At Hero's Bay

Dark Water

𝐇𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲 𝐑𝐞𝐩𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐬 𝐈𝐭𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟

𓄹 𝐊𝐑𝐎𝐖 𓄼

Kill him, were the only words Krow heard after Gardenia E'rya saved him from falling in the pit.

Gardenia...

It takes him a while between the instance of relief and recollection to realize that Gardenia herself—the same intolerable yeshi—had saved him. His mind wanders in distant memory, finding faults and similarities in the state of the ruinous palace before him. Fire, blood, and chaos—it was almost grounding to see those elements again, but the Slaughter of the Taevern just couldn't seem to hold a candle to how things were now. The field of infernos was not as merciless, not as quick; the bodies around him were charred and spraying black cinders against his flushed cheeks. The screaming and roaring had all but ceased into an eerie and ominous silence.

A star fell, Krow could just barely remember, but it was unlikely. The harsh light of what was so revered on his planet rendered the ruins in a state of perpetual darkness. It wasn't a star and neither was it the eye of their old gods. Krow does wince, however, as Gardenia strides forward and from his side—her hands open and wide, collecting every last morsel of light that did not come from the pyre. Her palms twisted and bent this garish flux of energy, and Krow fears such an impure light for another second as the palace shakes again.

Brutality did not run in his veins like Y/N's did, for he was far less than a coward as he yielded a faux thirst for warfare. He was meek, broken. And Gardenia didn't at all find it surprising when she saw his revolt and alert as she had used her abilities to blow the pyre into ashen smithereens. There were still bodies there, Krow thinks as he clamps a hand over his mouth, feeling the flood of iron and bile rise in the back of his throat. Heels click onto the ruins once more, and Krow finds himself inadvertently and shakily following her.

With his widened and evergreen eyes, Krow tried to find any glimpse of Y/N's presence amidst this madness, coughing through the smoke that burned and danced upon his skin. He had hoped that the farther he pushed through the fumes, he would find her by chance. However, much to his chagrin, Gardenia was there—she was always there. Her smile buries the Dogs and Hounds who have stopped howling in the night, and Krow decides to discard his furs and leave them to burn, too. What remains in the air is a single, haunting drone.

Things weren't supposed to turn out this way, Krow thought, his eyes flickering past the wisps of red and orange to find a silhouette lingering beyond the pyre, this wasn't supposed to happen.

His heartbeat pounded vehemently behind the prison of his ribcage as he finally found her with someone—a regal being with a crown of black and white—whilst crying in their arms. He feels some measure of relief as his thoughts reel back, barely recognizing the figure as Y/N's own father; only with Amwren Ramses, Y/N would have no issue hugging him so quickly. He expectantly waits for a moment to let Gardenia join them, even despite her and Y/N's scorn for each other, but instead her wrist flicks, and the light seems to swallow him whole.

Krow is no longer in control.

No...no! Wait! No! Let me see her!

Kill him.

Those words again. Now he really knows where they're coming from—what she truly wants. How could he not have known? Gardenia's hands work like pulling strings on a puppet; Krow follows each tug and prise without a word. His hands move as her's does, but while it is not a white and impure light that surges across his palms, a green beacon shines and seizes the entirety of the king. Krow is silent, but he knows words could not capture his horrified defiance towards all this—Gardenia was tired of him talking, anyway.