“So…” The Dark One spoke, his voice low. “You have come seeking me, rather than I you. I suppose this saves me the trouble, if nothing more.”
Shifting his infernal gaze over the vaguely familiar being before him, the Dark One laughed. His laughter echoed through the barren void he had turned away from, and his eyes glittered with a malevolent light. Tad bore no illusions that Nai couldn’t destroy him where he stood, but gritted his will against the desire to run.
“Will you allow me to speak before you hurl your magicks at me, Nai?” Tad asked calmly. His voice did not betray the fear he felt, nor did it give clue to the fact that he could almost smell the amassed energies surrounding his once-friend.
“Speak your mind, Tad…” replied the Dark One after a long moment of silence.
Tad sighed inwardly. Holstering his gun, which he knew would be pitifully useless against the fiend before him, he began, “You know me, Nai…I am not one that can long cower and hide from that which threatens my destruction…eventually, even in the face of certain annihilation, we all must someday stand fast, or we betray ourselves.”
Nai snorted derisively, folding his arms across his chest. “Have you come to ponder philosophies with me, Tad? Is this a bid to return to a past that is lost to both of us?”
Tad grimaced, knowing exactly to what Nai referred. “No. That is a past no longer retrievable…not even by you.”
The baleful look that the Dark One leveled at him made him wonder for a moment if Nai hadn’t decided it easier to simply blast him out of existence. But, no incantations nor spat words of power did the Dark One utter.
“Somewhere amidst your desperate bid to lengthen your tenure before me there is something resembling sense.I will give you more than ample time to speak your mind, Tad...providing you have something within it worth discussing.”
Biting back a caustic riposte that would most assuredly land him on the other side of living, Tad sighed softly. “I want to talk to you about many things…” Tad snorted, feeling an old, deep pain burning inside of him. “Funny, isn’t it? You’ve taken everything…my home, my wife…even my life, once. You’ve shattered the entire world in your bid for supremacy, and taken all of the above…and so much more…from millions.”
Tad looked at Nai then, torn apart inside. He hated this monster, this fiend that had destroyed his life. He didn’t care that the lives of millions were destroyed even as his own, but the Nai he once knew would. The eyes of the Dark One didn’t even waver at the mention, and Tad couldn’t help but clench his hands into fists.
“You never knew it Nai, but when Kira died…when your life was shattered…I wept for you. I wept for all of us.”
There…there it was. Tad braced himself inwardly, seeing a glimmer of emotion shine in Nai’s eyes at the mention of Kira. Ready at any moment to be torn apart by wrathful energies, Tad breathed deeply, gazing into the Dark One’s eyes. “You were tremendously annoying, you know. Always cavorting about, flitting to and fro like the young elf you were…yet your brilliance outshone us all. Oh, how I wished, back then, that I could see the world through your eyes…to know even half of the things you had steeped yourself in.” Tad broke off, his mind darting and focusing on where his sentence was going next. His soul could scarcely bear the vivid memories anymore, so painful they were.
For a long, ominous moment, only the haunting, ethereal breeze made any sound. Motes of grey dust stirred about the hem of the jet-black robe, almost as if the essence of entropy were dancing about Nai’s feet.
Then, Nai spoke. Tad had seen a glimmer of emotion flit through Nai’s eyes, but that was gone now, replaced by the oblivious hatred, the dark light that constantly filled those once bright emerald eyes.
“You still think of me, deep within yourself, as a friend, don’t you.”
Tad shuddered, realizing that in his heart he did indeed. "Yes, Nai…why, I do not know. How, I care not. Some obstinate part of my soul remembers the you that once was…and yearns for you to be that person again. Foolish, isn’t it?”
Nai stared into his eyes for a long moment, breaching every mental barrier Tad could hope to erect. Tad felt the indomitable presence within his mind, like a cold tendril snaking through his forehead and into his mind. He did not resist.
“Look, Tad…Look at what I have become. Do you see?” Nai whispered into Tad’s mind. “I have become everything you once thought was powerful…everything you once desired to be. No mortal anywhere rivals my magical might…even the gods themselves quail before the phenomenal strength of my mind…Look…Can you see…that I am all you once desired to be?”
Tad shook his head furiously, “What I thought back then was Wrong, Nai! There is more to life than death, more to power than destruction. You know this!”
Nai smiled serenely, an almost terrifying sight. Whenever the Dark One smiled like that, someone usually died.
“Quite right you are, Tad. And I am very good at destroying…Thoroth pointed this out to me, so very long ago…and how right he was.”
Tad shook with fury, feeling Nai’s words in his mind, but also feeling the weight behind them, his meaning behind his words of being very good at destroying…
“You are a black-hearted bastard, Nai…” Tad growled, desperately fighting off the desire to fling his own magicks at the Dark One. Nai continued to smile serenely, looking more like a fiend straight from hell with his predatory eyes than even a Pit Fiend.
“Think about this, Tad; I seek godhood. Why? To destroy this wretched remnant of a world? Hardly. To destroy other worlds? I don’t care about other worlds…”
Tad refused, for a moment, to think about it, but then stopped. He had no idea why Nai was seeking godhood, if not for the addressed and discredited reasons.
“I am very, very good at destroying…but I lack the divine right to Create.”
Tad’s soul cringed. The power of divine Creation was something he had not thought Nai would desire. His eyes widened at the infinite list of possibilities Nai could access for the future if he had that power. “You…” Tad stammered, the weight of the sudden realization hitting home.
Nai continued to smile serenely, his eyes never leaving Tad’s as he spoke, “Yes, Tad. I will re-create this world…I shall burn all that once stood here on the pyre of oblivion…and re-make this existence.”
Tad staggered under the realization. Staring at Nai in dumbfounded horror, Tad couldn’t even speak.
“There will be no emotions to cloud the minds of the peoples I shall create…All the races, Tad…from Dragons to Kobolds to fish in the seas…a utopia of pure logic, without the scantest source of emotion to mire it in abject stupidity.”
Tad could see the drive burning in Nai’s eyes. It was a drive that he had, long ago, thought a dangerous obsession…but he had never imagined how horrible the truth of the matter was.
“You are going to create a world of automatons?” Tad hissed in disbelief
Nai shook his head, laughing lightly, “Not automatons, Tad…they will be highly sentient…I shall educate my creations myself, of course. Think of it, Tad…a world where there is no Hate to scorch the soul…no Love to rend it in twain when it invariably shatters…no petty greed or jealousy…no arrogance…no indifference…”
Tad shook his head slowly, imagining the world Nai described while watching the almost-maniacal gleam of genius gone berserk burn like an inferno in Nai’s eyes.
“…Your world will be an empty, lonely place…” Tad whispered
Nai shook his head in disagreement. “There will be no loneliness, Tad…It shall be a world of Knowledge Incarnate. Of Reason and Logic given form. An entire world, created in Thoth’s design!”
Tad felt the horror of an entire world, exactly like the world he once knew, full of emotionless people…
Shaking his head once, Tad said brokenly, “There is no meaning to knowledge if one cannot feel it, Nai…no point to logic if it begins nowhere and ends in apathy. Do you think Thoth truly desires a world bereft of emotion?”
Hysterical laughter erupted from the Dark One then, and he spoke between breaths, “How…idealistic of you, Tad…oh, amusing…of all people…”
Tad couldn’t help but desire to try and kill the Dark One while he laughed so vilely. The thought vanished from his mind in a heartbeat when, suddenly, the laughter ceased…
“You are weak, Tad. The tables were once the other way around…you were emotionless, and I thought you idiotic for not wishing to feel the grand wonders that life had to offer…Well, now I understand, Tad…and you seem to have forgotten. Interesting, isn’t it?”
“You were right in the first place, Nai…emotions are what give our lives color…the paint on the canvas. You told me that yourself, if you’ll recall!”
Nai nodded slightly, “I have been wrong before. Unfortunately, the paint on the canvas paints such beautiful pictures that we yearn for them to always remain the same…but time does not allow for stasis like that…no…the paint fades…and chips…wearing away, and fading…until all that is left of our beautiful picture…” Nai’s eyes filled with a horrible anger, and his fingers sparked and crackled with energy, “IS NOTHING!! Faded memories of what once was, ephemeral realities we foolishly convince ourselves will remain forever!”
Nai breathed hard for a moment, and Tad almost went to his knees being so overwhelmed by the waves of energy pouring outward from the Dark One.
“These emotions…the ‘paints on the canvas’…are lies. They inspire in us the need for them by their own existence, corrupting our logic, our reason, causing us to believe such idiotic fallacies, as that Love shall last forever. Bah!” Nai swept his hand out before him, showering a nearby rocky outcropping with fiery red bolts of energy that detonated on impact, shattering the stone easily and showering them both in fragments of stone.
Tad shielded himself from the stony shrapnel, growling as a jagged piece imbedded itself in his arm.
“Damn it, Nai…” Tad hissed, pulling the stone piece out of his arm and holding his hand over the minor injury.
Nai, however, was looking at him in silence.
Binding his arm with his shirtsleeve, Tad snarled, “You make a terribly sound argument Nai…for a Modron. You seem to be forgetting that those who created people in the first place intended us to have emotions as well as logic. If you want pure logic without any semblance of emotion to, as you say, cloud the process of thought, why don’t you go take over Mechanus. I’m sure you could destroy the Primus and take its position. Then you would have your pretty little colorless world to lord over and millions of emotionless androids to keep you well hidden from anything that might hurt.”
Tad knew he’d said too much then. The Dark One had tolerated him far longer than he’d expected, but that was probably at an end now.
Awaiting the wash of blackness that would finalize his hypothesis, Tad watched in silence, his eyes devoid of fear.
But no magicks enveloped him in death, nor did Nai so much as bat an eye.
And then, Tad saw something…
Hidden buried beneath the hatred, drowned beneath the anger in Nai’s soul…was pain.
“Ohhh…I see…” Tad spoke softly, “You haven’t killed your emotions as nicely as you’d like everyone to believe…”
Nai narrowed his eyes slightly, but spoke nothing.
“You still feel pain, then…That makes it quite clear…it wouldn’t be the same, lording over Mechanus…or creating your own little demi-plane to populate and fuss over…no…that’s only an ostensible reason…more like an excuse.”
Tad hoped he wouldn’t be blown apart before he finished talking. He had reason to believe what he was about to say might well change Nai.
“You want everything to be the way it was. You want to return to the time before Faern was born…You want to remake the world, just as it was…only, devoid of emotions…so there will be no pain…so there will be no suffering…”
“So there will be none of THIS!” Nai spat, interrupting Tad and flinging his hands outward at the shattered world.
Tad breathed a ragged sigh. “Good gods, Nai…in a twisted, horrifying way, you want to fix this…”
Snarling and turning away, the Dark One faced the ravine’s edge.
Tad felt a lump rising in his throat, and hot tears welling in his eyes as he spoke again, “Gods, Nai…if all you ever wanted was to fix this…Why? Why did you do all you have done? Why did you ruin so much?”
Tears spilled down his face as the dim realization, which he didn’t even believe fully, but the merest possibility that Nai had wanted to fix this all along, set in.
“When something is broken beyond repair…one destroys what remains, and begins anew…” Nai spoke softly, still facing away from Tad.
“It wasn’t too late, Nai!” Tad howled, the hundreds of years of agonizing pain he’d felt, the loss he’d suffered, the helplessness he’d felt as time and time again he’d looked into Kitara and especially Chrysania’s eyes and had no hope to give them, tore through him like a smoldering blade.
Sobbing and clutching his head, Tad sunk to his knees, overwhelmed by the titanic weight of it all, “…it wasn’t too late…old friend…”
Slowly, the Dark One turned. Tad expected to see the scathing gaze of admonishment upon his visage, or perhaps a look of contempt, or scorn…perhaps even an empty gaze of apathetic ambivalence…
But tears slid down the timeless face of the elf he once called friend. And in his eyes, Tad saw a battle taking place…
“Gods, Nai, fight…for the sake of all you ever knew, of all you ever loved, I beg you, fight…” Tad whispered chokingly, afraid to allow himself to feel the unbelievable surge of hope that he felt, seeing the battle he knew would decide the fate of them all in Nai’s eyes taking place.
Nai jerked violently, energy crackling and then vanishing from one hand, then the other, “NEVER!!!” he shrieked, slamming his palms over his ears and throwing himself to the ground.
Tad shook and trembled, unable to do anything more than stare, tears still streaming down his face, mouthing the words “Fight, Nai…Fight…” over and over and over…
“GRAHHH!!!” Nai roared, flying into the air suddenly, billowing clouds of fire and pure magic flying from his hands off into the sky.
Tad could feel the battle taking place. The last vestiges of Nai’s soul fought against a foe Tad couldn’t believe it would ever win against. For a few minutes, it seemed to go nowhere, and Nai continued to tear around in the sky like a crazed bat, erratically roaring and screaming as he went.
Then…it began to crumble. Tad felt Nai’s soul dying, felt the tiny spark buried deep within the icy oblivion smothering. “NO!” He screamed, knowing that if that spark died, then it was now or never because there would be no tomorrow.
Scrambling to his feet, Tad felt the terrible, dark radiance of whatever was within Nai growing and streaming outward. Then, he felt a hand on his shoulder.
Turning, Tad’s mouth fell open.
Kira and Myr, Chrysania and Kitara…stood behind him.
Myr stood, twin golden blades at her sides, radiating luminescent energy that could only come from one of Athena’s Chosen, with her hand resting on Tad’s shoulder. Kira stood beside her, gazing up at Nai, looking no different than she ever had in life. Kitara and Chrysania, both killed years ago when they made a bid to defeat Nai and failed, stood on either side of their respective mothers. Chrysania wore upon her head a crystal tiara gilded with the symbol of Thoth, and Kitara…Kitara wore a suit of smoky grey armor embossed with a platinum wyrm on the breastplate.
Tad felt his heart shudder in his chest, and couldn’t even move for the shock of what he was seeing.
“It’s time to end this.” Myr said softly, reassurance seeming to flow from her hand into Tad.
“Gosh he sure went off the deep end…” Kira muttered, watching Nai slowly lose his battle against himself in the sky.
Kitara nodded to her father, and smiled lightly, saying “Good to see you again…daddy.”
Chrysania gazed at her father in the sky and then at Tad. “We’re here to help you. Thoth granted us one chance at undoing what has been done…”
“…And we are here to lend you our strength.” Kitara finished.
Tad’s soul screamed in joy, in memory, in everything all at the same time. Everything he’d lost…right here before him. Kitara and Chrysania still finished each others sentences, Kira still had a calm candor that he was so grateful for now, but that he used to despise when he played a trick on her in retort of one of her own.
And Myr…
Myr was bedecked in the armor of Athena’s Chosen…Gold and White steel, shimmering and gilded in a manner befitting a Goddess’s own raiments.
Myr’s eyes met Tad’s, and for what felt like an eternity, everything else seemed to fade away.
“I want you to know that I never stopped loving you, Tad. Faern’s birth…”
Tad interrupted Myr, reaching his hands out to her, oblivious to the fact that they were shaking, “Forgiven…forgiven…oh, Myr...don’t apologize…don’t…Please…”
Myr smiled warmly and whispered, “Thank you…” and then reality seemed to shift back to it’s normal pace.
“It is time…” Kira said. Myr, Chrysania and Kitara all nodded in agreement, and then stood apart from one another. “Join us, Tad…Stand with us.” Kira invited, motioning for Tad to stand beside her.
Tad stumbled over to her and stood where directed, his mind and soul so overwhelmed with what was happening that he couldn’t even begin to think.
Meanwhile, Nai careened through the sky, screaming and spouting gouts of magic in all manner of directions. “HATE…ARGH…GAH!!” He roared, slamming into the ground and then he lay there, motionless.
Tad’s breath came in ragged gasps. He could still feel Nai’s soul choking and dying… in fact, it wasn’t even struggling against his void anymore, but struggling to keep alive. It was succeeding for only the moment.
“What once was lost…” Myr began to incant,
“Has again been found…” Kira chanted, following in unison
Tad could feel the power in the words. It was a power that transcended magic, transcended everything he knew…
And it seemed that Nai’s soul could feel it as well.
The tiny spark, almost completely finished, sputtered…
“What was once taken…” Kitara intoned
“Has been returned…” Chrysania followed, the unity of their voices upon Chrysania’s utterance slamming together with such cohesive force that thunder rumbled through the sky. Tad could feel Nai’s spirit leap and begin tearing at the stifling, choking confines of the coffin of oblivion he himself had buried it in.
“Darkness recede, Shining Light of Glory…Illumination of Wisdom, Retell the wayward story…” the four chanted in unison, the sheer might of their words making Tad’s heart leap and his breath draw sharply. It was working!!
“FREE!!!” Nai shrieked…but it wasn’t the acidic, biting voice of the Dark One that screamed…
Nai thrashed about, slamming himself this way and that, like a man possessed by an evil spirit.
“Keeper of the Threads of Time, Weaver of the Tale…Undo all that which has been done…Re-write the paradigm.”
The very sky tore itself apart. In an instant, the evening-lit sky was torn in half, like a sheet of paper…
And the Platinum Wyrm, as immense as the sky itself, melded outward from the fabric of existence laid bare.
Tad gaped in sheer wonder.
The unbelievably vast true form of Thoth filled every corner of that which could be seen above. His scintillating eyes flew from one color of the spectrum to the next, defying any ability of Tad’s to discern one color from the next. Tad stood aghast at the sheer titanic volume of the Platinum Wyrm, and dimly realized that this was, at most, a speck of Thoth’s true might and splendor.
“Know you well that what you ask will forever alter that which has been and that which shall be. “ the Wyrm rumbled. It’s voice shook through the very earth like a seismic wave, but did not so much as send a speck of dust flying. “As I have promised Athena’s daughter…ask, and it shall be done.”
In unison, the Four chanted, “So has it been spoken, so has it been promised…re-write the paradigm, and restore what has been broken.”
The Platinum Wyrm turned its gaze to the still form of Nai, and spoke, “Rise, my son…your path has been undone by the saving grace of a power greater than my own. Rise, Nai Asonod, and return to the paradigm…”
The platinum wyrm shimmered and began to glow brightly, then…
A harmonic resonance tore through everything, and Tad stared in bewilderment as the last vestiges of the world began to detonate, fragmenting and sparkling, then vanishing.
“He’s destroying everything!” Tad shrieked
“No, Tad…” Myr spoke, turning to face him as the world around them slowly vanished, “Everything that has happened is being undone. Where Thoth shall return us into the paradigm is yet to be known…”
Myr’s eyes sparkled, and glistening tears flowed down her cheeks, “But wherever we are returned to, we have another chance…”
Myr’s body began to glitter, her form to vanish into sparkling pinpoints of light
“No…not again…don’t go…” Tad sobbed, but Myr’s smile bathed him in warmth.
“I love you…” She whispered as she vanished.
Kira’s form began to dissolve, and she smiled her quirky smile at Tad, and then at Nai.
“Let’s do it right this time…See ya on the other side!”
Chrysania and Kitara began to disperse, then. Both of them gazed from the yet still form of Nai to Tad, and both of them smiled.
“We’re going to be little again.” Chrysania said, laughing
Kitara snorted, “Great…I’ll have to relearn how to wear this blasted armor…”
They both smiled warmly at Tad and spoke at the same time, “But we’ll have our fathers again…we love you, Daddies!”
Then…he was all but alone. The world around him had gone. The blazing platinum wyrm burned where the sky used to be, bathing him and the still prone form of Nai in intense light.
Tad shuddered an exhausted sigh.
“I’m so tired…” He whispered.
“There is something you must do, Theodore Breken…” The voice of the platinum wyrm rumbled. Tad looked up at Thoth, perplexed. “What must I do? What can I do? Are you not reweaving the fabric of existence? I surely cannot aid in that.”
Thoth craned his neck down from on high and looked Tad in the eye, his own multi-dimensional orb gazing intently into Tad’s.
“Work quickly, Tad…or the paradigm shall repeat itself.”
Tad gulped and looked over at Nai. Nai had risen to a sitting position, clutching his knees to his chest.
“I think I know…” Tad whispered, walking slowly over to Nai.
Nai gazes up at Tad, his face ashen and pale, and his eyes reflecting a soul that had won its freedom, but gained the full understanding of exactly what it had been responsible for.
“Come on, Nai…” Tad spoke softly, extending his hand towards his defeated nemesis.
“…let’s go home.”
Nai shook his head, spitting the words as he choked on his tears, “Leave me. I’ll not return to destroy everything all over again…”
Tad shook his head, “It’s all over, Nai…Thoth is undoing all of it. You’ve been forgiven…”
Nai slammed his hands down to his sides, shaking his head furiously and sobbing, “NO! I’ll only do it all over again…”
“You’ll only repeat the same mistake if you allow yourself to.” A woman’s voice spoke. The voice radiated comfort and love, so intense that both Nai and Tad immediately looked over at its source.
There, before them, stood the penultimate visage of womanhood. Clad in smoky tendrils of the very fabric of existence, illuminated by the light of pure love radiating from within, Goddess smiled at the two mortal men.
Thoth bowed his head as he blazed in his work, and rumbled, “Greetings, All Mother…”
Thoth then craned his head down and looked at both Tad and Nai, “Meet my Mother, children. You wonder what power surpasses even the might and strength of Knowledge…look well upon it…”
Goddess spoke then, her voice completely eradicating any feeling of fear, of anguish or anything but pure love in both Tad and Nai, “The power of Love transcends Knowledge…my son is a facet of myself, but I am the true force of all existence. Where I am, there is Love, and where there is Love, there can be all things. Where I am not, there is oblivion, for without Love, there can be nothing.”
Thoth nodded in silent agreement as he continued reworking the massive patch of time and existence that he was re-making.
Tad and Nai were wholly unable to speak, so enraptured and captivated by the radiance of this being that exceeded even Thoth.
Goddess floated towards them both, her smile growing even warmer, “Return to the time when Love still exists within you both. Return, Tad, and remember that Love surpasses all.”
Goddess then turned her gaze to Nai, “Return to the time when you still knew me, Nai. You have always felt like you were on the outside looking in…”
Hot tears spilled down Nai’s cheeks as he nodded in silence
Goddess caressed his cheek and kissed him gently on the forehead, and spoke, “My child…if you were on the outside looking in…then I have been on the outside with you.”
Tad and Nai both wept, then. They had both felt like they were estranged from love’s warmth in their lives, and there simply was no doubting the truth of Goddess’s words.
“Return to the time when you both knew me, and know that even though you may have forgotten me…” Her smile warmed them both, drowning their pain immediately, “I have never forgotten you.”
“Thank you…” Nai whispered, looking up at the ultimate celestial incarnation of the true force of existence, “Thank you so much…”
Goddess only smiled, and looked up at Thoth.
“It is time…” Thoth rumbled, and Tad felt himself dispersing…
Looking over at Nai before his consciousness faded from existence, Tad spoke, “I’ll see you there, Nai…”
And, in a radiant shimmer, enveloped in the pure luminescence of Love, Tad ceased to exist.
Nai sat before Goddess and Thoth, watching Tad disperse into innumerable glittering sparkles, each of which winking out in mere moments.
“So what is your choice, my childe?” Goddess asked
“You are faced, now, with an option. Do you wish to return to the paradigm, and perhaps make the same mistakes again…or do you wish to be undone, erased from existence, never having existed at all?”
Nai wiped the tears from his face and slowly stood. Gazing haggardly at Thoth, and then at Goddess, Nai spoke, “You know my decision…perhaps…perhaps it is for the best…”
The last thing Nai knew was an explosion of light, and then he ceased to exist.
Tad awoke with a start. He’d had terrible dreams last night…
Shaking his head, it felt as if a tremendous fog had filled his mind. “Ugh…” he groaned, rolling over and embracing the still sleeping figure of Myr.
“I had the worst dreams last night…” he muttered sleepily.
Myr moaned and wrapped an arm around him, “Me too…” She muttered, half asleep.
Tad grunted as she squeezed him and then extricated himself from her embrace.
“Well, I have a great deal to do today…” he muttered, wondering what in the nine hells was niggling at the back of his mind, like something he was supposed to remember.
“Bah.” He snorted, pushing it aside. Dreams were like that…always filling one’s head with all manner of useless rubbish that, to the mind, seemed of paramount importance.
“I’m going to go see if Kitara is awake.” Tad grumbled. Myr only snored at him in response.
Pulling his robe over his head, Tad then stepped out the door and closed it quietly behind him. What in blazes was poking and prodding at his mind??
Stopping and thinking for a moment, Tad remembered a faint voice, a very warm, rich voice, saying, “Love surpasses all…”
“Well of course it does…” Tad muttered, making his way down the hall to Kitara’s room.
Slowly opening the door, Tad peeked inside. Kitara sat on the floor setting up a huge pile of blocks and then throwing the last block at the pile, scattering them everywhere.
Tad grinned at her as she annihilated her pile, and she giggled up at him, “I’m winning the war, daddy. See? I broke their walls.” She pointed to the scattered blocks.
“I see! Well, how would my little soldier like some breakfast, hmm?”
Kitara giggled and nodded, fairly well leaping into his outstretched arms.
Tad and Kitara made their way to the kitchen of the Tower, and Tad began making Kitara pancakes and eggs. Kitara stabbed at ‘invisible monsters’ with her fork and knife, making Tad again realize that his little girl was going to grow up someday, and her antics with a fork and knife were going to be realities with dual blades, more likely than not.
“Oh, you’re such a little devil.” Tad chuckled, feeling slightly wistful at the as-yet long off day when he would have to let his little girl be a woman. Kitara shook her head back and forth and went, “Nuh-uh. I’m a little Queen, just like Grandma, and devils can’t be Queens.”
Tad smiled at her and nodded, “My mistake, your highness!”
Kitara and Tad both laughed, and breakfast was served.
Myr came wandering downstairs during the middle of a decisive battle between the Fork and Knife and the evil Pancake and Egg monsters. Tad had animated Kitara’s eggs and pancake and the little elf was all too happy to pull chunks off of the slowly hovering breakfast food, giggling and enjoying herself immensely.
Myr grinned at Tad, seeing Kitara soundly finish defeating her last egg. “My, we certainly have vicious eggs and pancakes around here, don’t we!” She exclaimed, winking at Tad. “Indeed we do!” Tad nodded in agreement, “If it weren’t for her Highness, I do believe I would have been doomed to a fate worse than over-eating.”
Kitara grinned up at Myr, and Myr ruffled her hair approvingly. “Well now…if there are any more of those dastardly pancakes and roguish eggs around, I do believe I should like a good round or two with them.”
Tad laughed and asked sanguinely, “Would you like me to make you breakfast as well, Myr?”
“Ohhh…how sweet of you to offer!” Myr chided, tickling Tad lightly.
Yelping and chuckling, Tad made his way back to the kitchen, making quips all the way about how he was reduced to the position of Cooking Staff, and then set about making Myr some breakfast.
“Mom?” Chrysania tugged at Kira’s shirtsleeve. Kira, sitting on the floor beside her little daughter, was busy putting the finishing touches on a big toadstool painting on the wall outside of Tad’s classroom.
“Hmm?” She looked over at Chrysania.
Chrysania stood up and looked confused, “Where’s Daddy? He said he would take us to see Grandma today…”
Kira sighed. Nai had promised he wouldn’t forget to keep his promises, but it seemed he had forgotten.
“I’ll go find him, little one. You finish painting the big ugly toad on top there.” She said as she stood, pointing towards the top of the very ugly toadstool.
Chrysania nodded and began painting what would very likely turn out to be the most lopsided and hideous toad ever imagined.
Kira sighed and wandered off in search of her errant husband. He was probably on the other side of the world, or on a different world altogether, knowing him.
“Have you seen my annoying blankety-blank of a husband?” Kira asked one of the faculty members she passed in the hall. The faculty member nodded, and said that she’d seen him just a few hours ago.
“And what was he doing?” Kira asked, putting her hands on her hips.
The head illusionist shrugged and replied, “Looked like he was stepping outside for some fresh air. Go look around.”
Kira ran pell-mell, for no reason other than that she could, to the stairs and bolted out of the Academy.
“Nai!!” She bellered upon throwing the door open.
Scanning about, she saw her husband all right, but what a face he wore!
Nai sat at the base of a tree, holding his violin in his hands, a small pile of his various little treasures around him on the ground. His eyes were red, as if he’d been crying, and Kira began to worry.
“What’s wrong?” She asked softly, sitting beside him, careful not to sit on anything of his.
Nai looked slowly up at Kira, and simply stared into her eyes for several minutes.
Kira felt a strange feeling wash over her as she looked into Nai’s eyes…it reminded her of the dream she’d had last night, but she couldn’t remember what it reminded her of, or why.
Then, without a word, Nai wrapped his arms around her, dropping the violin in a jumble beside him as he did so.
Kira was a bit taken aback by the sudden gesture, but sensed that something was deeply troubling her husband, and wrapped her arms gently around him in return, whispering, ‘It’s ok…just tell me what’s wrong…”
Nai shook his head, and spoke softly, “It never happened…none of it…oh, thank Goddess!”
If Kira was bewildered before, she was completely perplexed now.
“What are you talking about, Nai? What never happened? And which Goddess?”
Nai kissed her and stroked her hair almost franticly, which made Kira somewhat afraid. “You’re scaring me, Nai…please…tell me what’s wrong.”
Nai laughed and looked into her eyes. He was crying again, but he looked so happy, like he was overwhelmed by something. “Nothing at all, Kira…the most wonderful thing ever to happen has happened to me… to us…to all of us…”
Kira stared for a moment and then realized what Nai was talking about.
“…You don’t feel like you’re all alone anymore?”
Nai shook his head excitedly, and exclaimed, “Oh thank you…” as he wrapped his arms tightly around Kira again.
Kira felt a surge of relief at knowing that Nai had finally learned to allow himself to feel loved. It had saddened her that she loved him so much, and Chrysania loved him so much, but he didn’t seem to let it in.
“Please tell me you’re better…” She whispered, feeling tears of her own starting to fall, and Nai nodded, speaking, “Couldn’t be better…simply couldn’t…”
For half an hour, Kira and Nai sat wrapped in each other’s arms. Finally they were disturbed by a trite, “EHEM!” in a very Tad-like voice.
Tad and Myr stood a few feet away, with Kitara and Chrysania in tow.
“I found a certain little girl painting a very LARGE toad on a certain little toadstool which mysteriously appeared next to a CERTAIN door of mine.” Tad groused, pretending for all he was worth to be quite mad. He was, in fact, amused to no end. He’d found Chrysania furtively painting away at an utterly humongous toad on a comparatively small toadstool on the wall beside his classroom door. When he asked her what she was doing, she looked up at him and said she was a painting toad.
“You know, if you weren’t so cute I’d make you wash that wall.” Tad patted Chrysania on the head while he spoke. Kira stood up, and Myr nudged Tad and whispered, “Not now…look.”
Tad looked at Nai and Kira, and saw they had both been apparently crying very recently. Kitara and Chrysania noticed this right off, but weren’t worried, since neither looked at all sad.
Tad frowned lightly and asked, “Is something wrong?”
Kira just smiled and wiped her eyes, shaking her head gently. Nai stood up and looked, slowly and amazedly, at Chrysania, Kitara, Myr and Tad.
“Why do you look so amazed to see us, Nai? It isn’t like you haven’t seen any of us in ages.” Tad asked in a speculative tone.
Nai laughed softly, drying his eyes. “Actually…you’d be surprised.”
Tad furrowed both of his brows intently, and Myr smiled, “Well, I do believe someone promised two little girls a trip to see their Grandmother, Nai. I also need to go to Athens.” Myr spoke, picking the two girls up.
Kira stood off a little ways, smiling gently at Nai. She didn’t know what had happened to her husband, but his eyes looked terribly old…but they also looked impossibly happy, and that was all she needed to know.
Nai nodded slightly, and looked over at Kira. “Please come with…I don’t want you to be out of my sight, or my arms, for at least another ten million years.”
Kira grinned and nodded, stepping nearer to Myr and the girls.
Nai looked over at Tad, and Tad cocked his head to one side as he looked into Nai’s eyes.
“You going to stay here or come with, Tad?’ Nai asked
“I…think I’ll be staying here…” Tad mumbled, staring at Nai’s emerald eyes in fascination
“Well…I’ll be around.” Nai grinned and, whispering the words to the teleport spell, he and the others were gone.
Tad stood, rooted to the ground where he stood.
“It can’t be…” Tad whispered in disbelief.
He had, in the past, sent Nai into the Dreamweaver spell, to witness the possible future that lay in store for him if he didn’t alter his course. The eyes of the alternate, future Nai in the Dreamweaver spell… they looked almost exactly like the eyes he just saw, with one major difference.
The eyes he had just seen were brimming with gratitude and love, whereas the eyes of the future Nai he had apparently created a phantom image of were filled with apathetic hatred…but one thing remained the same.
The sheer power in those eyes…
The future Nai had been unbelievably powerful. Through some twist of fate, the future Nai in the Dreamweaver spell was made quasi-real, and the real Nai had come out of the spell with a token, a strange bloodstone of some sort, that by all workings of the spell could not have come with him at the end of it’s duration.
Tad slowly shook his head, pouring through a plethora of possibilities.
“Love surpasses all…” interrupted his thoughts, floating through his mind…a woman’s voice…a mother’s voice…
Tad blinked. Something unprecedented had transpired, of that he was certain…
But as to exactly what…only Nai apparently knew.
Gazing off in the direction of the Amazon cities, Tad breathed a sigh and whispered, “Please, Nai…don’t ever tell me what you have seen…don’t ever tell me what happened…and don’t ever make it happen again, if that is what this is all about.”
Feeling a chill breeze wash over him, Tad shivered. Chill breezes in tropical jungles simply didn’t exist…and Tad knew that someone had heard his silent plea.
Making his way back into the Academy, Tad pondered a great many things…and was ultimately lacking for answers to many of the questions that appeared in his mind.
And for this, he was thankful. After all…
Some questions are best left unanswered…and some answers are best left unquestioned.
Do you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean?
Do you still feel a sense of wonder when you gaze into a star-filled sky?
When given the choices to sit it out or dance…which will you do?
Time is wheel in constant motion…always rolling us along…
Tell me…Who wants to look back on their lives and wonder where those years have gone?
I hope you dance.
A Tale told by Calydon ap Myrddin, without title