Life and Death

[Deuteragonist]

"Graceful area. Faust, bedded on flowery turf, weary, restless, seeking sleep. Dusk. Ghost circle, floating moves, graceful little figures.

The first act opens with an appeal to forgive Faust and ease the cares of his suffering.

Hall of the Throne. State Council in anticipation of the emperor. Trumpets. Servants of all kinds, beautifully dressed, step forward.
The emperor ascends the throne."

- ???

I'd die for you. I said to the ones who saved me. If I couldn't even do that, what was I good for, to them, who were born with more than I could ever give? 

But no one ever told me that someday, I'd be this afraid of dying. 

I long feared if I was someday afraid to die, I'd no longer have a use. When I grew to look forward to things - when expectations reached my shoulders. When I grew to yearn to live on for my fallen comrades, I forgot myself. The worst thing that ever happened was when she told me she didn't want me to die. A servant that cannot fulfill its tasks is a burden to the master. Relinquished of titles like butler, or retainer, but still, in servitude I remain. Lightbringer. Prince-Consort. I've exchanged mop and bucket for royal vestments and the blade of a forsaken prince, but no matter how you dress the pauper, a pauper they remain. The name Faustus lux Pelleaux sounds alien to me - I don't know who that is. My goals were the things of dreams no fool in my position back then would have ever uttered aloud, and yet one by one, they come to pass, as comrades fall one by one, and I'm left to wonder.

Was I who was best, or who was left?

Radiants years my senior, wonderful, are left to scrutinize me, wondering, why him? I know they think it. Surely there are others more storied, more renowned, with longer careers, more experienced. These are not mere doubts that plague me, but cold reality, wrapped around my neck an allegorical noose, that tightens when I fail, twice now. Failure was my constant when I was younger, but as I grew strong, this became so less, and less. Eventually, they stop seeing the makings of greatness in you, and begin to expect greatness, instead. But now, there are stakes. The scar on Octavia's throat reminds me everyday that I could not lose, and I lost. That which I swore to the stars was a vow I could not break, and it lays, broken, for them to judge - if they were ever listening at all.

I have forgotten all I was, and perhaps I was the only one who would have ever remembered. A mere footnote in the dynasty of the Pelleaux - long live the throne. I need just be a sword, a sword that never dulls. For this purpose, I wish I'd been born a storm. Or a beast, incapable of thinking. No heart, no tears, just as a terrible gale'd have been good. Some thing that is not afraid they will not live to see their children born, shaken when their fiancé falls in battle, heart beating like mad when the odds are stacked against them, who cries alone for every man and woman fallen.

Slouched on the throne, Claudia looks down with a grim, tactless expression set upon by two, dull stones which gaze down impassively.

Like an ashen statue.

"She told me." Is all the Queen barks back to the boy, though with no great amount of disdain.

It was flat, toneless, and authoritarian.

All whom I love, they gave me hope. Every which way they went. What Ciel saw, he conquered. He gave people something to believe in. The people need that. Mehr's words gave me the surge of life - I wanted for nothing, my head empty of thought, until he dared me to be more. Sariel could not lose if he fought after us - in the wilds, in the world, when it all seemed hopeless, there he emerged, always between me and imminent death, and I knew he'd never let me down. Octavia carries the weight of the world on her shoulders, and in years and years, only once have I seen her falter, whereas I'm on the verge of collapse almost every day. Armani swore vengeance against our enemies, and now in forgotten corners of Esshar, they whisper to avoid him, and not leave the wood, Nanzo's arm hung in his palace, a mantle, a defeat they can't dispel. I could name countless stars in the city's walls and its allies who shine so bright, and then there is me. I have loved Octavia ras - I'm sorry, that's rei Pelleaux, for years. And when I came to ask her mother for her blessing to marry her, I saw in eyes that closed my throat at a glance the thought that much of the nobility have had regarding me since birth:

Of all people, why you?

I have struggled to answer that question all my life. Nothing I do feels enough. But despite all that has conspired to destroy this city, it still stands. And whether or not I should be, I am the Lightbringer.

My path is ahead. It is to climb upon the ruined mounds of my mistakes and reach for my own horizons. What I was, what I did was a reflection of my old world. Not this new, terrifying expanse. I will stand on the shoulders of giants if it means I get to reach the stars. In them, I have to inscribe a message, for all those born of Esshar, who feel as insignificant as I was left to feel, abandoned by a whore before I could walk:

This city shimmers, and so must I. The people still need knights to believe in, and I will lead them, even if I wasn't the first, or even the second choice. 

Do you remember - how fond I was? Of stories? Of plays? A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with me. That meant something. Even if I was too small to understand why.  But I think, having lived a fairy tale, I understand them better now.. I know now, folk in those stories had lots of chances to turn back, only they didn't. They were holding onto something. There's some good in this world.

And it's worth fighting for.

You hear me? I'm still alive. I'll make a full recovery. You haven't beaten the best of me. I am not done - I have only just begun. So as I once said...

---

Look out world, here I come.