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inlightofdestiny2 by Jinkaiden-XI
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In Light of Destiny II: Death and Liberation
Date: 31 January 2004, 3:12 PM
It begins with a tale of magic, love, and betrayal; truth and revelation.
"Tell me, John. Tell me what you know."
John did not want to have to make a reply to such a request. He understood that the time had come for his tale to be told before nobody else would be capable of telling such a story. He understood that Sieg had come to know John's ultimate destiny and he now desperately sought the last of his answers.
"Very well then," John replied. "I shall tell you the last of what you need to know."
The two stood alone upon a great hill that overlooked the sea, an ocean that stretched endlessly to the horizon where it met with the dying sunset.
"I imagine it began with the end of my life..."
Sieg already understood that this was not going to be easy to take in at once. But still he sat, patiently, and listened calmly. "Yes, let's begin there, shall we? It began with the end of my life, the time you already know to be as when my fate was sealed and I slowly began to pass on. I felt like I had stopped altogether, like I was running as fast as I could and yet everyone else was going so much faster than I was. I think I cried then, I cried because I knew that there was no avoiding this. But I told myself that I would fight on, and try to overcome this. I knew I would try.
"So I completed my journey, I did what I was supposed to do. And in doing so I sealed my fate for eternity, and I knew this. I knew all too well that I would be killing myself sooner or later by performing this final act. But I did it anyway, because I was fighting for something other than myself.
"I was fighting for the future of the children, the children that would become strong men and women and would be free and liberated of pain and worry..."
John watched from a fogged window as the gateway to eternity was destroyed. He had long awaited this moment, but all at once he had his qualms on his doing. He considered whether or not his actions had been frivolous or significant; his fate haunting him forever like an apparition. Regardless of which, John had done what he had done for what he hoped to be the good of humanity. Despite his greatest fears he had sacrificed himself and sold his own life to destiny so that his posterity may have a chance.
Should selfless acts such as these feel so wrong? he pondered continuously, and then came his answer: Of course. It is only human.
But as he pondered through that window to the remnants of his future he wondered why he thought of such things. Being human was not the reason, he knew, for using it was an excuse, nothing more than a lie to cover up what the ideal lament. Blindly he had questioned his own righteousness because of this. May the Covenant be damned, then.
And so the story continued. John passed on through history as a hero of the unsung liking, but it bothered him not. He had done what he had fought so hard to do, and now the only thing left was to protect it and be satisfied.
"Stories like these are meant to continue until they are meant to end. That is the purpose of a tale, of course; to tell of what history holds and be done with it. Shape your generation the way you choose and let the future take it from there.
"But I had been foolish, then. I had been a fool who had desired more than what I knew I should be feeling. I told myself that my heart was empty and hidden, cold and obscure. But my heart had tried to tell me that I was only lying to myself, and that one had been done had been done for a reason, a purpose. But now I wonder, why did I not understand that?"
John had then journeyed endlessly throughout the universe, searching for the answers he already knew. Yes, that was it. He was blind, traversing the dark mountains of life with no source of light from the black and no flame for warmth against the cold. Yes, blindly he searched for what he already knew.
"Do not ask me why I searched. I do not even remember at this point, it has been so many years since then. Perhaps, though, I wanted a new truth, a reality or maybe a dream that was not mine, or because I was ignorant. Yes, maybe I was ignorant and chose to spend the last times of my life in a wasted search for thievery. I can see it now.
"And I had been wrong to do so. I know that much at least, as do I understand that I had ended my own life for a purpose in need of strength, a dying dream that desired hope. I had supplied that hope, and the cost was my future..."
It was at that point in his life when John had fallen in love. It seemed rather pointless at the time, a warrior with no future and a blurred past that blindly and ignorantly traveled the galaxies in hope of finding nothing.
The part that John himself almost deplored was the manner in which he had loved that person. He had seen her in a dream many years ago, and his travels had brought him to believe that she was in fact real, out there, waiting. But he had not journeyed for her. No, he had journeyed for another reason, another excuse, but with hope that he might someday meet her.
And he had met her. He had come a peaceful world of elaborate beauty and richness, and he had spent many weeks searching for her there.
"I can tell you why I knew she was there. I remember that the world I had come to was vast and eternally beautiful...and I knew that it would be the place where I found her..."
He had found her. He had been walking alongside a narrow river when he had seen her-sitting quietly on a bench beneath a long row of faded red trees. She had been almost motionless, her thin body rigid and upright, as she stared into her reflection, not seeing. Occasionally she would toss a rock into those lonely waters, and her image would shift with the ripples.
Her name was Susannah, the Lady of Sorrows. The name had struck John as odd, for he considered her not a Lady of sorrow but a Lady of grace and such.
She had also been singing quietly when he had met her, singing a hymn that seemed to pass her time:
What peace lies beyond your heart,
Glory makes one eternal mark
Cry to the heavens and the earth
Behold with might the savior's birth
Sing your song of sorrow
Bring life into tomorrow
Sing your song of sorrow.
With grace she sang the song, over and over again as she gazed wondrously into the waters. Her eyes were cold and blank, but her voice full of flame and life. He had found her.
"How many times have a sung that hymn to myself at night? I wonder about these things in a never-ending cycle, like a path in the forest that circles one tree forever. It has been this way for too long."
Sieg had place himself atop that hill and now he sat, listening and watching the sun disappear beyond the horizon. Come back, he cried soundlessly. Come back and listen to this tale.
Although the sun did not come back (as he knew it would) Sieg felt its warmth fill within him once more. He greeted it like he would a long lost friend, or a truth that finally came back from his past. It was all the same.
"Tell me, John. Tell me why you went through all this."
John seemed to pay little attention to Sieg's request, although he gladly continued his story without delay. "I saw things differently then, just as I do now. But then it was a blind feeling that would not go away. I had thought of everything I had done to be selfless in many ways, but all along I was being stupid and selfish. I journeyed for my own truths when my task was not yet complete. I had thrown away all hope, all chances of ever fulfilling my own destiny, all in the name of the idea that my destiny was already fulfilled. I had been so foolish then..."
John had watched Susannah from a distance when she declared that she must do what she was destined to do. Her own destiny was to bring life back to her people, and she intended to do so without regrets and sudden qualms.
Her world had been devastated by defeat, a defeat in a war that was pointless to begin with. Her people had been destroyed, and her destiny came with a high price. She had sealed her fate, just as John had, but she would do what John himself had not thought of.
As she already knew, her life was the life of all. With her death, there would be salvation for all who perished before her eyes. So she had taken John to that same river where they met and bid him her last farewells and blessings. She then turned away, her cheeks dripping with tears, and walked flawlessly across the river. At the center she stopped and faced John, sobbing quietly. And then she sang:
What peace lies beyond your heart,
Glory makes one eternal mark
Cry to the heavens and the earth
Behold with might the savior's birth
Sing your song of sorrow
Bring life into tomorrow
Sing your song of sorrow.
She sang it perfectly this time, and in a flash of light she vanished, her voice echoing through the air and her tears flowing through the waters for the last time.
And life had been restored. Susannah had worked her magic, and those lost in that pointless war returned to the gift of life. John had been crying by then, in light of his own destiny.
In the end he questioned his own self-forgiveness. He had promised himself that he would continue yet again, journeying onward until the dawn of his last day came.
"There is a part of my story I have yet to tell you, Sieg. My fate was to complete my task as a soldier and then live until this day came. This tale was meant to be told only once, and as soon as it had been told, my path would end."
This struck Sieg as odd, took him entirely by surprise and threw him off-guard. He would look up at John, who also had watched with fascination the sinking of the sun into the ocean, and would study his face with increasing desire. John was smiling, as though he had finally lifted a great mass off his shoulders and freed himself of all troubles.
In fact, he suddenly seemed much younger, perhaps around the age he had been when his life had ended the first, but not the last, time. "I don't understand."
He had lied, of course. He understood more than perfectly what John meant. It was the denial which filled his heart and mind that drove him to sputter out such lies.
John looked down at Sieg, his eyes golden and filled with tears. His smile faded. "That is my tale, Sieg, the whole story of my destiny. I pray that you remember it, as someday you will have to make sense of it all. I cannot do it for you, as my time has come. Farewell..."
And then he was gone. He slowly faded away until he vanished entirely, but Sieg caught glimpse of a saddened figure, freed of worry and pain, heading down to the sea.
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