#no beta we die like Sylvia drake

[oldestenemy]

The last spell leaves from the young wizard’s extended hand.

They force themselves to look as it impacts—

—And Malistaire Drake falls.

They don’t want to watch it happen— but they do.

It feels, almost like they must.

The wizard drops to their knees as the dueling circle evaporates, releasing them at last.  As the man they just struck down materializes in the same translucent form that they have seen on so many of this world’s occupants.  Sees him reunited with the woman he tried to destroy everything to bring back.

For a moment.

This is okay.

For a moment, the wizard can pretend that this was not done out of malicious intent, or some desire to rescue the spiral, or just to do as they’re told by those older and supposedly wiser.  For a moment it isn’t murder.

Then they catch the expression on Cyrus Drake’s face—

The moment ends.

The wizard is herded back to their dorm room in Ravenwood ‘to rest’.  

They want to go back.

Not back to Earth.

But back.

Maybe as far as Marleybone, where their biggest concern was a play on a book villain they’d read about in childhood.  Even if the healing spells never quite took all the sting out of cat scratches.  Maybe further—as far back as Unicorn Way.

To the ease of opening cages and releasing sprites.

They don’t rest.

As soon as Cyrus leaves them in their room, they fumble through the handful of spiral keys until—

A deep breath of air that comes with the damp rot of old wood.  Forge smoke and the peal of hammers.  Uncertain footsteps that carry them across a gently twinkling rainbow.

The wizard takes slow and halting steps until they find the bear who taught them how to build their own castle.  They ask him how the rune stone memorials are made.  If they can be made for those who have not always done good.  If there is magic in them or only stonecraft.

Torald, as usual, is happy to help them give shape and direction to the thing they need.

So with a list of reagents in hand, the wizard has a momentary purpose again.

Many, many deep mushrooms and fossils and fire blossoms down the line—they have a sort of memorial.  Carved from that great deep purple stone that Dragonspyre is full of.  Depicting the last image—though somewhat crude, the wizard’s carving skills are not as level as their crafting—of Malistaire and Sylvia, hand in hand, facing away as they fade.

The wizard rearranges their whole yard around it, surrounds it with flowers and statues of drakes.  Makes it something they will be willing to come back to.  Makes it prominent enough that they will be forced to see it even when they aren’t willing.

They want to go back.

To before any of this was necessary.

But they will settle for making a grave that feels more like remembrance than a trophy.  For stopping, just a moment, to remember what was lost, for all that was saved.