Three Years passed in the Principality of Fanoss.
Three Years of missions.
Of monster hunts and guild requests and the slow, steady accumulation of fame that followed Arthur's party wherever they went.
Most of their assignments came directly from the palace—filtered through royal messengers who always seemed to arrive just as the party was considering moving on.
The twin princesses were behind most of them.
Letters arrived with increasing frequency.
Always polite.
Always proper.
But between the formal lines, something softer lurked.
An invitation to stay longer.
A suggestion of an upcoming festival that "simply must be experienced."
A gentle, almost shy request that Arthur visit the palace again—this time through the front door, preferably.
Hetrude's letters were formal, almost stiff, as if she were still trying to convince herself that she wasn't actually writing them.
Hertrauda's were warmer, dotted with small details about her day, questions about Arthur's travels, the occasional pressed flower tucked between the pages.
Arthur read them all.
Responded to each one.
But adventuring wasn't the only thing Arthur did during those three years in Fanoss.
The twin princesses had been puppets when he arrived—figureheads with crowns and no power, trotted out for ceremonies while the nobles and the military faction pulled the strings.
Their sacred flutes gave them leverage, but leverage wasn't the same as authority.
The nobles let them play at being rulers because it was convenient.
Because the princesses were young.
Arthur changed that.
He didn't do it loudly. Just quiet, methodical dismantling of every power structure that kept the twins in their gilded cage.
Cleare and Luxion provided the information. Every noble who plotted against the princesses. Every general who viewed them as disposable weapons. Every courtier who whispered behind their backs and smiled to their faces.
Financial records. Secret correspondence. Blackmail material so damning that half the court would collapse if it ever saw daylight.
Arthur gave the princesses the choice: expose them or leverage them.
Some nobles found their darkest secrets laid bare before the court. Their careers ended overnight. Their allies abandoned them. Their names became synonyms for disgrace.
Others simply... disappeared. No bodies. No evidence. No trials. Just empty estates and servants who suddenly found themselves without masters.
The kind of disappearance that made everyone else very, very careful about how they spoke to the princesses.
Within those three years, Hetrude and Hertrauda weren't puppets anymore. They were rulers. Real rulers. The kind who issued commands and expected them to be obeyed. The kind whose signatures meant something.
They owed it all to Arthur. And they knew it.
In return, they became... attached.
It started subtly. Hetrude would find excuses to consult him on military matters she already understood perfectly well.
Hertrauda would appear in his quarters with tea and pastries and questions about his homeland that stretched into hours-long conversations.
They both began dressing more carefully when he was around.
Smiling more.
Laughing at his jokes even when they weren't funny.
Arthur noticed. Of course he noticed.
The twin princesses of Fanoss—the most eligible women in the entire principality, sought after by nobles and foreign princes alike—were competing for his attention.
Not subtly. Not gracefully. With the desperate, unpolished enthusiasm of young women who had never been allowed to want anything before and were finally, recklessly indulging themselves.
He should have discouraged it. Would have discouraged it, if he were a better man. But they were cute. Both of them.
Hetrude with her stiff formality that crumbled the moment he complimented her.
Hertrauda with her open affection and her pressed flowers and her questions that never seemed to end.
So he let them be cute. Let them compete. Let them steal moments of his time and pretend they weren't doing exactly that.
He even abandoned his original plan.
The Holfort Kingdom was his homeland in this world. Corrupt. Flawed. Rotten from the top down. But still his.
When he suggested—casually, almost offhandedly—that perhaps Fanoss's resources would be better spent on internal development rather than military aggression against Holfort, they didn't argue. Didn't question. Didn't even hesitate.
The border harassment stopped within a week.
The military funding was redirected. Fortifications were strengthened. Technology was developed. Production was expanded. The principality transformed from a nation perpetually on the brink of war into a fortress that no one would dare attack.
Arthur's suggestions became policy. His casual observations became national doctrine.
They were obedient. So obedient and so eager to please him. It was almost concerning how readily they followed his every word.
But he couldn't deny the results. Fanoss was stronger now than it had ever been. The princesses were stronger.
And Holfort—for all its corruption and complacency—was safer because the principality on its border was no longer obsessed with revenge.
All good things must come to an end.
When the three-year mark arrived, he began packing.
"The princesses won't be happy," Stephanie observed, watching him fold his traveling cloak.
"The princesses knew this was coming. I told them from the start—we're adventurers. We don't stay in one place forever."
"And yet they kept writing."
Arthur paused.
Looked at the small stack of letters on his desk—each one carefully opened, read, and preserved.
"Yeah. They did."
He didn't elaborate.
Stephanie didn't push.
The farewell was brief.
Professional.
Arthur left a final letter for the twins—thanking them for their hospitality, reminding them once more about the cost of the flutes, and promising that if they ever needed him, really needed him, he would come.
No matter the distance. No matter the circumstance.
Hetrude read it with her usual stiff composure. Hertrauda read it with tears in her eyes.
Neither of them tried to stop him.
They were princesses. They understood duty. And Arthur, for all his kindness, had never been theirs to keep.
He was always going to leave.
They had always known it.
It didn't make the leaving hurt any less.
Hetrude stood at her window, watching his ship disappear into the morning mist.
Her composure never cracked. Her expression never wavered.
She looked, for all the world, like a queen watching a diplomatic envoy depart—formal, dignified, utterly composed.
But her hands were clenched so tightly behind her back that her nails drew blood from her palms.
Hertrauda stood beside her, still crying, still clutching the letter, still hoping—foolishly, desperately, against all reason—that the ship would turn around.
That he would come back.
That this wasn't really goodbye.
It was.
The ship disappeared over the horizon. The mist swallowed it whole.
And the twin princesses of Fanoss—the true rulers of their nation, the women Arthur Pendragon had raised from puppets to queens—stood together in the silence, and in the quiet of their hearts, they mourned.
...
Note:
Lately, I've been in a very stressful situation, so yeah, I've been focusing all my attention on reading comedy and smut works here and there, and even writing one in my free time. Well, I'm confident I can handle it and start writing chapters normally again, maybe even regularly if I have to.
Still, no promises on consistency. But if I do manage it, I'll set up a Power Stones event where bonus chapters will be released once a certain number of stones is reached.