The Tsar, The Princess And The Tailor

War

If this was to be his end?

The reality of death began to sink into his skin. His body began to shiver as he remembered the faces of family and comrades he had lost in the course of his life. He had felt grief. He knew it well. But what had Ixora done to face this so soon? She could not be heard over the energy of the crowd but he could see her. How she was hardly keeping herself together, sobbing silently into her hands and unable to look at him.

He needed to see her. He wanted her eyes to meet his one last time, if this was to be the final moment. And he needed her to feel his love for him. He'd never even let himself say those words, not even when she told him hers, terrified that it was all a hazy dream born of her pity. He had always felt pathetic. Like his presence in the world was wrong, somehow.

If only he would realise that as he was there, so was Ixora. And his mother. And his friends, crew, people and even Brum as the brute he was. Nikolai was just as much human as everyone he had ever loved and despised, cherished and never noticed existed. And with humanity comes worth, not because of some possible attainment of some conditional perfection but because being alive and on this earth is enough on its own for every living creature to come and go with as much joy as they can grasp.

He walked away from the middle of the arena and stepped in front of her. Ixora looked up at him, trembling as she managed a soft and hopeful croak of, "are you going to call this off?"

He silently shook his head. Her tears fell again, fresh and impossible to stop. Nikolai glanced to the women around her. Genya seemed especially worried... So this was her. The woman Ixora felt something for. In that moment, he felt no jealousy. Only relief. If today was the end, there would be someone to look out for her. Someone who gazed at her with nearly as much love as he held.

Every restriction that had ever been wrapped around the tsar fell as he rose her chin. Ixora searched his eyes for some answer to the thick dark fog already invading her mind, making her ability to stand and speak and breathe a crushing chore. He slowly lifted his other hand to the back of her neck, smiling warmly as he neared her. He could just barely hear Brum yelling in the background, drowned out by so many other noises. None of that mattered.

Because Ixora was closing her eyes, trying to keep the hammering in her chest to a minimum as she finally kissed her king.

The crowd seemed to quieten. Whispers grew in their stead. Nikolai couldn't have cared any less. Instead, he smiled for the first time since he'd made the decision. She always had a way of bringing him back from the edge of nothingness, even in the moments when she was silent. And Genya smiled softly too, knowing this was important to both of them, despite feeling certain Ixora would never gaze at her or cry for her the same way she did him.

He held his butterfly's hand carefully, pressing his last kisses to her knuckles, her wet cheeks, her forehead, her hair. He glanced down at her lips and brushed his nose against hers, knowing their time was up.

He had a fight to win.

"I'll come back to you," he whispered. Those words alone gave Ixora more hope than she'd had since she first heard the news.

"Promise me, Nikolai."

"Nothing could keep me away from another taste of you, moya tsarevna."

"One last kiss with your beloved, little prince? One would think you would save those lips for your betrothed..."

"My my, Brummy... Have you been gazing longingly at my mouth since we met?"

Brum spluttered, his eyes the slightest bit wider as he took a small step backwards. Nikolai's little smirk grew even stronger then as he watched him fumble for an answer, rage clouding his gaze. "How dare you?!"