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"Cherri" She repeated herself.
The princess stare at Apo again with her still beatiful red eye, tears still clinging to her cheeks, and as her broken sword still laid at her feet, in all honestly Apo hadn't meant to break it, but Cherri just wasn't understanding her at all, and well... That was the best way to make her understand. Even if it was a quite harsh method to do so.
"We can't go home." They repeated as if that would fix everything. As if this time Cherri would understand without Apo needing to say the truth. As if she could keep the secret forever.
Cherri just angrily pushed her back, she was so much stronger than before, they noted, and wow maybe she should have stopped this as soon as she had received the news from Soluna but... They couldn't make themselves to do so when she saw every day how much Cherri was loving to train to be able to fight as much as a knight. How much happier her lady was by training physically than by doing unfruitful magic exercises.
"What do you mean we can't!?" She asked once again, angry and almost growling at the knight. "I've learned how to fight. I know how to defend myself. I. can. help." She made a point to push her broken sword with her feet as if to make her point more than clear. "I don't care if I have to go alone and without my sword, I will fight for my kingdom and do honor to what being a Fire really means!"
Apo tried to not explode back, they had been trying to treat the princess as delicately as possible for the longest time but... It's just wasn't viable, it really wasn't. And she was tired, they had been trying to be keeping this for so long, but when they had been told everything the death of the Prince was still too fresh to throw this into the princess' hands too, it just hadn't been an option and then she just had kept pushing it back more and more and... They had grown tired.
So even if they know better, she still answers as she does. And they still do feel guilty as soon as they shout back angrier than Cherri has been this whole time. "It's not like there is a fucking kingdom to go back to!"
It was as if a needle could fall between them, Apo doesn't think it has ever been this silent between them ever since they hold the funeral for the Prince so long ago, it really is palpable how weighted their words are. Just how much of an impact she has made, it feels as even as if the whole kindgom was holding their silence in expectation of how Cherri would respond.
Even so, Cherri is not the same fragile princess she was as they arrived to their current home. "What do you mean?" She sounds hollow, and her face is one of confusion and disbelief. But it has a certain hardness to it. A certain anger that's very telling of how hurt she is.
Apo sighs, and looks away. They can not look at Cherri in the eyes as they say this. "The Moon talked to me a couple of nights ago," and even if it took Apo a very good time to decipher what she had been told, she had manage to do it, not enough for it to be helpful, but... She has been holding this information back for almost the whole time she has known. "And it said that Soluna was no longer standing, and that it truly believes your father is not longer on this plane"
"No, no," Cherri broke down slowly, Apo saw her start to panic so slowly, her eye started to cry and her whole body started to tremble, and she started to tug at her arms, the ones still cover in chainmail, because she had push herself to be something that she wasn't so she could help her kingdom... "Apo, you must lie, you-"
It was just with a slight shake of their head that Apokuna make the princess lost it. Just with a simple nonverbal no.
The scream that followed did for sure echo all around the Red and Blue Kingdom, and the princess was soon kneeling on the floor in agony, completly broken at the fact her home was nothign but ash if not another kingdom as a whole. And well, the knight didn't know what else to do than to say what she did for nothing before or after leaving Soluna had prepared her to be in a situation as this one.
"I'm sorry for not stopping you from keeping on training as much as you do." As soon as the words leave their mouth the princess turns with fierce eyes to look at Apo, her eye shine with the fire of a thousand suns.
"You knew?" She asked, her voice half-broken even now. "How long have you know of this?"
Apo was silent knowing this would only make the situation worst but needing to be truthful with her beloved Cherri. "Almost a month, my lady"
Apo would not be able to tell you what happens next, as the only thing she knows is that she blinks as heat hugs her whole body before they wake up to be face to face with Cambam who seem as surprise as them to see her wake up, thought he does offer an explanation as soon as she does. The mage proceeds to explain they found her on the verge of death in the burning house where her and the princess lived in, Katie had said she saw Cherri leave on boat towards the south and that they weren't sure what had happened at all.
Apo knew thought, as even after everything that had happened it was only Apo herself who manage to push the princess to wake up her magic, and maybe they deserve it for witholding information for as much as they did but... Well, they are even now, more literal than not, as over all her wounds the only one that Cam couldn't totally heal was her burn eye, her right eye, the total contrary to Cherri's...
It's okay tho. It's gonna be fine...
Still. Even with all the contradictions to not do as she should, her and Frogue sail away from the Red and Blue Kindgom, and Apo makes a promise that she had made a couple of days ago –after Cherri did the honors of finally knighting her– she would never let her lady go alone, and she will make sure she lived even if it meant giving away her own life.