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Ero was the last of her six sisters.
Last born, last to get dinner, last in line for the throne, last for everything from tailoring to getting picked for polo.
22 cycles around Alpha Centuari, and she was last once more.
The trumpets of silver and birdsong had announced the visitors. Crowds gathered at the gates to see the distinguished guests, fighting to get a single glimpse of them.
Ero sincerely wished she was part of the crowd.
The visitors, the singing stars, were beautiful. Beautiful to the point that it hurt to look away from them, beautiful to the point of choking down sobs of bedazzled wonder.
There were six of them.
And suddenly six was a terrible, terrible number.
Because six was simply not enough for seven.
The stars, the women of midnight light and morning love, held out their hands one by one to Ero's sisters.
And Ero was always, and irrevocably, last.
Her mother looked at her with a pitying glance, before turning back to watch the brides, the beloved, the beautiful promised. Everyone watched as they led the princesses of Ielca to the floor of the ballroom, and lit it like a galaxy.
And so, no one saw her run away.
Ero ran to the garden, deep blue soil molding underneath her heels, and then her bare feet, and then, when she finally fell, her knees and hands. She wept her black tears that sizzled on the scraped skin off her knees, and undid her hair from its spiral braids.
She wept, and wept, and wept, until her tears of ink wishes stained her gold dress beyond repair.
The music from the dance was still going, and laughter and conversation could be heard, her family and friends joyous in her absence.
"I'm sorry," said a cool indigo voice in one of the silverbark trees. Ero looked up, tears forgone for intrigue.
"There's no need to be sorry when you are not the cause," she replied, eyes wide in curiosity.
The voice spoke back.
"I'm sorry that I am all that I can offer you."
"You need not offer me anything, it's a silly reason for my tears."
The leaves rustled, and a branch creaked.
"You are not like your sisters."
"I've been told that on more than one occasion."
"I am not like mine, either."
Eros wiped her hands on the dry parts of her goldspun gown, smearing black tears and blue dirt.
"Nice to have a common side," she said, trying to see the owner of the voice that flowed like midnight silk and mercury. "I don't mean to bother you, but why do you hide? You sound so beautiful."
"You would prefer my sisters."
"My sisters were always preferred. Come on, we're on the same team."
Branches groaned, and leaves fluttered faster than the breeze was pushing them.
She had twilight skin, but at the same time it was more and less, absorbing the moons light and haloing it around her form. Her head was bowed, six arms clasping hands. She was everything in absence, and yet, exhibited absence impossibly.
"I told you," she said, this being of twilight sun, "you would prefer the stars."
Tears returned to Ero's face at the sight, and she reached out a hand, and retracted it.
"You have offered me too much, and I have nothing to compare," she said sorrowfully, rivulets of onyx rivers ribboning down her face.
The maiden looked up, white eyes and mouth stolen from obscurity now visibly quirked. "But don't you see? I am not them, I am not radiant, nor glamorous. I am less than nothing, a black hole, and sadly, this is all I can offer."
"How can you so crudely describe yourself? You may be End, but everything ends, and you are the end I would choose. Your body is calm and storm, and I can only imagine what you know, what secrets slip into your grasp. You are the collector of lost things, of the dead and forgotten, who cherishes them when no other will. And I am only born from Iecla dirt, while you will know intimately every atom that existed. I have nothing to offer you in return."
"Ero, already you have loved me, I can feel it burning in my worldly ribs, and it is a new feeling, beautiful and blossoming. If you can consider nothing else, I will take your love gratefully."
Ero stepped forward, hand reaching out once more with renewed faith, fingertips brushing the cheek of the other.
"Before we promise, may I know your name?"
One of the maiden's hands rose to touch the fingertips at her cheek.
"I do not have one, you may pick one if you wish."
A smile graced the princess's face, and her eyes sparked.
"If I may choose and you do not mind, I will call you Beloved, for that is what you are and forever will be as long as I am soul and bone."
Anubis, Hel, Hades, Thanatos, Nepthys, Azrael-
Beloved, replied back.
"If I am Beloved, and you are Ero, may we be promised to each other of our own will?"
Ero lifted her feet, kissed that white mouth held by endless, contained void, and smiled again.
"I believe we may."
Ero was always, irrevocably, last.
When the stars died one by one, when her sisters and their wives vanished into that good night, she was left, last among her kind.
But now, she was last together. She was loved last, and always. She loved last, and always. And even at the End of the universe, of all that is, was, and will be, they held each other, Ends in themselves, beautiful and gentle in void and dark.