Chapter Text
“Mom, can you tell me a story?” a brown haired child with golden eyes requested from under the covers. “Let me guess, you want your usual bedtime story?” a woman with grayish blue eyes and long blonde hair asked teasingly. “Yeah! I love the one about the king, his child, and the Reaper!” the child cheered. “You know, most kids your age would find that type of story scary. The only reasonable explanation for your preference and indifference towards this stuff is your father,” the woman mused, then began to tell the story.
Blinded by the sheer wonders concealed within his child's chest, the king was temporarily driven to insanity by the power he found. In that moment, his intentions of helping his child overcome this burden that had been cast upon them were corrupted into a hunger for the power he discovered that pushed him to commit a sin he could never atone for.
The king made the worst mistake in all of his eons of life and would forever be haunted by his regrets over what he had done. He only managed to snap out of that trance when someone shouted something and swung a weapon at him. The king realized what he had done when he saw his child's lifeless body and their blood coating his hands. He fell to his knees and broke down, not even bothering to counter the man attacking him.
Despite the Reaper continuing to deal worse and worse damage, the king never exhibited any reactions. He didn't fight back even when the killing blow was dealt, for he had lost the only thing truly worth fighting for. A father killed his son, only to be killed by his son's best friend shortly after. That day, the Reaper brought his best friend back for a proper burial and left the father that killed them to rot in the same place he took their life.
“Thanks for the story, Mom. I'll go to sleep now,” the child promised. “Good night, sweetheart,” the woman said, kissing them on the forehead before turning off the lantern and leaving the room.
“I had a dream that there was this story I loved so much when I was younger. I would always beg my mom for it to be my bedtime story. Looking back, it was very concerning that I liked that story so much. A king tried to help his child get rid of a curse, only to be blinded and temporarily driven insane when he saw what was inside of them. His insanity caused him to kill his own child for their power. When he realized what he had done, he let his child's best friend, the Reaper, take his life as revenge,” Sherbert said as they stared out at the sunset.
“Seriously? That is a super fucked up story to tell a literal child and you were definitely not okay as a kid,” David commented. “Oh, hush. I bet you weren't much better. But it's definitely an interesting story. When I think about it now, I get a weird pulsing feeling in my chest that isn't just my heartbeat. But who would become friends with a reaper?” Sherbert asked. “No idea, Sherb,” David replied.
“Hey, Sherb, do you remember that bedtime story dream you told me about last time? Can you tell me the story?” Centross requested. “I guess that I could try to remember it, but no promises about my version's accuracy. I think that this king's child was cursed with something when they were young and he got hurt by it a while later. The king used this new bond to try to help remove the burden from his child, but his mind was temporarily corrupted enough for him to kill his child so he could steal their power,” Sherbert recounted.
“Centross, you know that you're my best friend, right?” Icarus asked somewhat softly. “Really? You think I'm...your best friend?” Centross asked, taken aback. “Yeah, you are! You, David Centross Mistvale, are my, Prince Icarus Morningstar's, best friend,” the Avian proclaimed. Centross froze when everything clicked. “Hey, Ick, do you remember that bedtime story?” he asked cautiously, only to find them asleep on his shoulder.
“I'm sorry, my friend. I should've tried harder to warn you about the connection I noticed,” Centross apologized, kneeling down in front of a tombstone. There was a swirl of rainbow light in the space between him and the grave marker, then it subsided to reveal what looked like a children's picture book. “Huh? What the fuck does ‘The Prince's Pain, The King's Calamity, The Reaper's Revenge’ mean?” the man asked.
Centross carefully opened the book to the first page, then almost dropped it upon recognizing the prince and the king. He flipped through the pages and realized that it was the very same story that his best friend had dreamt of before, as well as a prophecy about the fate they and their father would later meet.
“Just like I thought. Did I really look like that?” Centross muttered to himself as he reached the scene where he killed Fable. There were a bunch of blank pages after the story ended when the Reaper giving the Prince a proper grave. With each page, a swirling rainbow gradually became more and more visible until it reached the final page. Instead of wordless with a rainbow background, the page was black with three lines handwritten in golden ink.
The Prince had perished.
The King had collapsed.
But the Reaper had gotten his revenge.