I’d Give Up The World For You - Chapter 234

“Why do you think that?” Amy asked.

Rukelion picked at a string sticking out of his hoodie sleeve. “Because Conrad knew better than anyone how much I needed Daisy. That she was my light. He used to say she was good for me since she was able to get me to stop being so serious all the time. Losing her would destroy me. He knew that.”

He knew his friend. Conrad was a good person. A forgiving one. The kind to give people second chances.

He may have been frustrated being left with all of the work Rukelion couldn’t do anymore but he probably would have taken it in stride. He doubted Conrad would want to be king himself. He probably set up some sort of system where the common people had more power.

“If you think he would have forgiven you then why are you still blaming yourself?”

Amy’s question threw Rukelion off. He didn’t know how to answer it. Just because someone is too soft doesn’t mean you should take advantage of them, does it?

He let out a small laugh. Wow. His mindset had certainly changed a lot over the years. He had specifically chosen to take advantage of Conrad for his softness in the beginning. When had that changed? When they had become friends? Or after being in months of therapy and realizing more fully what he had done?

“He deserved better than that,” he said eventually. “They all did. My men looked up to me. Counted on me. And I abandoned them to chase after what I wanted.”

“You gave them what they wanted. Lower taxes for their families. Wouldn’t you say that was fulfilling your responsibility to them? We can’t do things for the people we care about at the expense of ourselves,” Amy said wisely.

Rukelion wasn’t sure he agreed with that. Everything he had done since losing his family and country had been at the expense of himself. Leaving Daisy. Joining the royal army. Following through with his plan. All of that had hurt him in different and unexpected ways.

He thought back to a question she asked him a few days ago. What he wanted now that he was here that wasn’t doing what he thought she wanted.

What he wanted and what she wanted largely aligned though. But would he want more than that someday? Goals and dreams and things he hoped to accomplish outside of living peacefully with his family?

After so much time in this world he still didn’t know much about it. He didn’t know about the sort of things people wanted here. His world had been much simpler in many ways.

“I always do things at the expense of myself,” Rukelion confessed.

Amy nodded. “I know. I’ve noticed that about you. You move from one goal to another without really thinking about what you want out of life long-term. That’s something we need to work on.

“I truly believe that someday you’re going to find things that make you happy outside of Daisy. That’s the healthy thing to do. You know you aren’t supposed to pin all of your hopes and dreams on one person. She has her hobbies but what do you have aside from her?”

Rukelion truly didn’t know. All he had done since arriving in this world was for the sake of being reunited with his wife and helping her accomplish her dream.

He had always done things he thought would make her happy or that would allow him to spend time by her side. He didn’t even know what he liked to do by himself because when he was alone he was always working toward something.

Training. His revenge plan. Learning what he needed to about this world so he could fit in. Who was he when he wasn’t with Daisy? A cold and calculating villain, that was what. Deep down he knew that Amy was right but he didn’t know where to start.

“Nothing really,” he admitted.

“That’s what I thought. You need to try out more hobbies. Find something that’s solely yours, Rukelion. Something you enjoy…something that brings you fulfilment. It doesn’t matter what as long as it isn’t hurting anybody.”

What could possibly bring him fulfilment outside of Daisy? He had been chasing after his goals for most of his life hoping to find some measure of satisfaction in them but always came up short. He supposed that was because he was always chasing. He never took time to stop and smell the roses the way his wife did.

Was that why she managed to be so easily satisfied? She found joy in the smallest of things along the way and had for as long as he had known her.

Rukelion had long wanted to be more like her in that way but hadn’t thought it was possible. Maybe it would be with time. He was going to start looking into hobbies and see what he found that was something he could do alone. Even if he didn’t like spending more time away from his wife than necessary.

“Alright,” he agreed, firm in his resolve. “I’m going to get myself a hobby!”

===

Getting himself a hobby was easier said than done. Rukelion didn’t have much time to spare because of his class load, working part-time, and needing to spend time with his wife.

He barely had time to start trying to write that fanfiction Amy encouraged him to now that the prequel was out and interest would be at an all-time high. He knew he had to take advantage of the timing but it was hard.

Putting things into words…he spent a lot of time staring at the blinking cursor on his word processor because he wasn’t sure how to get his feelings across properly. It was easier if he didn’t put emotion into it. If he pretended like he was writing an essay for school.

Thinking of things that way allowed the history of Katalya to pour out of his fingertips as they flew across the keys. That wasn’t the hard part. The hard part was writing about memories with his family.

Rukelion told Daisy about his frustration and she was sympathetic. “Maybe try and treat it like you’re talking to me. You’ve told me plenty about them.”

He supposed he could give that a try. He always missed them horribly when he talked about them but that was to be expected. Keeping their memories alive was more important than his feelings. He could deal with the aftermath later.

Most of his free time was spent writing down his memories for a solid month. That wasn’t exactly a hobby and, considering how miserable it made him, he didn’t want to keep it up once he had gotten everything he was thinking and feeling out of his system.

Baring his deepest wounds to the internet by talking about everything he loved and lost as if he was an outsider was difficult but ultimately rewarding in a way. Most of the comments were positive.

People loved reading what they called his headcanons about things and, though he wasn’t active enough in the fandom to realize it, people took what he said seriously. More seriously than what the author had put most of the time. His writing had become fanon: established beliefs within the fandom that weren’t officially part of the story.

Rukelion still felt that his privacy had been violated but at the same time he was relieved that people—a surprising amount of them—were interested in the history of Katalya and the lives of his family. They would live on in more than solely his memories.

It wasn’t much but it was better than nothing. He hadn’t failed them completely.

And someday…when he and Daisy had children of their own…he would tell them all about it too. Even if it had to be done as a bedtime story or twisted within the context of this world.

They would know all about their aunt, uncles, and grandparents and the kind of people they had been. They would know about their heritage even if it had to be in a roundabout way. And if they were fire mages it wouldn’t be.

Rukelion didn’t know what was going to happen there. He still had his magic but now lived in a world where it didn’t exist. Did the same rules apply?

He wasn’t sure if the bloodline would carry on in a place like this but he supposed he would see when they had a child. If he truly was the last of the fire mages, that was going to weigh heavily on his heart.

At least he had managed to write a long fanfiction about the proud history of fire magic and how it worked. Everything Llyris ever taught him and things he had figured out himself made it into that story. People had been eager to read about it since they had wondered things about fire magic that hadn’t been mentioned in the prequel.

But worrying about whether or not his children would have fire magic wasn’t something that needed to happen now. That was still years off.

Rukelion had a lot of school left ahead of him. Daisy wanted to wait until he was done so he could be financially and (hopefully) emotionally stable.. She didn’t want to leave anything to chance when it came to their children’s well-being and after the childhood she had he couldn’t blame her.