A Tale Out of Time

A Parting of Ways

Fear. 

Abject, unabashed fear. That's all the young man felt as the airlock doors fell shut behind him as his companions stood around him. He barely noticed the shocked, wide-eyed stares of horror, nor the princess' hand upon his wrist as he made his way to the control board on the elevated platform. The emperor begged for him to reconsider as the young man opened the cover of the board and looked with bleary eyes at the various switches, levers, and buttons that comprised it. He heard the princess pleading with him to, please, if he loved her at all, not to do what he knew in his heart of hearts was necessary to be done.

Only the sentinel did not mourn, watching his architect with clinical indifference. If he felt anything at that moment, nobody but the young man with all his heart on the line knew it.

And the young man knew very well the heart of the sentinel of flesh and steel. He knew how longingly it beat to return to the old days. To the days before war unending. To the days long past, when the last of the unicorns was merely the first of a new generation. To the days when the Last City, that place the sentinel had watched crumble around him, still stood, tall and proud against the daemons from beyond even the most accursed stretch of the mortal realms. For he knew himself what it was like to watch all things wither and die, even as one's own life continued unending and unaltered. Tears streamed down his face as his knees buckled and he braced himself against the control board to stand. He didn't want to do it. If there was any other option, he'd've chosen said option instead. If there was any other choice to make, any last minute turn of fate that would possibly, in any conceivable appreciable regard spare him the pain and regret he was about to force upon himself in the name of the greater good of himself and his allies, not to mention the fate of all creation, he would've taken that chance.

But, all the same, he knew there wasn't any other way this could go. He'd looked for one, all his days since that first battle with the Wretch King. Oh, how he'd begged, pleaded with himself in search of a panacea to the pain he knew all too well by now. He wanted to stay! Goddamnit, he wanted a life with his friends and lover! He begged in every tongue ever spoken to every god who'd ever been to please, in the name of all holy things, spare him this choice! He wasn't ready!

But, all the same, as the princess and the emperor cried out for him to stay, telling him that, yes, there was still hope, and that they could still win, no matter what, the young man's hand fell upon the only button that mattered. The big red button in the center. The button that would send him away and save his friends from the nightmare his presence would doubtless have brought them into.

The princess cried out, falling to her knees as a beam of light fell upon the platform where the young man stood, and with a sorrowful smile, the young man vanished, turning away in shame and grief for what he was leaving behind.