Wizard's Wish - (Kinda) Yandere SGE x reader

Chapter 68: The Scorpion and the Frog

(Home today with a migraine. Don't really have anything else to do than write, might be another chapter today.)

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For the next week, Tedros was a ghost.
No one saw him during the days– not in the house, nor on the moors, or near the oak grove– and no one had the slightest clue if or where he slept. Guinevere fretted her son would starve, until Y/n gently suggested they leave a basket of food on the porch for him in the evenings. By the morning, it was always gone.

To Y/n, his disappearing act was at once a terror and a relief. On the one hand, the sun was getting smaller every day, leaving the moors streaked in a permanent pink and purple sunset. The world was barreling to an end and the prince who could save it with a kiss was nowhere to be found.
And yet, it also meant for the first time in weeks, Y/n didn't have to think about that prince. The two of them had become inextricable, the way she and Agatha were, the way she and Sophie had once been. Every thought she'd had these past few months had been consumed with Tedros: worrying about Tedros, fighting with Tedros, making up with Tedros– Tedros, Tedros, Tedros, until she'd run herself ragged living life from both their points of view. With the prince gone, she suddenly remembered she was a full human without being with him. And indeed, if being with Agatha alone was her ending to come... then now was the time to start preparing for it.

By the sixth day, she and the group had settled into a routine, like a ragtag family. Hort spent his days with Lancelot doing chores around the farm. From morning until night, they'd milk the cows, till the vegetable garden, gather eggs from chickens and shear sheep, bathe the horses, and manage a frisky goat named Fred who chased any animal of female persuasion halfway across the moors. Caked in sweat, smelling of hay and manure, Hort seemed elated to be useful to such a virile man, and they looked almost like father and son with their oily black hair, puffed-up chests, and swaggering gaits.
Guinevere, meanwhile, had the house to manage, which she requested Agatha to help her with. All that included an endless amount of laundry, sewing, cooking, and cleaning on account of the extra guests. The two didn't seem to talk much, Guinevere said she just needed a distraction from her thoughts, but she gladly helped Agatha, who was not particularly good at any of the tasks, but was hard working and quite helpful.

Which left Y/n and Sophie.
For the first time since they lost their Ever After, the two girls didn't have a boy between them. Trapped on these heaths with nothing to do, it was like they were back in sheltered Gavaldon, with a world of princes and fairy tales far far away.
While Hort slept on the couch in the den, the three girls had to share a bed in the small guest room. Each morning, they'd have bacon and eggs with Hort, Lancelot, and Guinevere, do their best to tidy up before Tedros' mother shooed them out and took Agatha to help her, and then Sophie spent the rest of the morning walking the moors, reading books together, had private picnics, or riding horses together.
The first few weeks, they seemed to have forgotten how to be friends at all. At night, while Y/n slept hugging Agatha, Sophie just rolled to her side of the bed, and they both murmured something half-hearted. During walks, picnics, or rides, their stilted conversation revolved around what might be for lunch, the abundance of farm animals, and the weather (which given the magical location, was invariably the same.)

After what Agatha had told Y/n about Lancelot's conversation, she now didn't wear her ring anymore, instead putting it in the bag on her waist. But Sophie still wore hers. She was more on edge now, constantly peeking at her ring and Tedros' name tattooed beneath it. Whenever Lancelot crossed their path, Sophie pretended to fix and fingernail or adjust her shoe, avoiding eye contact. Sometimes, Y/n would catch her tossing in her sleep, murmuring disconnected phrases: "Don't listen to him"... "black-swan gold"..."hearts don't lie," before Sophie would wake up shaky and red faced and seal herself in the bathroom.
Y/n didn't know how to bring up the topics of the rings, not sure if she even should. And she still couldn't fully get comfortable around her old friend. First of all it became awkward when she realized that her crush on Sophie might have never ended. But also because the ring had made her convinced that letting Sophie end with Tedros was the Good thing to do– first, because Sophie would destroy their rings and the School Master; and second because if she doubted her love, was that fair to Tedros, was it best to let go of him earlier?