As the fires of war rage, all she sees is magnificent brushstrokes upon a canvas of suffering. The Black Knight and the Skeleton clash, and their battle shows all of them what a battle of gods is like, a clash of titanic and overwhelming entities that they only have a chance against because they’re too preoccupied with one another to turn onto the ants hounding them with their own superweapons in animalistic form.[break][break]

The Queen of Fantasy- nay, the Mad Queen follows along as two clash in the skies, flashes of red and black blotting out of the stars and burning up the sky. Her brush follows them as they generate energy capable of tearing through the space they reside in, she traces their outlines as her memories come rushing back,[break][break]

Despite feeling her mind splitting in two, she never stops painting, never stops tracing and internalizing what happens there. Their attacks cause both beasts of calamity damage, but they aren’t focused. On each side allegiances are drawn in blood, priorities highlighted by what they value more than anything else on that battlefield. For the Mad Queen of Ballonlea, that is the Black Knight, for others, the Skeleton.[break][break]

She’s smiling and laughing all throughout the chaos, cackling like mad in a way she never had before. Fresh crimson stains her fingers from a love just lost, from her own flesh and blood that’s just lost their soulless life within her hands. She stains her cheek with it, infusing it into her skin as a reminder of just what this world gave her.[break][break]

She doesn’t care anymore- no, she didn’t give a damn at all! Not a single thought mattered but the completion of her masterpiece! The imminent extinction the Black Knight threatens them all with enthralls her more than any moth to any flame, it enraptures her, captures her soul and wraps it into a cage from which it can only gaze towards the light. She witnesses it like they all do, but unlike many others, she can only smile more genuinely in the face of a supreme calamity, a disaster so horrific that a baptism by light is the only way to represent it.[break][break]

Then, like all stories went, a shooting star carved through the light, and an invincible hero slayed a dark god… almost.[break][break]

This story wasn’t meant to end here. Rhydia only realizes it as their salvation arrives, a furious migraine ripping her mind in two once again. The world corrects itself before her eyes, just as it did throughout the battle, and the dream… the long dream begins to come to an end.[break][break]

She considers for a moment stopping to be with her people. The surviving citizens, the still warm body of her beloved son, her fellow royals jayden cross and luka chêne…[break][break]

— but in the end, the Mad Queen shows her true colors, and she departs in the arms of her Daemon, revealing its true form for the first time. She leaves behind everything without a second thought, rushing back to the palace for but a single possession, a single thing worth calling truly beautiful in the world she had a hand in bringing to ruin.[break][break]

Halfway there, she begins to feel the pull on her mind, that splitting migraine finally dulling to give way to a different feeling. Rather than give in, she draws more crimson, her hand scraping along the sharp edge of a peasant’s home. The pain shocks her awake, and she and the Daemon known as Clair burst into the palace.[break][break]

The rush is like a dream itself, a trance she can’t draw herself from no matter what. The attendants remaining are brushed aside, her royal need for them null and void.[break][break]

”Your Highness! What’s happening!? The battle is won, is it not!?!” A single maid cries out, seeing the end of the world approaching as the horizon collapses before them. Her Queen ignores all other pleas but hers, stopping at the top of a staircase, her wounded hand dripping royal blood down the staircase.[break][break]

She stops at the very peak, slamming her hand down on the railing to keep herself from fading as she spins around to address the castle staff.[break][break]

”The battle is won! Thus, we face the final hour! It’s magnificent, isn’t it!? This is your salvation! An end to the Fantasy you and I lived for so many years!”[break][break]

The mysterious mask of the Queen of Fantasy was burned before them, incinerated by the erupting stars within the eyes of the woman she once was. Twenty years later, Rhydia Ver finds her masterpiece, she finds a world truly beautiful, a world worth preserving for eternity.[break][break]

Her once dead eyes blaze with the light of a million stars, her insanity vindicated in the greatest way possible.[break][break]

She throws open the doors of her own chambers, marching towards her painting of the landscape from before the battle. Brush in hand, she raises her arm to begin adding new colors and shapes, new memories and events to it. The empty landscape is one she can paint over with the battle she just abandoned for this masterpiece.[break][break]

”…”[break][break]

That’s why she doesn’t see the sword pierce her torso until it’s too late. She never even suspects it’s coming, her senses suppressed by her own mental illness.[break][break]

Fresh, dark red paint splatters all over the canvas, and with it the piece is complete. Her eyes glaze unfocus before she can see it, denying her the right to see her own reason for living.[break][break]

When she turns her head as her consciousness fades, she sees not a mirror of herself, but the face of a malignant spirit with a satisfied smile on its face. There is no hatred in its eyes, no negativity, not even contempt.[break][break]

By denying her this, the Hisuian-Zoroark finds peace. It settles its grudge in a world that was never truly real in the first place.[break][break]

In the dying hour of a World of Dreams, ‘Clair’ achieves what it has always dreamed of.[break][break]

”N-No… not now! Not when I’m so clo-“[break][break]

Then, just as quickly as the moment settles, the world goes black.

---

[break][break]

There’s no need to dwell on her return. After all, the woman named ‘Rhydia Ver’ doesn’t remember anything that happened. All she remembers is a series of paintings, all culminating in the setup to a final piece. Yet… when she tries to remember that final piece…[break][break]

Red. All she sees is red. Spine tingling, hair raising red. Her back hurts, she’s cold, she’s in pain, she doesn’t feel anything, why can’t she see it, where do the brushstrokes start and end- breathing brings her back, but the experience is consistent.[break][break]

Given time, those memories will return, yes. Some will likely be back in hours, while others may take days.[break][break]

—but one will remain locked to her for a long time. After all, the brain’s simulations sometimes needed a repeat to properly remember some events…

[break][break]

Pokémon + Tagging/TLDR Here[break][break]

PokémonHere

TL;DR - The final post of Goodbye Galar that I fell fucking asleep and never got to post