what they wished for [cowt11 | week 02 | m2]

[hannyakoma]

Prompt: Avere e non avere

Word count: 605
Rating: sfw
Fandom: The Arcana
Note: Spoilers per la Reversed Ending di Lucio!

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Three years. 

 

That had been the amount of time he spent without what he most wished for. A body, recognition, praise, friends -- little things, now that he thinks about it, but those were what mattered after all when he was just a ghost haunting the corridors of the palace. 

Lucio thought his fate had been sealed that way, that he could probably only wait -- if the demons reached out for him, he couldn’t have done more than screaming and pleading for more time, even knowing it would still be a dead end. He had just wanted more power to spend his life freely, but the deals he had accumulated had undoubtedly begun taking a toll on him. Softly, discreetly, until the chains of the past grounded him for good.

Even then, he wished for more, more, more-

He didn’t know how much he spent rattling his head for a way out, until that fated day had come.

Or better, his destiny had come to him in the form of a small, soft woman looking nothing like the warrior he came to know her as. 

Cirene the magician had everything he had wished for. A body, recognition (from Nadia, no less!), praise (from that damned witch Asra, too), friends and even more. Something ugly swirled inside his chest, gnawing at his ghostly insides -- envy, spite, a greedy wish to take her place in the others’ hearts.

He deserved that, he knew! Why had such a little human had everything that he strived to obtain served on a silver plate?!

Such thoughts he had on their first meeting. It’s something he kept buried in his mind and heart in the present, after everything he and Cyrene had been through. He would not tell her about such ugliness, even if he suspected she already knew.

The small, soft woman from the past knew so much more after the merge -- about magic, about the creation of the realms, about him -- and yet still chose to be at his side (to let him be at her side).

Grey eyes looked ahead, to the crowd assembled before the gates of his glorious castle uphill: from there, the former count could almost see the borders of the capital of the Vesuvian Empire. Funny how mere months ago that little county, a city he received as a parting gift from the previous count, was literally nothing compared to what he had now.

An empire. Lucio Morgasson had become an emperor, all thanks to the kind patronage of one Arcana. Cyrene had laid out the plan for him right after coming back to life for the second time: unifying the world under one lead -- his, hers; their.

After their win against the old enemy that almost condemned them both to a cruel fate, caged and chained like helpless newborns, Cyrene had taken the reins of fate. With the ambition of the Devil, the freedom of the Fool and the power of the Major Arcana on their side, they could do anything and everything. 

Have everything and anything.

Even taking over the world sounded like a doable thing. Lucio was sure, if Cyrene just issued the order, it would take a little time to reach such a goal: he’d present the whole world to her, even if it meant trampling everything else in the process.

He promised to never repeat the same mistakes he made in the past, but was it really a mistake if done in the name of making the love of his life feel elated, satisfied?

She deserved as much, after all she had done for them all.