A Worthy Sacrifice
© Keya
He lazed in the glory of the sun, warmth baking old bones to make them softer, less tart and painful. Being aged gave little time to think of anything else and yet, as the blood filled sky gleamed, as the heat beat against his wizened skin, he was reminded of his youthful days, of his marriage and of his children.
Watching him, I was no different than the sand beneath his feet or the waves crashing against the rocks. In my mind, I could see the swimming pool outback where we used to live and mother beckoning him to come closer, just an inch more and she would splash him, laughing her full head off.
My father wanted to be young again, with his family beside him. In the end, he saw the beginning, which was fitting for one of his kind.
I sensed it coming. The world, life giving to those that would dive within the depths and be conquered, was about to give up one of its own. A worthy sacrifice, for the old man had lived his life with regrets, but few evils. Unlike me in so many ways that I wondered if I was adopted, but no, looking into eyes that were my own, it was impossible.
He wasn’t afraid. When he finally saw me, he held out his hand. I took it. He smiled and died in the comfort of my arms. I stilled on his last breath. How I envied him. He didn’t say he loved me, didn’t say goodbye, but just held my hand with a tight grip that loosened only in death.
He had been my father, one of the Tomorrow People, the leader of them all. Kept my family together despite my immorality. Would not shrink back knowing that I killed because of the Game. My father held no disappointment for me, nothing but love.
"I’m sorry," I whispered, but what I was sorry for, I did not know.
I buried him beside the ship, a small marker telling the new generations of his kind that a legend had walked on this land. Never be it said that no one knew of him. Never be it said that his first born did not love him.
My mother once told me that he sought Methos on my first death and learned everything he could about the Game. It was my father, not Methos, that crafted my sword, taught me how to fight; though it cost him dearly to wield it.
It was his unwritten oath to me personally. I was of the Newman family and we always protected our own. Not ever did he approve of the Game, but he accepted my fate, accepted immortality and justly recognized the others that were born.
I was the first immortal child parented, but it was unavoidable that the first of many would I be. Ironically the others like me had at least one Tomorrow Person parent, if not two.
And the Game changed. Instead of us fighting each other, we fought the old immortals that refused to accept the birth of a new era.
There is no prize. No prize, but peace for us. Some call us Guardians. Others would name us demons, but one thing remained, we come from the future, the next stage of human immortality. Just as mortals evolved, so did we.
It took my father to see that. Placing roses on his grave, I realized that I would forever miss him, my father, Adam Newman. So would my son, a Tomorrow Person like his grandfather. So would Methos, my husband. So would the entire world and the alien ship that started it all.
"Goodbye," I uttered softly, "goodbye."
An end and a beginning, my father would be proud.
~~The End~~