Scott never thought he would wake up to a day where Xornoth wasn't a threat, or that he would be in his own house, cuddled with Jimmy because life was finally returning to what it should be; he could finally love Jimmy with the other around him. He thought, the day he left, that would be it. Karma for being the only uncorrupt member of his family to survive. He was never certain if he would be chosen to die too, or live the rest of his years constantly running until his last breath.
But he hadn't. He had been given the chance to live the rest of his life normally. Unlike his brother. Some part of him regrets it. Part of him wonders if something could have saved him, given him the person he's seen in flashes out in the wild, when nothing but Xornoth's looming presence and the wilderness surrounded him. Maybe if he had done something else when they were children, he could have already married Jimmy instead of running.
Yet he knew that wasn't what the universe intended for him, at least not in this life. Only one of two could survive. Not because one was weaker, or because one was favored over the other. But because it was Scott's duty as champion to ensure peace ran through every street and river within the country and the world. It was Xornoth's to do the opposite. To kill and meddle. He would forever think of death as a game. Will he kill them will he not. Almost as if everyone's lives were in the hands of evil, that he was God, choosing who dies and who lived. In Xornoth's world, no one would live. They would either be dead or suffering for all eternity, waiting for something to extract them from the painful existence they would live.
A voice whispered to him then, almost as if sensing he was blaming his brother for life and the destiny they lived. It said, "Evil isn't born. It isn't a natural instinst as a baby. Evil is made and manipulated into people. That's what happened to Xornoth. Don't blame him, just love him unconditionally because he is blood and you two had a connection stronger than anyone else." He remembers the voice from somewhere. It's hazy, but female and soft, motherly almost. He doesn't remember how his parents sound, they died when he was too young to have the memory of it, but something in him, maybe the memories you always have some recognition of, were pointing the signs as his mother, her words like those on a death bed.
He was never told how his parents died. He asked for a while during his teenage years, but his advisors would never tell him. They knew the answer, that was clear enough. Their faces always morphed into this look akin to being lost. Like they had been taken to soon, by someone who had no right to do so. Maybe now he had the answers to that question, maybe he could finally know why they died. Maybe it was Xornoth, when he was first corrupted, whenever that was. He wishes he had time with his brother, not the monster he was forced into becoming.
Part of him wished it wasn't them in the next line of champions.
He remembers the first time he read the book. It was hidden in a cave, possibly covered when it was placed there. Rivendell was centuries old, it wouldn't surprise him if a generation long before his own decided to let fate come to whoever was next in line, instead of them coming to fate, or having it lying in a library, or handed down to each person who it could have been. Maybe they could have never been certain who it was going to be, maybe that was for the universe to decide.
Being Champion to a God wasn't a choice. It wasn't a way of life that you yourself could pave. It was an honor and a duty. It was a power bestowed only upon those worthy of it. That was something Aeor would constantly remind him of when he felt like he was doing nothing but waiting for the prophecies to come true. For him to blanket the world in snow if the worst came.
Scott had never possessed self-confidence. It was never taught to him. Neither was happiness or anything else apart from professionalism and cold heartedness. That's who he had been for years. It was possible his brother had that too. Maybe his parents weren't who they were made out to be in the history books. Maybe his family had never been happy, what he thought could be an arranged marriage, war, corruption, two brothers, one good, one evil, both fighting against each other because they were champions of Gods who had also fought each other.
He didn't want Xornoth to be another body to waste away in the fire of defeat. He didn't know his parents, but he knew they were never given a proper ceremony or buried. Xornoth had burnt them with his magic, slowly and precisely, unforgiving to people who had done no wrong to him. So Scott thought. Xornoth could have detained pain that fueled his urge for unhappy endings, only serving to make him suffer.
- - - -
Rivendell mornings were always quiet. But today, it seemed to have a quiet buzz that was never usually there. It could have been because Scott was finally back and every empire seemed to glow a bit brighter. Or perhaps it was because their entire existence didn't ride on the decisions of a single being, and rather on everyone.
Scott expected the church to be empty. It was always open, but it was usually just him on a morning. He had wanted to give his brother a final goodbye before he buried him. Allow the tension and the hatred to leave them and have all that remain be a body and his grieving brother. But can you grieve someone you never met in the memories you hold?
Yet he wasn't alone. Joey was sat with Xornoth on the ground, silent tears gliding down his cheeks. Scott had never been close with the 'Lost Empire', even less so its emperor himself, so he was taken aback by his presence. Not that he was there, but because he had been given no warning.
"Emperor."
"Smajor! Glad to see you back." his voice broke a couple times and his eyes held something akin to murderous in them. Xornoth had obviously been close with Joey in one way or another, so much so that the other emperor could only blame Scott for Xornoth's death.
"Yeah, nice to be back."
"What was he like? Before he was like this."
"I never knew him really, what makes you think I did?"
"His accent was from Rivendell, and he seems a similar age to you. I was just wondering if he was ever any different."
"Different how Joey?"
"Kinder, less threatening, I mean..I love him anyway, but he did have red things in our empires and tourmented everyone. Apparently he made me and Sausage his 'Henchmen' as the others say."
"And you don't remember that?"
"Nope."
Scott wasn't sure if what Joey was feeling was love, or it was a magic connection that hadn't properly faded. In the old elves tales, their magic wouldn't detach until its owner was laid to rest if it was just pure magic. If there were true romantic feelings behind it, then it would never go away unless that person got over their loved one.
"Want to bury him with me?"
"Yeah. I'd like that."
- - - -
Scott didn't organize a funeral. He didn't send international invites or even have any of his advisors with him. It was just himself and Joey. The only two people alive who ever knew him behind the intrusive whispers and destructive tendencies. The only two people who still saw him as a person who had been done wrong in this lifetime.
No words were said, no speeches were made, Scott just lowered his coffin into the ground. It was one he had kept. Each family member was given one when they were born, so no one else in the Kingdom could have it. Xornoth's was intricate and black. His gravestone was carved as well, Scott had only needed to finish it with the date and death cause. In the end, it read:
Prince Xornoth of Rivendell. xxxx - 2022. Killed by Scott Major of Rivendell.
Scott had laid him next to his parents, sitting with the three of them long after Joey had said a final teary goodbye. He had never realized when his family became broken and none-existent. It had just become normal. He had always wanted answers, but he had settled for the mystery. It wouldn't make a difference. He couldn't turn back the clock and save his parents or plead Aeor and Exor to choose a different set of brothers when he wasn't even sure a destiny like that was entirely their choice.
Yet he had to move on. He supposed he had moved on when he was much younger. The world would never give him the life he wanted or the family he never had. He had to find it. And he had.
- - - -
Souls leave our bodies because they have reached their expiration date. They don't cry or resist, they just go. And sometimes those souls have been hurt and mistreated, falling into the afterlife with emotional weight on their back nothing should have to carry. They weren't given a chance to survive, or prove they could be more than their feelings. That they were a person underneath the anger or the sadness.
Xornoth's soul was placed among those of tragic hero's. Not because he had changed the world forthe better or saved lives. He had destroyed and killed. Forced his brother away from the very things that made his live whole. No he was placed among them because he was a soul who should have had more time, who was fated to a life of misery.
To free a soul isn't just to free in from the body it has been incarcerated in, but also to relieve it from the stresses, the good and the bad of its lifetime and finally let it rest in the peace of safety.
So someday, when the time comes, it can return to a new body. Maybe the same one, in a different lifetime, another universe. Or maybe it will get to live the same life again with a different ending. And one day, it will get its happy ending. Maybe not for another thousand lives, but in one of them, they will finally live because it was worth it, and die because they are happy with the person it became.
~ ~ ~ ~
Not proof-read