☆

Abby was leaving. For good.

Lucy stared at his reflection in the mirror, smoothing down the front of his regal robes and patted the box in his pocket.

He'd do it. He might not say goodbye, or apologize, but he hoped the gift would say what he hadn't found the courage to speak. And maybe that would be enough. Abby would leave knowing how sorry he was and how much he had loved her, how much he'd always love her.

That, despite not being together, she'd always be with him. Together, even in different realms.

With a last once over in the mirror to ensure every strand of fur was slicked away from his face, Lucy took to the hallway. Lucky for him, Reven was there to greet him, a pile of scrolls tucked under his arm.

Lucy glanced at them once, dismissed them and the work they represented immediately, and grimaced. "Not now." He stalked away, his tail thumping the floor as he went.

"While I admire how efficient you've gotten at shirking your royal duties, my ben'nessren, I'm here for other reasons."

"Which are?" Lucy scowled at him sideways as Reven struggled to maintain pace, him taking two steps for every one of Lucy's. "To bore me into an early grave?"

"To update you on Archmage Mattias's progress."

This stopped Lucy in his tracks. "And?" His ears twitched as he perked up and gave Reven his full attention.

The advisor slid his glasses up his muzzle and took a deep breath. "Everything's ready."

Lucy's hands clenched at his sides. "The portal?"

"Archmage Mattias has overseen it's summoning himself. It will take ferry them back to Exul safely."

He nodded, and flexed his fingers. Good. Abby and Crum would go back to Mirea. Then, Abby could get settled back into her own life. Caring for plants that languished on death's door, being oblivious to Crum's affections. She could do it. Return to normal without him. And maybe it'd be better.

She'd have less women barging into her home in the morning, spilling tea on her rug and couch and crying for hours. She wouldn't have to face the contemptible gazes of Ean's citizens for housing her reckless, idiot cousin. She'd be like one of her plants, and flourish without him there acting like the leeching fungus he was.

"Ben'nessren."

Lucy stopped and turned. Reven was framed in an archway, the morning breeze tickling the Ni'elah trees in the courtyard. "She's in the garden."

He straightened and blew out. "Thank you."

Abby stood in front of Sebbi's statue, his back to him as he walked along the pathway, careful not to crunch any leaves under his boots. He hadn't talked to her in almost a month; had barely even looked at her since—

The gift in his pocket suddenly felt like too much, and too little. The thought of turning tail and running passed through his mind, but this was his last chance to see her.

He had to make the best of it. Even if he did have a habit of bungling things when they mattered. Taking a deep breath, he took another step, and spoke. "It's all wrong, isn't it?"

Abby's shoulders twitched, but then she sighed, and a soft chuckle floated on the air. Lucy took that as a good sign; this could go well. Things hadn't been as destroyed as he feared they were. "They made him look so...groomed." She tilted her head, and brushed a few flyaway hairs from her face.

"Not a strand of fur out of place."

She shook her head, and Lucy continued his advance. "He was always in the woods. Chasing beetles."

"Harassing woodland critters, more like," Lucy sidled up to her, "getting caught in spider webs and assaulted by twigs and leaves."

"He'd hiss at me whenever I tried to brush him." Abby glanced at her hands, then at the bag at her feet. Her things. An outfit that could pass in Ean. A few stones she could trade for money. A hunk of cheese from Margo. Some books on Aelurian history from Reven. She'd been given something by everyone except him.

"He hissed whenever I tried to yank the twigs out of his butt."

Abby cast him a sideways glance, before her eyes dropped back to the ground. Lucy shifted on his feet, his hand rubbing the outside of his pocket. "Abby—"

She lifted her head, and for the first time in what felt like ages, she looked at him. Into his eyes, her gaze steady and unyielding.

Suddenly, he found the words drying up on his tongue. He simply stared at her, dumbfounded, and unable to finish what he'd come here to do.

"I should," she eyed the arched hallway. "I should get going. The gate won't be open for long and I've probably got stacks of dead plants stinking up the house. I really—"

"Here." He thrust the box at her chest like he was wielding a sword. She stumbled back at the force, and blinked, mouth wide.

"Take it." He shoved the box at her again.

"What—Why—"

"Gods," Lucy clicked his tongue, dragging his fingers through his fur. He felt the eyes of his brother's statue glaring at him from his pedestal on high. Sebbi must be loving this. His awkwardness, his unease. His nerves. It was all so unlike him. "I'm making a fool of myself in front of a statue that looks nothing like my brother. Please, I beseech you," he focused on Abby, "take it and end my suffering."

Abby gave him a small smile and lifted off the lid of the box. Inside, sat on a satin pillow, was her black ribbon, the one Sebbi had given her after he'd taken the throne. It had two crescent moons sewn on either end. But Lucy had had it magickally enhanced. It was longer now, much to long for a ribbon. He'd intended it be like a collar, worn around the neck, a black key at its center.

"Margo," Lucy said, when Abby glanced up at him, her brow furrowed by confusion, "told me you were a child of light. I dismissed it immediately because it's never mattered to me what you were," he gulped as the slightest, sweetest blush crawled up her neck, "you will always be Abby to me. And, Margo had told me when half of the Sands was engulfed in flames so you can imagine how my priorities were a little skewed."

"Of course," she shook her head, and took up the necklace. The key dangled in front of her face.

"I had Reven look into some things. Turns out one of the realms in the Eridan was called the Morningtide. Creatures," when she arched her brows in alarm, Lucy hurried to clarify, "human-like creatures called Aureates lived there, before the Evernight invaded."

Abby's fingers tensed around the necklace. "Gravious had told me something like that in the crypts, before—"

"They had a person called the Worlds Seer. Apparently, before magick started dying, the Eridan was connected by a crossroads these Worlds Seers were tasked with overseeing. The stories say they could unlock a gate to any of the realms with a key." Abby's eyes darted to the one before her face. " I thought, since you are half-Aureate, you might like something like that." He nodded at the gift in her hands.

She closed her fingers around it and held it against her chest. "That's supposedly the key to Aelurus," he continued, "Thought it could act like a bridge of sorts. Connecting you to your past and to—" He glanced down, hating how sheepish he felt, especially when an entire realm called him king, "me," he finished, his entire body engulfed in an unbearable heat.

A tear slipped over Abby's cheek. She opened her palm and inspected the key again, slid her fingers over Sebbi's ribbon. "I love it."

He moved closer, leaned in, and wiped her tears off her cheek, as they fell one by one. "I love you, Abby. I loved you the moment your rain soaked face came into view and you took us in. And my love only grew with every day I spent in your company. Sebbi's," he swallowed, and ran a finger over her jaw, "his death didn't change that."

She nodded, and then, she lunged, throwing her arms around his waist, head buried in his shirt. "You're so stupid." Lucy's mouth opened like a beached fish gasping for breath, "I know that. I never stopped knowing it."

Finally, he returned her embrace. "I guess I just forgot that you knew it. Sometimes, you know me better than I know myself."

"That's," she said pulling away so she could stare up at his face, "because I can see through your lies."

"But I'm a great liar. Almost as good at it as I am at being so undeniably handsome."

She chuckled, and smacked him lightly.

"Love," he caught her hand, and held it over his heart. "I hate how I've been to you. I just didn't know how to be any other way. I said cruel things, I hurt you. I pushed you away and—"

"Sometimes I thought it would have been better if Margo had been with Sebbi and I in the crypts." Lucy's mouth snapped close. "And that she had exchanged her life for Sebbi's. And I adore Margo and wouldn't wish her any harm, but I think about it. More than I ought to. And sometimes, I agree with that thinking because I think about how things could have gone and those 'what ifs' keep piling up in my head and getting tangled." She released an exasperated sigh, and for the first time, Lucy registered the exhaust on her face. The sullenness, the sunkenness. The dullness in her eyes. "I think I'm a terrible person."

He tightened his hold around her and brought her closer. He'd had no idea that such things were plaguing her, that she was suffering like this. "If you're a terrible person, than I'm incorrigible. An unsalvageable piece of non-human trash that ought to be discarded when the maids clean the lavatories."

She chuckled, and the heaviness around them seemed to lift. "It's hard." Lucy nodded. "And it'll continue to be hard. I don't know when it'll stop being so damned hard."

"Shall I," Lucy swept a lock of hair from her eyes, plucked the necklace from her grasp, and fastened it around her neck, "have a portrait of myself sent back with you to Ean? You could decorate the house with it, and gaze upon my handsomeness without fail every morning. I'm sure they won't be able to capture the full breadth of my gods-gifted good looks, but it ought to serve as a decent reminder of your contagiously charming, cunning, clever and statuesque cousin."

In true annoyed Abby fashion, she rolled her eyes, and kicked him in the shin. "I'd toss it in the fire immediately."

"Ah," he pointed at the air, his whiskers whipped upward by the smile that had settled on his face, "but the fire place doesn't work, thus, it was used as extra closet space for when the whim overtook me."

"It was your hamper, where you discarded clothes you wore once, and then let fester. I swear I caught a pair of your trousers moving as a horde of saber ants tried to escape from under them."

"But love," he whined, his tail limply tucked between his legs, ears low to his scalp, "You'll miss me and my ant-festooned trousers, yes?"

Smiling, and shaking her head, Abby got to her tiptoes, Lucy bending down to meet her somewhere in the middle, and planted a quick peck on his cheek. "There won't be a day that goes by that I don't miss you, in all your messy, obnoxious glory."

"You forgot handsome."

"I," she pulled away, brushing a piece of fur out his eyes, her finger lightly tracing the crescent-shaped scar of his bloodline, "could never forget your handsomeness. You tell me of it so much."

Her smile faltered, and her eyes looked like clouds about to burst and let the storm out.

Lucy nodded. It was time.

"Okay." He stood straighter, picked up her pack and tossed it over his shoulder. "It's time we get you home. I'm sure Crum's nervous twitching. I left him with a room full of Aelurians and even without the whiskers he whimpers and cowers like wounded prey."

"Will he—"

"He'll remember. Mattias doesn't want to wipe his memory as the magick's fickle and could erase memories we don't want him to lose. Besides," he slung an arm over Abby's shoulder and drew her close, "he asked if he could retain his memories. I think he wants to have them in case you want to talk about what's happened. Help, if he can."

She nodded. "Never would have thought he'd turn out to be such a good friend." Grabbing a fistful of shirt in her hand, she gave it a good twist. "Especially after so many kicks to the crotch.

"Friend? You think he's doing this to only be a good friend?" The fur over Lucy's left eye raised, a chuckle falling from his lips. His tail slapped the ground and sent leaves scattering around their ankles. "I swear, love, you will be the death of that boy."

"What do you—"

Out of the corner of her eye, Abby caught sight of a shadow waving her over.

"Love?"

"I'll be right back," she said, slipping free of Lucy's grasp. She walked past a line of bushes, and disappeared behind a tree.

Axion appeared from a shadow, grinning, before eyeing the clothes she wore. "They're sending you home?"

She nodded.

He shook his head, and grabbed her wrist. "Not yet."

And with that, he grabbed a shadow, slid it over, and slipped them both inside before Abby could yell a word of protest.