It seemed impossible.
They had taken days, battling non-stop, and shed blood and sweat and tears. They had expended every last ounce of their power, and nearly lost the battle, but somehow, they had made it through alive. They had given it all they had — and somehow, somehow, it had been just enough.
But the Black Mage was dead.
His corpse lay where it fell, in a collapsed dimension that was disintegrating by the minute, in a pile of black snow and rubble. It was further sealed by Rhine's power, in a complex seal that Freud and Luminous had conducted, to prevent the wasting of time from weakening his fading remains. The demons and spectres, his commanders, his henchmen, were all sealed along with him, into that dimension that was damned to dissolve out of the world's very existence.
And the war was over.
Aran had made it out, and Mahar along with her. Mercedes had lost one of her bowguns halfway through the battle but ploughed doggedly on, the desperation to protect her people lending her strength to make up for her disadvantage. Luminous had managed to land the killing blow on the Black Mage, shooting light magic as brilliant as sunfire to tear through his very being, and made it out as pure and untainted as he always had been.
Even Freud had made it out alive.
But the war had costs.
Aran, Mercedes, and Luminous had all made it out relatively unscathed. The snowy warrior had merely broken her leg and a few rib bones, Mercedes had lost an ear, and Luminous had lost a significant amount of his magic in his very last act of heroism.
And Freud the Dragon Master had lost his Dragon.
In a whirlwind of seething anger, the Black Mage had fired a bolt of dark magic at the Onyx Dragon, and Freud hadn't been fast enough to deflect it. Afrien had grown exponentially weaker as the battle drew to a close. And once the Black Mage had finally fallen, Afrien had collapsed on his knees, used the last of his strength to meet Freud's eyes in his final act of loyalty before he crumpled to the ground, never to rise again.
Freud had lost half of himself, in having lost the half of his soul which he had shared with Afrien. And he had lost half of himself, having injured his right arm and leg so severely that he hadn't been able to even crawl. His arm hung off his shoulder, connected by mere sinews, and his leg had been twisted so horrifically out of shape that even Aran feared it might never mend properly again.
They had to knock him out because the death of his spirit partner had rattled him so dearly that he refused to leave, and the pain made him delirious in his anger and despair that he couldn't think straight, and he was dead set on hauling his ruined body over to that midnight blue form that lay unmoving across the hall.
When Freud finally regained consciousness, lying atop a clean linen bedsheet in Ereve's finest infirmary, his eyes were so full of grief that nobody could hold his gaze.
And then he heard the news. And it felt like his soul had been shattered, a million times over, and over, and over. And the words rang in his ears, and even denial couldn't change the truth, and he was just a walking, talking mess of shards held together at the seams by sheer blind hope, and even so that wasn't enough for him.
- - - : - - -
The crowd hushed and waited eagerly for the representative of the heroes to take his place at the podium.
Freud rose from his seat with his uncanny grace, politely declined the aid of one of the Empress's guard, and dusted his robes off. He barely registered the crowd becoming even quieter as they watched him fit his wooden crutch under his left shoulder. Calmly, he rested his weight on his left leg and moved purposefully, making sure he kept as little pressure on his stiff and throbbing leg as possible.
Slowly, and though it shot pain up his leg and up his spine, he climbed the stairs to the stage. He knew everyone could see him painstakingly crossing the wide stage, but he knew he had to take his time, knew that he had to do it alone. After he was sure he could stand without his crutches, he leaned the lone crutch against the podium.
He knew the speech by heart.
'Brothers and sisters,' he began, his voice high and strong, hearing the magic amplify it twice over. 'We are gathered here today to celebrate a momentous occasion. I'm sure you all are aware, for we have endured for far too long, suffered too much, lost too many in this war.
'The Black Mage is dead —' there was a resounding thunder of cheers and whistles, and Freud smiled, calmly waiting for the crowd to quieten before continuing — 'He is dead because every one of you here was strong, supported our alliance, and sent us your bravest sons and daughters in a worthy quest for justice.'
'Three cheers for the Heroes!' came an abrupt scream, and the crowd went into a frenzy, uncoordinated and wild, yelling and cheering. Freud smiled as people pushed the other three heroes up on stage.
He tried to gesture with his right hand. It was an almost imperceptible moment of hesitation, and nobody except him would notice his moment of weakness.
'Aran, the warrior who hailed from Rien, who fought to avenge her people,' he smiled, and gestured with his left instead. He felt a swell of pride as she took a bow. 'Mercedes, queen of the elves, who fought to protect the people she loved.' Mercedes curtseyed. These were the heroes he fought with, people who had sacrificed too much to act as their title of hero. 'Luminous, the Light Mage, who risked the safety of his clan to help us.' Luminous stepped forward and there was unmistakable peace in his eyes at having destroyed something so vile and dark it hurt the world. Freud chuckled and concluded calmly, 'And my name is Freud —'
'The Dragon Master, and the best scholar in the world.' Suddenly Aran was beside him and yelling into the crystal, and the crowd cheered along. The warrior turned to him and shot him a look that radiated both appreciation and the knowledge that he wasn't going to give himself any fancy titles. 'Without him we wouldn't have been able to weaken our nemesis, or land the final blow. He is perhaps the best of us all, even, and led the alliance with patience and a quiet strength that gave us the energy to keep going.'
Freud tilted his head, smiling fondly at the crowd and then at the Heroes. 'You all are too kind,' he chuckled. He shooed Aran back to her spot and waited for the crowd to stop cheering before he continued.
'We are but people who represent the rest of the world, and no greater credit can be given to us than that which you receive. So the victory is as much yours as it is ours. The world is safe once more, our homes and lands free of evil, our beloved Cygnus is safe —' he smiled and gestured, with his left hand, at the blonde lass sitting in the center of the procession — 'and we are all alive today.'
He let the cheers die out and a silence settle across the crowd. 'Yet this war would not have been won without sacrifice. We might have lost a loved one, or known someone who did. Brothers, sisters, children, parents, lovers, friends… We have all had our share of bitterness, of pain, and of sorrow. We take heart that a greater good has come out of their passing, and they need not have died in vain. And now is the perfect time for us to mourn as a people for those who were not able to see the fruits of their endeavors.'
At his cue, everyone bowed their heads.
Freud gave them a minute, and then two, before he lowered his eyes. 'Many of you are perhaps wondering why there are only four of us standing here today.'
He took a deep breath to make sure his voice stayed level.
'We started off as five. Aran, Mercedes, Luminous, myself… and a man who went by the name of Phantom. Some of you might have heard of the Master Thief, and some may have been plundered by him, but he was a man upright in character and morals, tested by time and fate.
'He rubbed us the wrong way at one point or another —' he heard Luminous's sheepish laugh — 'And it was almost unthinkable that a crook could be worthy to join our ranks.
'But he did. And the Master Thief Phantom was a worthy addition. To you all, he represents the very lowest of us, the powerless and the oppressed, and gave hope to you in your rising against the demons among us. To us heroes, he represented an undying determination, and was perhaps the most arduous of us all when it came to pursuing the dream that our late Empress Aria had for the world.
'And to me, he was…' Here Freud startled out of his train of thoughts when he realised that the echo of his voice across the crowd had ceased.
The people fidgeted uneasily.
Freud looked around, bristling. Surely they'd gotten rid of every last one… He couldn't sense any evil now that Afri… now that his dragon was gone, and at once he felt vulnerable and helpless.
The heroes drew their weapons, the bloodlust back in their eyes, and the guards hefted their spears. The crowd stayed calm, but ready and poised to fight.
Then a voice rang out across the silence.
'Why didn't you say anything about how handsome and dashing I looked?'
With a gust of wind and a fluttering of cards, a hooded figure in white appeared at the bottom of the steps at the middle of the stage. He lifted his hand to flip back his cape — and it revealed golden locks, his slim figure accentuated by the fabric billowing behind him, and a pair of deep, amethyst eyes.
Phantom climbed the stairs just quickly enough to catch the mage, who had flung himself at him, mindless of his ruined leg.
Freud could hear the crowd cheering, and noise everywhere, but the only thing he registered was Phantom's steady breathing, and his low chuckle, and it sounded so real that it couldn't be a dream.
'Why did you take so long?' he had to hear his voice shake before he realised he was crying.
'I overslept,' smiled the Master Thief, nuzzling into his hair.
Freud lifted his hand to slap him across the face, but he forgot, gods he kept forgetting his right hand… 'I am waking you every day at the crack of dawn,' he whispered.
'But thieves work at night, love, and I need my beauty sleep—'
'I waited for you, Phantom… you took too long…'
'I'll have you know, people would be glad if I even graced them with my presence, late or not.' Phantom's voice was reassuring in his ear and he registered, very vaguely, the feeling of fingers carded through his hair. 'But I'll make an exception, just for you. I'll never be late again.'
All the crowd could see was the Master Thief in his tattered uniform, speckled with stains like rust, crushing the Dragon Master to his chest. It didn't matter that the man in the red robes only had one hand snaked around the taller man's waist, or that the other empty sleeve of his robe was hanging uselessly at his side — all that mattered now was that their Dragon Master, for the first time since the war, was complete once again.
As of today I have lost the resolve to continue this, so I guess this will be a one-shot... I just wanted to write something postwar where Freud has to rely on Phantom more. Ah well.
Will take prompts if there are~ cheers guys!