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Kris and Susie are probably asleep right now. Hopefully. They ought to get their eight-to-ten hours; they’re growing Lightners.
Ralsei, though, will never grow, and doesn’t have a bed, and is far too anxious to pretend to rest besides. If he didn’t think too hard about it, he might have ended up pacing the length of his bedroom back and forth all night, just waiting for his friends to show back up and give him something to attend to, some reason to exist. But he has thought about it, and he’s realised that just because Kris and Susie are doing realer things right now, that doesn’t mean he can’t still be attending to them!
This is why, in the middle of the night, he is carefully carving out the wall between their bedrooms, smushing them together into one united space. Because when Kris and Susie get here in the morning, he will be ready to make it a good one.
He’s going to give them a tea party.
One good thing about being the Prince of this world is that he can pretty much get whatever he wants from whoever he wants whenever he asks. (Although it certainly doesn’t hurt to ask nicely.) He got the teapot, cups and plates from Swatch; he got the tea and the sugar bowl from Seam; he got the water for the pot from the Watercooler, who had revealed herself to be a somewhat nervous Mizzle when the TV World denizens had first been settling in. He’ll heat that with his magic closer to the time, hot enough to warm and comfort Kris and Susie’s bones, but not so hot that they’ll be burned and hurt themselves. Ralsei wouldn’t be able to forgive himself if that happened, after all.
Add to that a nice set of table-and-chairs, sweep a tablecloth across the top, and a picturesque display spreads out before him. It could come straight out of a panel of the prophecy.
… Ralsei is aware that things do not get easier from here.
He knew it when Kris and Susie first walked up, the girl and the cage, the two most important people in his world. He knows it now, now that they’ve all been felled by the Roaring Knight, the first of many strifes in their path. It is not the last time that they will suffer. The tail of hell wraps round him like a spectre, constricting him when he thinks too hard about that certain, suffocating future.
Tenna’s untimely dismemberment and Lancer’s silly insults are given equal weight by the lines of the future. The prophecy doesn’t seem to hold much stock in Darkners’ lives that way.
(Neither does he. As much as Susie yelled at him about it last night, he can’t quite bring himself to elevate the Darkners’ position in the lineup of his mind. Cage and girl, and lonely prince along for the ride, to help the heroes duel with their foe and banish the angel’s heaven. Anything else may as well be set dressing.)
Regardless, both of those things have long since come to pass by now. The Queen’s chariot cannot be stopped. The ring of Heaven’s call will toll like funeral bells, and all Ralsei will be able to do is watch as the final tragedy unveils.
Blood on his paws, even if he doesn’t strike a blow. Inevitable.
Right now, though, there is nothing to stain him. He might feel the sting of future blame, the sticky drip of guilt and worthlessness, but it’s all inside his inconsequential imaginary head. What he does, all he can do, right now is what matters.
And what he is doing is setting the table; a tea party for Susie and Kris.
(Sometimes his cheeks begin to hurt from smiling. It’s not like he hasn’t chosen this life for himself - the prophecy never said he had to be happy about what’s going to happen this week. The choice he has made, to proffer himself as a cheery and helpful guide, is his own, and if it hurts then he’s gonna have to be the one to shoulder that pain. Bringing the other two in on his suffering is the last thing he wants.)
Teacups for all of them, and a plate each for Kris and Susie, so that they can each have a slice of cake. He leaves the sugar cubes closer to Susie’s place, knowing that she’ll want to crunch a few.
Angel, he wishes his food could fill her up.
But she’ll be happy as she does it, and Kris will too, in that inscrutable way of theirs, the kind that’s almost always a little bit obscured by the bars of their arrangement. And that’s all that Ralsei can really guarantee them. This one small moment of happiness, here on the razor’s edge of hope and desperation, before it all comes crashing down in so many days.
He wonders what flavour he should make the cake. Maybe double-chocolate. Maybe strawberry jam.
Or maybe he’ll decide a little closer to the time. It’s not a choice that matters, after all.