This was the reckoning, the end of days.[break][break]
When he looks at himself in the mirror, brown locks faded into winter white, green eyes frosted over, he sees the ghost of a boy.[break][break]
Stronger.[break][break]
Life given.[break][break]
Renewal.[break][break]
There's something of a tether that he can't quite parse out, the heart in the middle of his chest beating against the wall.[break][break]
This strength has been stolen, Prometheus' flame. The goddess will demand her retribution, soon enough.[break][break]
The three sharp knocks on the door make no difference to routine, no concessions made for the heir to the imperial throne.[break][break]
Maybe Marie will return if I never come back.[break][break]
Rising from his seat, he doesn't allow his gaze to linger on the face of a stranger in the mirror.[break][break]
"Are we going to..."[break][break]
His voice falls flat, the answer already on his tongue. There's nothing different, as much as he wondered what their goals may have been. Knowing didn't change the facts.[break][break]
It couldn't matter when they had no choice in the matter.[break][break]
The masked figure in the clinically starched white coat lead him to the room listlessly, no explanation needed.[break][break]
He could hear their screams and cries in the soundproof silence. When would they learn that either way, they would go unanswered? There was no goddess here to save them within these walls.[break][break]
"Today is your day, princeling."[break][break]
He's still got a human heart— fear still takes him by the scruff of the neck as his movements stuttered. They all had to take their turn, only hoping that in the name of the goddess, there would be some sort of mercy.[break][break]
(She'd left them, long ago.)[break][break]
His wrist trembled, the familiar feeling of the axe in his hand that had fallen many a friend.[break][break]
They would turn their blades on him, lest he prove himself unworthy.[break][break]
Stripped of his robe, spectacles given to the attendant, he stood in the middle of the room as the gown was tied from the back. His gaze met each and every one of them. Of who was left of them.[break][break]
Ro... please, don't leave me like this.
[break][break]
"Speak the words, child."[break][break]
Like clockwork, tongue tracing foreign words as if they were the first uttered into the world.[break][break]
It envelopes him, armor and scales, the shield and strength that the empire had requested of him that he simply could not provide, body and soul too fragile. Twice in height, he still stands upright as every regret slips from his shoulders. Every rejection, every disappointment, every success, and every joy...[break][break]
Klaus Friedrich Johannes von Hresvelg is no more, caked in this form, memory slipping away as he assumed the
corpse of a dragon.[break][break]
The Earth dragon, returned to Fodlan.[break][break]
The minor crest of Seiros almost irrelevant, the major crest of Cichol all consuming.[break][break]
The Hyrm boy looks upwards at him for once; there is no hesitation in the way he holds onto the sword. Just like they'd promised.[break][break]
The hegemon, fallen seraph, awaits his judgment, drowning in anger and grief and strife and loss—[break][break]
For a blow of the sword that would put an end to all of this.[break][break]
(It never comes.)
[break][break]
