Archive of Our Own ^beta

“I forgive you, you know,” Mika whispered. As per usual, the makeshift gravestone did not respond. Inanimate objects did not respond- deep down, in the rational part of his brain, he knew this. It didn’t prevent him from still talking to its owner. 

Did Kurda own the headstone? Could anyone have postmortem ownership over an object, much less over an idea? 

“I miss our banter. The witty responses you would make when no one was listening. Gods, it made me want to strangle you in the moment, but I would give anything to listen to them again.” 

No response from the headstone. No giggle from the blond that would have warmed his soul. No glower shot from across long wooden conference tables painstakingly dragged in by unpaid apprentices. All he wanted was one last conversation. He didn’t get one, as he had to watch over the Hall as Arrow performed the execution. Mika was so upset that he didn’t look Arrow in the eye for a month. Smahlt was annoying, yes, but if they had listened to him, there wouldn’t be so many dead generals. He wouldn’t be alive, but everyone else would be. 

Would he have done it? If time turned back, would he be able to drink the poisoned wine and know that he would die? If it was for the betterment of the clan, he could. He could let the man he loved kill him, solely because living in a world without him felt like one thousand little deaths every night. Kurda could live with it. He had goals, and he would be distracted. Mika, on the other hand, was surrounded by death frequently. New general every day. New funerals every night. More went out, and less came back. 

Paris sympathized, but the older Prince wasn’t much help. He couldn’t talk to anyone else about it. There was something about loving a partner posthumously that made a man understand why dogs sometimes never left their owner’s grave. The gentleman never owned each other, per se, but their hearts called out toward each other in life- Mika liked to think that Kurda felt their tug from beyond the grave. His love wasn’t one-sided. He got too many kisses on his forehead that went too underappreciated in life. Now that he was gone, he wished that he had paid attention to the last one. 

“I wish I had gone with you to sign that goddamned treaty,” Mika whispered. He chuckled as tears slid down his cheeks. Grief was a funny thing. 

All he wanted was for someone to listen to him. To support him. He didn’t get that, and yet he still did it anyway. Mika was proud of him for never wavering when he was put on the stand and targeted. He wasn’t as much of a pacifist as everyone said he was, but he was enough of one that they said it like a slur. He wanted to prevent bloodshed- needless bloodshed, which Mika had been surrounded by too much recently. 

He made a strike on the wall with charcoal each night that he woke up and Smahlt did not. He did so until he reached 365, and that night he was in a small Bavarian village. The date was April 6th. He burned the date into memory and bought a five-year calendar so that he never lost the date. Ever. 

“We could’ve fixed it, I think.”