ELEMENT

Chapter Thirty-Nine: Archer

It was nighttime in the courtyard. The moon was full, and a white lantern illuminated the area.

Meadow never got the time for hobbies anymore, but she enjoyed archery a great deal, second only to cooking. She got tired of dragging the heavy potato sacks painted to look like targets outside from the supply closet to the grass outside, so she just started to not put them away after a while. And, as such, no one really cared. After all, the courtyard needed a bit more decoration, and Meadow lived here. If it was a home, she wanted it to feel like one.

She wasn't alone outside, even though it looked like it. Mage and Paladin sat on the platform leading up to the entryway, heads in their hands, watching.

Meadow fired an arrow. It hit the target directly.

"I forgot what it was like to do things like that," Paladin noted. "I guess I never got much chance, at her age or mine."

"She was good at it." Mage looked at Paladin, smirking.

Paladin laughed, being obligatory. "Yeah, she was. When she did it."

Mage flapped her lips, being a bit teasing, and continuing the conversation before. "I forgot how nice it was out here."

"When did the thing happen again?" Paladin leaned back, looking at the sky.

"What thing?"

He pointed at the moon lazily. "Uh, the thing. With the eclipse."

Mage checked a fake watch. "Um. I guess at this point in the timeline, two months ago. Before she erased it and fucked up the continuum even more."

A thunk. Meadow had found a ball on the ground, tossed it away, and as it bounced off the wall, it retaliated and hit her back in the stomach.

Mage burst out laughing. "Oh, my God. This fucking child."

"Uh-huh? Child?" Paladin stared down at her.

"Oh, shush!" Mage shoved a hand in his face. She jumped down from the platform, her dress cascading behind her, and barely moved the ball further away.

Mage found herself watching Meadow again, like she'd done every year that Meadow had been alive.

Even the Mage found herself tied down to the rule of ghosts not being allowed to leave the building or area where they died, but she could see beyond everything. Even the fabric of time itself.

Mage could close her eyes, and watch Meadow take her first steps. She could watch Cole try to get his sister away from an abusive home. She could watch Sage go through the gates of the kingdom for the first time, or Ethan realize he was an orphan, or Robin join the group at the perfectly right moment.

She could watch the Dark Exile. She could watch the death of her brother.

Or she could sit for ten thousand years, idly protecting the multiverse from harm, and primarily watching the ice bead away in small drips from a fourteen-year-old weapon.

That's what the Mage chose to do. As long as she'd been dead, she was there to watch the loop. Being a god is no easy task, but to her, it came naturally. She did it even without thinking.

She was there when Meridian decided to kill all the Light Elements in the kingdom and take the throne. She was watching when Peter finally died.

She was the one to erase his soul from existence as soon as he crossed over.