Warnings: Death. Lots and lots of death.

Pairings mentioned/brought up: Rome x Germania, Rome x Ancient Greece

1.5

Several years went by. Much to Aldrich's relief, the now human-queen really was just an intelligent, kind-hearted soul that happened to be close friends with the human-king. During her entire reign, not one assassination occurred, only attempted or otherwise. About a few months or so after the wedding, Queen Athena Vargas announced her pregnancy, and a year later she gave birth to a beautiful baby girl by the name Sophia. She had her mother's cooler skin tone, her father's unruly mess of brown hair, and stunning green eyes that, strangely enough, neither of her parents had. Most were convinced this was a physical manifestation of Aldrich's magical connection to the father; personally, he believed it to be one of those genetic disorders humans were sometimes born with.

Sophia was the empire's darling. All who saw her absolutely fell in love with that charming smile and lovely, heart-shaped face. And, as she grew, Sophia loved the empire in return. She liked everyone, no matter what their religion, background, or appearance. She was just as wise as her mother, and yet, like her father, always insisted on enjoying the rich pleasures of life. Without a single doubt, Sophia would make an amazing human-queen when she came of age. She loved people, puzzles, and living. Admittedly, Aldrich should have seen it coming when a young, four year old Sophia became instantly attached to him; she always did remind him distinctly of the human-king that was her sire.

"Ricky! Ricky!" Aldrich looked behind at the nick-name the little one had given him, to see her rushing down the palace hall in his direction. "Ricky!"

The little girl pounced on him, only to be caught under the arms by his large hands. "Little one, you should not run in the halls."

"Aldrich!" Just as he set the small child down on her feet, he was tackled from behind.

"I thought I told you not to approach me from behind anymore." He said simply, his entire body tensed.

The human-king huffed jokingly, "Aww, come on 'Ricky!' Live a little!"

"The reason I do not like it when you sneak up on me is that I am worried I will accidentally mistake you for an enemy and stab you in the gut."

"Alright, alright, fair enough." He reluctantly let go of his hostage, turning his affections towards his daughter.

"Daddy!" She giggled as her father lifted her into the air, making strange noises that he supposed were meant to somehow resemble a horse's whining neigh.

Humans are still so bizarre to me, even after all these years.

"Sophia!" And then, of course, the child's mother showed up.

"Mommy!" The little girl smiled even wider at seeing her mother, who immediately joined the human-king in making those eccentric sounds.

Sighing deeply in exasperation, the 'wolf' turned and continued down the hall, leaving the frivolous royals to their own devices. Surely, two military commander-level nobles could hold their own while protecting their daughter if something were to happen, right?

"Ricky!" King Romulus looked up from the scrolls spread out upon the dinning room table. Of course, in the entryway stood his ever-faithful bodyguard, his now ten year old daughter using his leg like a ladder.

He grinned as the 'wolf' tried to pry Sophia off of him, lecturing her about the dangers of 'reckless actions' like that. "Hey, Aldrich!"

He paused and stood to attention, temporarily ignoring the child climbing up his leg, "Yes?"

"Come see the pictures we drew!"

Head tilted slightly in confusion, the other approached the table warily, the little girl swiftly jumping back onto the marble floors. The papyrus scrolls were filled to the brim with… drawings! Some were only stick figures, obviously done by Sophia, while others were perfect portraits, clearly drawn by the ever-handsome Romulus. However, throughout the innocent doodles was a clear theme of family and palace life; the largest drawing, located in the center of the strange symphony of artwork, had four figures posed together. In the middle was a grinning man with a curly train-wreck of brown hair, tan skin, and amber eyes scrunched slightly from the broad grin stretched across his face. Standing to his left was a slightly non-proportionate woman drawn entirely with a lovely shade of sky blue, her face holding a more refined, yet just as loving expression. In between them was a little girl of pink, her hair held back in a nice bun and her eyes closed, an almost blinding smile unabashedly plastered upon her face.

Romulus could tell exactly when Aldrich saw the fourth figure. His eyes widened just a pinch, his whole body tensed, and his eyebrows furrowed further. The final person in the picture stood to the king's other side, his hands neatly folded behind his back, body straight and orderly, far better than any average soldier of the empire. His long, blond hair fell into his face on one side, a small side-braid still located where the king had left it on his wedding night. Romulus knew the 'wolf' had to have taken it out eventually, but it warmed his heart to think he took the time to re-do it every morning as a part of his routine. While the king and his queen had began to develop the wrinkles that came with adulthood, Aldrich looked every bit as youthful as he had the day he revealed himself; he hadn't aged at all. His armor gleamed just as it did in real life, his skin was the unusually fair pallor the king had become used to over the years, and his grass green eyes seemed to stare down the viewer with the same intensity as the real thing. Between the picture and the actual person, only one thing differed.

Aldrich straightened and cleared his throat, "If you do not mind, I was planning on practicing my swordsmanship. I worry if I do not get off my arse at least once in awhile, I will grow soft and pathetic. Like humans."

As his bodyguard ran off in a noticeably faster pace than usual, the king couldn't help but laugh. Unlike his real life equivalent, the 'wolf' in the picture had a soft, contented smile on his lips.

Many years flashed by in an instant. With each fleeting moment, the human-king and his wife seemed to grow old and die before him. Around age sixty, Queen Athena of the eastern peninsula passed away from an unknown disease. The doctors didn't know how to treat it, so her fate was as good as sealed several months before her life finally came to an end. In the time after her death, Princess Sophia, now in her mid-twenties and happily married off to a nobleman from across the southern sea, came to visit her father and his ever-faithful protector, who still hadn't aged a day. In her anguish, the human-princess and heiress apparent locked herself up in her childhood room for an entire rotation of the full moon, only opening up to her husband.

They all coped with this cruel loss in different ways. The human-princess isolated herself, the human-king blatantly ignored his misery, and the 'wolf'... well, he didn't know what to think. The dead human-queen was a very strong, intelligent woman, and she balanced her often-times distracted husband nicely. Aldrich respected her. While some might have disagreed, he thought Queen Athena had made a great human-queen, despite the wild spirit inside him still believing the human-hierarchy to be incredibly stupid, even for such a bizarre group of creatures. To his contentment, not too much negative change came with her adoption into his life. For all of her time living with the human-king and his guardian, Aldrich was still allowed to sleep at the foot of the bed in his wolf form, wander the gardens at his leisure, and for the most part do whatever he wished. Although he had more responsibilities when it came to his charge's happiness and well-being, he was fairly satisfied with the situation.

But now the human-queen was dead. Although his charge tried so hard to cover his internal mourning, Aldrich could see the strain in his smile. He noticed the light bags under his eyes, and how his hair seemed slightly less oiled and brushed than before. For as long as the human-king brought stargazer lilies from the gardens to his wife's grave, the royal's protector couldn't help but to think about all the years he'd spent here. He thought about how the human-princess was born, raised, and grew up in the time Aldrich had been there, and while she visibly matured, he looked exactly like he did thirty years ago. Queen Athena was dead for crying out loud, and Aldrich hadn't aged whatsoever.

And then there was his charge. As he came to terms with heartless mortality, the 'wolf' felt an all too-familiar uneasiness in the pit of his stomach. It was the same feeling he got on the human-king's wedding night, that sickening twist of nerves he just couldn't shake off.

Aldrich had by now realized that he hated feeling afraid.

"Aldrich…" The human-king gave his closest companion a warm smile, despite his poor condition.

"Shush now, you need to rest." He reprimanded half-heartedly in return, laying a damp towel on the old man's forehead.

At age seventy-six, roughly forty-three years after their initial meeting, exactly nineteen years after the death of his wife, King Romulus Vargas laid in his bedroom, dying. The only one allowed to be at his side in these final moments, like he'd been for over four decades, was the stony-faced wolf spirit that had sworn his allegiance to him. It took a long time, but Aldrich eventually managed to piece together the broken man once his wife passed and his daughter married off. For three full years after Queen Athena's demise, the palace was just as it had been before the human-king wed, but somehow, it felt emptier. Isolated. Terrible.

His charge was a social butterfly, and the 'wolf' knew very well by now that the silly human, the one who saved his life that fateful autumn day, simply couldn't stand to be alone after having company for so long. Even before marriage and children, every time some important royal of some large territory within the empire left after staying for a long while, the human-king would shut himself up in his room, pouting at the loss of perfectly good ears to babble aimlessly at. This was just one of the hundreds of things Aldrich could now recite from memory about his charge. Take, for example, that while the human-king loved when his royal chefs flavored his food with spices brought in from the far east, he utterly despised that unusual leaf-drink that was so highly favored among nobility. Also, he absolutely adored the wolf-like animals called 'dogs,' especially the smaller ones. He would always gush about how cute they were, meaning there were about a million or so of these things roaming about the empire to keep him happy. His favorite colors were blood red, shinning gold, and pure white, the colors of the empire; he tended to take on this somewhat terrifying glint in his eyes when watching the gladiator fights, something that served as a reminder to his guardian that he was definitely more than just a pretty face; every morning, the human-king would down an entire fancy-looking glass of wine, two if he drank too much the night before.

And it was for all of these reasons and more that Aldrich was shaking as he gripped his charge's hand for stability.

"Aldrich," the old man began, "I have a confession to make."

"It can wait." He said hurriedly.

"No, 'm afraid it can't." The human-king held a faraway look in his amber eyes, still vibrant even after all these years.

"Yes, it can. You are not dying on me. I will not allow it." The 'wolf' swallowed the bile that threatened to spill out from the pit of his stomach, his throat filled with pliable lead.

His charge laughed, "You're such a hopeless romantic. Face it: I'm dying. I've lived a long life and my will's sorted everything out. It's simply my time to go."

Aldrich wanted to scream. He wanted to tear his hair out and yell at the top of his lungs that no, he couldn't go! He couldn't just leave! In that moment, he wanted to shout, exclaim, yell, scream, argue until his throat tore from too much exertion, and he could no longer speak, for his vocal chords would be forever ruined. He had spent so much time here, in this palace of glimmering metals and silken drapery, too much time for it all to just end with the death of his charge. His king. His heart. He was far too emotionally invested for this.

However, he knew it wouldn't end well if he indulged in these pain-addled visions of torture, so the 'wolf' nodded his head without hesitation.

The human-king sighed, "It's been so long, since that day in the forest," You don't need to remind me of that, "I remember the first time I saw your human self like it was just yesterday," It might as well have been, as far as I'm concerned, "To be perfectly honest with you, when you decided all on your own to be my bodyguard… I thought you were going to propose to me."

"You- what?!" He blinked, severe confusion expressed upon his worry-filled face. "You are dying, and yet you still find it appropriate to pull ridiculous pranks?"

The weaker laughed aloud, the once bold and hearty noise transforming into a feeble coughing fit. The other immediately sprung up, fetching an equally frail glass of water and bringing it to the human-king's lips. Once the hacking died down, he graciously drank from the glass.

"It's not a joke, you know," he looked at his companion, the one who'd been there for more than half of his life, and Aldrich could swear, whether it be the human-king's weakened state or absolutely true, that there was something. There was a certain feeling communicated in those strong eyes, those eyes that never changed. Aldrich could feel bright, hot red color his cheeks.

"I- " He could barely speak, "I do not want you to leave."

"Nonsense!" He chuckled, "You have your whole life ahead of you. I don't want you to get caught up in my stupid drama."

"I do not know what I will do once you are dead. My community does not know I am alive, remember?"

"Yes, but that's why you have to go back! You have to tell them you are, and help raise the young ones, and protect your little brothers, and hunt for the greater good, because that's who you are! You're not meant to sacrifice yourself for one frivolous king that can't even keep himself alive."

His hands clenched into fists. Deep down, he knew that naïve brashness had left with the human-king's youth. These dying words of him rung incredibly true; he was right. However, Aldrich just couldn't do it. He couldn't move on with his existence, knowing that this had happened, knowing that this zaney, eccentric human-king had so deeply affected him, that he had made him feel strange and foreign emotions he hadn't even known existed. It was utterly ridiculous, but he knew wholeheartedly that the reason he felt so attached to such an unusual person, the reason he felt like he was going to puke when the human-king's engagement to, at the time, Princess Athena was announced, was that he had fallen head-over-heels for this stupid, handsome, all-around amazing asshole without even realizing it.

"No. I can't do it."

"What?" He looked at the physically younger in slight concern.

"I- I just can't." He met the dying king's gaze, relaying more emotion into one look than he had in his entire life, "I can't go on, not after this. I- I just can't do it." He felt a hot, burning sting in his eyes, as some so far unknown liquid dribbled down his face. "I- I-"

The old king sighed, laying back on the mattress, "Well, I guess that makes two of us. I don't think I quite like the idea of you sticking around on Earth for like, eternity or something without me." He flashed a grin at his bodyguard that made it seem like he rewound the hands of time. Physically, they stayed the same, both in the human-king's bedroom, one old and frail, the other young and in his prime, but mentally, it was as if they were back thirty years ago, the noble of the two casting a mischievous grin at his guardian after pulling a particularly dastardly stunt with his royal advisor. "Grab my sword for me, will you?"

Obediently, the 'wolf' did as he was told, unsheathing the excellently-tempered blade from it's decorative holding place. He then returned to his charge's side, holding the handle out to the weaker. "Now, draw yours."

"What are we doing?" Aldrich asked, retrieving his weapon from his side anyways.

"I don't know about you, but if I'm going to die, I'm not dying from old age."

He processed this information for a few seconds, before his eyes widened. "We are going to kill ourselves?"

The human-king laughed, "No, we're going to kill each other. Much better than building up the guts to punch your own ticket, don't you think?"

Aldrich gave a low chuckle, the first time he'd ever allowed such a thing to happen, then approached the other, a tired smile gracing his face, "I suppose you make a good point there. On the count of three?"

His charge's face split even more, his eyes weary. Soon, soon they would both be able to rest. "No, I think we can trust each other enough not to time it."

The 'wolf' knelt by the old man's side, positioning his sword for the final blow. The human-king slung an arm around his neck, holding him close in these final moments. "Ready?" He said, his amber eyes shining with a certain youthful spark the rest of his body no longer had.

His bodyguard simply nodded into the crook of his neck, afraid if he attempted to talk the words would become jumbled and gargled in the recesses of his mouth. He felt the sharp tip of the other's sword, and in turn prodded at the crimson silks his love was so fond of. Then, there was silence. In the quiet before the storm, these two were completely in-tune with one another. They weren't 'Aldrich' and 'Romulus' anymore; those men didn't exist. They just were, and for the first time in over four decades, they mentally felt each other in the same intimate way they did when the wolf of them magically bound their fates. And, in the stillness of their environment, the wolf could hear a single phrase echoing off the walls and throughout his eardrums:

"Te amo,"

As the smelted iron and steel blade plunged inside him.

A/N:

Hey guys, this is the last sub-part to part 1! =D

By the way, you're welcome for that heart-breaking ending.

Anyways, starting now will be the first hiatus of the fanfic! DX During this hiatus, I will be finishing part 2, editing, and dividing it into sub-parts ready to post. Don't worry; the hiatus after part 2 will definitely be shorter, because I plan on writing an intermission to re-introduce some characters. Oh, and also, Sophia's eyes are nothing magical. XP All people have two genes that decide their eye color, and when they're different colors, only one shows up. Green is recessive to both brown and blue, so basically, Romulus and Athena somehow happened to have a green recessive gene. Because of this, there was only about a 25% chance their child would have green eyes, but she did anyways, so who cares? X3

Sophia is the Byzantine Empire/Byzantium.

Responses to review(s):

maryranstadler1: Thank you very much! =3 I hope you stick around until the end of this total train wreck!

Seele Esser Deutsch: Well, there you have it! I literally killed off the two most important characters in part 1 at the same time! X3 And, as the cherry on top, I killed them off minutes after Aldrich realized his undying love for Romulus, and just seconds after the mortal idiot confesses his true feelings! XD

Anyways, I think I've finally sorted out what's going to happen in part 2. I just need to type it all up, but that's going to take a while! DX THE GERITA WILL FINALLY APPEAR! X3

See you who-knows-how-long-from-now!