Epilogue
A small child sat in front of a table filled with a mountain of documents, his brow furrowed deeply. Judging by his outer appearance, a human might think he was six or seven years old, but in reality, he had been alive for more than seventy years.
He glared at the paperwork; it had no purpose other than to annoy him.
“Are you there, Raven?” he called out.
“Yeah. What’s up?” Raven replied, jumping down from one of the beams running across the ceiling.
Sirius pushed the pile of documents toward him, and Raven replied with a look of very obvious disdain.
“What have I done to warrant that face?” Sirius frowned. “I’m merely asking you to take care of these.”
“I can’t do that,” he sighed. “You need to take a look at it, at least.”
“…What is the point? I have no intention to marry.”
Raven gave him an exhausted look; he’d already said that a million times before. If Sirius didn’t like something, it was a painstaking process to get him to change his mind.
When Uranometria bestowed the right to the throne upon Sirius, the atmosphere around him changed drastically. Almost every day, a huge volume of family charts detailing women’s lineages showed up in his office. Each family that sent them took no effort to hide their ulterior motives, either.
Once upon a time, Sirius’ older brothers had regarded him as a convenient little workaholic who would do everyone’s duties for them, but now, they made an open show of hostility towards him. Even though Sirius had never wanted to be the future emperor. The stress of it all was nothing but suffocating to him.
“I know it’s not what you want, but if you’re gonna be emperor, you gotta find yourself an empress, y’know? How about Lord Elestial’s daughter?”
Sirius didn’t even bother to grace that suggestion with a reply. Instead, he shot Raven a cold, empty glare.
“Sheesh, I’m only kidding! It scares me when you do that.”
“None of them see me as anything other than a prince. I don’t want to have to choose any of these women,” Sirius grumbled. He was aware of how selfish he was being, but he couldn’t help but let his true feelings slip out.
He never chose to be the future emperor. He would have much preferred to leave that role to one of his older brothers while he took care of official duties behind the scenes.
Unfortunately, that simply wasn’t to be. Nobody had the power to overturn the emperor’s decision—no matter how much Sirius pleaded otherwise. He knew that he would have to choose a woman to marry eventually.
“Okay, Lord Sirius, I’ll find you a woman who does appeal to you. What kinda person are you looking for?”
“Well, I think I’d want her to be…” He paused for a moment.
“Yeah?”
“…Someone who doesn’t know who I am.”
“Uh…” Raven chuckled bitterly. “Sorry, but I don’t think she exists.”
Sirius knew that. But he could dream.
✦ ✦ ✦
SIRIUS had been having a lot of dreams about his past recently.
As he blinked several times in an attempt to dispel the weariness hanging over him, he remembered that he’d gone to sleep sitting against a tree—and on his lap, a white cat named Snow was sprawled out on his back, napping to his heart’s content. His birdlike wings were fully stretched out, and Sirius had to wonder how on earth he was comfortable like that. He stroked a hand through Snow’s velvety wings, but he showed no signs of waking up.
The sweet, fresh scent of the fruit trees tickled his nose. The orchard that had been created in order to supply the divine beasts with food had become somewhat of a secret spot for Sirius. No one was permitted inside the grounds unless accompanied by himself or Marialite, thus giving him the perfect place to go for some peace and quiet when he needed it.
Even so, if he stayed there for too long, Raven would have a bone to pick with him later—and he wanted to avoid any additional stress. He decided to get up, cradling Snow in his arms as he thought back on what he had relived in his dream.
He wished he could go back and tell himself about his current life and tell him all about the woman that he thought didn’t exist. He wanted to tell him how much she loved him, too.
“Excuse me?! It’s almost time for afternoon tea! Now is not the time to take a detour!” the shrill voice of a certain cat-woman rang out.
“Oh, there’s no need to make a fuss. We’re only going to pick some fruit for Snow’s dinner,” a calmer, more gentle voice replied. Snow’s eyes suddenly snapped open upon hearing the second voice and he swiftly flew out of Sirius’ arms to go and greet them.
“Sorry, Raven…” Sirius smiled. “It looks like it’s going to be a while until I get back.”
I’m probably going to get lectured for it later, but…
With a spring in his step, he braced himself and strode over to the figure clad in white he could see in the distance.
When he knew there was a beautiful, kind saint just a short distance away, asking him to simply walk on by would be impossible.