Chapter Text
“Kris…
“Don’t come back.”
They’ve been thrown out of the dark world. Susie is talking.
“...They could catch the Knight, and…”
Kris says nothing.
“I… I dunno, Kris. Your call.”
Driven forward by an unseen force, Kris maneuvers over to the back door. They stare at it blankly. Susie follows.
“...Why didn’t you tell me there was a back door, dumbass?!” Susie punches Kris in the shoulder, lightly.
She tries the handle.
“...Shit.”
The door is locked. Kris had thrown the key deep into the forest behind the shop before they’d even set foot in the dark world.
“Dunno what I was expecting. You, uh… Don’t have a spare key?”
Kris shakes their head.
Susie sighs. “I guess…” She looks downtrodden. “We… We should…” She shuts her eyes in contemplation, then turns to Kris.
“Let’s walk and talk, ‘k?”
Leaves drift down from bamboo shoots, silhouetted behind a paper screen. A still pool of water sits in front.
Ralsei looks at his reflection. Butler again. But it’s bad, this time. That’s frustrating. He should like this.
Of course he’d be used like a dress-up doll like this. Of course. It's funny to make Ralsei dress up and do stupid things. It's hilarious.
He can’t take it off. It would be rude right now, while everyone around decidedly wants him to wear it.
They’ll be here any moment. Ralsei sighs, and looks through the screen. Gentle leaves, adapting to the winds, accepting the direction they float. They take different paths, but they all reach the ground eventually.
He looks back to the pool, and wishes he hadn’t. Another face is looking at his reflection.
“Hey, Raly.”
Flowery bends over, to meet Ralsei at eye level. Aqua, apparently perched on his head, topples over into the water with a squeal of glee. Flowery pays no mind.
“Having fun?”
Ralsei opts to stay silent. He doesn’t care for pleasantries right now. Not like this.
“I am! I am!” Aqua chimes from the water. She jumps out, utterly soaked. “Seth! Can you give me a ride now? Please?”
“No, Aqua- you’re all soggy- hey!” A voice exclaims in the background.
“You know, Raly,” Flowery continues, allowing the other flowers’ chaos to continue in the background, “if your friends return, they’ll be landing right in Jail.”
“...”
“Perfectly calculated by Seth, in the event they get in through the back door.”
“Uh- um! That’s- right-” Seth chokes out, struggling around with Aqua on their back.
“It’s a good place. Spacious. Plenty of delicious mosses. They’ll be in good hands.”
“Hey- Flowery, shouldn’t this guy be in jail?” They allude in Ralsei’s general direction as best they can as Aqua climbs about.
“Nah. He’s our butler.”
“Don’t we have… Your recruits? To do that??”
“Yeah, but Raly sent them to sleepytown.” A sleeping Floradinn rolls over, sleeptalking praises for Flowery under their breath. “So now he’s the butler. You don’t mind, though, do you, Raly?”
Ralsei says nothing. Only hunches up a little, gazing fiercely into the water. A moment of silence passes, and Flowery checks over his shoulder, back towards the jail.
“So,” he crouches down, looking too closely at Ralsei, “are they coming, or nah?”
“They’ll be here,” Ralsei replies flatly.
“Sure.”
“What? What do you want to hear?”
“I’m only asking, Raly.” Flowery shrugs. “They’re taking their time, huh?”
“It’s not been that long.”
“If you say so.”
Ralsei shuts his eyes and sighs. When Kris and Susie get back, it will be okay.
“Uh… Flowery, they ARE coming back, right?” Seth asks, now apparently Aqua-less.
“How should I know?” Flowery returns to his full height, hands back in pockets. “It’d be a whole deal easier for us if they didn’t.”
“Oh, right. I thought- but, um, it’s… Only, just,” Seth mumbles, stammering slightly. Ralsei thinks he knows why.
“Something the matter, Seth?” He seems completely oblivious, but it probably comes across as accusatory to Seth. They stare back at Flowery with wide eyes, silent for a moment. Then-
“NoactuallyeverythingisfineIdidn’tdoanythingseeyouaroundFlowerybye!”
Seth scampers away up the ladder. Aqua emerges from the pool (when did she get back in there?) and giggles. “Uuu, Seth, wait! Wait for me!” She gives chase, and somehow Ralsei only tenses up more once she’s gone.
“Welp.” Flowery crosses his arms. “Looks like it’s just The Boys.”
Ralsei lets out a grunt of annoyance, and the room goes silent, save for snoring Floradinn. He can feel a pair of eyes on him. Because, of course, Flowery doesn’t let the basic logic of eyelids apply to him.
Scratching at his clothes, Ralsei shuffles uneasily.
“What’s with the frown?” Flowery asks.
“You put me in a butler outfit,” Ralsei retorts.
“Yep!” So nonchalant. So self-satisfied.
…He’s just trying to get a reaction.
Ralsei says nothing. He ignores the bad feelings in his chest, because they, too, are nothing.
“Seemed like a good fit for you.”
Say nothing.
“Since you like serving people, right? You like serving Lightners?”
“Don’t act like you don’t.” Ralsei can’t help himself.
“Of course I live to serve my King, Raly.” Flowery shrugs. “I was only asking. Great for friends to be on the same page.”
“We’re not friends.”
“But the Lightners you serve unwaveringly. Those are your friends?” He’s still smiling.
Say nothing.
Say nothing.
Say nothing.
“...Why are you still here?”
Flowery poses. “I’ve got to be ready to jail your buddies in jail.”
“Just leave the bars down and they’ll be trapped upon arrival.”
“Hey, great idea. You should be on Team Flowery.”
“Don’t you have better places to be?” Ralsei was putting far too much mental effort into remaining relatively civil.
“Hm.” Flowery tilts his head to one side. “They’re really taking their time, aren’t they?” Ralsei steals a glance towards him, and catches him checking his wrist thoughtfully.
“You- aren’t wearing a watch-!”
“Don’t need one to see that the sun setting’s. Maybe… they really did take their old man’s advice, and went home?” Flowery opens one eye to provide a taunting wink.
“No,” Ralsei says bluntly.
“Well, I’ve got to go catching up with Gorey. I’m so confident they’re not coming, I’ll even leave jail unattended! Go wild. Eat the mosses. I won’t tell anyone. Ciao!”
Ralsei only supplies a blank stare that tracks Flowery as he exits up into the castle.
Some peace. Finally.
He waits.
He waits for the heroes to return.
One by one, the Floradinns wake up, and take their leave, forgetting why they were there in the first place.
Ralsei watches his reflection on the pool’s surface.
…At some point, he takes off the butler outfit. It… It isn’t the right size for him, is all.
(It is.)
He knows the prophecy by heart. He knows everything that lies ahead of the heroes. Far too much. Sometimes, he wishes he didn’t know. It’s selfish - he has to know, it’s his purpose to know the prophecy, to follow it, but - it makes everything difficult. Knowing the ending before he’d ever begun. And, yet, he still finds surprises. Some good. Some bad.
Sometimes, in the past, he'd seek comfort in the events ahead. No matter what, the prophecy will march forward.
Until now, he’d never considered it could march forward without him.
There’s nothing that suggests he has to be present for upcoming events to occur.
A weak, trembling part of his chest is scared.
Ralsei kneels down, and begins to pray. The words etched into his being flow off his tongue, always threatening to catch in his throat but just barely making it past. He pleads, with all he can, to the Angel. To keep Kris and Susie safe. To keep them in the light. He asks for their happiness, for their joy and laughter, for strength on the path that lays ahead of them.
And he whispers, quietly, imperceptibly, a promise to follow his role.
Satisfied, now, faced with his own reflection in the water once more, he observes the way his horns curl from the top of his head. How his face shifts in the slight disturbances of water, how the lighting in the room reflects off his glasses, off his eyes. There's a distant melancholy to it.
And then there’s a new noise in the room, because of course Flowery can’t leave him alone. Ralsei doesn’t reward him with his attention.
“...If you’re hungry, the café is right upstairs. Green will fix something up for you. On the house.”
Ralsei doesn’t shift his gaze, but he feels Flowery’s smile anyway. He stays fixated on the pool until he hears Flowery leave.
Green. Probably the chef from the diner earlier. Making friends sounds nice. Really nice. But he must greet Kris and Susie when they get back.
Last time he wasn’t there right away…
…He remains in the castle basement.
Staring into the pool.
Staring at his reflection.
He feels a disturbance. Deep in his heart, this time, in the flow of darkness. Kris and Susie are in Castle Town.
They won’t find him. He’s right where they left him.
He wants to go to them. Rendezvous and figure out what to do next. Make everything go the way it’s meant to.
He can’t.
…He sits down, back against the pool.
Flowery returns yet again. Ralsei braces for another voice clip, but his ears are met with silence. Only some minor shuffling around the room. Flowery approaches, but before he enters Ralsei’s vision, he’s gone again. Turning to catch him, Ralsei only finds a plate of food left on the floor. A slice of cake, a rainbow of fruit, a few sandwiches. Something in his stomach twists.
He takes a few bites, but something wells up behind his eyes. He doesn’t want to cry right now. Not sat on the floor eating cake. So he stops.
Instead, Ralsei draws his legs close to his chest and wraps his arms around them. He shoves his head into his knees and grips his fur tightly.
…He does eat the food, eventually, slowly. Nibble by nibble. He doesn’t have much of an appetite now.
Someone enters again. Ralsei almost sighs, but stops himself. It isn’t Flowery this time.
“They’re still not here?” Seth asks. Ralsei shakes his head gently.
“...Alright.” They adjust their glasses and stand awkwardly for a moment or two, clutching onto their notebook. “You don’t… HAVE to stay down here if you don’t want. Uh…” Ralsei faces them fully. “If Kris and, the other one, show up - it’ll be hard to miss them. They’re… really hard to not notice. So you’d probably hear about it immediately.”
…They’re right, but doing anything feels uneasy right now.
Seth turns to leave. “Uh, hey. Flowery sucks sometimes.” They say it with so much affection, so much love. But the words make the corners of Ralsei’s mouth tick up ever so slightly regardless.
“...but I think he’s worried about you.” Seth leaves, back up the ladder.
Ralsei lets a little more time pass. Just in case.
Then, slowly, recollecting his thoughts, plastering on his regular pleasant smile, gathering his empty plate, he climbs up into the castle.