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Today is going to be the last time you see him. Today is the day the desert goes up in smoke. It will finally be over. In the back of your mind, you quietly hope it will never end.
It doesn’t matter when he smiles at you and says good morning. It doesn’t matter how your heart aches at the thought that this will be your last day with him. You’re not attached, and you don’t care when he tucks a flower in your hair and laughs that awful (wonderful, wonderful, your mind protests) laugh of his when you huff and look the other way. It’s only because you don’t know how to say goodbye.
The two of you step outside into the desert heat. No stars are left shining against the bright sky now, none left to watch you. The back of your neck prickles when you think about what’s supposed to happen today. No — it’s fine, it was always supposed to be like this, you knew this was going to happen eventually. This is how it was meant to be. Even if it doesn’t sit right with you that all of this is going to end.
‘Just until the debt is paid,’ you say mirthfully as he pulls you towards the bright sun. ‘Yeah yeah, of course, whatever you say G,’ he snorts, continuing along on his long rant about — well, you weren’t really listening. He’s got his shirt off (nevermind how many times you’ve told him to keep it on), and you can see how the myriad of pink and white scars across his back dance in the shadow that the trees cast over the sunlight. Looking at them sends a shiver down your spine. Surely this will make up for it. Surely.
You shake it off. It doesn’t matter. (it’s a mantra you repeat to yourself all day; doesn’tmatterdoesn’tmatterdoesn’tmatterdoesn’tmatter—)
(—in the back of your mind you hope it’ll distract you from how much it does matter.)
You head down the mountain together, exchanging jokes and laughter as you make your way towards what is surely his doom, if not yours. Maybe if you had any tears left you’d cry for what you’re about to lose. The two of you draw nearer to a building fitted with barely more than a door and some half-empty storage. It’s not a home. Nothing will ever be like the home you’re about to leave behind.
And maybe he knows it too, because the light hardly reaches his eyes, and the smile he wears is nothing like the one he gives you when you’re alone — it’s the one he uses to frighten, the one he uses to steal and hurt — this is not a smile for you. You don’t say anything of it.
Two men are already there, your friends, allies, and they give you the same sort of painful smile. Today will likely end with all of your deaths, and this hasn’t been lost on them. You steel yourself as he (why he? why won’t you say his name? because, you plead, because it’s too hard to say, to think, to feel) enters the building. It takes every ounce of your being not to call him back to you. You move to the front of the building before you can make a bad decision.
It’s almost midday at this point. It doesn’t ease your nerves — the red army could attack at any moment, vulnerable as you all are. You exhale. Best not to spiral now.
It’s almost a relief when the battle begins. It’s bloody, but not many die. One of your allies does, you can hear the faint shouts of your friends and the cheers of your enemies, but you can’t tell who it was. Everything is a blur. Sand explodes around you, devastating your vision. For all you can tell, it hasn’t killed anyone — yet another failed trap. You feel arrows hit your back, feel your feet stumble to the edge of a trench, sending you toppling over the edge and into lava. You can hear yourself calling for him, distant screams of his name hardly reaching your own ears. Your assailant — red on his clothes, green in his eyes, gold in his hair — kills you with no look of regret. (You’re not sure why there might’ve been one.)
It’s almost night when you make it back to that dim, wretched old shack. It’s hard to recognize the place, blown apart and covered in the ashes of a place you called home. One of the men who was with you that morning is gone, returned home to mourn the husband that died in the desert. You feel sorry for him. He and his husband were kind enough to you, and it makes you think of —
Of him. Who you were supposed to leave, when you lost your first life. And yet… The thought of leaving him, of maybe having to kill him eats you up. And where would you go? To the people who had stolen a life from you? Live alone, knowing everyone else was out to get you?
Your legs start moving on their own, towards the figure in the distance that your eyes had just barely caught, who certainly signals death for both of you, but for all the safety and caution and pre-made plans in the world you couldn’t stop yourself running back to him, even if you lost everything tomorrow, you wouldn’t give this up for the world, and god isn’t that a scary thought — the realisation that you would do anything to make sure he stayed alive. To stay in this moment, wrapped in a shaking hug. “I thought — I thought you were leaving..” he mumbles into your hair. I could never leave, your mind screams. The only thing you can manage to do is to pull him in tighter.
You’re still in shock — it had happened so suddenly. One moment you were both giggling and running across the dunes, and then — and then he was dead. It’s hard to make yourself move from the kneeling position you’ve fallen into. It takes you a moment to hear it — hear him. Vaguely you note the tear tracks on your face, but you’re more focused on the man now in front of you. He still isn’t wearing his shirt — of course he isn’t, the idiot, (you see the fresh scars right away) and you notice he’s holding a bundle of purple and red flowers. You want to run into his arms, but your legs don’t move. “For me?” you whisper unsteadily. “Can we still be friends?” His eyes plead with you. Please, please accept, they seem to say. Dryly you pull yourself up. “Yeah, we can... we can be friends,” you mutter softly as you accept the flowers.
A week flies by, leaving even more bodies in its wake. You exact vengeance on your enemies, leaving the world a flaming mess. The King and his Hand die together, on a stone altar. It’s poetic. Surely a better ending than you’ll get.
One by one you hunt down the survivors. Only Bdubs is there at the ruins of the Crastle, the last knight left to defend a fallen home. The two of you (only one of you, really, you wouldn’t wish Impulse’s death on anyone) convince him to kill his last remaining friend. The excitement behind his eyes scares you.
BigB is killed in a short scuffle — and you feel bad for him, you really do. It’s just that Bdubs is looking so bloodthirsty, and Scar is pulling out a piece of paper, and you’re the last three people alive in the entire world, and this is just too much, and why can’t you reach it in time and god why couldn’t you have just told him to kill Bdubs —
And now you’re red. You’re angry. And so, so alone, more alone than you’ve ever felt in your life. The rage consumes you, leaves no room for other emotions, leads you all the way back to the pond you were at. They’re talking, and the nerve! Just standing there, chatting about your death!
Your vision blurs, tints red at the edges. There is barely a second between when you raise your blade and when Scar stands in front of you and Bdubs lies dead at your feet — but not by your hand.
He smiles gently, sorrowfully, with too much earnestness in his eyes. Scar kneels down, blood and water lapping at his sides, and slowly guides your outstretched sword to his neck.
“Wait,” you choke out.
“You can kill me.”
“What — no,” you whisper. It feels like a scream.
“For —” his voice falters. “For everything you’ve done to me to keep me alive this long, you may slay me and take the enchanter.”
And — honestly, it didn’t matter if you’d just lost a life.
“No, I can’t —”
You don’t want to kill him.
“I can’t do it,” you plead.
But this was always the way it was going to end, wasn’t it?
“The ghosts want a fight,” you say.
One of you has to die anyway. Even if you both know who it will be.
“Can we do it at Pizza’s grave?”
And, well. You’re nothing if not obedient. You try to convince yourself this was always the case, this had always been the truth and not some weakness he had found in you.
Slowly, the two of you make your way back to the desert. The air is hot with blood and sweat, sorrow painting the sky a dark red. You shed your armour, your weapons, a red banner. It doesn’t matter the significance of it now. The cacti loom over the two of you, casting long shadows over the sand.
He’s smiling as you kill him and it kills you because you can see how much he wants you to win. You’re laughing, both of you are, with fondness and sorrow and plenty of “I’m so sorry,”s and “I’m sorry too,"s as you watch him pull his punches, edging closer and closer to the cliff you both stand on, never quite reaching the edge. You can see in minute detail every speck of blood on his face, every crack and tear made by your ragged fists, the light slowly fading from his bloodred eyes. Tears spill over your cheeks. You see the moment your hand connects with his skull for the last time, the way his body begins to topple over the cliff. You grab him before it has the chance to fall.
You’re not sure how long you sit hunched over his rapidly cooling body. The sun has gone down, making way for the dark black of night and the stars that accompany it. They laugh silently at you, mirthlessly, staring. Watching.
By the time you move to get up, the moon is high in the sky. The sand crunches underfoot as you make your way to the edge of the cliff. You can see the wreckage below you, the lava, the cacti, the bodies. You know behind you stands the rubble of your home.
It wasn’t meant to last, your mind whispers. I know, your heart responds, I know but you cannot fault me for caring.
The stars seem to shine just a bit brighter when you turn your head to look at them.
“Why?”
IT IS THE WAY OF THINGS. YOU HAVE WON.
“It doesn’t feel like I’ve won,” your voice breaks as you say it.
“This can’t be the way things end.”
YOU ARE THE LAST ONE STANDING. YOU HAVE WON.
The stars are ever so close now. It feels almost as though you could touch them.
“I don’t want it to end this way.”
Your feet begin to tip over the edge of the cliff.
YOU WILL OBEY.
You close your eyes, and let yourself be reminded of warmer times. You can almost see a hot day when you and Scar were making a farm. Can almost hear Jimmy’s laughter, and Scott’s fond groan. Faintly, distantly, you can almost make out a forest of bamboo, can almost remember something made of redstone and love, and next to it, smiling with you, a man with black hair and joy in his eyes —
And you let yourself fall.
Before you hit the ground, you wonder if it could have been different. If you could have been safe in some other world. If you all could’ve stood laughing together like that in another lifetime.
It’s a silly thought.