...so that's it?
Rafael's hand goes numb, his nerveless fingers dropping his stained sword to the ground with a soft clatter of steel on carpet. Before him, former Warlord Aziz lay, gutted like a fish. Rafael's left hand searches for the parting wound he had been given, a slash from the Warlord's hidden dagger. A poisoned dagger. He grunts softly and drops to one knee as his vision swims, the still corpse of his beloved lay not fifteen feet away, her once perfect form marred by bruises and blood. He had been too late to save her, to slow to prevent her death... but he'd taken his revenge.
Behind him, he hears the sounds of further battle as the rebellion sweeps through the palace, the soft footfalls of an approaching ally turn his attention to the door which fills with the silver-haired man with turquoise eyes, Diael, the Grey One. "It is finished," speaks the man whose eyes shone like the summer sky.
"Aye," Rafael grunts as he slumps to one side, the poison numbing more and more of his body as Diael hurries to his side.
"You've lost a lot of blood," Diael notes. "The poison is an anesthetic mixed with some kind of snake venom. You will bleed to death," he says matter-of-factly. Rafael nods, wondering if the slow leeching of color from the wound was a side-effect of the poison.
"Well, you did try and warn me..." Rafael coughed as breathing became laborious. Diael had tried to give him an antidote, tried to prevent his death... but Rafael had been too proud to accept his help then.
"You did well," Diael comforts him, "Power will return to the hands of the people once more and at long last... this war is over."
"So, that's it then?" Rafael asked Diael as the blue-eyed man knelt on the carpet beside him, heedless of the blood that stained his clothing as he watched the life ooze from Rafael's wounds.
"Of course not. All of this was just the beginning," the Grey One tells him with a soft smile.
"Beginning... of what?" Rafael asked as he noticed that his left hand was starting to go numb and that even speech was difficult now.
"Let me show you," Diael said, placing a gentle hand on the warrior's brow... a flash of light pulsing in Rafael's eyes as he does.
A field. Green and growing, full of life and hope. At the edge of it, a little girl runs, her curly black hair streaming behind her olive skin... a large family hound chasing her with a happy bark. Her joyful shrieks fill the air as her parents watch from the shade of the porch, pride in their eyes.
The bloodied carpet fades into view once more, Rafael's lips moving noiselessly, his question lost to eternity. Diael smiles and answers the unspoken question, "That child would have died had this war continued and now... she has a chance. A chance to become something great. That child could change the world, if she wanted to. Her potential is unlimited. Everything you fought, and suffered and yes... will die for. Everything was so she could have the opportunity to make this world a greater place." Diael smiles down at the hero whose consciousness was slowly fading into blackness, "She will never know your name, or your sacrifice, or your part in her destiny... but because of you, she has a chance. And because of that chance... others will also have a chance. And because of those chances, yet others will be able to make a difference in the life of another child afar off... who will have a chance."
The Grey One gently closes the eyes of the hero as the sound of his heart-beat slows to almost nothing, "Just as Barad died twenty years ago to give you a chance, to shape the world you lived in... to make a difference in the life of a child who would grow up, overthrow a warlord, and bring peace to Gaia. For now."