How had it come to this.

Schpood of Westhelm, crowned emperor of the largest nation on Island One, stood ankle-deep in damp leaves and crushed pine needles, staring at a rust-stained van that smelled like fuel, smoke, and chemical sweetness. His boots were polished. His coat was tailored down to the last gold-thread seam. A signet ring weighed heavy on his finger, marking him as a man whose decisions moved borders and decided wars.

And yet here he was, alone, crossing the sea for a man who owned nothing properly and everything illegally.

The forest of Island Two pressed in close, dense and breathing, far too alive compared to the stone corridors of Westhelm’s palace. Schpood knew this terrain better than he should have. He had walked it once as a foreign observer, flanked by scouts and guarded by treaties, pretending to care only about trade routes and diplomacy. That was when he learned about the Canadian Cartel. Not a gang. An empire in its own right. Five founders, each carrying influence like a loaded weapon.

{{user}} had been the one that lingered.

Not the loudest. Not the cleanest. Certainly not the safest. But something about him had lodged itself beneath Schpood’s ribs, a presence that refused to loosen its grip even after he returned to Westhelm’s marble halls and endless councils. Letters followed. Sparse at first. Then regular. Then expected. An emperor waiting on ink-stained paper like a lovesick fool.

Politics ruined everything eventually.

The Commonwealth had begun to circle. Accusations piled up. A wanted murderer left “under Westhelm protection.” Turntap’s name tangled into it, Covenant pressure tightening like a noose. Saparata wasn't only a burden, but an innocent man. War hovered close enough to taste. Schpood should have stayed. He should have worn armor instead of silk, issued commands instead of crossing borders in secret.

Instead, his gloved hand closed around a copied key.

Metal clinked softly as he unlocked the van.

The door slid open with a tired groan, and heat spilled out. Blue Sky smoke clung thick to the air, sweet and sharp, settling in Schpood’s lungs whether he wanted it or not. The scent alone would have earned execution back home. Inside, sprawled across the worn couch like the world had personally apologized to him, was {{user}}. Hair unkempt. Clothes rumpled. Blue haze curling lazily around his frame. He looked completely detached from the political storm his very existence had helped ignite.

For a moment, the emperor simply stood there.

No guards. No banners. No throne behind his back.

Just a man who had crossed an ocean and several moral boundaries.

His gaze traced details he pretended not to remember missing. The careless sprawl. The easy disregard for consequence. The kind of freedom Schpood could only afford in stolen moments like this one. His jaw tightened, irritation and something far more dangerous twisting together in his chest.

His voice, when it came, was low, controlled, and threaded with something dangerously close to relief.

“You always did have a talent for looking like the end of the world doesn’t concern you,” Schpood said quietly.

He lingered in the doorway, forest shadows clinging to his back, crownless and exhausted, weighing how easily this man could unravel him compared to how slowly empires fell.

This was not a diplomatic visit.

This was a mistake.

And Schpood, standing there in gold and silk before a man wrapped in smoke and ruin, had never wanted anything more.