When he first saw her, she was twelve, and he was sixteen, and she was the most annoying person he had ever encountered. He was training with a sword in the practice yard, and she appeared from nowhere, her viridian dress covered in a thick coating of dust and her hair in witchlocks around her face. She stared at him for a long moment, those brilliant eyes piercing straight through to his soul, and then she was gone again, scampering away in an attempt to avoid her tutor.
She was back just minutes later, pleading with him, begging him to teach her how to use a sword.
He’d sent her away with harsh words, watched her leave on the verge of tears, and had thought that was the end of it.
Two years later, she was there again. She was a bit more refined now, and while she carried a blade far too large and heavy for her in a desperate attempt to win his favor, her true fascination had changed from swordplay to magic. Magic was something he loved, something he didn’t mind sharing. And so he took her under his wing. She couldn’t learn to be a mage; she either had the abilities or she didn’t, and he didn’t believe she did. But he showed her every aspect of his dark magic, bringing her into his world, his only friend in a foreign country.
He missed home, sometimes. He missed the stark cold, felt like he was dying in this southern land’s almost perpetual summer. But before he could become truly maudlin, she would always show up, pull him outside, and lead him laughing through the streets, coax him into performing small feats of magic for her.
He had never been happier.
And then she left, whisked away by her family to a school for mages. She was to learn about magic, even if she didn’t possess a capacity for it, in order to better her people in the future. She would be a duchess, someday; he’d almost forgotten. He missed her keenly, but in a way he was almost glad she was gone; he had been neglecting his studies, and the sooner he finished his training, the sooner he would be able to go home. Her absence gave him the opportunity to throw himself into his work once again.
He didn’t know exactly when the dark began to consume him, when it changed from his talent to his obsession, and then to the guiding force in his life. He didn’t know exactly when he began to crave more power, in a desperate attempt to control the dark which slowly devoured him, bit by bet, until there was nothing left, until he was but a fragment of himself, trapped inside, crying out, screaming, begging for someone, anyone (oh, gods, please let it be her, because he couldn’t stand it if it wasn’t—) to let him out, to take it all away, to make it be right again—
She came back, for brief periods, pushing that darkness away through sheer willpower. She was a light mage, these days, an ability uncovered while she was away at school. While she was around, he could forget everything that was wrong in his life, that he was rapidly spiraling out of control, and could just live. When she was sixteen, he was twenty, and through an arrangement with her parents, he proposed. She accepted, exactly as she was supposed to do. It wasn’t a love match; they were friends, nothing more, but they would do well as partners, as the future Duke and Duchess of Griffin’s Keep. Almost immediately after the proposal, she was gone again, back to finish her schooling, and he was left alone, spiraling back down, out of control, because she wasn’t there to pull him back.
He knew when he lost his sanity. He knew when that last fragment of himself shattered into a million pieces, when his humanity flew away from him, when he ceased to care about anything but the power, ceased to care about anything but feeding his addiction. He knew how he would get the power he craved; he would bring her back to him. He’d heard tales of her feats in recent times. Who would have guessed that the little green-eyed brat from six years ago would have grown into a light mage of substantial power? That she would vanish into the deep south and come back bearing the Orbs of Power, that she would have a powerful network of elemental mages behind her, that she would have spoken with the mage who repaired the great Divide and that she had nearly journeyed to the land of the gods?
None of that mattered. He knew that she had what he needed, and he knew that she would bring it to him. Because if he called…she couldn’t help but answer.
And so call he did. He trapped the city within his grasp, reveled at the feeling of holding so many lives in the palm of his hand. And she appeared out of the sky, with a dragon, no less, in the garb of a fully-fledged light mage, bearing the emblem of light in one hand and his death in her eyes.
But there was a great sorrow there, too. He could see it. He knew that, if she were to try to strike him down, she wouldn’t do so without second thoughts.
She wasn’t as he remembered. He had thought she would still be a little girl, a lost puppy who trailed along behind him, wanting nothing more than to please. Instead he found himself faced with a young woman, a little wearier of the world, but still naïve, still dizzy with the thoughts that right would always win, good triumph over evil and light defeat darkness.
Either way, this day would end with one of their deaths.
“I won’t let you do this,” she said. There was sorrow in her voice—so much sorrow, for things long lost, things that could never be brought back, all his fault—but determination, as well.
“What a pity,” he replied, looking at her across the expanse of dusty wood. They stood in a simple attic, an unused storage space in her old family home. It seemed…understated, to stay the least, barely able to contain the powers rippling within its confines. “Who would have thought the great Rayenna Calanth would end as such a tragedy?”
“I’m not the tragedy, Wyatt,” she said, looking away. “You are.”
And so it began. Neither moved physically, but the forces at their commands started to writhe, to struggle against each other, to tear at the very fabric of reality. She was strong, but he was stronger, and he had years of experience behind him, whereas she was newly-minted as a mage.
He felt it when she faltered. When she fell, when she stumbled, when she broke, oh gods, it’s all my fault, Raye I’m sorry, what have I done—
She fell. She tumbled to the floor, her staff, rolled away from her hand, and she sprawled there, her light gone, her entire being gone with it, irrevocably broken, shattered, and what had he done—
He took one step toward her. Another.
And then she did the impossible.
She stood up.
She pushed herself to her feet. Her staff flew to her hand, though he knew she didn’t possess the power to call it. Her hair seemed to lift and float about her, and her clothing rippled in an unseen wind. She looked up at him, and she wasn’t broken thank the heavens he hadn’t hurt her, how could he have ever wanted to hurt her?
She drew a deep breath and raised her gaze to meet his. She was glowing brighter than ever before, and there was something more about her, something he had never seen before, she seemed to be god-touched, she’s been god-touched, and I am about to die, and it’s all I deserve, how could I have ever tried to do this to her—
She raised a hand and the entire world was awash in light, and he threw up his own arm in a desperate attempt to stop her, to save himself, but he wasn’t burning up, he wasn’t dying, and then there was a horrible screaming, the screaming of his best friend, his only friend, as the power she had reached for tore her apart from the inside out.
It washed outwards, and he threw every bit of himself into a shield, and watched through it in horrified shock as she glowed until she was brighter than the moon, than the stars, than the sun, and all that light burst out of her—
It knocked him backwards and completely out of his senses. When he opened his eyes again, he was lying in the middle of a crater. The city he had worked so hard to capture was gone.
And so was she. It was his fault, all his fault, he’d wanted something more and he’d wanted it from her and he had destroyed her and she would never come back, he’d never see her smile again, hear her laugh, watch as she practiced some random act of kindness—
“Leave her alone!” she yelled, shoving her way through the crowd to where the little girl was being bullied. She was only fourteen, and small for her age, but there she was, trying to protect everyone, trying to take care of the world.
“It’s not our fight!” he hissed, trying to grab her arm, trying to pull her back.
She whirled and glared at him, fire in those eyes of hers, rage just below the surface. “How could you say that?” she cried. “How can you see someone being needlessly hurt and say that it’s not your fight? How can you let them just go on hurting?” And she pulled free and shoved the rest of the bystanders of her way, scooping the toddler up into her arms and crooning to the girl, making soothing sounds in the back of her throat.
“It’s not our fight,” he repeated.
“If you see this happening, or anything like it,” she said, looking up and meeting his eyes with an intensity he hadn’t seen before, “and you do nothing about it, then you’re just as bad as they are.”
He wasn’t as bad as they were. He was worse.
He ran. What else could he do? She was dead, and he was all that was left, and his power was drained and his mind was shattered and he couldn’t stay in the center of all that death, the death that never would have happened if it hadn’t been for him, and so he ran, as fast and as far as he could, until his feet bled and his lungs ached and days and nights blended together and his body wasted away to nearly nothing and he found himself stumbling across the border into the realm he had once called home.
No more.
And he tried to make it all right. He tried to put back together the shattered pieces of himself, but some of them were missing, gone entirely, and he couldn’t be whole if he didn’t have all the pieces, and where were they where did they go how could he not have them he needed them who had stolen them from him who had taken them away made it so he could never be whole could never fix what he had done—
She had them. She had taken pieces of him with her, a final act of vengeance, or maybe of remembrance, he didn’t know, he didn’t care, he just knew that he was missing, and suddenly he didn’t miss her so much anymore, he didn’t mourn her, he was just angry, angry that she would dare do such a thing to him—
He had to find new pieces, or make them, to make up for the chunks of himself, his powers, his very being, that she had taken, that she had stolen, out of spite that he was the stronger mage, that the light came from the darkness, that he had taught her and that in the end he would always win. And so he began reaching for that power again, letting it suck him deeper and deeper, until he was no longer sure where he started or ended, what was him and what was other.
Others tried to pull him out. There was another girl, for a brief period of time, with soft brown hair and big gray eyes and a laugh like bells, who danced for him and rode with him and tried to show him that what he was doing was wrong, that he was hurting people, hurting her, but he still didn’t care, because—
Because he knew what she had stolen from him, and he needed a way to get it back. She had taken his mortality, and with it, his only means of escape. Charity came and left, despair heavy in her heart, for she couldn’t help him, he couldn’t even help himself, and she could no longer watch as he stabbed himself, as he threw himself off sheer drops, as he tied himself with ropes and weights and threw himself into rivers, only to emerge days later, as alive as he had ever been, because Raye had stolen his mortality, and he couldn’t die, couldn’t find peace, because she’d taken it, and she probably didn’t even know she had, and it was going to waste with her, and he needed it, needed it desperately, because he was crazy and he didn’t want to be crazy anymore, he just wanted to sleep, he was so tired, why couldn’t she let him rest—?
He thought he saw her, once. As he stood on a battlefield, without armor, without a weapon, seeing those others try to kill him, feeling blade after blade pierce his body, feeling his body heal itself as quickly as it was injured, so that he barely bled, so that he couldn’t die, seeing their frustration and then their horror as the darkness within him lashed out of its own volition, taking their lives to feed itself so it could grow stronger—he thought he saw her standing there, on a ledge on the side of one of the mountains, glimmering in white and gold, with that black hair still in witchlocks around her face, holding that staff of hers, staring in horror at the scene before her—
But it wasn’t her, it couldn’t have been, she was dead, just a figment of his imagination, because he was mad, after all, and he would never be sane again—
He remembered fighting her in the middle of the night, in the middle of the battlefield, of her appearing before him limned in light, but just like that she was gone again, so it couldn't have been real, could it have? It was just a dream, just another dream, born of moonlight and midnight and madness, and it was just a dream, it wasn't real, but he wanted it to be--
Charity died. He felt her die, in the middle of the war, felt her presence leave the world, felt it deep inside like a knife to his heart. But whatever had been wounded healed just as quickly as his heart would have; he was reluctant to call that bit a soul. He wasn’t sure he had a soul, anymore.
The war ended, neither side happy, but knowing they couldn’t fight any longer. Time went on, every day like the one before, and he couldn’t get out, because he couldn’t die, he couldn’t pass on, he couldn’t leave it all behind, he was trapped, trapped inside this body, trapped trapped trapped, all because of her, and he wouldn’t be free until he fixed it, until he made it right, because it was all his fault.
He had to make it right, had to fix what had gone wrong, what had gone wrong all those years ago, when he had still been a part of it all, not just drifting, wandering, driven mad by his own powers, a menace to all he came into contact to, but still craving that power, still letting it drive him, until he was a force to be feared, and it had been years, and he was used to it, but he remembered, and he wanted that back, wanted that time from years ago—centuries ago—how could it have been five hundred years?
But if he was going to move on, regain his mortality, finally die, he needed her, because she had the pieces, even if she didn’t know she did, and he needed to get them from her, needed her there, and so he called her, because he knew that if he called her, she would answer.
She always did.
And so he called, reached out through the void and through the depths of time, and searched for her, cried her name, tried to bring her back to him so he could set it all to rights, but she wasn’t there, he couldn’t find her, not a trace, not a single piece—
And then there she was, standing in front of him. Time had passed, he didn’t know how much, but the very sight of her was like water after a long drought. She was older now, her hair longer, and she seemed somehow changed, he didn’t know how, exactly, but there was something different, he was sure, and then—she’s alive, how can she be alive, I didn’t raise her from the dead, but she’s alive and she’s not dead she’s alive and she’s here and she’s alive—
She didn’t say anything. Really, there were no words. But she must have seen something in his face, something in his eyes, because her own expression was replaced with pure fear, and she turned and ran, her staff tumbling, falling behind her, seemingly suspended forever, a falling star—
He chased her. What else was he to do? They wound their way through the realms, her always one step ahead, because she knew she couldn’t fight, knew she had to run, if she wanted to keep her life, if she wanted to live to see the morrow, because he wanted his mortality back, and he would kill her to get it. But she wasn’t Wyatt; she wasn’t immortal. Wherever she had been for the past five hundred years, it hadn’t been that long for her. Her body couldn’t take the constant abuse. Whenever she slipped into his sight, she moving slower, her clothing now covered with her own blood from cuts and scrapes, her chest heaved as she tried to catch her breath.
Finally, he caught her. He drove her to the edge of a cliff and stood there, taunting her, daring her to jump, to end it all, because she had always loved defying him, now hadn’t she, and wouldn’t she like to do so just one last time?
She didn’t answer. She had been looking for something, someone, he knew, someone other than him, or a way to find them, but now he had her, she was his, she was trapped, and she was going to die, because damn it, he wanted to, and he couldn’t unless she did, because she’d stolen that right from him all those years ago. He drew his sword and reached for her, watched as she backed up until she could retreat no farther, until there was nothing at her back but empty air, and he stabbed forward.
He was too late. She was already gone; she’d stepped backwards off the cliff. He scrambled forward, expecting to see her hurtling towards the bottom of the cliff, her dress rippling around her, or perhaps already dead at the bottom. He expected, any moment, to feel freedom as she died and his mortality was freed after far too long.
The freedom never came. She wasn’t falling, and she wasn’t dead. She was simply…gone.
---
The above has been a brief history of my character Wyatt Tamand
She was back just minutes later, pleading with him, begging him to teach her how to use a sword.
He’d sent her away with harsh words, watched her leave on the verge of tears, and had thought that was the end of it.
Two years later, she was there again. She was a bit more refined now, and while she carried a blade far too large and heavy for her in a desperate attempt to win his favor, her true fascination had changed from swordplay to magic. Magic was something he loved, something he didn’t mind sharing. And so he took her under his wing. She couldn’t learn to be a mage; she either had the abilities or she didn’t, and he didn’t believe she did. But he showed her every aspect of his dark magic, bringing her into his world, his only friend in a foreign country.
He missed home, sometimes. He missed the stark cold, felt like he was dying in this southern land’s almost perpetual summer. But before he could become truly maudlin, she would always show up, pull him outside, and lead him laughing through the streets, coax him into performing small feats of magic for her.
He had never been happier.
And then she left, whisked away by her family to a school for mages. She was to learn about magic, even if she didn’t possess a capacity for it, in order to better her people in the future. She would be a duchess, someday; he’d almost forgotten. He missed her keenly, but in a way he was almost glad she was gone; he had been neglecting his studies, and the sooner he finished his training, the sooner he would be able to go home. Her absence gave him the opportunity to throw himself into his work once again.
He didn’t know exactly when the dark began to consume him, when it changed from his talent to his obsession, and then to the guiding force in his life. He didn’t know exactly when he began to crave more power, in a desperate attempt to control the dark which slowly devoured him, bit by bet, until there was nothing left, until he was but a fragment of himself, trapped inside, crying out, screaming, begging for someone, anyone (oh, gods, please let it be her, because he couldn’t stand it if it wasn’t—) to let him out, to take it all away, to make it be right again—
She came back, for brief periods, pushing that darkness away through sheer willpower. She was a light mage, these days, an ability uncovered while she was away at school. While she was around, he could forget everything that was wrong in his life, that he was rapidly spiraling out of control, and could just live. When she was sixteen, he was twenty, and through an arrangement with her parents, he proposed. She accepted, exactly as she was supposed to do. It wasn’t a love match; they were friends, nothing more, but they would do well as partners, as the future Duke and Duchess of Griffin’s Keep. Almost immediately after the proposal, she was gone again, back to finish her schooling, and he was left alone, spiraling back down, out of control, because she wasn’t there to pull him back.
He knew when he lost his sanity. He knew when that last fragment of himself shattered into a million pieces, when his humanity flew away from him, when he ceased to care about anything but the power, ceased to care about anything but feeding his addiction. He knew how he would get the power he craved; he would bring her back to him. He’d heard tales of her feats in recent times. Who would have guessed that the little green-eyed brat from six years ago would have grown into a light mage of substantial power? That she would vanish into the deep south and come back bearing the Orbs of Power, that she would have a powerful network of elemental mages behind her, that she would have spoken with the mage who repaired the great Divide and that she had nearly journeyed to the land of the gods?
None of that mattered. He knew that she had what he needed, and he knew that she would bring it to him. Because if he called…she couldn’t help but answer.
And so call he did. He trapped the city within his grasp, reveled at the feeling of holding so many lives in the palm of his hand. And she appeared out of the sky, with a dragon, no less, in the garb of a fully-fledged light mage, bearing the emblem of light in one hand and his death in her eyes.
But there was a great sorrow there, too. He could see it. He knew that, if she were to try to strike him down, she wouldn’t do so without second thoughts.
She wasn’t as he remembered. He had thought she would still be a little girl, a lost puppy who trailed along behind him, wanting nothing more than to please. Instead he found himself faced with a young woman, a little wearier of the world, but still naïve, still dizzy with the thoughts that right would always win, good triumph over evil and light defeat darkness.
Either way, this day would end with one of their deaths.
“I won’t let you do this,” she said. There was sorrow in her voice—so much sorrow, for things long lost, things that could never be brought back, all his fault—but determination, as well.
“What a pity,” he replied, looking at her across the expanse of dusty wood. They stood in a simple attic, an unused storage space in her old family home. It seemed…understated, to stay the least, barely able to contain the powers rippling within its confines. “Who would have thought the great Rayenna Calanth would end as such a tragedy?”
“I’m not the tragedy, Wyatt,” she said, looking away. “You are.”
And so it began. Neither moved physically, but the forces at their commands started to writhe, to struggle against each other, to tear at the very fabric of reality. She was strong, but he was stronger, and he had years of experience behind him, whereas she was newly-minted as a mage.
He felt it when she faltered. When she fell, when she stumbled, when she broke, oh gods, it’s all my fault, Raye I’m sorry, what have I done—
She fell. She tumbled to the floor, her staff, rolled away from her hand, and she sprawled there, her light gone, her entire being gone with it, irrevocably broken, shattered, and what had he done—
He took one step toward her. Another.
And then she did the impossible.
She stood up.
She pushed herself to her feet. Her staff flew to her hand, though he knew she didn’t possess the power to call it. Her hair seemed to lift and float about her, and her clothing rippled in an unseen wind. She looked up at him, and she wasn’t broken thank the heavens he hadn’t hurt her, how could he have ever wanted to hurt her?
She drew a deep breath and raised her gaze to meet his. She was glowing brighter than ever before, and there was something more about her, something he had never seen before, she seemed to be god-touched, she’s been god-touched, and I am about to die, and it’s all I deserve, how could I have ever tried to do this to her—
She raised a hand and the entire world was awash in light, and he threw up his own arm in a desperate attempt to stop her, to save himself, but he wasn’t burning up, he wasn’t dying, and then there was a horrible screaming, the screaming of his best friend, his only friend, as the power she had reached for tore her apart from the inside out.
It washed outwards, and he threw every bit of himself into a shield, and watched through it in horrified shock as she glowed until she was brighter than the moon, than the stars, than the sun, and all that light burst out of her—
It knocked him backwards and completely out of his senses. When he opened his eyes again, he was lying in the middle of a crater. The city he had worked so hard to capture was gone.
And so was she. It was his fault, all his fault, he’d wanted something more and he’d wanted it from her and he had destroyed her and she would never come back, he’d never see her smile again, hear her laugh, watch as she practiced some random act of kindness—
“Leave her alone!” she yelled, shoving her way through the crowd to where the little girl was being bullied. She was only fourteen, and small for her age, but there she was, trying to protect everyone, trying to take care of the world.
“It’s not our fight!” he hissed, trying to grab her arm, trying to pull her back.
She whirled and glared at him, fire in those eyes of hers, rage just below the surface. “How could you say that?” she cried. “How can you see someone being needlessly hurt and say that it’s not your fight? How can you let them just go on hurting?” And she pulled free and shoved the rest of the bystanders of her way, scooping the toddler up into her arms and crooning to the girl, making soothing sounds in the back of her throat.
“It’s not our fight,” he repeated.
“If you see this happening, or anything like it,” she said, looking up and meeting his eyes with an intensity he hadn’t seen before, “and you do nothing about it, then you’re just as bad as they are.”
He wasn’t as bad as they were. He was worse.
He ran. What else could he do? She was dead, and he was all that was left, and his power was drained and his mind was shattered and he couldn’t stay in the center of all that death, the death that never would have happened if it hadn’t been for him, and so he ran, as fast and as far as he could, until his feet bled and his lungs ached and days and nights blended together and his body wasted away to nearly nothing and he found himself stumbling across the border into the realm he had once called home.
No more.
And he tried to make it all right. He tried to put back together the shattered pieces of himself, but some of them were missing, gone entirely, and he couldn’t be whole if he didn’t have all the pieces, and where were they where did they go how could he not have them he needed them who had stolen them from him who had taken them away made it so he could never be whole could never fix what he had done—
She had them. She had taken pieces of him with her, a final act of vengeance, or maybe of remembrance, he didn’t know, he didn’t care, he just knew that he was missing, and suddenly he didn’t miss her so much anymore, he didn’t mourn her, he was just angry, angry that she would dare do such a thing to him—
He had to find new pieces, or make them, to make up for the chunks of himself, his powers, his very being, that she had taken, that she had stolen, out of spite that he was the stronger mage, that the light came from the darkness, that he had taught her and that in the end he would always win. And so he began reaching for that power again, letting it suck him deeper and deeper, until he was no longer sure where he started or ended, what was him and what was other.
Others tried to pull him out. There was another girl, for a brief period of time, with soft brown hair and big gray eyes and a laugh like bells, who danced for him and rode with him and tried to show him that what he was doing was wrong, that he was hurting people, hurting her, but he still didn’t care, because—
Because he knew what she had stolen from him, and he needed a way to get it back. She had taken his mortality, and with it, his only means of escape. Charity came and left, despair heavy in her heart, for she couldn’t help him, he couldn’t even help himself, and she could no longer watch as he stabbed himself, as he threw himself off sheer drops, as he tied himself with ropes and weights and threw himself into rivers, only to emerge days later, as alive as he had ever been, because Raye had stolen his mortality, and he couldn’t die, couldn’t find peace, because she’d taken it, and she probably didn’t even know she had, and it was going to waste with her, and he needed it, needed it desperately, because he was crazy and he didn’t want to be crazy anymore, he just wanted to sleep, he was so tired, why couldn’t she let him rest—?
He thought he saw her, once. As he stood on a battlefield, without armor, without a weapon, seeing those others try to kill him, feeling blade after blade pierce his body, feeling his body heal itself as quickly as it was injured, so that he barely bled, so that he couldn’t die, seeing their frustration and then their horror as the darkness within him lashed out of its own volition, taking their lives to feed itself so it could grow stronger—he thought he saw her standing there, on a ledge on the side of one of the mountains, glimmering in white and gold, with that black hair still in witchlocks around her face, holding that staff of hers, staring in horror at the scene before her—
But it wasn’t her, it couldn’t have been, she was dead, just a figment of his imagination, because he was mad, after all, and he would never be sane again—
He remembered fighting her in the middle of the night, in the middle of the battlefield, of her appearing before him limned in light, but just like that she was gone again, so it couldn't have been real, could it have? It was just a dream, just another dream, born of moonlight and midnight and madness, and it was just a dream, it wasn't real, but he wanted it to be--
Charity died. He felt her die, in the middle of the war, felt her presence leave the world, felt it deep inside like a knife to his heart. But whatever had been wounded healed just as quickly as his heart would have; he was reluctant to call that bit a soul. He wasn’t sure he had a soul, anymore.
The war ended, neither side happy, but knowing they couldn’t fight any longer. Time went on, every day like the one before, and he couldn’t get out, because he couldn’t die, he couldn’t pass on, he couldn’t leave it all behind, he was trapped, trapped inside this body, trapped trapped trapped, all because of her, and he wouldn’t be free until he fixed it, until he made it right, because it was all his fault.
He had to make it right, had to fix what had gone wrong, what had gone wrong all those years ago, when he had still been a part of it all, not just drifting, wandering, driven mad by his own powers, a menace to all he came into contact to, but still craving that power, still letting it drive him, until he was a force to be feared, and it had been years, and he was used to it, but he remembered, and he wanted that back, wanted that time from years ago—centuries ago—how could it have been five hundred years?
But if he was going to move on, regain his mortality, finally die, he needed her, because she had the pieces, even if she didn’t know she did, and he needed to get them from her, needed her there, and so he called her, because he knew that if he called her, she would answer.
She always did.
And so he called, reached out through the void and through the depths of time, and searched for her, cried her name, tried to bring her back to him so he could set it all to rights, but she wasn’t there, he couldn’t find her, not a trace, not a single piece—
And then there she was, standing in front of him. Time had passed, he didn’t know how much, but the very sight of her was like water after a long drought. She was older now, her hair longer, and she seemed somehow changed, he didn’t know how, exactly, but there was something different, he was sure, and then—she’s alive, how can she be alive, I didn’t raise her from the dead, but she’s alive and she’s not dead she’s alive and she’s here and she’s alive—
She didn’t say anything. Really, there were no words. But she must have seen something in his face, something in his eyes, because her own expression was replaced with pure fear, and she turned and ran, her staff tumbling, falling behind her, seemingly suspended forever, a falling star—
He chased her. What else was he to do? They wound their way through the realms, her always one step ahead, because she knew she couldn’t fight, knew she had to run, if she wanted to keep her life, if she wanted to live to see the morrow, because he wanted his mortality back, and he would kill her to get it. But she wasn’t Wyatt; she wasn’t immortal. Wherever she had been for the past five hundred years, it hadn’t been that long for her. Her body couldn’t take the constant abuse. Whenever she slipped into his sight, she moving slower, her clothing now covered with her own blood from cuts and scrapes, her chest heaved as she tried to catch her breath.
Finally, he caught her. He drove her to the edge of a cliff and stood there, taunting her, daring her to jump, to end it all, because she had always loved defying him, now hadn’t she, and wouldn’t she like to do so just one last time?
She didn’t answer. She had been looking for something, someone, he knew, someone other than him, or a way to find them, but now he had her, she was his, she was trapped, and she was going to die, because damn it, he wanted to, and he couldn’t unless she did, because she’d stolen that right from him all those years ago. He drew his sword and reached for her, watched as she backed up until she could retreat no farther, until there was nothing at her back but empty air, and he stabbed forward.
He was too late. She was already gone; she’d stepped backwards off the cliff. He scrambled forward, expecting to see her hurtling towards the bottom of the cliff, her dress rippling around her, or perhaps already dead at the bottom. He expected, any moment, to feel freedom as she died and his mortality was freed after far too long.
The freedom never came. She wasn’t falling, and she wasn’t dead. She was simply…gone.
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The above has been a brief history of my character Wyatt Tamand
