Beneath the purple mist

A reunion

To love someone enough to let them leave, and to love someone enough to overlook their greatest sins. Those were the two kinds of love that showed themselves in that barren wasteland that remained after the great battle. Aleksei had won, but the world lost.

Piles and piles of bodies were scattered everywhere around him. Alexander's body was at the bottom of a ditch that appeared in the middle of the main square, burnt beyond recognition. He had managed to burn through whole battalions but his control slipped and the fire spread across his skin.

Amaris was fully gone, disappeared, only a pile of her armor on the ground beside the ditch indicated she was once there. It happens to ghosts who lose everything they cling to in this world. She was likely the last one standing.

Hadrian's body was laid carefully down, his hands neatly laid over his chest. So he was likely the first to go down, when there was still someone to lay his body down. His head had been separated from his body though, and in the mess it had rolled to the side, eyes closed. Somebody must've done that too.

Darius, most likely since his body wasn't far away, his body distorted into a mess of different limbs, wolf teeth in his mouth, eyes of an eagle in place of his own, claws on his hands and slashes all across his body. He must've tried to protect Hadrian, or maybe his body, by shifting into a mixture of beats.

Allyn was nowhere to be found until he looked up and saw them hanging in the air with vines still crawling out of the body and attaching themselves to one of the towering outposts of stone. Almost as if they were hung.

Aleksei knew what he had done, he had the blood of five kids on his hands. Five innocent, precious kids that trusted him until the very moment he decided to trade their lives for that of his mate. The pain of losing a part of his soul was now replaced by the pain of losing a part of his goodness. Whatever good he did for his people was erased by this one act.

The battle was more of a suicide march for both sides since as far as Aleksei looked there were only bodies. Not a single living soul apart from him and Trotter.

"G-Gods." Trotter stuttered quietly, so quietly it was merely more than a whisper and still it was almost too loud for the deafening silence around them.

"I've done it, Trotter. I became the monster he came here to kill. I became what he once thaught me to be." Aleksei said, looking at the horizon.

"You...you m-must go to him. My lord, you must. I...I-I will look for survivors. T-there must be some." Trotter stuttered again. So it was back, the stutter that used to indicate his fear of Aleksei was back.

"No. There are none, Trotter. You'd be looking in vain. I can't feel a single living creature here except from you and me." Aleksei told him. The land was connected to it's king, it had frozen over when his heart did but for some reason the ice wasn't melting. If anything there appeared to be a snow storm forming above their heads. One of those that used to form when Aleksei would miss Theo so terribly even the land would weap with him. And that same land could tell him that no other creature except from them still drew breath.

The dragon was summoned and it took them back to the red castle that got even darker, doubtlessly drinking up all the blood that had been shead in this battle the same way as it did when the first one happened.

Theo stood there, in the throne room, looking out of the window and waiting. Aleksei wanted nothing more than to go and hold him tightly and never let go, but he stopped at the door.

There was still blood on his armor, still murder in veins, still violence in his eyes. Still he was the monster Theo once intended to kill.

Their eyes met and Theo knew, he knew that the man standing in front of him wasn't the same one he fell for such a long time ago. He knew and yet all he wanted to do was to run to that same man and throw himself into his arms.

"My love...I apologize." Aleksei whispered, then made one step forward before kneeling down and taking off his bloody crown. "I apologize for turning into the monster they made you believe I was."

There was a long pause until Theo finally moved and walked to Aleksei, picked up the crown Aleksei had thrown, and put it back onto his head. "A king doesn't kneel or bow his head. Especially not my king."

Aleksei raised his head in surprise and Theo only pulled him up to his feet and kissed him without saying another word.

Even after knowing all of his flaws, after knowing all he did, after seeing every ugly, twisted and cruel part of him, Theo still looked at him like he was the Sun.

Tears came to his eyes and spilled before he could stop them, and they kept falling as Theo cleaned the blood on his face. As Theo took of his armor piece by piece. As Theo kept kissing his lips and hugging him. As Theo assured him he wouldn't leave.

Finally Theo was back in his arms, and he was there willingly. If he had to do it all over again for this same end, he knew he would.