The Last of the Miras

LIX | Go-Jū Kyū

Standing on the ceramic podium, both the silver haired royal official and the beige haired princess faced one another as the latter took the matter in her own hands since she was already given the signal by the former.

Here it goes. 

"The desert rose blooms, 'twas planted and placed underneath the earth's womb, hidden along with love's forbidden taste." The young woman's voice slightly shook as she felt the intensity of the man's stare.

"Be careful of the maiden's gloom as her knight knows not of her impending doom. Vowed to protect her he did so, yet he caught himself falling for her too."

Although she finished saying the first half of the riddle, her hands crossed over in front as she fiddled her fingers together. Carrying the weight of her companion's stare which was getting more intense as she gathered her wits together, the young adult's resolve to finish through the slight tension became more firm as she continued.

"The prophesized future has come; alas, the loyal loving knight can do naught." Despite being occupied on telling the companion before her, the man himself felt become slightly tense as he heard of the specific first few starting phrases of the riddle's last half. 

"His desire for his mistress he can only suppress as a guardian's prayer can only do less."

Hearing the following part of the riddle, the silver haired man in his late thirties stood ever still as he found himself worrying about his only son.

Why am I feeling like this? He thought to himself as his previously searing ruby eyes toward his present companion slightly dimmed and glossed over while continually hearing the following content of the riddle.

Somehow his feeling of being disturbed grew more and more as he was on all ears, attentively remembering the rest of the riddle. If it was not his first time hearing of the riddle himself, he swore that the woman's mother before him had already told him of the riddle herself. But he found himself at a loss since it was all hidden to the darkest corners of his mind after knowing for the fact that the woman who first found himself dedicated his work into would finally leave her post as queen, suddenly regretting not studying the message itself. It was as if he now came into a realization that the riddle itself was his former liege's parting words for him.

"Watch her slowly fade away within the arms of another man, knight as he can only be but," the beige haired young woman sighed as if she was the narrator of a sad story. "Bury his love for her 'til his own decay." 

Bury his love for her 'til his own decay.

The man's ruby eyes slightly shook as he could not help but mutter the last few parts of the riddle under his breath. Even after almost two decades, Atreus' guard in which he learned to build around himself ever since the departure of Alabasta's former queen regent to Altaria for her marriage with the kingdom's crown prince crumbled at the realization behind the retelling of the riddle by her own progeny.

Athena-san. He thought to himself as if the woman's name he was saying would hear him call out for her.

You really know how to reach out to me, still trying to be one of the dearest friend you considered me to be despite knowing of my affections towards you. 

Sighing to himself as he gave up closing his walls, seemingly ending his own self-agony. It was his own way of accepting the reality that the woman he had long bore deep feelings of tenderness, finally gone from his world and the physical world itself.

The beige haired eighteen year old princess was silent as she had long finished telling the royal advisor about the riddle in which her mother had told her to do. Noting that the man himself went silent, the monarch's eyes turned towards his face as she searched through his silent yet thoughtful expression.