “Fine,” she grunts out. “But get over your preoccupations and speak with her anyway. If she tells you something different, it gets us even closer.”
“Do you ever worry she’s just messing with you?”
“Minku-”
“Just stringing you along for her amusement?”
“No.”
“Right.”
“Do what I said,” Shiro says.
“You got it.”
“I’m getting too old,” Aruru says, leaning back in her chair in the captain’s quarters. “We’re getting too old.”
“I’ll do fine,” Misora says.
“I’ll hold you to that.” Misora grins at her.
“What we mean,” Aruru says, looking at Ryoko. “Is that the two of us will have to take a bit more of a backseat in this whole thing. Not that you don’t normally step up, but just be prepared.”
Ryoko nods. In the intervening years between when the Wild Pirates first picked her up and now, there’s been a steadily shifting crew. Aruru and Misora are the only ones left from that first crew she knew.
“I’ll raise hell,” Ryoko says.
“You always do!” Aruru grins. “But, we’ve heard word about someone looking for us. They should be in the city when we arrive.”
“One of the King’s men?”
“Seems likely. Wouldn’t say either way, but the description—noble-bearing, asked for you specifically by name—it seems most likely. They’re traveling alone, so we think it would be a good time to cut them out.” Ryoko nods.
“Be careful, though,” Misora says. “That’s a lot of confidence to send one man alone to take us down. Must be good.”
“Exactly,” Aruru says. “Now get lost! There’s havoc to be had!”
Ryoko touches down on land later than everyone else when they start their attack. It’s a safety mechanism she’s developed, in case the King had caught on to where they’d landed and stationed guards to try and take her in.
Smoke has already filled the night air, the fire lighting everything around her in oranges and yellows. Someone stumbles past, running from the center of the city. She lets them go. In spite of Aruru’s claims of agedness, she’s in the center of the fire and mayhem of it all, Ryoko knows.
She pauses in front of one person, lying on their side in the street. One of theirs. She nudges their side, to see if they’re dead. They groan.
“What the hell happened to you,” she asks.
“Up ahead,” they say. “There’s some- warrior.” Ryoko hears the sound of swords clash, then a scream that sounds eerily like their cook.
She walks down the street slowly, around the bend that leads to the town center, in time to watch the cook fall to the warrior’s sword. Bodies of her crew are littered around, some shifting slightly. They’re still alive.
The warrior looks up, directly at Ryoko, and everything grinds to a singular, eerie stop.
“Ryoko,” the dead Prince says, out of breath, and smiles at her.
Shiro tries to stand up. Her legs buckle underneath her, dropping her to her knees. She wretches out a cough, screwing her eyes shut, trying to will her stomach away from emptying itself again. She fails.
When it subsides—heaving breaths, clutching the fabric of her shirt on top of her stomach—she opens them, staring down at the small ditch of water in front of her. She sees them in there. If she reaches out her hand—it breaks the surface of the water. If she reaches further, just further.
A hand grabs at her arm in the water. This is fine. She keeps pushing forward, stretching herself on the bank of the ditch. Another grabs, and gets a good hold, and pulls her forward, face cracking through the surface. This is fine. She just needs to reach further.
Other hands lurk below the surface, grabbing at her. She tries to keep her path, but they slide her one way, then the other. It glints, visible, then disappears. She is losing sight of it. She’s losing sight and it’s—
A hand grabs the back of her neck, pulling her from the water.
She kneels, hunched over in the throne room, on hands and knees. Hacks out another cough.
“Pitiful,” a voice says from behind her.
“Be silent.”
“I’m waiting for your grateful thanks.”
“I said, be silent.”
Ryoko stumbles forward a few steps, staring at Stella, wide-eyed, before she stops.
“No,” she says quietly. “I understand.”
“Ryoko?”
“You can’t be real.” Stella lowers her hand with her sword. She doesn’t sheath it. “You’re dead.”
“I was,” Stella says. “It’s hard to explain, I know, but Minku and I-”
“Minku did this?” Ryoko’s voice pitches, slightly hysterical. “Was it not enough she had to side with the King, now she’s-”
“I know how it sounds, but please-” Stella steps forward. Ryoko pulls the knife from her belt, pointing it at Stella.
“Don’t move!”
Stella freezes. “Ryoko, don’t do something you’ll regret.”
“The King sent you. You’re some kind of illusion. Some other person conjured up to wear her face.”
“Ryoko-”
“You can’t do that! I won’t let you do that!”
“It’s been a while.”
“...”
“You never came to visit.”
“...”
“You could have. I became King, and you never came to visit. I got murdered, and you never came to visit.”
“You chose that,” Fumi finally says.
“Would you have come if I hadn’t?” She frowns at her sibling, unimpressed. Shiori just looks amused.
“I couldn’t leave before now.”
“Couldn’t? Or didn’t want to?” Fumi scowls. “Sitting with that stupid Emperor of yours.”
“Don’t call Tamao stupid.”
“Sure. Ill-planned.”
“What were you thinking, letting her kill you?”
“It was the only path forward. You know something about that. I also didn’t think it would drive her completely insane. You know something about that, too.”
“I’m leaving.”
“You can’t go back until the balance is back. Do you not like the fact I’m older than you? You can look at a wall, if it helps your ego.”
Stella falls back. She’s still holding her sword, but Ryoko’s hand is holding her arm in place, the other with the knife against her throat.
“I’ll kill you,” she hisses.
Stella forces her eyes, squeezed shut, to open.
“Do something.”
“I can’t do anything.”
“If you were her you’d kill me,” Ryoko says. “This is the person she forgave for trying to kill her. This city is burned to ruins for no purpose other than amusement. I’ve failed her ideals for me.”
“I don’t think you’re a bad person,” Stella says.
“When it’s rebuilt, we’ll simply come back and do it again.”
“Why,” Stella lifts her free hand slowly. Ryoko jerks back slightly, but holds her position, blade still flush with Stella’s throat. “Do you still have this?” She places her hand on the gemstone, inlaid with gold, pinned to Ryoko’s collar. “A ruby this size is worth more than its sentimentality, even if it wasn’t the King’s.”
Ryoko stares at her. The knife moves away from Stella’s throat slightly.
“And you know,” Stella says. “That I’d forgive you, where an impersonator wouldn’t.”
Ryoko lets go of her arm.
“Let me tell you what happened, if you wouldn’t mind,” Stella says, sitting up. “We should put out this fire first.”
“I’m not doing that.”
“Then would you help me stand up?” Ryoko stands, offering Stella her hand. Stella’s sword returns to her belt.
Shiro silences a hiss, pouring water over the cut on her arm, before reaching for the towels on the table, wrapping them tightly around her arm.
“Pitiful.”
Shiro grunts.
“That you could be the protector of a king, with skills like that.”
“He’s dead, isn’t he?”
“You’re talking to me now?” Her amusement has no audience. Shiro throws her sword on the table. “It’s bad form to drop your weapon.”
“I’m safe for now.”
“For now. How long are you going to let her stand in your way from taking what’s yours?”
“I need her power. If I have to- to debase myself like this, I’ll simply suffer it.”
“And then you’ll kill her?”
“She will live until my lady can stand on the throne.”
Akira lets out a breath of air from her nose. “I see,” she says.
“They just let you go?” Stella asks for the umpteenth time.
“Yes.”
“Wouldn’t they expect something?”
“You don’t exactly have any money, and I already share all of mine with them.”
“I know, I just feel like I should have offered them something.”
Ryoko pauses. They’ve started a hike through the mountains. She can’t remember the last time she was on solid ground for this long. The lack of motion makes her uncomfortable. “You don’t want to owe pirates anything,” she says. “Take it as a blessing they didn’t demand an IOU from you or something.”
“But I took you away from them! Are they going to be okay?”
“Stella,” Ryoko says. She doesn’t say anything else.
“What?”
“I don’t have words for that.” Stella grimaces. “How far off are we?”
“Should be half a day before we reach the temple. And then a few more days to the farm.”
“And you’re sure?”
Stella shrugs. “She said it was trustworthy information.”
“I know Minku helped you, but she is just as much in the pocket of the King.”
Stella shakes her head. “We can trust her. If Sir Kuina’s on our side, we’ve for sure got Minku.”
“And getting Kuina is its own problem too, you know.”
“We just have to trust. That’s all we can do.”
Ryoko shakes her head.
“Call me an idealist. I have faith!”
Minku whirls around in her room, looking for the compass she’d just placed out. She finds it, finally, shoving it in her bag.
“If you’re here,” she says. “I don’t know. I know. I don’t know. The King’s onto me. I have to go.”
She shoves an extra shirt into the bag. “I have to find Kuina. I have to stay safe.” That’s the last of it. She glances around the room again, but nothing catches her attention, so she turns to the door, slowly opening it and stepping out.
It’s night, and she’s thankful she has the guards’ routes and patterns relatively memorized. It gives her leave to sneak carefully outside of the castle proper. Then it’s just out the grounds and blending into the capital. Then she’s home free (hopefully). She had planned to leave again under official circumstances, but it’s getting too risky, and the King seems unwilling to send her out again.
She keeps out of the torchlight as much as she can, slinking to a side entrance she knows won’t be well guarded. She slows to a stop in front of the door. The King steps forward into the torchlight, crown glinting on her head.
It had been too easy.
“You can’t see her anymore,” she says. “I sent her to you, since you weren’t doing as you were told.”
“Your Highness,” Minku says. “This isn’t what it looks like.”
“And now you’re trying to run away.”
“It’s just strategic recon. I didn’t want to worry you about it.”
“You’ve betrayed me.” She pulls the sword from her belt. “Or rather, your allegiance was always against me, wasn’t it?”
“Shiro, please. You don’t have to do this. You know she wouldn’t want this.”
“I have no reason to keep you around anymore,” Shiro says. “No reason to let you wander like a free man.”
“Isn’t that hot?”
“Ack!” Koharu throws the bowl she’s holding into the air. It clatters to the ground, spilling a light amount of water, as she covers her face with both hands, letting out a sigh.
“Sorry!” Karen says, sitting on the table. When Koharu’s initial shame finally subsides, she turns to look at her. Karen grins at her. “I didn’t mean to spook you.”
“Are you here to talk to me?”
“Are you mad at me?”
“No! No, I just- sorry. Hisame is in town, but Suzu is outside.”
“Nope, here to talk to you,” Karen says. “They’re coming to get her.”
Koharu’s eyes turn owlish. “Do we need to get her away?”
Karen frowns. “Oh! No, the Prince.”
“The Prince is dead. Shiori killed her.”
“Nope! Well, she’s not dead anymore.” Koharu looks at her. “I need to find Minku’s replacement pretty soon, too.”
“Minku- huh?”
Karen holds her two index fingers together. “The immortal soul of one god has become the mortal soul of two men.” She pulls them apart, wiggling them around.
“So the Prince is coming back.”
Karen nods. “Don’t tell her though. Your charge.”
“Should I prepare for anything?”
“Prepare to fight. The King will send troops to find your charge—she’s gotten the location out of Minku, and then invaders from the north come.”
“Karen,” Koharu says. “You’re getting involved.”
“Yep! The three of you are supposed to die.”
“You said you couldn’t get involved.”
Karen nods. “My house, my rules, though.”
“You care about this kid.”
“I don’t really care about this King and Prince business,” she says. “But the three of you,” she trails off. “I’ll bend some rules.”
“Thank you,” Koharu says.
Karen shrugs. “I have to go talk to the pirate next.”
“Aruru? Why?”
Karen sighs. “Like I said, I have to fill some god-shaped holes. I’m half Wild Pirates, I kind of want to finish them. What are you making?”
“Pot roast.”
“Oh, that sounds good.” Karen frowns. “Oh well,” she says. “Maybe next time.”
Ryoko tends to the fire quietly, listening to Stella take in deep breaths, hold them, and then let them out in a hiss, sometimes slow, sometimes urgent to take in her next breath.
“Is it weird?” She asks.
“Weird?”
“Being alive again. Having died.”
“Oh. Yeah.” She’s lying on her back, staring up at the treetops. “I didn’t want to come back. When I got a body again, I was wearing the shirt I’d been stabbed in.”
“Is- I’m sorry, I don’t really know much about it.”
“New body, I think,” Stella says. Her hand is on her stomach, feeling the way it expands and contracts with her breaths. “I mean, we didn’t exactly have the old one.”
“Right.”
“You and Kuina left,” she says. “After.”
“I tried to stick around,” Ryoko says. “I thought—maybe if I supported Shiro, it’d, I don’t know, help, somehow.” Stella hums. “She wasn’t right after, but we all figured. You died. It was her whole reason for being. Kuina left. And then she started trying to kill us—me, mostly. “
“I’m sorry.”
Ryoko shakes her head. “It’s not your fault. I left the castle, at first, but she kept finding me and following me.” She shrugs. “Aruru took me back in. I was safe on the open sea.” Ryoko rubs at her nose. “I get why she blames me for it. Your death, I mean.”
“What?”
“We trusted King Shiori too much. It made it too easy for her to kill you.”
Stella pushes herself onto her elbow, staring at Ryoko. “What?”
Ryoko looks at her. “What?”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you not know how you died? King Shiori murdered you, and then Shiro killed her in retaliation and took the throne.”
Stella opens her mouth to say something, anything, but she can’t find the words.
“Oh,” Ryoko says quietly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to be the one to tell you. I thought you knew.”
Stella lowers herself so she’s lying back again.
“I’m really sorry,” Ryoko says.
The metal door grates against the stone floor as it’s open. Years and poor maintenance have warped the ground, warped the metal, creating an unpleasant announcement of any new visitor to Minku’s cell.
“Get up,” Shiro commands.
Minku grunts, pushing herself up as best she can, leaning her back against the cold stones of the cell.
“I wondered,” Shiro says, crouching down and adjusting one of the gloves on her hand. “What it meant when she said you couldn’t see her any more.”
“You shouldn’t talk to her.”
Shiro watches her. Cold, impassive stare.
“She’s trying to kill you.”
“You haven’t tried to leave,” Shiro says, placing a hand on the chain holding Minku against the wall of the cell. “You haven’t tried to.” She uses it to lift Minku’s hand, examining it. “You’re scared of pain.” Minku purses her lips. “You said you could turn off your ability to feel it, couldn’t you? If you needed to, you could have broken your hand and gotten it out of this.”
“Shiro-”
“But you can’t,” Shiro says, looking back at her. “You’re mortal. Which means I can kill you.”
“Shiro, listen to me. Okay? I can still help you. Please, just-”
“You plead for your life like a wounded animal,” Shiro says. “I suppose you are one, now.” She drops the chain. “I won’t kill you yet,” she says. “Kuina will come find you eventually. And then I just have to deal with that pirate.”
“Stella is-”
“Silence,” Shiro says. “Stella is exactly where she’s supposed to be right now.” She stands. “If she’s a body with no soul, we’ll simply have to make due.”
The cell door screeches shut behind Shiro. Minku lowers herself to her side, closing her eyes.
Stella says nothing, pushing herself forward as they hike the path from the village to the farm nearby. It’s uncomfortable, almost eerie, for Ryoko, who expects to hear her complain or beg for a break or something like that. Something she used to do before. But Stella is determined, pushing herself to handle this stoically.
Kind of.
When they finally clear the top of the path, the wide expanse of cattle grazing land stretching out on one side and crops along the other, Stella lets out a whooping cheer, nearly falling to her knees, keeping herself just barely upright with the thick branch she’d started using as a walking stick.
“I’m not ready to talk to Kuina,” Stella says. “It was a brave front, saying it’d be okay. She hates me.”
“She hasn’t seen you in years. You were dead.”
“That makes it worse!” Stella says. She pushes herself to start walking again. “She could idealize her memory of me in death, or something.”
“I don’t know if she’d do that,” Ryoko says. “I am a bit worried.”
“You didn’t take it well, either.”
“You were dead. We saw your corpse.”
“That still exists,” Stella says. “That makes me most uncomfortable, to be honest. Kind of wish it, somehow, like, disappeared. After.”
“That there’s a body of you interred at the castle.”
“It’s what?”
“Still at the castle.” Stella slows to a stop.
“Why is it still at the castle?”
“Well, that’s-”
“It’s buried, right?” Ryoko looks down, frowning. She squints. “Why isn’t it buried?”
“I don’t know,” she says. “I didn’t really think of it. But Shiro sequestered away a room and put the body there after the funeral.”
“I don’t like that.”
“Minku probably knows.”
“When she gets here, we’ll have to ask her.” Ryoko nods.
“Hard chance of that.” Both of them whip their heads forward to stare at the woman in front of them, leaning on the shovel she’s holding.
“I’ll kill her,” Ryoko says, reaching for the knife at her belt.
“Ryoko!”
“You’re on my land!”
“Your land?”
“My farm, thank you very much. I don’t take kindly to strangers showing up and announcing they’re going to kill me!”
“We’re very sorry,” Stella says. “For intruding and for,” she gives a sidelong glance at Ryoko. “Overreacting when you startled us.”
“Pay attention to your surroundings.”
“Right. We’re actually looking for someone.”
“Never a good sign. Follow me.” She picks up her shovel, hoisting it over her shoulder, marching back along the path towards the house they can see a ways away. Stella and Ryoko exchange a look before following.
“Suzu,” the farmer says. “If you were curious.”
“It felt disrespectful to ask,” Stella says. “Considering we overstepped already.”
“Aw, well that’s nice and all.” She stops again, nearby the house, turning to face them. “So. Who is it you’re looking for?”
“Kuina,” Stella says.
“Kuina, Kuina,” Suzu hums. “Very common name, I’m afraid. I’ve met many a Kuina, so I could go through them all in partial alphabetical order, if you’d like.”
“Our friend said she was here.”
“Oh? Which friend’s that?”
“Her name is Minku. She’s on her way here as well. We’d be happy to wait in town until she arrives, if you need that assurance.”
“So Minku sent you, is it?” Suzu nods. “Give me a minute. You wait here.” She disappears.
“That might have been a mistake,” Ryoko says, pulling the knife from her belt.
“Stop whipping that thing around!”
“I know she helped you, but she’s still considered in-service to the King.”
“Suzu’s nice!”
“You’ve spoken to her for five seconds.”
“She seems nice,” Stella insists. Ryoko shakes her head, shifting her sleeve so the knife isn’t visible as they hear voices approaching.
“It’s going to seem a little jarring, I just need you to not freak out.”
“I’ve seen a cow give birth, I think I’ll live.” Stella perks up at Kuina’s voice.
“Stranger than that.”
“I don’t think that’s possible.” They round the bend of the house, visible to Stella and Ryoko. Suzu has her arms around Kuina, dressed in a dirt covered shirt and slacks. She’s more muscular than Stella remembers her, which says something. She has the same annoyed look Stella remembers so specifically.
“Stop here,” Suzu says.
“Seriously, what’s on with you? I’ve seen worse things in the world. I’ve seen you kiss Koharu. I’ve seen you kiss Hisame.”
“What’s wrong with kissing Hisame! I’m allowed!”
“She shouldn’t!”
“What’s that all supposed to mean!”
“You know what that all is supposed to mean!”
“Just don’t move forward until you’ve turned your head.” Kuina tries to take a step forward. “Why you-” Suzu takes one hand off, pushing Kuina’s head away from facing her to facing Stella and Ryoko.
She says nothing. Time spreads out in front of them. Stella doesn’t know what to say first. I’m sorry, I’m real. Do you still want to drive me from the country again, and if so can you hold it for just a little while?
Stella bows. “Sir,” is all she says.
Kuina takes a step forward, then another, slowly approaching the two of them. She reaches a hand out, then hesitates. Stella lifts a hand, placing the back of hers against the inside of Kuina’s.
“You’re alive,” she says.
“I am now.”
Kuina looks at Ryoko. “She’s alive?”
“I tried to kill her again,” Ryoko says.
“She did,” Stella says.
“You’re wearing a stupid hat.”
Ryoko touches it self-consciously.
“And you’re wearing a stupid outfit,” she tells Stella.
“Minku picked it out for me,” Stella says.
“Typical.” She lowers her hand. “What do you need?”
“Minku is on her way here,” Stella says. “Hopefully. I need to ask for the three of your strength. I have to face Shiro.”
“Maybe we should all go inside,” Suzu says. “Hisame’s cooking up some food. It’ll be good.”
“Hisame is cooking?” Kuina asks.
“Hisame is watching a pot, and making sure it does not boil over. She has learned how to do that, and she’s quite proud of it. Come on. We have things to discuss.”
“A mad king,” Akira sighs. Annoyed. Disappointing.
“What do you want from me?”
“What I want from this country is to make it interesting. For someone to kill you.”
“Kill me? They try. They kill me.” She stands up, pulling the sword from her belt, stabbing it forward. “They try and they fail!” She stumbles forward a step. “Shiori’s blood is still wet on this ground.” She stumbles back, falling back into the throne. “And my lady’s under it. But would that she were the one haunting me.”
“Pitiful.”
Shiro sneers at her. “What do I care? A dead king doesn’t respect me. I’ve killed my assassins. Did it hurt to die? To have her kill you?” Akira looks unimpressed. “And she’s technically- well-” she laughs. “That your own family were Siegfelds.”
“I’m content. You’ve made sure the Siegfeld line dies with you.”
Shiro looks away.
“She’s not coming,” Hisame says, sitting at the table alongside the three of them. “She’s been locked up in the castle as a prisoner. Koharu’s received word.”
“It’s a trap to bait us out,” Kuina says.
“It’s a trap to bait you,” Hisame says. “We also know that Shiro believes Ryoko is still out at sea, and Stella is, well.” Stella nods. “That gives you some advantage.”
“We have a hidden weapon at least.” Kuina nods to Stella. “But we have no choice but to fall for her trap.”
“I understand,” Stella says. “It’s a lot for me to ask you to fight on my behalf, given our history. Given you didn’t know I was alive. I’m extremely grateful.”
“Don’t make something of it,” Kuina bristles.
“I have to. It means a great deal to me.”
“Well, I don’t like it.”
“I apologize for that, then.”
“You didn’t deserve to be King,” Kuina says, after great deliberation. “I don’t think you deserved to die. It was wrong for King Shiori to do that to you.”
Stella hesitates. “Of course,” she says.
“So Akira is back,” Shiori says.
“She is.”
“And you know this?”
“It’s a sense.”
“And you’ll go see her.” It’s somewhere between a question and a statement. They let it hang halfway.
“No,” Fumi says. “This is between a king and her retainer. It’s not my duty.”
“It’s also between a king and her most beloved.” Fumi says nothing. “The one she killed with her own hand.”
“I have no duty to the throne anymore.”
Shiori smiles. “You’re mean, considering it was my throne. No duty to your family? “
“Are you trying to start a fight?”
“You were Akira’s friend once. Maybe you’ll talk to her for that reason, if no other.” Shiori walks to the entrance of the temple, more a tomb, glancing outside. “Stella was always best fit for the jade, too. But she couldn’t hold it.”
“The three of you need to go. Now,” Koharu says, pushing through the front door of the house.
“I thought we had more time,” Hisame says, standing.
“We were supposed to. The King’s sent an advance guard. It seems Minku spilled where Kuina’s been.”
“Dammit,” Kuina hisses. “Idiot.”
“She wouldn’t do it without good reason,” Stella says.
Kuina grimaces.
“We won’t be able to wait for her this way,” Ryoko says. “Since she won’t be coming.”
“This was supposed to be the rendezvous point.”
“No time for talking,” Koharu says. “You have to go.”
Stella nods, pushing herself standing.
“Wait,” Kuina says, jumping up. “I have to-” she disappears down the hallway.
“We don’t have time,” Koharu shouts after her, rifling through cabinets.
“We’ll be fine,” Hisame says.
“I’ll go and meet them,” Suzu says. “Distract them.”
“Make it look natural,” Hisame tells her. “Like you weren’t expecting them.”
She salutes and disappears out the door.
“Got it,” Kuina says, returning, slinging a bag onto her back. She holds something in her right hand. “Stella Sie- Stella.” She holds her hand out. Stella holds her own as well, and it drops slightly when Kuina opens hers, the weight of the stone pendant falling into it.
“I- I can’t take your-”
“You aren’t,” Kuina says. Stella flips it in her hand, looking at the King’s jade. “It’s yours, isn’t it?” She places something much longer on top of it.
“This is-”
“Someone had to take it,” Kuina huffs. “We have to go.”
Stella ties the sword to her belt, gripping the jade in her hand. She isn’t sure yet what to do with it.
“You’ll travel out the back paths,” Koharu explains. “Sheepgrazing,” she tells Kuina specifically. “You know how to break up the tracks.”
“Got it,” Kuina says. “And, Koharu.” Koharu nods. “Thank you three, for everything.”
“Quickly. Go.”
“If you help me, perhaps we can let you continue to live.”
“You’re lying,” Minku says into the stone of the cell floor. She pushes herself onto her hands and knees.
“You prove your disloyalty by not falling for your King’s obvious deceit.” Shiro kicks her back again, knocking her to the ground. “Perhaps if you had, I might consider you worth keeping around.”
“What’s the point of this? Nobody’s challenging you for the throne. They want to be left alone, Ryoko and Kuina.”
“The point,” Shiro says, crouching down and turning Minku over. “Is to bring her back.”
“She’s dead.”
“With the right sacrifice, the body can be risen. And with the right soul, she could inhabit it.”
“Us.”
“Is it not the role of knights to support their King? It would be an honor to be asked to die for her, wouldn’t it?”
“What about you?”
“I let my lady stray too far last time, believing pitiful friendships could strengthen her,” Shiro says. “I will not make the same mistake again.”
“Kuina,” Stella says quietly. They’ve made it far enough from the farm, confident they’re likely not being followed. “About Minku.”
“I have nothing to say about her,” Kuina says. They’re a day out from the capital.
“I think it’s important.”
“What’s important is saving her and deposing Shiro. After that I’ll have nothing to do with her.”
“But if you love her-” Kuina whips around, glaring at Stella, her mouth agape and her face reddening.
“Love? Love?”
“Did- did I misunderstand?”
“Don’t ever- I have never- and if you- the audacity to- dead or not dead-”
“I’m sorry! I didn’t realize you didn’t love her.”
Kuina’s mouth opens and closes like a fish.
“Have you never thought about it before?” Ryoko tries to stifle a laugh.
“Silent march!” Kuina announces, wheeling around and stalking off. “Nobody speaks for the rest of the day.”
Stella looks at Ryoko, bewildered, mouths an ‘I didn’t know.’ Ryoko shakes her head, smiling, starting off after Kuina.
Fumi and Shiori parted a ways ago. They’ve traveled far from the temple, but this isn’t Shiori’s job to finish.
“You’re here.” She turns away from the waterfall.
“Sent me away too.”
“I thought you would have started over by now.”
“Tamao refuses to.”
“She’s at the castle,” Michiru says, stepping up beside Fumi, looking down at the water.
“Doing something to that girl.”
A smile plays at Michiru’s mouth. “She has delusions of grandeur.”
“Nothing new.”
“Nothing at all. Although we would never team up to bring her back to earth, as I remember it.”
Fumi nods. “A first for everything, in death.”
The capital is eerie when they arrive. Houses are locked up, and nobody comes to visit when they try to knock on doors.
“They’re prepared for invasion,” Kuina says quietly.
“Is the capital so close to being invaded?” Stella asks.
“She didn’t know what force we might come with,” Kuina says. “This is a bad idea.”
“It’ll be fine.” They exit the city, approaching the outer gates of the castle, held wide open. The grounds of the castle look the same as Stella last remembers them. She supposes it hasn’t been long enough for it to look completely foreign to her, but Shiro seems to have been focused on making it look as unchanging as possible.
“There’s no guards,” Stella says. It comes out as a question.
“She’s expecting us,” Ryoko says. “This is a bad idea.”
“Minku’s likely in the dungeon,” Kuina says. “Shiro as well.”
“I don’t think so,” Stella says.
“What?”
“I think they’re separate.”
Then we get Minku first.”
“We separate,” Stella says. “Minku and I already knew what we wanted to do here, and I have to find Shiro.”
Kuina sighs. “Fine,” she says. “Ryoko, go with her.”
Ryoko nods.
“What?”
“We know where Minku is. You need more people to search on your end.”
“Will you be alright?”
Kuina nods. “I’ll find her on my own.”
They separate after the entrance, Kuina immediately taking off towards the dungeon.
“She could be anywhere,” Ryoko says.
“Do you have any guesses?”
“Yours might be better than mine.”
“I have nothing,” Stella says. “Her room? The throne?”
“We check each wing.” Ryoko sets off in a random direction. “Separate in the wing, it’ll speed us up, and then meet again.”
“Yeah- yeah. Okay.”
“Okay,” Ryoko nods. “She’ll kill me on sight, so I hope you find her.”
Kuina crashes open the door of the dungeon. There are guards stationed outside the entrance, at the bottom of the staircase. She dispatches the entrance guards easily, pushing the last of them down the stairs as she opens the door. He crashes into two guards trying to come up, sending them all falling to the bottom.
She comes down the stairs, pointing the sword at her belt at the remaining guards.
“Any of you who don’t wish to die for a tyrant may surrender and leave with your lives,” she says. “For the rest, I’m afraid this is the end of the road.”
“I have never understood.” They got too far apart. Stella races towards that oh so familiar voice. “Why my lady wasted so much time on you. How infuriating, when she should have been focusing on herself.”
She forces herself to run faster. Faster, please.
“It’s no matter. I’ll make sure when she comes back she won’t have to waste any more time on you.”
Stella forces the door open to the throne room. Shiro stands in the center, sword pressed to the side of Ryoko’s neck, barely holding herself up with the spear she’s holding. Shiro looks up at the door at her entrance.
She kicks Ryoko in the side, forcing her back until she hits the long table behind her.
“So that’s what she was doing,” Shiro says. She smiles. “That’s why she couldn’t help me find the soul of my lady.”
“Shiro!”
“You’ll be silent,” Shiro says. “I’ll have nothing to do with demons.”
Stella grips her sword tighter. “Shiro, please-”
“Don’t refer to me so informally.” Shiro points her sword at Stella. “I am the King,” she says. “I stand above mortals and gods.”
She won’t listen.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” Stella says.
“Do you think you could, villain?” Shiro moves before Stella can react, stabbing at her.
She’s never faced Shiro at full strength before, always holding back to give Stella enough chance to improve herself. Now she fights with an efficiency Stella’s never felt against herself.
“You bastard,” Shiro hisses. “Taking my lady’s form. I’ll kill you.”
“I am Stella.”
“I’ll kill you.”
Minku is at the lowest level of the dungeons. There’s no heightened level of guards at the lowest level, so she doesn’t know, when the door opens, that it’s anything unusual.
“I’ll offer you the chance to surrender, or else forfeit your lives.”
“Kuina?” Minku perks up. There she stands, in the entrance to the dungeon, brandishing her sword at the soldier who drops his, hands raised in surrender.
“Give me your keys,” Kuina says. The guard unloops them, throwing them to Kuina. “Now get lost.” He doesn’t need to be told twice.
“Kuina,” Minku repeats. “You came to save me.”
“Stella found me,” she says.
“It’s okay. It’s enough that you came at all.”
“What were you thinking?”
“That I could bring her back.”
“This whole thing.” It’s a heavy, full keyring. Kuina works through it slowly, testing each dud key. “You never should have left the temple.”
“Don’t say that.”
“It’s true! None of this would have happened if-”
“Kuina!” Kuina looks up at her. “I wanted to give it up. I wish you would stop treating it like it’s worse.”
Kuina looks down, back at the keys.
“It’s not worse now! How is it not better?”
“We had a dream together.”
“It’s going horribly. Can’t we forget that dream?”
“I didn’t want to.”
“Well- well you don’t have a choice anymore.”
“I know that.” The next key clicks the lock back. The door creaks open.
“You can still be King,” Minku says. “Fifty percent isn’t bad.” Kuina sighs. “Not just as a god, but as Minku, as your friend, too, I want to see you achieve your dreams. I want to help you there.”
“There’s no time for that.”
“But-”
“If we don’t get to helping Stella and Ryoko right now, there’s no future for either of us, is there?”
Minku smiles. “Okay. We’ll leave the future for the future.”
“For now, we fight for its right to exist.”
“Shiro, please, listen to me!”
“Worthless demon!”
“Shiro!”
“She is dead, and I will not let you- I will not let you--!”
Shiro knocks the sword out of Stella’s hand, thrusting her sword next to her neck, near millimeters away.
“Who was it,” Stella says. “Who taught me to fight on horseback? Who showed me strategies, and worked my fencing techniques to perfection? Who indulged my interest in poetry? You studied another language just to help me read the poems.”
“Demons can learn a lot about the bodies they inhabit.”
“I’m not trying to convince you I’m me,” Stella says. “You know I am.”
“Then what?”
“There’s something you have to say to me. There’s something I want you to say. When nobles came and made barbed comments about me, you were the one who caught them, and parried them. Say it, Shiro.”
“I will not disgrace my lady’s name like that!”
“I was nothing without you.”
“Now look at you. You live- you live! Without me.”
“Shiro, say it.”
“I will not. I know why I couldn’t be King.”
“But you deserved it.”
“I never- I never wanted it. I never wanted-”
“But you did. If Stella Siegfeld died, you could have it. So Stella Siegfeld died.”
Shiro’s eyes are wide, as the sword falls from her hands, clattering to the ground between them.
“It was only for a moment,” Shiro whispers. “I’m sorry.”
Akira looks down at the dead body of the prince.
“Creepy.” She doesn’t move at the sound of Fumi’s voice at her side. “Would you have done that to me?”
“We burned you,” Michiru says. Akira’s eyes glance the other way, where Michiru stands at her other side, but her head doesn’t move. “So it’s not possible. There was no guarantee something hadn’t been done to you.”
“Nothing had,” Fumi says.
“You’ll hear no words of remorse.”
“I’ve moved past you killing me.”
“You’re here to discuss the Siegfeld heir. And the King.”
“It’s not our place to intrude,” Michiru says.
“Why should one with so much potential bow to her lesser. Throw her life away for her.”
“Yet you manipulated her to the same end.”
“Bodies without souls can be inhabited by any soul, should they be reanimated.”
Fumi is silent, but Michiru shakes her head. “I won’t allow that,” she says. Akira looks at her properly.
“Yes, it’s all foiled now.”
“No, I mean you can’t posture like that in front of Fumi.”
“I’m not attracted to bad ideas,” Fumi adds.
“Could have fooled us,” Michiru says. She scowls.
Akira turns her head to Fumi. Clears her throat, in spite of the lack of need to do it. “Returning lives from the dead was my greatest unmet ambition. I saw a way to see it through.”
“No matter the cost.” Fumi still looks down at the corpse.
“It did not seem so great a cost to the King.”
“It would have been to the person raised from the dead.”
“It was unlikely her soul still walked along the world.”
“It would have been a puppet,” Michiru says.
“To a grieving man,” Akira says. “It’s of no consequence. There is no solace for it.”
“We should go,” Michiru says. “We’ve caused them enough problems already.”
“We have to hope the Prince can solve them,” Fumi says.
“Then it’s possible.”
“A god did it,” Michiru says.
“Mortals can’t meddle in the affairs of the living and the dead,” Fumi says. “Just like the dead cannot interfere with the living.”
Akira grimaces. “I’ll be content,” she says.
“You will,” Fumi says.
“We aren’t giving you much choice,” Michiru adds.
Shiro doesn’t say anything. Stella doesn’t either. She bends down, picking up Shiro’s sword, holding it out to her. Shiro doesn’t take it. Stella puts it down, lowering it properly at her side.
“Then,” Stella starts. “If you admit that, I can move forward with what I have to say to you.”
“You have no need to say anything to me,” Shiro says.
“That’s not true,” Stella says.
“Nothing has changed regarding us,” Shiro says. “I will punish myself for my weakness, and then return to your service as before.”
Stella frowns. “I can’t let you,” she says. “It’s different for both of us, now. I won’t allow us to pretend it isn’t.”
“But, I-”
Ryoko shouts, rushing Shiro with her lance. Shiro doesn’t move, accepting the blow.
It never comes.
Stella moves in front of her, grabbing Shiro’s hand with her free hand to make sure she’s safe, using Shiro’s sword to knock the lance off path.
“Don’t,” Stella commands. Ryoko’s stopped position, if Shiro hadn’t been moved, she’d be dead.
“Did you plan this to get my goodwill?” Shiro asks. It’s ignored.
“She’s a tyrant,” Ryoko says.
“She’s still my Shiro.”
Shiro hates what follows, because she doesn’t know if she’s a prisoner or prison warden. Kuina and Ryoko both seem to recognize how weird, strange, and bad things are, but Stella and Minku seem more than content to act like they didn’t just storm the castle, stage half a coup, and then start defending her in the middle. They all just float around the castle, the five of them, returning to some strange phantasm of life before Shiro had killed the King and taken the crown.
Shiro holes up in her room first, assuming herself to be the prisoner. Food is brought to her. But when she opens the door she finds no guards stationed, and nobody stops her as she slowly begins wandering further and further away from her room.
She finds Ryoko first, standing at the edge of the lake outside the castle grounds, looking out across the mist it pulls up.
“I don’t know where she is,” Ryoko says.
“I’m not here to speak to her.”
“Then I’ll leave.”
“You’re different.” Ryoko turns to glance at her.
“A tyrant king drove me away from my family and friends. It’s hard to stay young and happy.”
“Yet you’re more confident.”
“I’m good at killing people.”
“I see,” Shiro says. “My apologies.”
“I’d prefer if you didn’t change your tune now,” Ryoko says.
“Of course.”
“Stella forgives you,” she says. “I can’t say I’ll ever be able to, but for her sake I’ll learn to tolerate you.”
“I don’t intend for you to need to,” Shiro says.
Ryoko looks over at her again, then back at the water. She says nothing else.
She finds Kuina next. She’s training. It strikes eerily familiar.
“Watch out,” Kuina says. She runs through a specific set of moves Shiro’s never seen her use before. Unfamiliar to her at all.
“I’ll stand clear,” Shiro says.
Kuina finishes the last move, then turns to look at her. “You’re still here?” She says.
“I’m not sure if I’m a prisoner or not.”
“You aren’t,” Kuina says.
“Is it your place to decide?”
“You haven’t spoken to Stella.”
“You’ve dropped her surname.”
Kuina resets her foot position for another set, grinning. “You really haven’t spoken to her.”
“You take satisfaction in knowing something I don’t.”
“Immensely. I’ve wanted to get a one up on you for years. Now get gone.”
Shiro hesitates.
“You’ll get no sympathy from me. I don’t care what Minku says about you.”
She wanders away from Kuina, only to run right into Minku, sitting far enough away, reading a book.
“Ah! Shiro,” she beams, pats the space beside her. Shiro doesn’t sit. “How are you?”
“Bad.”
“Didn’t sleep well?”
“What will you do with me?”
Minku frowns. “Why would we do something with you?”
“I don’t have time-”
“Okay! Sorry.” Minku reaches out, grabbing at Shiro’s arm to stop her. “You are technically still King, though.”
“I wear no crown.”
“A king is a king without a crown. And the answer is that you’re avoiding Stella, so nothing happens until then.”
“I’m not avoiding her. I haven’t seen her.”
“You didn’t leave your room for a few days.”
“I thought I was a prisoner.”
“Well,” Minku shrugs. “She really wants to talk to you.”
“I’m not sure I’m ready for that.”
“So you were avoiding her!” Minku grins like she’s caught Shiro in some kind of lie.
Shiro shakes her head. Starts moving to leave again.
“You don’t have a choice,” Minku calls after. “You’ve gotta.”
Eventually it becomes clear that nothing will happen until she speaks to her; that the five of them will remain in this nebulous state here until she does.
Stella is in the throne room, staring at the throne. The door thuds to a shut behind Shiro.
“This is familiar,” Stella says.
“Don’t say that.”
“Too soon? One minute I’m speaking to King Shiori,” she turns, smiling at Shiro. “The next there’s a knife in my back.” Shiro looks away. “Everyone thinks they were the one who killed me. Was that your design?”
“They told me to do it. It absolved me publicly of guilt, since murdering the King was an act of retaliation. Nobody else was there to refute it.”
“Absolve you of public guilt, but they didn’t think of how Shiro you’d be about it.”
“That’s-”
“My failures are your failures and your successes are mine.”
“Yet you couldn’t take credit for this one.”
“I’m content with only my genuine successes and failures.”
“We’ve always existed for one end.”
“But it wasn’t our design.”
“We should still exist for it.”
“Shiro-”
“Forgive me, my lady, but I cannot abide this. I don’t care that you’re content to forgive me. I’ve done unforgivable things.”
“I’m not your lady.”
“You are.”
“I am not. You killed your lady. Stella Siegfeld is dead.”
“And then- but you-”
“Do you love me?” Stella asks instead.
“Of course.”
“Not just the heir to the Siegfeld family. Not just the Prince you’ve made up in your head. Do you love my faults? Do you love them without expectation that I will rise above them one day?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Will you love me if I fail everything? If I’m never good enough?”
“That’s-”
“The me in front of you right now is heir to nothing. And, same as the heir to the Siegfeld name you served, she’s spoiled, and likes sneaking away during festivals to listen to the local musicians and storytellers. She only remembers things with considerable effort. She’s not exceptional at anything.” Shiro’s fist clenches at her side. “I’m asking you to pledge nothing to me. But if I’m heir to nothing, would you give your crown up for me to take it? Or would you strike me down like anyone else?”
“The crown is yours,” Shiro says. “Our families prepared you to take it.”
“And I failed.”
“I usurped your rightful place.”
“My failure. What do you think is supposed to happen now?”
“You kill me,” Shiro says. “The forgotten Prince kills the tyrant King. It is-”
Stella pulls out a wooden chair at one of the large tables arranged in front of the throne, steps onto it so she’s taller than Shiro. Places the the side of her hand on Shiro’s head, a gentle karate chop.
“My lady?”
“No.” She steps onto the table, then spins to face Shiro again. “Your lady is dead. I am just Stella. And you are just Shiro. Why should I kill you, for our unpleasant names?”
She holds out her hand.
“In no other life,” she says. “Will we be allowed this happiness. Duty and name will bind us to never speak honestly with each other. To never love each other as we should.” She smiles. “Maybe in no other life will you find the strength to strike me down and take what you deserve. Maybe in no other life will I be strong enough to speak honestly to you. If we can only do these things here, let us do them here. Take my hand, Shiro.”
Shiro hesitates.
“Be with me.”
Shiro grabs her hand, using the chair and Stella’s pulling to hop onto the table. Stella’s smile gets wider. Her grip doesn’t loosen on Shiro’s hand.
“Let’s live beyond our deaths. We’ve both failed, so we both walk away. To any future we want.”
“Any?”
“The world is ours.”
“What is that ideal future for you?” Stella laughs at the question, then pauses. She thinks about it seriously.
“It would be this.” She says. “It would be late, and we’d both be out, lying under stars, with nowhere to be. You’d tell me about the constellations, and I’d retain too little of it, and you’d be slightly exasperated, but it would be lighthearted. And I’d know a bit more than I was letting on, because I love hearing you talk more than anything. And maybe we doze off like that, lying under that night sky, just you and I together. I would fall asleep first, and you raise our hands up to your mouth and think about kissing them and don’t, because you’re afraid.”
“We’re holding hands?”
“We do it without meaning to. We don’t kiss until years later. You get good news and I’m so excited on your behalf I kiss you, and it controls your life for weeks, not knowing what it means. I don’t remember I’ve done it.”
“Turning yourself into a character from those romances you read.”
“I finally confront you about how distant you act and you tell me what I did, and I know. And I tell you I know. And it seems the most seamless thing in the world. And we wonder why we waited so long. But we’re happy we figured it out in the end.”
“Is that really your ideal future?”
“Sometimes I used to dream you’d take me away from our families, and we’d start over somewhere new with nothing. You were in all of my ideal futures, you know that?”
“I didn’t,” Shiro says quietly.
“What’s yours, then?”
Shiro blanks. “For you to be King,” she says. She expects it to upset Stella.
She laughs again. Lifts Shiro’s hand and places her knuckles to her lips.
“And beside that?” She asks. “I’ll pledge myself to you,” she says. “I’ll be your knight, if that’s your will.”
“My dream.”
“Any dream. And you can think about it, if you’d like. We never let you dream before, my family.”
“I’ve dreamed.”
“For yourself.”
“I couldn’t-”
Stella lifts herself onto her toes, placing her palm on the top of Shiro’s head. “You can,” she says. “And we’ll have all the time in the world for it.”
It’s snowing. A log cabin sits in a clearing in a forest, picturesque in its design, a small plume of smoke escaping from the chimney. Inside, Stella sits at a table, wrapped in a large blanket, intently reading a large tome in front of her, pausing occasionally to jot something on a piece of paper, one of many haphazardly strewn across the table.
The door pushes open, and Shiro pushes in, stamping her feet before pulling her boots off. Tucked under one arm is a log, chopped into small pieces for the fire.
The snow falls in large, slow flakes. White, overcast skies give the timeless implication of winter.
“Is it all set?” Stella asks.
“Mm,” Shiro hums, pulling off her glasses and cleaning them before placing them back on.
“I’m almost done.”
“Take your time.” She pulls off her scarf, placing it on a wooden peg.
“How would you feel if I cooked dinner?”
“Cooked what?”
“I don’t know yet. I want to try.”
“Do you want help?”
“Probably a bit.” Stella pushes the book closed, standing up. “Done,” she announces.
“I can help,” Shiro says, stepping further into the room and placing the wood near the fire.
“Perfect.” Stella beams. “Oh, Ryoko’s coming by tomorrow,” Stella says, messily coalescing the papers into a pile.
Shiro stifles a groan. “Why?”
“Well, it was her or Minku, and considering you still haven’t apologized, I thought it was the better option.”
“Apologized?”
“Yes! I told you to send a letter apologizing!”
“For what?”
Stella freezes. “You can’t say that to her! I understand offering advice, but you can’t just tell someone they have rocks for brains.”
“I didn’t say that specifically.”
“It was the effect of it. You have to apologize. Draft the letter tonight. Kuina’s mad too.”
Shiro hesitates. Really considers caving. It would make Stella happy. It would solve the situation easily.
“I will not apologize,” she says. “I’m certain Minku takes it in little regard, and I care very little about the feelings of a thin-skinned king.”
“Shiro!” Stella snaps, glaring at her. “Augh!” she squeezes her eyes shut, stamping her feet on the ground childishly.
“I won’t simply bow to your will.”
“But I’m right!”
“And I was right about the extra serving of stew last night, yet you saw fit to ignore me and suffer.”
Stella crosses her arms. “I’m not speaking to you,” she says.
“This is childish. It’s merely an ideological difference.”
“Well I’m proud of you too, but that doesn’t mean I have to speak to you.”
Shiro smiles, reaching across the table to align the pile better. Stella huffs, so Shiro moves over to the fireplace next, placing another of the logs she chopped on.
“You could at least say you want me to speak to you!” Stella whines.
“I’ll offer you no satisfaction.”
“Jerk.”
“You’ll live.”
“Is it very cold?” Stella asks instead.
“It’s not warm. Why?”
“The clouds might clear up by tonight.”
“We have extra layers you can wear.”
“We can wear.”
“It wasn’t so bad for me when I went out.”
“Shiro.”
“Very well. I will overheat for your comfort.”
“Shiro.”
“And I thought you weren’t speaking to me.”
“I missed not talking to you.”
Shiro clears her throat. “It was barely ten seconds.”
“Ten seconds too long.”
“And are you going to demand I say this back?”
“No.” Stella sits beside Shiro, in front of the fire, leaning her head on her shoulder. “I know you feel the same already,” she says. Shiro lets it lay.