Prelude: Servant, Princess

A long time ago—perhaps to say long wasn't the best choice of diction, maybe in a different time would be a better choice—the puppets weren't puppets.

They'd been humans, living quiet lives of peace and security that they would have never thought been disturbed.

He remembered days of hunger and tiredness, however—he'd been unfortunate enough to be born into a peasant family, where his parents were too busy working to even give him a single glance—and he didn't mind. If one was never shown affection, then one would never learn what it felt like and it was fine with him.

He'd been quiet and worked like he was supposed to—he thought we was being a good child, but then the news that he was Xerneas' host had come and turned his life into a mess of a tornado that honestly overwhelmed him.

They'd—he would call them his parents, but there was never much of an emotional attachment between them and him—jumped at the chance at the money offered by the royal palace; the idea of having so much that it would tide them over for the rest of their lives.

I really wasn't their son in the end, he'd thought as the contract was signed and sealed—but only a small tinge of sadness had worked its way through his mind as he experienced his first time being sold.

Only a mere day had passed before he was brought in front of the king—and with slight regret playing on his lips, the man had apologised for his actions—not that he cared, but he remained apathetic nonetheless—and informed him of his new post.

"You are to be the Princess' new servant," he had said, and he'd went on to explain himself—about how all newcomers, regardless of their standing and connections with the Pokemon world—"and her new playmate. My...daughter has been rather lonely as of late, and I am unable to accompany her. My wife is unfortunately deceased. Therefore—"

He didn't need to listen any further. His new "job" had sounded interesting—besides, he had been used to working. Cleaning a castle and entertaining a spoilt princess seemed simple enough—he was eleven. He wouldn't have been able to mess anything up even if he tried.

But he had been surprised—and he'd been pretty sure he'd never felt quite the same before—when he'd finished the chores for the day and stepped into the princess' room.

Rinne Izosaki had been different from what he had been expecting. He hadn't been sure what to expect—just that he had thought her to be someone more arrogant and stuck-up; one that would look down on his peasant status just like other members of nobility.

She had been friendly, however—she was by no means warm and kind like the other children he knew, but she at least knew how to socialise—and the smile on her face was sincere.

He had no idea how to start a conversation. They'd stayed in silence for a few long minutes—then, he'd asked what she would've like to do in a quiet voice, inclining his head to the ground in respect—but Rinne had other ideas. A laugh had came out of her mouth, sweet and innocent and not caring about what had just said.

"I am eleven as well," she'd pronounced as she dragged him to the bed that seemed much too high for her small frame, the frills of her gown rustling against the floor as a grin split across her face. "Do not treat me as a child, My father requested for you because I am alone all day—I would like nothing better than to talk."

Is that even a job...? Gingerly, he moved so that he was at the edge of the bed—he couldn't dirty the princess' things, that would get him in trouble—and gulped, not knowing if he was doing the right thing—but he was only supposed to make Rinne happy, and if talking to her worked, then it would have to do.

"So..." he cast his gaze downwards—Rinne's eyes were just so bright and hopeful and he felt so inferior under her innocuous stare—but the young princess was having none of his antics. She moved to pull him closer—he guessed that it was so that he wasn't balancing off the object in such a precarious fashion—and he opened his mouth to speak. "How has your day been, Princess?"

A laugh fell from the child's mouth, and her lips curved into a playful smirk as she formed a reply. "How has your day been?"

⚔ ∰ ⚔

Rinne wasn't bad.

That had been his conclusion at the end of his first day at work, and it had stayed that way for the next day, and the day after that—and throughout each steady year that passed by in the castle.

He'd developed a sort of routine with the girl—every day, he would visit her room after finishing his chores, and they'd just talk. They would talk about how their day had gone—it was rather uneventful on his side, however, but he surprised her with the occasional story.

Sometimes, they would take a walk and escape the confines of her room—they were never allowed far, however, and only the garden and the long corridors that her sprawling house possessed were available; but they'd once escaped into the city and spent several long hours there, Rinne buying whatever she took interest in and joyfully dumping gifts into her friend's arms.

Akoni wouldn't have denied that he felt a little out of place—he was supposed to be a servant, yet here he was taking a stroll with royalty—but he enjoyed it, and as long as the princess enjoyed it too, then he supposed it was alright.

They had been fifteen then—and as Rinne had made a childish request for him to shift his status from her friend to her partner—he couldn't help but agree when he'd seen the look in her eyes.

He had almost been happy being away from his parents—not quite, there had always been a lingering sense of guilt that would drag him down from time to time, but they'd never been significant in his life anyway—but it was almost too happy.

Like there had been a veil that hung over them and didn't dare to reveal the true darkness that lurked behind their ignorant facades.

⚔ ∰ ⚔

The first sign came when the king had passed away. It had been shocking news—he'd gone quietly, consumed by an illness that his daughter never did know of—and he wasn't sure how the girl would take it.

He was worried—worried about how she would react—but all she did was ask to be left on her own for a few days, and he thus assumed that she would be strong enough to handle her grief by herself. He was proven wrong, though, when one of the maids stopped him in the hallway and told him to check on the princess—that she was scared, and that the princess had been acting strange.

It was natural that he was concerned about the condition of his beloved—and he ignored her order, slipping into her room on a late evening and watching as the blue-haired girl went about her life, not daring to say anything even though he knew that she could tell he was there.

She grew tired of what he was doing, and her mind made an eventual snap at the boy—"If you're going to watch me, at least be more discreet about it!"—and she sighed, beckoning him to enter and motioning for him to take a seat.

"Rinne." His voice was firm at first—yet, it wavered when he saw the look in her eyes. It was the same icy blue as usual, but it contained a harshness that he hadn't seen before—one that seemed to dull her vision and drench the former warmth of her eyes in a fine layer of acid.

"Do not call me that." He jerked with a start—he wasn't expecting that. She had asked for him to call her by her name ever since the first day they'd met. "I am your superior, Akoni—but since we are so close—" the toxic syrup in her voice made him reel—"I supposed I can accept the name. You should be lucky."

He frowned, glancing around the room with a disturbed expression on his face. "Rinne, are you alright?" Seeing that it would be best to act like her servant and not her beloved, he bowed, keeping his gaze on the ground as he spoke. "You do not seem like your usual self."

"There is no need to be formal with me if it ails you so," the princess replied with a murmur. She'd gotten closer to him without him even noticing—and with a flick of her wrist, the girl tilted his head up so that he could stare into her cerulean irises.

"I do not see anything wrong with me," she muttered, a smile blooming on her face—but it was one that was devoid of any emotion at all. It was like she was smiling just for the sake of it—and it hurt to stare at such a twisted expression.

He gestured to the object that she'd been fiddling with before he came. "What is that, then?"

"Oh, the chess board?" She raised an eyebrow, running her fingers over the sculpted ivory as she spoke. "It's just to pass time. I do love playing chess—when you think about it, all these little pieces are so insignificant and powerless in their own way. They are just like the humans I now lord over."

Akoni's throat went dry, and he took a step back from the girl he loved—what had become of her? She'd mentioned before that she loved humanity with all her heart and that her subjects were her equals—"Rinne, what are you even saying?"

"Ah. I suppose I have gotten into another one of my rambles," she apologised. Her voice was sweet; unsettling, and she drew her hand away from the black-and-white set. "Never mind. I must be getting tired. Say, Akoni, I would like to get some rest. Would you mind leaving?"

As a servant, he was unable to do anything—but as her partner, he grew increasingly anxious by the second. He nodded, exiting and shutting the door behind him with an immeasurable quickness; that place suffocated him more with each moment and he wanted nothing more than to escape.

Since when did I think of that place as a prison...? The look in Rinne's eyes shook him to the core—it was clear that this wasn't the girl he'd served for the past five years; wasn't the girl whom he'd fallen in love with.

He thought that it was just a phase. That the princess was just depressed and he should give her more time to recover from her father's passing—but it stayed. Five months had passed, and she had only gotten worse and worse.

"Humans are my playthings," she would say one morning, icy optics slanted in boredom as she played chess against an imaginary opponent. "It is almost tiring seeing them."

It scared him to see the princess like that—she'd gone from someone so loving and bright to someone who regarded her subjects with little more than a backward glance and a few words of cold isolation—and it was clear that she wasn't the child he had grown up with.

She was growing bored. She was growing tired of the world, as if it was beneath her and couldn't amuse her any further, and it was evident through her actions—she acted as if she was on a higher platform than anyone else, and the news soon circulated from the interiors of palace walls to the openness of the city.

Some said that she was cursed by some Ghost-type that seeked revenge on the royal family—and others whispered about her having becoming twisted and insane from the king's death. Akoni could see the latter being true, but it dawned on him that Rinne still had some trace of her former personality left in her.

"You are growing thinner," she would note with worry after one of her spiels. "There is no need to fuss over my condition. I am fine, Akoni."

He would make haste to nod and come along as she suggested that they talk as usual, that they go out into the city or garden and have fun—but she would soon snap back to her former state. She was especially nice towards him—and he soon found that he was the only person whom she would treat as her equal.

And the realisation hit. It was as if there were two split personalities of her that seemed to have manifested—and the twisted, sadistic side of her reared its ugly head more often.

But he didn't say anything—a small part of him feared for what she would do, but he wanted to cherish the small time where he could know the girl as herself—and that was when she was with him. He was the only person left who still hoped that she could be fixed, and he could do nothing but have faith in her—it seemed that not losing hope was the best decision.

She gave him a sort of mutual respect too—and they stayed like that for two years, with the princess descending further into her state of mental insanity and the servant only being able to watch from the sidelines.

The citizens called her evil. They called her a witch, a sadist, someone insane who wasn't suited to lead the city. Yet, he continued believing—because he had seen the side of her that she'd shown when she was a child. Some foolish part caused him to think that that Rinne would come back.

They shunned him when he traversed the streets; called him names when he entered a public shop—and it broke his heart to hear the word that evil princess' servant crossing his mind from some particular passerby that he didn't bother to remember the name of.

Still, if she was to be considered evil now, he was still her servant. He would stay by her side no matter what—even if he was a servant of evil, he wouldn't give up on her.

After all, he was her servant—and servants were supposed to be loyal to their master.

⚔ ∰ ⚔

"What do you mean?" Hands gripping and wreathing into the crinkled fabric of her gown—so much that they were paling, eyes wide and too shocked to generate any traces of tears—and her knees trembled from underneath her dress. "What do you mean he is dead?"

The servant—he wasn't quite as high-ranked as Akoni, but he was still working under her—bowed her head, backing away and cowering under her steel-hard stare. "His body was found yesterday," he mumbled, voice muted and muffled from the reluctance in his voice. "He was pronounced dead early today, your Highness—"

Her voice was icy has she replied. "He was gone for two months, and you return to tell me that he is dead? What are you talking about?"

Glancing around—as if trying to look for a way out to his doom that never existed—the man bit his lip in anxiety. "A funeral is being held today," he tried to continue, pretending that her outburst never happened. "But before that, I heard that someone wants to talk to you. He is waiting outside the pa—"

She interrupted him, muttering an order to go back to his room—and her blue eyes were glassy, the only emotions bubbling beneath a barely constrained surface being a torrent of pent-up fury at the world—how dare it let Akoni die?

The girl forced her way outside, demanding for the visitor—and she came face-to-face with a stranger, black hair ruffled by the wind and cyan eyes glinting at her with a sorrowful expression on his face. He was tall—that was one of the first things she noticed about him—and the next thing she saw was the lifeless figure in his arms.

Her breath hitched as she caught sight of the redhead, eyes closed and bringing a false sense of serenity to his form—and she rushed forward, anxious to do something to bring him back—but an unknown force caused her to slide to a stop, and she looked up to see a red barrier before her diffuse into the air.

"Xerneas is dead." The man's voice was quiet—and it was deadly, like poison seeping into her veins—and those three words alone brought a wave of silent realisation crashing down on her. "You had been told that he was her host, right? So, with her death, it was inevitable that—"

"Shut up!" She tried to bite back her words, but they spilt out like the crystal-like tears that streamed down her face without paying any heed to her dignity. "He cannot be—"

A sigh escaped his mouth—and he dipped his head down so that she couldn't see the regret in his eyes. "I am sorry. It is my fault," he murmured. "But please do not stay angry at him for disappearing—he had known of my rampage, and saw that your Legendary was next in line for destruction. He tried to save whatever was left of your life."

"Your rampage?" A cracked sob sounded, and she found herself stretching her hand out to run her fingers through the sleeping boy's silky locks, perturbed by just how red and vibrant they were even in death. "Does that mean you are—"

"Yes," Yveltal replied, his voice slow and sad as he finally lifted his eyes to meet her gaze. "I am Destruction. I killed my sister, and that lead to the death of your lover. I will accept any punishment Arceus gives me."

He killed Akoni. It was unexpected, but she—someone who looked down on humans and Pokemon alike as her little pawns, all in some annoying game that they couldn't beat—felt so insignificant before this Legendary, and she felt suffocated. Like—

She didn't notice the green like flaring around her clenched fist; didn't notice the joints of her other free hand tightening—and she couldn't hear Yveltal trying to warn her from doing anything rash.

The irrational side of Celebi's blood roared at her. That she was was the master of Time—of all the different worlds that were separated from each other by a metaphorical thread—and that there was still a chance to bring her beloved back.

She didn't heed Destruction's warning in the end, and the last thing she heard was the Legendary trying to get his muffled shouts over the fog in her mind—before her world faded to a dusty white.

(When she next opened her eyes, her name would be Sachi, and she would be an assassin—but of course, she didn't know that.)

⚔ ∰ ⚔

media: servant of evil, vocaloid song by mothy, and this cover is by sirhamnet (yt singer) !!

wooooot! only the epilogue left :D

also how tf did this become 3K words i cri ;;

Anyway, thank you guys so much for 1.4K reads and 170 votes! I really appreciate your support gais <3

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~ nyxia ☆