Return of the one long gone

When the war ends, everything stills

"Sorry to burst your happy bubble, but I have news about your beloved King of Rivendell." The room seemed to tense, the feel of it suffocating. The way it was said, the glint in its eye, Jimmy wasn't looking forward to what it was going to say next, but he didn't think he would ever hear the words it said, "He's dead." 

- - - -

Lizzie looked at the being in pure horror. She wondered if this was Scott's hunter. Why he had been driven from his home and his friends and family, because this, thing, wanted him dead. 

And she realized, it was her fault in a way. It stung, it stabbed her, opened wounds that flooded her senses with empty pain she wished would swallow her whole. She allowed him to stay, she ignored the warning signs, the fidgeting.  She didn't offer to give him some form of transport to get him further away from the country. 

She had arms around her before she realized she was crying. She gave a solemn look to Joel. He was looking to his side, towards Jimmy. 

- - - -

Jimmy had never once thought he would face a day where Scott wasn't alive. He had faced years without him around, but never once did he consider he was dead. Jimmy didn't even know how recent this was, if it had been painful and slow, if it had been quick and painless, its cause. He knew nothing apart from a stranger with a murderous look of glee was waiting for someone to say something to it. 

And in that moment he knew it was their fault. 

"How?" 

"He fell off the edge of the end, straight into the void." 

Jimmy couldn't even see his body because it was lost. He never got to say goodbye, never got to hold his hand as Scott's life slowly seeped away from him. He was going to be sick, he wanted to cry, to scream. Nothing came. Just numb grief.

"Why?"

"Why what?" 

"Why did he fall. Scott isn't clumsy. What. Did. You. Do." Jimmy glared at it, watching it mull over the answer for a few moments, hoping to find some reluctance or regret. He found nothing.

"I didn't push him, just walked towards him as he walked backwards. He fell off the edge without even screaming."

Jimmy didn't know what to make of it. His fiance was gone and he was fairly sure whoever, or whatever this monster of a being was, it wasn't stopping at Scott. It probably wasn't stopping until the world was its own.

- - - -

Scott could hear Jimmy shouting at his Brother before he was even inside the building. He had decided to take the secret entrance not even his advisors knew about. He hd built it himself shortly after his parents had died for when he needed a quiet moment without the guards granting him access before telling his staff - the first and only time he had made that mistake was embarrassing enough. It led him to the alter, where he had better vantage of hearing and guessing where his brother was stood in the church.

"Why kill him?" Jimmy was arguing.

"Because he was the only one powerful enough to save you all, whether he knew it or not. But he's dead now, I can do what I please with you all, starting with yourself, fish boy."

"What are you going to do to him?" He couldn't tell if that was Lizzie or someone else, their voice was too thick from crying.

"Oh, you know, torture him, starve him, the usual."

- - - - 

Jimmy was about to protest - or beg for mercy, he wasn't decided -  before a voice sounded behind him, so familiar he almost didn't want to believe it was real. "Touch him and I swear brother, I'll do more than kill you."

"I thought you were dead."

"Please, you failed to check whether there was stone under me to fall onto, spoiler, there was."

"Pity. No matter, you can also watch your precious Cod boy suf-"

Scott didn't give him time to finish the sentence as he was striking Xornoth with his newfound magic whilst also throwing his sword at him, before firing arrows for safe measure. He fell to the ground, bleeding and shivering, trying to fight the shock, writhing in deaths hands as it dragged him away. 

Xornoth stilled just before he started to go dizzy himself, the injuries from their other fight weighing him down. And if this is where he was dying, having saved everyone and everything, he would be content. Because maybe this had been the purpose he had been searching for since his parents died. Maybe this is what fate had always intended for him to be, another hero with a tragic ending, surrounded by blurring voices as his body hit the floor. He had never known the sense of being untroubled before, always restless to find his place in the world, the people who needed him and cared about him in the same way he did so them. But he knew it now, the feeling of fulfilling what he was destined for, the one good thing he could do to repay the kindness of the people he had ruled alongside with for decades. 

He didn't hear the frantic voices and rushing feet of his medical team as his eyes closed and everything went black for what he thought would be the final time.

- - - -

War was always going to be a part of life, because morals clashed and the greed for power wasn't in the realms of being sated for most. Sometimes it was plagued in gunshots and cries, other times it was the meeting of two forces that had equal amounts of power with endless puppets at their disposal to fight as mortal people.

In this case, it was a battle that had been fought by three generations, the first being the two Gods themselves, drifting slowly apart until one was consumed by the evil of power and desire for death and destruction.

The second were two brothers, forced to fight until they were both killed, one by the other, the other because they had lived long enough and  served their purpose to allow the world to fall back into normality and peace for a while.

The 3rd, also being two brothers. Although one had never known the other, and he hadn't regretted killing the latter, just like his other half hadn't cared when his limp body fell over the edge into death.

And as the dust finally settles, the battlefield is laid with poppies, bodies of the fallen buried under forgiving and freeing soil, finally giving troubled souls their escape from the grasps of dark power and magic.

- - - -

And the one who remains alive, a halo of poppies around his head like a victors crown, lays to rest as his body heals. For him, life isn't ready to let him leave the living just yet.

Because sometimes the fights and the losses and the sacrifices, are worth it.

~ ~ ~ ~

He's finally DEAD!

(not proof-read)