For Want of an Embrace-Prologue
Just beyond the top of a pale-white staircase in Auldrant's forgotten city, he felt it: An embrace of warmth and of power encircling his trembling, sweat-covered body. The heat of it, glorious, comforting, slid through his skin, joined with the adrenaline in his blood and rushed into every corner of his being. He could feel it lift his spirits and renew his stamina, granting him strength he'd never known he could possess, and let his head swim with the sudden and wonderful influx of power.
And it was as he did so that he learned the reason behind this unexpected strength. Images of swords, of the unseen faces of the victorious Oracle soldiers, feelings of anger and of acceptance, and knowledge of pain so great he nearly felt the murderous length of steel from which it originated penetrating his gut, flowed into his mind, surged through the wrinkles in his brain and pooled in the alcoves of his consciousness, as the powerful incandescence overtook him, telling him everything with painful, unquestionable accuracy.
A quiet gasp passed his lips; his eyes widened.
Some part of him had known the very moment the phantom arms wound themselves about him everything he had been shown, another part of him had feared it since he left, yet he still felt, as he watched the memories that were not his own play out before him, as though this particular example of fate's cruelty had come from little more than the air he rapidly breathed. It was the heat, it was the power, it was the existence of his own memories that made everything he saw an inescapable part of reality he couldn't bring himself to deny, regardless of how much he wished he could.
And it was because of all he still had to do that he refused to give himself over to the sudden and crushing feelings of grief pushing against the edges of his mind. Time for such things would come later, would be found every day for the rest of his life, and he knew that they'd both been aware of this.
But he allowed himself one silent moment, gave into his sadness for a single instant.
In that moment, he turned his head towards the sun, towards the ancient, lonely room far below him and his company, a gentle, flower-scented breeze ruffling his short, red hair. His deep-green eyes gazed at the horizon, sorrow clear within them. And as the warmth began to fade, cooling as it settled into his form, Luke bid a wordless farewell to the man whose life had granted him his own.