|Afternoon|95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSZk4TMjxFR
July•11•xxxx
The days that followed the Scarlet Night were especially tedious for Ea. Yiran and Ea had to bury Tah Min on the Isle since they had no way of preserving her body for the trip back. She was buried next to her brother and with the help of Yiran, Ea was able to engrave a few words onto her tombstone.
"In memory of the sixth High Priestess of the Summer Isle. May we fly together again, wing to wing, heart to heart."
Her funeral was attended by himself and Yiran, as everyone else was busy dealing with the aftermath of the night prior and many wanted nothing to do with the "tainted priestess who broke her vows." Ea couldn't bring himself to do much of anything. He was exhausted, both emotionally and physically and to make matters worse, he hadn't even gotten a wink of sleep. For reasons that Ea couldn't fathom, Yiran had taken it upon himself to bandage Ea's eyes, make sure he was dressed and ready to go when he packed their things and dragged him onto a ship in order to sail back to Solaria. Through most of it, he hadn't been speaking to Ea. Ea didn't know if he was just angry with him or just in the process of mourning, probably a little of both.
When they arrived in Solaria the first to greet them was Sin, who was taking his usual morning stroll on the beaches near the docks. Sin didn't even wait for Yiran to introduce himself or explain what had happened, he just grabbed Ea and dragged him all the way back to the castle to be treated. Yukimi and Seimei were notified via Sin's frantic screaming that surely woke up the whole entire castle. Bellany was there as well, helping to disinfect Ea's damaged eyes while Yukimi and Seimei worked ceaselessly to try and restore his eyes to their former state as best they could. Due to Sin's screams, everyone else soon found out about Ea's injury, when they did, they began popping up in the infirmary to see him. Unfortunately, they wouldn't be able to until the trio was finished with him. Instead, Ri-is and Avarice stood outside with a panicking Sin and listened to Yiran as he filled them in on what had happened on the Summer Isle.
Astrid, had gone straight to her parents to find that Illya was unsurprisingly trying to strangle Callisto, albeit very weakly, in order to get him to allow her to go and see Ea. It was all for nothing as Callisto was very adamant that she stay in bed for now. Two of their son's had been injured, she was severely injured and rapidly declining, he wasn't going to risk having things get worse by letting her rush over to the infirmary and possibly hurting herself more on the way.
It had taken almost an entire day for Yukimi and Semei to restore most of his eyes. When they were done, Illya was finally wheeled in to see him, finishing their work up by using her regenerative abilities to somewhat restore several nerves. She wasn't able to help much, given how weak she was and that too much time had passed since his initial injury.
All of that brings us to their current predicament. Ea still had bandages around his eyes and he would for quite some time. Yiran had been thoroughly interrogated by Illya multiple times within the past week. With a heavy heart, Illya set up a memorial for their fallen Priestess in the Capital. With an even heavier heart, she listened as Ea told her he wished to step down as Prince.
"...you don't have to you know..."
"I know...but I can't think of any other way to atone for what I did..."
"It was an accident," she reminded him.
"But it still happened...she died by my blade...I killed her...revoke my title as prince. I'm going to leave Solaria."
"Where will you go in that state!"
Amidst Illya's concerned pleas, Yiran had entered the room. "I'm going with him. I'll look after him."
Silence fell over them. Ea turned towards the sound of Yiran's voice. He didn't show it on his face but he was especially confused. They hadn't discussed this beforehand and he didn't know what exactly Yiran planned to do, but for now, he went along with it.
"Why?" Asked Illya.
"I'm not exactly welcomed back on the Summer Isle. If I went back now I'd probably be executed for trying to aid a traitor and an outsider. More than that though, I'm also partly responsible for Tah Min's death. I saw it happen and I couldn't do anything to help her. All I could do was watch her die. If Ea is going into exile to atone for his sins, I'll join him. I can help him until he gets his bandages off too."
Ea seemed to be thinking and he thought for quite some time before turning back to where Illya was. "There you have it. I'll be fine."
"But-"
Callisto put his hand over Illya's, cutting her off gently. "It's okay. If this is what he's decided, we should allow it."
Illya looked up at Callisto in defeat. With a shaky sigh, she agreed. Ea went on to request a formal demotion. If he was going to do it, he might as well do it right, he reasoned. And so the next day, surrounded by all his friends and family, he would be ritually exiled.
|Night|95Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHCbRgtjCrL
July •11 • xxxx
The palace was full of doom and gloom. Two princes were injured, the Empress was quickly deteriorating and all the while making preparations for war in her weakened state. Not to mention, Sin catching word that Ea had expressed his desire to step down as prince and go into exile. There wasn't much to celebrate. To make matters worse, Sin had once again swamped himself with work, even against the advice of his mother. He had taken on extra responsibility in managing things since Illya was pretty much out of commission and his brother's weren't exactly in the best of shapes to be helping out, not that he would have accepted the help either.
As with the many nights prior, he sat alone in his study, working away on the stacks of paper work and documents he had piled onto his desk. Two things he had gotten unusually good at over the years, drinking, and running himself ragged in an attempt to avoid his problems. His focus began to drift and his eyes ended up wandering to the music box sat in a corner of his book shelf. It was the very music box that Nikiro had given him six years ago. Now it lay tucked under some books, as if Sin wanted to bury it out of sight, but couldn't quite bring himself to finish the job. He stopped what he was doing and glared at it for a moment as if it were taunting him. He rolled his eyes, giving into temptation. He stood up and walked over to the bookshelf. Sin carefully retrieved the music box from beneath the stack of books and set it on his desk. He looked it over, idly running his fingers over the edges. He flipped the box open, ushering in the gentle music and soft humming that emitted from the box. As Sin gazed upon the box, Nikiro's words echoed in his head.
"You clearly have a lot more anxiety about things than you'd like to admit. I just wanted to give you something that could hopefully help you relax...y'know, like whenever you feel overwhelmed with your position as Crown Prince, or you're nervous or something."
Sin sighed and slumped down into the chair at his desk. In a matter of minutes, the soft sound had nearly lulled him to sleep, but then came a knock at the door.
"Sin? Do you have some time to talk?"
Sin's eyes snapped open and he slammed the music box shut, silently cursing its existence.
"The hell! Does this thing summon him or something! Why does he have to show up every time I open it! I thought this thing was supposed to relax me not give me heart attacks," he muttered to himself.
Sin straightened himself out as best he could and opened the doors to his chambers. "Is it important? I have lots of work to do."
Nikiro looked back at him with unwavering eyes. "Yes. It's important."
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