“He’s right this way, Princess. Watch your step. He’s been lying here all day, it seems.”
Princess Marle knew who that male pronoun was meant for, but she didn’t want to say it out loud. She didn’t want his name associated with the grape-scented wine wafting through the forest. She intentionally slowed down, not because she didn’t want to step on her royal white dress, but to prolong the answer. She could have moved at a snail’s pace despite the urgency of her squad of knights, but this part of her future was inevitable. As a former time traveler, she knew something about grim futures.
The knight captain raised a branch so that Marle could pass through. Some of the leaves got in her otherwise perfect blond hair, but hers wasn’t anywhere near as bad as the young boy lying against the trees in front of her. Defeated, drunk, disheveled, and demonized. Four D’s, one shell of a former human being. It was indeed Marle’s ex-husband Crono, his eyes glazed over, his clothes a stained mess, his spiky red hair even messier than usual. All life had left his once bright eyes, numbed by the genie lamp-like bottle dangling in his right hand.
With her knights firmly behind her, Marle tiptoed toward her ex and took a whiff of the offensive air that poisoned not just the forest, but an entire human body. “Did you bathe in Genie’s Delight, Crono?” No answer, just drool, tears, and snot. Marle yanked the bottle out of his hand and sarcastically took a sip. “Mmm! You have fine tastes…despite the fact that you’re not even old enough to drink alcohol. Still…you have very nice tastes.”
Marle threw the lamp-like bottle against a nearby stump, the shattering noise jostling Crono around a little bit, the only sign of life he was capable of showing. Not even his ex-wife’s scowling contempt was enough to wake him up from this depressive stupor. “Arrest him.”
“It was all an adventure to you…”
The knights couldn’t proceed any further as Marle held out her arms like a barricade, wanting to give her ex-husband a chance to speak his mind…or whatever was left of it. “Come again?”
Crono spit a wad of blood onto a nearby patch of grass, as if that would be more effective at deforesting this area than his alcoholic miasma. “Time travel is supposed to be fun, right? We were all having a good time going through all those worlds…all those dinosaurs…all those dragons…all those bony old men looking for something to eat in a fucking factory…” He spat again. “I’m glad you had a good time, Marle. I’m happy all those lighting bolts and fire bombs didn’t scar you in the least. I was worried being in constant battle would take its toll on all of us…” He hiccupped.
“Crono…let me make something perfectly clear. Those battles were not my idea of fun. Nobody was having fun. We fought all of those monsters because it was necessary. We saved the world. Isn’t that something to be proud of? Isn’t that something you want to be remembered for?”
Crono burped.
“Answer me!” Marle’s arms folded like she was ready to make her final judgment upon this poor bastard in front of her.
Crono burped again. “I’m sure it’d be nice to be remembered as a savior. But that’s not how I remember it. All I remember was being burned alive and slashed to pieces.” Tears welled up in his eyes, much to the dismay of his ex-wife. “I died, Marle! I literally died! And before that I almost had my head chopped off by your kingdom! They were going to give me the guillotine for a fake kidnapping charge! The guillotine! To a little boy! That’s all that capital punishment is, really: state-sanctioned murder.”
Marle calmed down somewhat. “I agree.”
“I don’t,” said the knight captain, who earned himself a slap on the arm from her highness.
“You were cleared of all charges, Crono.”
“Tell that to the townsfolk. You think I don’t hear them talking? They still think I kidnapped you. They don’t buy that time portal explanation. Nobody does.” He pointed at an empty field. “Even that guy won’t stop talking about it. He wants me dead, just like everyone else.”
“Crono, who are you pointing at? There’s nobody there.” The weight of what Marle just said caused her to suck in a deep breath. Almost holding her hand to her mouth, she whimpered, “Are you delusional? Are you…hearing voices?” Her only answer came in the form of a weak shrug. “Is that why you drink so much?” He nodded. “You ruined our marriage over a few bottles of wine for this? Crono, why didn’t you tell me?”
He laughed like the madman he was becoming. “How am I supposed to bring that up in conversation? Oh, honey, these mashed potatoes are delicious! By the way, I’m hearing things that aren’t there! Your knights would have given me the guillotine just for that. I guess there’s no better way to relieve head trauma, am I right?” He chuckled at his own form of gallows humor.
Marle’s breathing became more erratic and jittery as she fought back tears that she never wanted her loyal knights to see. “Crono, if you would have told me, I wouldn’t have judged you for it. I would have helped you through it. We all would have.”
“I wouldn’t have,” said the knight captain.
“SHUT UP!” yelled Marle, an order that was quickly obeyed. “Crono…we married each other…we shared moments…and you threw it all away with that disgusting wine! You could have told me what was going on!”
“Not even your healing magic would have done me any favors, Marle!” Crono snapped back. “You want to help me? Reach inside my head, pull the demons out one-by-one, and throw them away for good! Can you do that? Can anybody do that?!”
“…No…I can’t…” Marle’s tears were slowly eroding away her royal toughness.
“Look…if you’re going to arrest me, then do it already. I’m beyond help at this point. Those combat memories won’t go away on their own. Those chatty bastards won’t stop spreading rumors about me. And I’ll never get the taste of Genie’s Delight out of my mouth. Ah, who am I kidding? Everything tastes like blood nowadays. I’ve been stabbed so many times that I can taste it every day. I’ve been burned so many times that it tastes like crispy black scabs. Just arrest me or kill me, okay? I don’t care what you choose, just do something.”
Marle wiped her eyes on her arm glove before using her arm like a barricade once more to stop the knight captain from arresting Crono. “I’ll handle this. Take the rest of the day off, Captain. You’ve done enough.”
“But Princess, I…”
She lifted a finger to her lips. “Not. Another. Word. Let me handle this. Go.”
The knights hesitated for a while before marching back to the castle, leaving Marle to wrap Crono’s arm around her back and hoist him to his feet. His dizzy equilibrium made him harder to carry, but she was still willing to do it. He was so slippery that she just decided to carry him baby style in her arms. He seemed comfortable in that position from how easily he closed his puffy eyes. Marle didn’t even have to struggle that much to hold him, suggesting to her that he hadn’t had much food to go with his copious amounts of alcohol.
Marle carried the remains of her ex-husband through the dark forest, the one where they used to “level up”. The one where they escaped from the castle guards by traveling to the future, the future of broken down factories, skinny survivors, constant hunger, and dark skies. Maybe there was some validity to Crono’s trauma.
She carried him like the mother she originally wanted to be. She climbed many castle stairs, receiving dirty looks from the guards along the way. She didn’t care. She climbed more stairs. And more. And more. And then she introduced Crono to a room he thought he hadn’t seen before. “This doesn’t look like a drunk tank…”
“That’s because it isn’t. It’s our old bedroom. The bed is a lot softer here than in a drunk tank.”
A little bit of life returned to Crono’s eyes as he looked around the old bedroom he shared with his now ex-wife. Marle took it in as well. The stained glass windows, the bookcase full of knowledge and wisdom, the beautiful artwork that was a mirror image of the battles they fought together, and more importantly, the bed that felt like laying on a cloud of vanilla ice cream.
“I think you’d be more comfortable with your shirt off.” Sure enough, Marle stood him up and removed his wine-scented tunic, revealing visible ribs underneath. She elected to leave everything else on his body in order to keep it PG. She hobbled him over to the bed and laid him down on his stomach, face first into the silky eiderdown pillow. He was asleep almost instantly, snoring like a coffee grinder and snorting like a pig.
Marle gazed down upon her once beloved with watery eyes. She threatened him with arrest back in the forest, but she knew in her heart she could never carry out such an order. He was so irresponsible, but he was also hurting. She couldn’t leave someone like that alone in the forest at the mercy of conservative knights. He looked almost as pained as the starving twigs from the future. He looked like a corpse ready for his permanent dirt nap. He was drunk out of his mind, yet he clung to life all the same. She knew he wasn’t ready to surrender.
Knowing full well he was knocked out from the drunkenness, Marle climbed on Crono’s back and gave him a massage anyways. She didn’t want to squeeze too hard out of consideration for his visible bones, but she squeezed just enough to hopefully put some better memories in his traumatic nightmares. If the gentle touches weren’t enough, she leaned into his ear and whispered something she wanted to say, but couldn’t get through to him during their crumbling marriage: “Crono…I never stopped loving you!”
