Chapter Text
It hurts.
Erudian breathed out a sigh as he stared at the wooden door, a pink princess behind it, hand holding the golden handle which separated him from the person he wanted to see.
It really hurts…
He sighed and swept his hair back in frustration. Not directed to the princess but to himself.
He wasn’t ignorant, a fool, or an oblivious man. Erudian knew that the princess was avoiding him and he had several reasons why. He had promised her comfort and safety within his walls, assuring her that nothing will happen to her yet here she was, struck by some dark spell made by a woman who didn’t want her position threatened.
A position that no longer exists for her.
Erudian would be a fool to let the woman have the title of Empress after all this. If she was capable of doing this to the princess, what does she have in store for him? Erudian was prepared for a married life filled with apprehension but even he knew when he had to put a stop to things and not be a blind idiot.
Yet, despite all this, there is still the problem that the princess refuses to see him. Erudian almost laughed.
Is this how she felt when she wanted to see me? He rubbed his chest. I don’t like it.
The noise of coughing caught his attention and without permission and thought, Erudian opened the door quietly, peeking inside His body halted at the sight of her hunched over at her bed, heaving and gasping.
In his shock, Erudian pushed the door open alerting the princess with the sound and pink haired turn. Red-violet eyes widened when he saw the bloody hand and mouth.
“Yerenica, what-“
“Ahck—Ugh, cough—“
Erudian watched with horror as she coughed out blood and flower bud and petals. Pink and bloodied flower buds and petals. Her white silk nightgown covered in blood splatters and if Erudian didn’t know any better, he would have thought that she was injured or stabbed but, no. He did know. He knew what was happening with the princess with the sight of pink rose petals and buds coming out of her mouth.
Flowers of Love.
Hanahaki.
He rushed to her side and held her in his arms, soothing her with pats and rubs on her back as she continued coughing. Erudian didn’t mind the blood stains and petals clinging to his coat jacket or the mess the princess made, right now all that mattered was her.
“Princess—“
“No, no.” she whimpered and began pushing him. “No, please leave. Go away, please.”
Erudian grit his teeth and grabs her hands, “I’m not going to leave you like this. What kind of man do you think I am?” he watched as she started another round of coughing. He grabbed the glass on the bedside but she kept pushing it and they both stared at the bloodied sheets and the pink rose buds and petals between them.
“… How long?” there was no response and Erudian grabbed her chin between two fingers and made her look up at him. Dead and tired blue eyes met his red fiery ones. “I asked, how long?”
“…”
“To reach this stage… it must have been weeks or months.” He faltered off in realization. “Have you been hiding this from me all this time?”
“…” she looked away and Erudian let out an annoyed sound.
“Look at me.”
“…”
He grabbed her shoulders “Princess, look at me.” When she reluctantly met his gaze, Erudian released divinity that covered her entire body. “Just say the word and I will take it away.”
“Wha-What…”
“You won’t remember him, I understand your hesitation. But it’s better than losing your life—“
“No- Stop, stop it!” Yerenica pushed him away and Erudian grabbed the bedside table to keep himself from falling to the floor. “Don’t.” she sobbed, covering her face with her bloodied hands. “Don’t do it. Please, don’t do it.”
“Princess…”
“I don’t want to lose how I feel, so please, don’t make me do it.”
Erudian watched the weeping and coughing princess on the bed who was stained with scarlet. It looked wrong, so wrong. Anger suddenly replaced his despair.
Who? Who is she so in love with that she wants to die?
“Is it that man?”
The princess removed her hands from her face and stared at him in sadness and confusion. Erudian did his best not to stare at her gaunted look and her white lips covered in blood which continued to drip down to her clothes and sheet.
“What?”
“Is it that man from the letter? The name you mentioned.” There was a bitterness in his tone and Erudian reasoned it with his anger for the man who didn’t return the love the princess had for him. The scratchy feeling in his throat resurfaced but he pushed it down with his anger. How could one not be in love with the beautiful woman who now lay dying before him?
But other than her beauty, she had a golden heart and a comforting aura. It drew anyone in and no one would be able to resist her soft and ethereal charm. The charm that Erudian had to admit drew him as well.
Yerenica was silent before she turned away, hands in her chest as she looked down at the pink petals before her. “No, it wasn’t him. He’s married but it’s not him.” Erudian stared at her, willing for her to continue but she didn’t go any further making him release an exasperated sigh.
“I can’t just let you die, Princess. Not like this.” He moved further to the bed, sitting close to her and placing a hand on her shoulder. “Who? Who is it then, Princess?”
Yerenica did not answer him and bit her already weaken lip. Erudian’s heart lurched with worry. She’s already in the final stages if he is not mistaken. He needed to act quick and needed her to cooperate with him.
She can’t die. I won’t let her. Not like this. Anything but this.
“…”
“I’ll bring him to you.” He promised desperately, his hands softly holding her shoulders to face him more. “I’ll bring him here, I’ll make him love you!”
Erudian didn’t expect her to cry from his words and he watched with broken eyes as she sobbed and sobbed. He sighed and pulled her to his embrace, caressing her back and hair as he tried to hush her, murmuring assuring words despite the impending doom for the princess before him if she didn’t say a name.
“Who?” he asked once more. “Please, tell me who and I will do whatever it takes to bring him here and see reason.”
The head on his neck shook as his shirt began to dampen from her tears. The white mixed with the blood and tears turning pink like the flowers between them, ignored for comfort.
“Please…” she sobbed, “Please, stop.” She tried to push him but in her weakened state, she can barely do it but still, Erudian tightened his grip on her. The princess shook her head once more. “I don’t want that. I don’t want someone to force themselves to love a dying person.”
“Then let me erase it.” He kissed her forehead, trying to persuade her to make the rational decision. “I’ll erase everything about him.”
“Stop it, please.” She begged and Erudian bit his cheek. “I… I can’t… please, Your Majesty, please don’t ask me to do it. I don’t…”
“Alright. Alright.” He murmured and patted her hair and back, eyes glancing down at the grey pallor of her skin and the nearly-white and transparent hair which used to glow of pink. She pulled away and Erudian, this time, let her.
There was a sudden cold air embracing him and he wanted to return her in his arms, wanted to let her stay there where he knew she would be safe from any harm. But he knew he needed to let her go.
Yes, but why? He clenched his fists as she looked like she wanted to lay back down before she paused.
“Can…” a small and fragile hand held onto his waistcoat. Erudian looked at her eyes. Blue watery eyes meeting red worried ones. “Can you stay with me?” she asked in a small whisper.
Erudian opened his mouth to protest but his eyes were still on those blue orbs that radiated sadness, fear, hope and love. His heart ached and jumped with what he saw in those eyes.
“Yes.” He whispered back. His hand cupped her cheek and she leaned into it giving that same watery smile from the temple before he left her there. Erudian resisted the urge and ache to press his cheek there, to press their lips together.
… What?
Before he could think any further, Yerenica pulled him next to her where she lay. “Please.” And Erudian’s resistance crumbled to dust.
They lay next to each other on the bed, Yerenica’s eyes on her hands clasping his right, Erudian’s eyes on her teary and bloody face. His other trembling hand raised and moved away the strands blocking her face and she hummed, closing her eyes. For a moment, Erudian was frightened that she was passing but was reassured by her breathing.
When it seemed like she had fallen asleep, Erudian stared at her.
He wanted to touch her, touch her so much. He wanted to hold her, to kiss her and make her his.
I love you. He thought. So, this is what it was. I love you. He kissed the forehead of the sleeping princess as he let the ache overtake him. But you love another. And we’re doomed like this.
Erudian let the horrible grip of guilt overwhelm him. Here he was thinking of her when she was dying and in love with another man. A lucky man who did not know the wealth in his hands. He was here, greedy and falling in love with a woman who loved someone else.
Envy burned through his every being and his heart, mixing with the love he felt for the princess.
He closed his eyes and wrapped her in his arms.
No, he wasn’t what he had stated earlier.
He was a fool.
✿❀❁❀✿
The entire palace found out about Yerenica’s Hanahaki after that and Erudian kept a close eye to her. He stayed more in her room and when he couldn’t he let the maid, Marianne, stand beside her all the time. Erudian rushed everything with the negotiations and every meeting he had to make. He didn’t want the last time he saw her being the true last time.
He made sure he was close, giving her every divinity he could and made sure Diego was in the palace when he couldn’t. Erudian prepared everything to delay the effect. He begged and begged for her to let him take it away, let the flowers fade and her memory of this man but Yerenica would just shake her head and say no.
“I can never have him but I love him, Your Majesty.” She would say with a smile. “And I know he cares for me and he might be suffering right now knowing what he has done to me but I don’t want that suffering of him to worsen if I tell him more.”
But I want him to suffer. He thought angrily as he watched her warming her hands by the sunlight. They were taking tea in her balcony and it seemed like she enjoyed the fresh air and warm sun for her cold skin. I want him to know pain knowing what he did to you.
And it continued like this for days more. She would stay in her rooms and Erudian would rush his work to be by her side. And when she would cough out blood and petals and buds, he would hold her and she would cry while clinging to him.
✿❀❁❀✿
Erudian stared at his bed sheet and his hand after his round of coughing.
Blood.
… It’s starting then. He chuckled mirthlessly, wiping his hand with the sheets as he moved from the bed to the balcony, taking in the cold air of the night. It’s faster.
He knew about Hanahaki. Knew enough from what he had seen from his father. His father who fell in love so late in life. Erudian was happy for him finding love, his father was beaming for the first time in many years after his mother died who his father considered as a best friend.
Erudian’s father had fallen in love with a noblewoman of the court but as they were speaking, Erudian and his father watched as she suddenly coughed and petals came out.
The woman died few weeks later despite everything his father did. And soon, Erudian’s father followed soon after, his age not helping in his constitution.
And now he was following his father to the grave because of his love.
“Ha…” he sighed and closed his eyes.
“Your Majesty?”
He opened them again in surprise and looked to his right. His princess was there. His Yerenica standing alone in her balcony with only a thin shawl for warmth.
“Princess… Yerenica… what are you doing here?” he panicked. The cold would not help her. He immediately jumped over the railings between their balconies and tried to usher her inside her room. But she shook her head and Erudian sighed. “Princess, it would not do well if you stay here much longer. Please, let’s—“
“Can you call me by my name again?”
Erudian blinked at the smiling princess. “What?”
“My name. I want you to call me by my name?” she tilted her head, her tired eyes showing. “It sounds nice. I miss someone calling me by my name.”
“…” he pushed the loose strands of her hair back and caressed her cheeks. “Yerenica.”
I love you.
She closed her eyes with a smile.
Ready to accept her fate.
Erudian grit his teeth.
Not on my watch.
“I will cleanse you.”
She opened her eyes abruptly, blue eyes shining underneath the moonlight, making them bluer and glow. Yerenica did not move from her position before him and held his hand on her cheek. She gave him another smile. “No.” she whispered and rubbed her face on his hand. Erudian’s heart clenched. “No, you won’t.”
Erudian took deep breaths as he clenched his hand. In a way, he understood. He didn’t want to lose the feelings he had for her. He would accept his death, accept it but never hers. Still, “Why?”
“Your Majesty-“
“Erudian.”
“…” she blinked at his response before smiling again. “Erudian.”
A flutter in his chest and throat. He shoved it down with a swallow. “Please, Yerenica, let me do it for you. I don’t want you to die like this, I don’t want you to suffer anymore.”
“Erudian, I—“
Erudian grabbed both her cheeks and drew her closer to him. “I don’t know who he is, I don’t know. But he is not worth your life! He is not worth your death!”
And mine. He trembled in anger. I’m dying because of a stranger who she chose to love.
“Please,” he begged, “you have to understand me, Yerenica. I don’… I can’t bear to watching you waste away your life for this person who can’t even return your feelings. I, damn it all, I don’t want you to die!” he lowered his head. “I don’t want to see you gone away from my life after you gave life to me. You have filled my days with so much joy, and with so many smiles and I don’t want that to go away.”
Erudian knelt before her in the cold stone floor of the balcony, his hands sliding to hold hers and he kissed them before pressing them to his forehead to continue his pleading.
“Please, Yerenica, let me take the pain away. Let me wipe it all away. Let me let you forget this man.”
A sob and he looked up to have water droplets fall on his face as the princess cried with her head bowed to him.
“Yerenica…” No, he gripped her hands tightly in his. I didn’t mean to make you cry. Please, don’t cry.
“Don’t make take this away from, Erudian, please.” There was something in her voice. Something.
A sense of finality. Erudian gulped down the blood and petals as he accepted their fates. They would die with their love unrequited.
“I don’t want to make this go away because they are precious to me. More than my life.” She cried to him and Erudian took all the tears to his face, letting them drip down from his cheeks to his chest where white roses were no doubt growing.
White roses. Young love and eternal loyalty.
And you have that, my love, my Yerenica.
He briefly recalled what hers was. Pink roses.
Gratitude, joy, and love.
Do you love him so much, my Yeni? He could feel the tears brimming at his eyes, his beautiful and glorious image of the princess above him blurred by water. Do you not know how much it pains me hearing those words from you?
“I don’t want to lose what I feel.” She trembled and Erudian clutched her hands tighter in an effort to steady her. “I don’t want to lose what I feel… What I feel for you, Erudian.”
Erudian felt his heart stop.
“Erudian,” she said in a raspy voice. “Erudian, it’s you. I love you.”
Erudian’s body shook with the overwhelming feeling threatening to burst with her words as his mind was blank, empty except for her words, except for her.
“It has always been you.”
Erudian stood, surprising his Yerenica. She took a step backwards but Erudian wrapped an arm around her back. A hand on her cheek, he leaned down and connected their lips.
It was beautiful and perfect.
Until she pulled away.
“No,” she cried, “No, this is why I didn’t want to tell you. You’re forcing yourself.”
Erudian pulled her tighter to him. “Yerenica, no. This is not an act of mercy.”
Still, the princess shook her head, letting the waters flow from her swollen eyes. “I don’t want your pity or your desperate attempt to save me, Erudian.” She leaned her head on his shoulder. “You want me to live but you don’t want me. You don’t want me like how I like you, how I love you.”
Erudian grabs her face gently and kisses her again. But not only her lips.
“Yereninovica Susuvia Lebovny,” he said after pecking her forehead. “You listen to me, right now.”
Silence and he knew she was listening.
“I love your smile, I love your teases, I love how you always see the brighter side of things, I love how oblivious yet smart you are. I love how you always speak to someone without a care of your position or theirs. I love how sincere you are with everything you do and nothing will change that. I love how your pink hair leaves a scent wherever you go. I love how your eyes always brighten when I’m around. You’re so beautiful, clever, sweet, and kind.” He pulled away and looked down at the teary princess.
“I love you, Yerenica. I can’t live without you.”
A new wave of tears came. “You don’t…” she whimpered, “You don’t have to—“
“White roses.”
She stopped. “What?”
“I coughed white roses earlier. And blood.”
“Erudian, I-I—“
“They’re for you.” He kissed her lips. “Every flower I have is for you.”
Erudian kissed her again, ravenous with her lips. He was dying and he wanted those lips if it will be the last thing he will have. Her hands were in his chest, for a moment he feared she was pushing him away again but she clung to his shirt, kissing her back.
He couldn’t get enough. Erudian wrapped his arms around her and kept pulling her to him, wanting to be with her. Yerenica was crying, and was gasping for air between their kisses and when Erudian pulled away, he placed her forehead in hers,
Red meeting blue.
Yerenica kept crying and Erudian knew he was as well. They both were.
“I’m in love with you, Yereninovica Lebovny. I’m desperately in love with you.”
Yerenica coughed and they were sprayed by pink rose petals. Erudian’s eyes widened as Yerenica hunched over, falling to the floor, hand on chest and mouth as she kept coughing. Erudian held her, combing her hair back and kissing her forehead.
“Let it out, my love. Let it out.” He said as he knelt to the floor once again to hold her more.
The flowers were now removing themselves from her body and Erudian smiled with tears. She was accepting her love for him. Erudian wheezed before a cough. His one hand on Yerenica’s shaking my back and the other on his mouth as he let out a single bloody white rose. A full bloomed one. He stared at it.
Yerenica stopped and he glanced down at the blossom in her hand.
A bloody pink rose.
Both of them bloody and covered in stained rose petals. They glanced at each other.
Yerenica smile and rested her head on his neck as Erudian felt a burden in his chest lighten and he knew she was feeling the same thing as well.
“I love you.” She whispered with a sniff. “I love you, Erudian.”
Erudian rested his cheek on the top of her head and closed his eyes with a smile. He held the hand which had his flower with hers.
“I love you.”
He stared at the two bloody roses.
The flowers of their love.
“I really do love you.”
✿❀❁❀✿
He read the letters. Letters of her love for him. Letters she had prepared for when she died without him there. Without his knowledge.
Erudian tightened his hold on his princess. Ever since they had opened themselves, he rarely let her out of her sight.
Yerenica slept in his arms as he wrote a letter to Lebovny, informing them of his proposal to their princess and daughter, of her agreeing to his hand, and of their plans to marry. Erudian looked down at the glowing princess in his arms and kissed her forehead.
“I love you.” He whispered to his sleeping love and his Yerenica smiled and snuggled closer to his chest, to his heart.
✿❀❁❀✿
“There, there. No more crying, my love.”
Erudian groaned as he blinked his eyes and reached for the body beside him. Cold. When his vision cleared, he scanned the room and found her standing beside the bed, whispering comforting words.
“No more crying, little one. Mommy’s here.” Erudian moved from his side to hers, standing and wrapping his arms around her before kissing her forehead. His Yerenica let out a hum as she continued to hold their precious little blossom.
Deckard Belgoat was the apple of his father and mother’s eyes and the evidence of their love.
Well, there is another one.
Erudian rested his cheek on her head as his eyes went to the figure resting on the mantle of the cold dying fireplace.
Two roses, one pink and the other white, encased in resin formed to a sphere supported by a silver stand.
Flowers of love, indeed.
He stared at it before leaning down to kiss his wife’s lips.