~~~Queen Cat of Verdania~~~

My heart froze with every delayed exhale, and only released once they breathed in again, rattling, painfully slow, barely alive.

Lord Sylver of Arcefracti, my love, my doe doe, my lemon carboard. On the verge of death thanks to the demon.

I hadn't moved from their bedside in days. The servants kept trying to get me to eat and sleep, but I refused. As long as Sylvie was in this horrible coma, I would be by aers side.

Servants and doctors would come by every so often to check on them, but oftentimes I would find myself alone in the pitch of night with a single fading candle on the nightstand, watching every breath and breathing in time, even if it made my head spin from lack of oxygen.

The sun was slanted through the windows, casting a soft golden glow over my Doe Doe's pale face and highlighting the even paler bandages wrapping around their face and arms and chest and, well... everywhere. The demon really did a number on aer.

A nurse was tending to one of the bandages on their arm that had bled through. I watched her warily. She was giving Sylvie some sort of stink eye, and I was fully prepared to break my vigil to throw hands. Some punching would be very enjoyable.

Of course, the person I wanted to punch was well out of reach, being a superpowered teleporting dark magic sorcerer demon, but I'd take a pissy nurse as sacrifice for now.

I had let Tsuki send a letter back to Verdania about my absence, because I refused to leave Sylvie alone while they fought for aers life. As a concession, I told my advisors to make themselves useful and focus the army's attention on the tanks.

Demon was invulnerable to all mortal weapons? I'd like to see him survive a long range bomb missile shot from an actual invulnerable box.

A muttered word made me blink out of my thoughts of revenge. I narrowed my eyes at the nurse, standing by the bed looking down at Sylver. She hadn't noticed me looking at her yet. Idiot probably thought I was too grief-stricken to pay attention to my surroundings or something.

"What a powerful leader our empire has," she hissed, glaring at my poppy.

That was all I needed to launch out of my armchair, the nurse stumbling back in shock as my open hand hit her resoundly, the slap echoing in the empty room.

A pair of guards stepped in at the sound, faces hidden behind their helmets. I gestured sharply for them to grab her.

The nurse spluttered. "Your Majesty, what–"

"Speak about my love like that again and I won't just kick you out of the palace." My voice was as icy as the snow atop the highest peaks of the Pearlescent Dynasty. "I will find you, and I will kill you, and I will use your body for scientific research, and you will never get a proper burial."

She stared at me, fear mixing with hate in her eyes. "That's uncalled for, Your Majesty! I'm right, they're wea–"

I curled my hands into fists, and she cut herself off with a nervous gulp. I had spent my years of childhood learning metalsmithing and building weapons from the greatest blacksmith in Verdania. My slap was probably still stinging on her skin. I'm sure she didn't want to find out how strong a punch from me would be.

"Your face is uncalled for," I replied, crisp. "Take her away."

The guards nodded in unison with a clank of steel, wrapping a hand each around the nurses' upper arms and escorting her out.

I sat back down, gently brushing a few strands of hair out of Sylvie's face. Aers breath rattled slowly, unroused by the brief fight.

Even years later, they still looked just as they did the first time I ever saw aer.

~~~

The room was large and imposing to the fourteen-year-old crown princess of Verdania, fingers twisting and untwisting behind her back as she walked in the wake of her parents, the King and Queen of Verdania.

This annual peace meeting was different for the rulers, as the majority of the royal children were all of similar ages and were all teenagers, a rare occurrence. The rulers had agreed to bring their children to meet the other heirs, as a measure to keep peace in the future.

Cat didn't care about peace or royals or politics. She wanted to go back home, to the warmth and sun and her workshop, always sunny and noisy in the right way, no voices or diplomacy nonsense, only the whirr of machinery and the steady roar of furnaces and the ringing of hammers striking steel.

Her parents hadn't given her a choice about attending, sadly, and so here she was, outside her home empire for the first time in her life.

Why was the Pearlescent Dynasty so cold?

Cat shivered and resisted the urge to tighten her jacket around herself. Her parents had spent hours versing her on proper royal behavior in the meeting.

She scowled around the room, mentally cursing out royalty and meetings and other royal children all in one go.

The meeting room was ornate, the high roof painted with a color abstract mural on the ceiling, arches lining the many pointed windows around the room and gold swirls painted around the doorways that led to the actual meeting room for the rulers.

They had just ditched Cat with a bunch of strange children and left to have their meeting. She, of course, had made a tactical retreat to the most defensible corner and glared at anyone who tried to come near her.

A pair of teens were giggling a little bit away, completely ignoring her and her ferocious glares. One of them, a short human kid with bright purple hair and glitter dusted all over their clothes and face, leaned in closer to the other, a faerie with long black hair and starry purple-tinged fingers, to give her a shy kiss on the cheek. Someone rolled his eyes at them before getting up and slipping out of the room(who??).

This only made them giggle louder, and Cat hissed in annoyance at all the noise. Another kid sitting next to them, a deer hybrid with small budding antlers on their head, noticed Cat's hiss and poked the purple-haired human, who quieted down at the other kid's whispered words.

There was an entire crowd of like, at least ten or more kids in the center of the room, all chatting rowdily and play-fighting and talking amongst each other. They were all dressed in the colors of Arcefracti. Someone should suggest birth control to the rulers of Arcefracti, Cat thought sagely.

She wondered briefly why the deer kid, who was clearly Arcefractal, was sitting with the purple haired glitter boy and the dramatic faerie instead of their own siblings. 

Farther away, three teens were sitting quietly, two of them (a brown haired cod hybrid with their tail in their lap and another faerie with pink hair and a cat draped across her shoulders) reading a book together and whispering, and the third, an elf with a emerald-tipped staff next to her, occasionally adding in commentary.

A spiky merling with short red hair and a glare that rivaled Cat's own was hoarding the other corner of the room, a smaller black haired human– wait, no, not a human, she had gills– merling curled by her side, excitedly chattering about something.

There was one other kid also sitting alone, the only kid Cat was making an effort not to glare at. She was creepy.

The child was much younger than her, maybe like three to four years younger. Not even a teenager, maybe like, ten years old? Nine? Eleven?

But the aura of menace was unmistakable, even to Cat's social-cues-go-brr autistic brain.

She had dark brown hair that pooled in her lap, straight and smooth and clearly magically held. Someone had enchanted that hair to stay smooth, Cat bet without the spell it was frizzy as heck. Dark eyes were the only visible part of her face through a pair of eye holes in her mask (why was she wearing a mask? Was this some weird Pearlescent Dynasty thing??).

The mask looked like it was made of something white. Cat's stomach rolled for a moment when she realized it was much too smooth to be wood.

The child wasn't playing with a toy or talking to anyone else, just staring at people ominously. Every few minutes, she would change her gaze from one person to another, and stare at them until they noticed and got uncomfortable before switching to a new victim. 

Cat was pretty sure there was supposed to be one more kid in the room, she had remembered them specifically because her parents had said they were a cat hybrid and Cat had never seen one before. No one in the room looked like a feline hybrid. Maybe they weren't here?

She spent a moment grumpily envying the cat kid who had managed to skip out on this boring meeting, before footsteps alerted her to another kid daring to approach her.

It was the deer hybrid who had shushed the other teen, which made Cat blink in surprise, long enough for them to nimbly settle down next to her.

"Hiya!"

All they got in response was a blank stare. How was one meant to diplomatically interact with other royal children, again? Cat had zoned out during most of her parents' lecturing.

"...Hi?" Stupid response, she should have said that with less hesitation. What happened to just glaring and letting them run away?

The deer hybrid grinned, cheerfully ignoring Cat's moody frown and nudging closer. They avoided eye contact too, she noticed.

"I'm Prince Sylver, heir of Arcefracti. They/ae pronouns," they said, offering her a hand to shake.

Right, introductions. "Princess Cat, heir of Verdania. She/her," Cat replied, shaking their hand. It was soft, rough in a few spots but smooth for the most part, and warmly cool. Aers nails were neatly trimmed, with a few wobbles that made Cat guess they were a nail-biter.

Sylver smiled shyly, and Cat felt a responding smile bubbling up, even as she glanced away to hide the growing red on her cheeks. "Nice to meet you, I guess," she said quietly, looking back up to meet their eyes for the first time.

Aers eyes were a soft gray, lined with a thin yellow ring around the pupil, glowing luminously in the room's light. They had a few freckles scattered across their cheeks, and a small scar across the bridge of aers nose. They were blushing too.

"Nice to meet you too, Cat."

~~~

It had been almost a decade since our fateful meeting that day. I still remembered it clearly, their sweet smile introducing themself and our excited conversation later, when I had pulled out a small mechanism I had built.

A mechanical butterfly, carefully assembled and even capable of flapping its wings. It had been my betrothal gift to them a few months ago, when we had gotten officially engaged.

Running my fingers over my ring, I anxiously watched their breaths, each raspy inhale and exhale making my own heart thud fearfully for their health.

Come back to me, Sylvie.

I would do anything to have them back. No matter the price, I just wanted my love awake and well once more.

Just as the thought crossed my mind, they shifted. I gasped, half rising out of my chair to look closer, and yes, they were breathing more steadily.

Did my wish come true? Was ae going to be okay?

I watched, my breath held unconsciously, as their eyes fluttered and opened slowly, softly. They exhaled, blinking up at the roof before turning, looking over at me.

Their eyes were red.

Red, red, red, like the sunrise on the sea before a storm, like blood spilling out in a pool around aers body, like the eyes of the monster that had almost killed them.

"Syl- Sylvie?" I said, hoping against hope that the red was just a side effect, that it would fade in a moment to their beautiful gray, that everything was okay.

It didn't fade. Sylver stared emotionlessly at me, eyes red and unblinking, skin still as pale as it was moments ago when they were on the brink of death.

A doctor walked in, sipping at a mug of coffee. They saw Sylver, and their mug shattered on the floor as they rushed forward, hands out to support their emperor back into bed.

Instead, Sylver backhanded them easily, face still blank as the doctor crashed into the wall, a loud crack of bone reaching both our ears.

Guards rushed in at the noise, and two were dead in moments as Sylver grabbed their axe from where it had been leaning against the bedside and beheaded them, giving me one last bloodred, blank look before smashing the window and jumping out.

A nurse screamed, whether at the murdered guards or at Sylver jumping out of the tower, I didn't know which.

I rushed to the window, heart in my throat as I looked out, expecting to see Sylver's body twisted and bloody on the ground far below.

Instead, there was nothing.

Not a single sign that Sylver had ever been there, except for the bloodshed in the room behind me. It was like they vanished into thin air.

At that moment, I understood the old proverb that had been recited to me many times by my parents, by governesses and doctors and teachers alike.

Be careful what you wish for.