This chapter's even shorter than the first! Oh well. ~Loli.

Episode 2: On Love, Betrayal and the Power of Wishing

"… And then Laharl-san and Ozonne-chan started screaming at each other… Oh, Etna-san, what am I going to do? This wasn't what I planned at all!"

"Hmm… Hwah? What did you say, Flonne?" I asked, coming out of my reverie and blinking, holding my cell away from me and glancing at the call time. The clock told me it had been about half an hour since I had last paid attention to Flonne, and I winced as she shrilly chided me for my ignorance.

"Oh, Etna-san! Please pay attention! You're the only one I have to talk to right now! Mother and Father are coddling me like a child, Ozonne-chan hates Laharl-san, and Laharl-san just wants to come home! I don't have a lot of options right now!!"

"Easy on the ear, Flonne, you know I only have two," I told her, holding the phone away from my face as her voice got more and more piercing. Sighing, I brought the phone closer and said, "Look, why don't you tell Laharl, your bratty sister and those clueless parents of yours what you want? Don't you want to have the wedding on Earth?"

"Well, yes…"

"So tell them that! Honestly, girl, if you don't start speaking up for yourself I'm going to come up there and knock some angels around."

"Nononono, you don't have to do that, ahaha," Flonne fake-laughed, and I could hear the panic rising in her voice at my suggestion. She sighed, and murmured, "So, you know what's going on up here. How's the Netherworld?"

"Eh, same old, same old," I replied, feeling like crap as I bit the inside of my cheek to keep myself from telling her about the most important thing that had happened to me since they had left for Celestia. As bad as I wanted to tell her I knew she was off-limits, at least until she could get better at hiding secrets from Laharl. If I revealed to Flonne that Vyers, the Dark Adonis, actually the "late" King Krichevskoy had come waltzing into the Overlord's castle and kissed the brains out of me, she would probably reveal said information over dinner that night. I could only imagine the look on Laharl's face after she spoke. He'd probably blow her parents' house apart. "Hanako and Aramis learned Prinny Raid this morning, so obviously it rained big blue penguins all day." That wasn't quite true; I had kept them from blowing prinnies up most of the day, but I knew that the poor girl needed a laugh. True to her nature, the thought of my two youngest vassals having a prinny fight made Flonne giggle lightheartedly, sounding happier than she had been since Laharl had proposed to her.

"Ah, Etna-san, you can still make me laugh so easily," Flonne sighed, her light voice growing heavy once again. "At least some things haven't changed."

I hesitated a moment before asking bluntly, "Do you regret it? Saying yes, I mean."

"What? Oh, no no no, of course not!" She replied quickly, and I could hear the honesty in her voice. "It's just… I miss the old days. The carefree life I had with you and Laharl-san in the Netherworld, you know? It's great to see my family again, really it is. I just wasn't prepared to deal with all of this. I thought it would just get easier after he proposed."

"I could still come up there and split some heads open, you know. The offer's still good."

She laughed again. "I'll keep that in mind. Laharl-san and Ozonne-chan can really get on one's nerves after awhile."

After we'd hung up, I felt once again empty and alone. The joy in my voice when I was talking to Flonne belied the raging emotions in my heart, from betrayal to desire to anticipation to fear. He had told me he'd be back soon. Of course, that was before he'd kissed me for half a minute and then ran like hell, but in my stupidity I still managed to hope. Love does stupid things to smart demons.

I cringed. Love… I've never had as much as an aversion to the concept as Laharl had, but it had never been a big point on my game plan, either. After Flonne came and changed Laharl, however, some of her thinking processes apparently rubbed off on me as well. I began to think about the late King, and what my feelings for him meant. There was an insurmountable amount of regret there, along with an equal amount of appraisal… And, when I searched deeper, I found that what I felt for the King was more than simple worship. I looked back at old pictures of the two of us, before Laharl's mother had come to the Netherworld. Sure, he held me like a father would a daughter, but there had to be something else there…! I then picked up a picture of the newly married royal couple, and I found it. When I looked at the happy King with his arms around her waist, something twisted in my gut. I'd dropped the pictures and fled my secret room, which I'd kept open even after I claimed the throne for myself. There was something in his eyes that I wanted for myself, a longing that his eyes held every time he looked at her. It disgusted me to think that a mere human would enrapture his heart instantly when I'd been there all along. Of course, I was thousands of years younger than he, but still… I found him first!!

I sighed and collapsed into the small coffin Laharl had used to sleep in. I was in the Prince's old bedroom, which I had yet to claim. He and Flonne had stayed in here awhile after they got together, though they had had to get an actual bed since the coffin could barely contain the growing demon boy anymore. I struggled to get comfortable as I laid in it, my legs spilling out over the bottom of the casket and onto the floor. Even after becoming Overlord I slept in my secret room, unable to take the room that King Krichevskoy and the Queen had shared. So, after about two hundred years, Laharl and Flonne began to sleep in the King's quarters. I couldn't help drawing similarities between the two couples; Laharl and Krichevskoy had met and fallen in love with an angel and a human, respectively, two beings from two different worlds. The King and Queen had brought the human world and the Netherworld together, and Laharl and Flonne eventually became the knot that bound the warring opposites, the Netherworld and Celestia, together. Only I was left, and there was not another world that a suitor could come from, unless they came from an alternate netherworld. Multiple times I offered Laharl his job back, but to my surprise he turned me down every time. "My old man would have wanted you to keep the job," he'd say. "You deserve it. I wasn't ready when I took it the first time, and I'm still not ready." It drove me crazy, because while he had found his happiness, I had yet to find mine. And being stuck with the title of Overlord was not a place to begin finding my happiness. All I could get here was power-hungry suitors and daily challengers.

I thought back to my younger days, watching Laharl kneel before a small white flower and confess his love. It had shocked me, but it had also made me jealous. And the scene afterward was even more painfully familiar; he, standing up and sacrificing himself for the one he loved. She, giving up her life for the baby of the King of the Netherworld. My chance to save the said King's life, to profess my own feelings, only to have them refused. That was the one time I believe I ever hated King Krichevskoy, when he allowed himself to die instead of accepting my life in exchange for his. I couldn't understand it then, and even to the present day, lying in a coffin much too small for me, I still don't understand it, although there is a considerably lesser amount of pain now that I know the King never really died. He just couldn't stand living in the castle anymore, where memories of her abounded. Laharl was much too young and definitely too stubborn to name him as his predecessor instantly, so he did the one thing he could think of; he coached me on how to be an effective Overlord, and then faked his death. I don't blame him for that. If not for Maderas stealing my memories, I'd have found living in the castle to be unbearable as well.

I curled myself into a semi-ball in Laharl's old coffin, my legs still hanging over the side. I found myself thinking about the old days, being with the King before he fell in love and after I'd already done so. I wondered briefly what would happen if I'd met the King when I was older, before the Queen came around. My heart jumped at the idea even as my eyes closed, exhausted from the onslaught of memories.

"Meeting the King before he fell in love," I mumbled, fighting to stay conscious. I wondered if someone had used a sleeping potion on me like I'd used on the prince, and briefly I fought against sleep. I half-sat up in the casket coughing and blinking, trying to expel some of the potion's hold on me. I thought of the King again, and my struggle was instantly defeated. As I collapsed back into the coffin, I thought, Well, if I had to be poisoned, at least I'll die thinking about the King. With that thought running through my mind, I allowed myself to lose consciousness, drifting into the musky smell of the dungeons.

In Celestia…

Flonne kneeled against the side of her old bed in the house she grew up in. Her room hadn't changed much at all since she'd left; the golden cross still hung above her bed, the clothes were all still neatly tucked into the drawers, and the floor was immaculate. Now, though, she wasn't the only one in the room. A body lay in the tiny bed already, facing towards the wall and away from her. She eyed the familiar blue antennae happily. She could hear Laharl-san snoring already, and added a blessing to keep his dreams happy.

As she finished out her prayer, her mind crossed Etna, all alone in the Netherworld. She added a prayer to keep her safe and happy, and then thought about it. She sounded troubled over the phone, and even though she hadn't let on that she was upset, Flonne could tell. Chewing on her bottom lip, she wondered about what she could do. After considering her options, she bowed her head again.

"Dear God, whatever Etna-san wants, please let her have it. I know this is a bit of a selfish request, but she deserves something in her life to make her as happy as Laharl-san has made me. Something… Or someone that she wants more than anything else! Wouldn't that be a great way to pay Etna-san back for all the help she's given me? I think it would. Please, God, hear my plea. Bless Etna-san tonight, because I'm afraid she needs it more now than ever. Thank you a lot for listening!! Good night!"

I complicated our lives by falling in love with him

I complicated our lives, now I'm losing my only friend

I don't know why

I had to try

Living my life on the other side

Now I'm so confused,

I don't know what to do…

~ t.A.T.u, Loves Me Not