{-Alfonse-}

They left the realm of the dead and parted ways with Veronica. He was able to ask her privately if she could get Zacharias to meet with him; luckily she didn't ask any questions and said she'd do what she could. Eventually they all mutually agreed to pretend like they never worked together at all and she left.

Alfonse offered to tell Henriette that they were back and left when they got close enough to the castle. He'd spent this long trying not to think of what he had to do, but he was smarter than to avoid it now. There was nothing else to do but face it and the sooner he did that the sooner he could hide again.

When Henriette saw him, she immediately stopped what she was doing and gave him a quick hug. She proceeded to circle around him with a worried expression. "Hel's forces retreated a while ago and I heard the gateway closed a couple minutes ago. Does that mean you killed her? Are both of you safe? Did she hurt you?"

"We're all fine, Mother," he assured her. "Nothing serious. Hel's dead thanks to Eir."

"Eir?" she repeated, finally stepping back.

"She went with the others back to the Order's castle. I'm sure Sharena will be more than willing to introduce the two of you soon." He decided, though, to address the reason he was really here; "But I mainly came to talk to you about the… other thing." It still felt too unnatural to say aloud, even after mentally repeating it on his way here.

Luckily she understood what he meant and nodded solemnly. "Of course. It'll be nice and quiet in the garden." She didn't wait until then, though, to fill in the silence. "If there's one good thing I can say about it, it's that we had enough time to prepare for it. It's still nowhere near ideal, but at least it's not as much of a sudden change."

They sat down in the garden and she quietly dismissed whatever servants were still following them. "He… did warn you, didn't he? That you can't live both lives..?"

"I don't plan to," Alfonse mumbled, "at least not forever."

"You don't have to make that decision now—I don't expect you to be willing to give it up anytime soon. This isn't meant to make it so then you never have to choose, just make the transition a bit easier. Gustav was thrown into it without a single warning… he didn't want the same for you." Henriette, for the most part, didn't look up at him. "I've been given certain powers as queen regent. It has its limits, of course, since you're of age and I'm not royal by blood, but it's enough for the time being. I can take care of the smaller, but just as important tasks, which will give you enough free time for whatever you wish to do with it. You'll still need to be a part of the big things, though you'll probably find them a lot less time-consuming than you thought. I'm willing to give it however long you need."

For a minute, he just stared. He hadn't been expecting a resolution that generous; to be honest, he wasn't really expecting a resolution at all. He mentally prepared himself for the fact that there was no escaping it, including everything that was involved in it. To hear her say something like that was such a relief that the only thing he could say was "Thank you."

She smiled weakly. "I'm only doing what little I can to help you. It's hard to make a change like that so suddenly. I don't want to see you face any more hardships than you need to." She perked up a little bit more with the offer, "Was there anything you needed to do with the Order? If not I'd love to hold you a little longer to hear how you two have been doing. Reading letters isn't quite the same as actually talking to one of you."

"Of course, Mother."

((A/N: Alfonse has learned enough to not tell Henriette that he did, in fact, cut his arm while in the realm of the dead. But in other ways—such as any issues in the Order—he's usually much more frank than Sharena is. Henriette comes to him whenever she thinks something's wrong; of course she doesn't want to draw attention to it and there's normally no practical reason for them to cross paths, so she is forced to wait until it seemingly passes or Sharena opens up about it. This may or may not be why she gets Alfonse to talk about how they're doing.))