the princess is in another castle! /and they were roommates

They’d told him that it wouldn’t hurt.

In the hours since the bloodbath, the pain in his limbs has only gotten worse. Body sick with fever, his muscles ache with it and it's hard to keep moving, smoker's lungs burning from running. Akira bends over to catch his breath, one hand over his heart, the other still gripping the wooden stake he picked up at the altar too tightly.

Even his jawline burns.

He grits his teeth and straightens, his free hand moving from his chest to his throat to loosen the ridiculous ruffled neck piece that they dressed him in this morning. His hand comes away bloody but it's not his. He just ended up too close to the dying.

For a long moment, Akira just stands there, staring at his hand. He hadn't questioned before why the scent of blood seemed to follow him from the altar, the air here has almost been viscous, thick with the scent of it since their platforms rose them into the arena.

He drops his hand and gazes back down the path he was running down. In the distance, he can still hear the screams of kids killing each other. The concept of what's going to happen hasn't really hit him until this moment. In the days before this, he knew where he was headed, but he let himself be led into the slaughterhouse anyway. Maybe Erwin had realized this sooner than the rest of them, but knowing hadn't saved him.

There's only two ways out of this- in a crown or a coffin.

The apathy over it is still there, always, lain heavy on his shoulders.

He turns his eyes back towards where he was headed. The light from the sun is dim even though it's daytime. A dense fog rests on the tree tops, their thick boughs seeming to be the only thing holding the sky up. Weak, red tinged light filters through the cloud and paints everything in an ethereal red glow.

It reminds him of the summer the forest in Nine caught fire. Embers from the disaster rained down on the streets and the smoke haze got so bad for awhile that everyone was made to stay inside. The sun, usually so welcome, looked menacing then, too close, as if it was about to swallow him.

Ahead of him, jagged dark towers covered in decorative carvings rise up into the haze, sandwiching a square structure. He just needs somewhere to hole up for a moment, to collect himself while his body is hellbent on falling apart beneath him. He isn't very strong like this, fever running up his spine like cold fingers. A castle seems like it'd be pretty good for that, hidden passageways and dark secret histories.

Home sweet home.