Till the World Ends

Intro

 It is an exonerating feeling really. Truly, a freeing and liberating feeling. There is nothing else quite like it. In all the years I have lived there has been very few things that compare. The rush of the wind whipping through your hair and fingers. The weightlessness that accompanies it with nothing but sky around you. Gravity is really a binding and bothersome things. The worst feeling in the world is to be grounded. It is especially worse to be grounded and left just like any other on this planet, your powers and all that once made you special is just stripped from you. I can still remember it, the feeling when you first push off from the earth's crust and levitate in the nothingness above. Leonardo Da Vinci once said, "Pnce you have tased flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward. For you have been, and there you will always long to return." He wasn't too far gone from the truth I enjoyed whispering that in his ear. I was the only one between the two of us to taste the ecstasy of flight. But no one is supposed to know I exist, or remember for that matter. My kind was erased from existence.

Not every sorcerer can fly. Then again, I was no ordinary sorcerer. My patrons were magical royalty so to speak, pure, and very powerful. We came from the line of merlon himself. In fact, he was my grandfather on my father's side. We took on his role to help humanity through our special gifts, which he said were blessings from God that he bestowed on special people to help his children and creatures. Not only were we to serve and protect but we were to be one with nature, to be at peace and understand God's creteres as well as His people.

That was so long ago now, back when religion and state were one and it seemed like Europe was the only place on earth. Now, no one remembers us. We were like the leafs in the wind, our names and identities floated away and were never seen or hears of again. Even my grandpapa, Merlin, has become nothing more than a myth, a fairytale of some sort, never to be remember as being real living an breathing human being. No one thinks of him as someone who loved and laughed, someone who truly grieved for the trials his friend and king faced. There was a that moment in time, during the witch scares in the 16th century, when we were somewhat remembered.

Dear old Giovanni Cibo, remembered in history as Pop Innocent VIII. Who I may add wasn't quite so innocent. All those years of teasing him about witchcraft and how it was truly out there, I couldn't help it he was poking fun at my family. I was living in Italy at the time in what I like to call Il mio piccolo palazzo rosa, my little pink palace. Giovanni was staying with me, as he did from time to time. I was a wealthy friend, and with more wealthy friends comes better funds for him. I didn't mind most powerful men did the same. How do yo think George Washington kept the American Revolution going when all of his wealth was depleted. Anyway, he was making me about my newly acquired old scroll of the Arthurian Legends. He taunted me that the legends were pure trash were pure trash and that there could be no possible way that one man could hold so much power as Merlin did. The legends were pure fantasy and that there was no such thing as magic in the great poet's tale, he scoffed at me.

I reminded him that there was no way a living breathing man who could not walk through the illustrated nine rings of hell without a little touch of magic. Besides he needed Virgil's guidance to help him through. No mortal or plain man could do such a task without a touch of magic and that was what Virgil was, not just his guide but the little bit of magic that he needed to escape. Even if it was with the help of the devil himself, he used magic to get through purgatory. After that I did all I could to make him believe in magic. I played tricks on him, dirty little tricks. Oswin, who by that time already changed his name to Oliver, warned me I was taking this too far but I couldn't help it. I had my own secret vendetta against him and the rest of the world to make at least one person remember or believe. I couldn't help but think, what would Oliver know? He was only a guardian after all. Even though he was the guardian, my guardian, who had went through it all with me. All the heart ache and the blasted centuries that have spanned between the time I was meant to live and now. Well, he was right, I took it too far. Silly Giovanni got it into his head that magic was the root of all evil and that it could only come from the devil. He was always such a scared little runt when it came to the unknown.

I loved it there, in my little pink palace, it was peaceful. Well, before all the witch hunts that is. From the time to time I still like to mosey on down to my countryside Tuscan palazzo. Those were the days the love of my life, Oswin, and I were able to spend the most time together. That was before Giovanni reared his ugly papal head to me and accused me of being a witch, which I guess wasn't too far from the truth. Little did he know that I was stripped of my powers long before he was even born. Oliver and i were still continuing our long labored search to find the prophesied key that would restore them, but were still at a loss. Little did we know then that the key was with us all along. I should have even known that night that Giovanni sent men over to collect me.

They stormed the palace and broke into the roomwhere Oliver and I slept. They pulled Oliver out of the bed first and held him back while they dragged me kicking and screaming through the Palazzo. They dragged me as far as the gates before Oliver showed up with his already centuries old sword, Silverlight, which I should add was still as sharp as the day he first received it (That was the day he finished his training to be a guardian and he was assigned to me). Anyway, Oliver ran from out of the shadows and began to lay havoc on our invaders. Oliver's ancient training was nothing compared to the very structured and genteel form of Renaissance fighting, but there were more men than he could handle and he was eventually overtaken. He was stabbed right through the abdomen. He made one more swing and killed the man that had just stabbed him. His assailant dropped first, and I swear my heart stopped beating when I saw his eyes roll over and his body crumpled to the floor. By then I had already seen him die many times and every time it still felt like part of me was being ripped apart. As his body made contact with the floor the guards began to rush me again.

I remember looking up and I could swear I saw Rowan there staring at me in the distance with a taunting smile. It was his curse, his fault any of this happened, being in a foreign time and then waking again in another. The reason Oswin and I are always running to find the other when we finally wake up again, only to be ripped apart by death each time. It is his fault that I was taken from all I knew and everyone I loved. I remember looking back at Rowen, but it goes fuzzy after that. I remember feeling that old familiar warm sensation down in my gut and the tingling in my fingers, after that nothing. The next thing I knew, I was left alone with what was left of mine and Oliver's assailants splayed out on floor unconscious.

I ran to Oliver as fast I could. I caressed his cheek lightly and he opened his eyes to grace me with a sweet smile. "Why did you do it, Oswin?" I sobbed.

"It's what I'm supposed to do, guard you. I am still the Guardian after all. Time has is in no way changed that."

"I thought we said no more tussles? At least not until we find the key to my powers."

He shrugged and winced from the movement. "I couldn't leave you defenseless."

"You weren't, I could have handled it." I replied a little angry.

"I'm sure you could have, eventually, but you have to keep going. We are close, I can feel it."

"I don't want to do this without you."

"I'll be back, you know that."

"I do, I just-" I couldn't finish.

"I know, I'm tired of it too." He caressed my face "I love you, Nara, until the next time."

I nodded, "Until the next time Oswin. Come find me, please."

"I always do."