Well I was playing Aveyond (again) and I was at the final battle and my roommate was watching, and she asked what would happen if I didn't have the fairy dust. So I told her and she told me I should write it so… I did. And it is dramatic and absolutely overflowing with angst, and I am sharing it anyway, you're welcome.

The longer italicized phrases are a story by themselves. If I was a better writer you would understand but I am still learning so you will just have to deal with this. Hopefully you can still figure it out.

It always began with a change.

He had gone to Ahriman, it had really happened, it wasn't a dream— it was a nightmare, a waking nightmare like the ones Talia had warned them about. And then— he'd offered her a choice, a real choice, after all this time, but it wasn't one she could take, she couldn't join him, she couldn't join that— that— thing, standing beside him with a too-satisfied smile, if it could be called a smile—

She couldn't join him, but oh! He couldn't really be asking her to fight him, he couldn't mean it.

"Come back to me," she pleaded, tears stinging her eyes— she had not expected to cry here, she had thought she would only bleed.

He stared back at her, white-faced, and when he spoke it was with a dead voice, not like the one she knew. "I belong to Ahriman now."

"Ahriman is evil!" she cried again. "He is using you! Why can't you see it?"

Ahriman's laugh was worse than his sneer. "It is pointless to resist, child. Join us or perish."

"Dameon," she said, not because he wasn't already looking at her but because she wanted to call back the man she knew, the man who spoke softly and carefully and who listened quietly when she needed him— "Please."

"No," Ahriman said sharply, grabbing Dameon's arm with one of his bony, claw-like hands. "Very well then, sword singer. I see you have made your choice. It is time to end this. Sun Priest, take her now!"

Dameon looked at her with wide dark eyes, his mouth open in that little o shape she had become so familiar with, and his chest shaking—

"Strike her!" the demon hissed again, his eyes flashing now and his gruesome mouth twisting into a snarl.

"Master… please," Dameon said in that same dead voice, "she is innocent. She is only confused. The oracle—"

"Wretch! How dare you disobey me?" Ahriman rasped. "Do as I say! Fight her!"

Dameon was fighting, something in himself, some dark power assaulting his mind— he let out a strangled grunt, clenching his jaw, and then he doubled over and clutched at his head—

"Kill her!"

Rhen was trembling and Dameon was falling to his knees— "No," he gasped. "No, no—"

"Traitor!" Ahriman bellowed, shaking the whole cave— "Coward! You will never be all your father was!"

He raised his twisted staff over Dameon's bowed head and swung down—

"No!"

The Sword of Shadows met the dark staff, and Rhen had chosen to fight the demon— it was her decision, after all, fate had no power in this place.

There was always a choice, there was always a war.

She swung and he dodged, she thrust and he knocked her sword aside and sparks jumped from their weapons like all the stars of heaven were falling around them. And she danced, the song of the battle was written in her beating heart and the words were the clashing and clanging of a blade drawn to defend the defenseless— she had known the music all her life.

The others twirled into the action— Elini and Lars and Te'ijal and Galahad and John and even Marge. Dameon kneeled still on the ground, fighting another battle, the ancient war of truth and error, light and dark, good and evil—

If only it could be so simple, if only he could see clearly which was which—

In the darkness everyone is blind.

Ahriman shot a spell and she twirled out of the way, she sliced and caught his hood in her blade— he wrenched himself free with an awful screech, and he shot at Elini and then Galahad and then—

Then—

Her sword was singing and she felt the shift in the rhythm, this was not her battle to win; like the ancient sun priests who forged agea, and the fairy guardians of the dreamworld, she, too, was fated to fall before the rising darkness, she, too, would die for defying the natural succession of order to chaos, day to night, life to death.

There was always a fall.

The sword of shadows was blasted out of her hands, and she watched it skid away. She had made her choice, she did not regret it, even as the demon raised his staff to point it at her and she knew the song was ending. She had fought for her parents, all of them, and for Eddy, and Tiny and the people of Dirkon and of Thais and—

Last of all, she fought for Dameon, whether he accepted her or not. She could not regret defending someone who had meant so much to her, and as the spell sped towards her she thought of dark eyes and warm hands and she wished for light—

Light—

Light.

The room was suddenly filling with light, exploding with it, and Rhen was blind and there was screaming, and screaming, Ahriman was screaming, and somehow Rhen was alive still and—

When it cleared Dameon was standing, his body shaking but his gaze steady.

"No!" Ahriman howled. "You belong to me! Do as I say! Kill the girl, she is of no worth to us now!"

Rhen stared at Dameon, and he stared at Ahriman, and said in his quiet, even voice, "She is the chosen one."

"Fool!" Ahriman roared. "She will destroy us! Do you think she will take you back after your betrayal?"

But Dameon only swallowed, and breathed softly, "I will accept the consequences."

Ahriman shrieked, and the ground was quaking and he was raising his staff— "Wretched traitor!" — and Dameon was crying out and stepping back under the force of the spell, and Ahriman was cackling—

Rhen's hands searched for the hilt of her sword, and somehow Te'ijal had found it and was passing it to her and Rhen took it and ran and yelled, she raised the blade high over her head and then brought it down—

The impact was violent, a tremor ran through her sword and up her arm and through her entire self, Ahriman was frozen with his hands still in the air, his laugh still etched on his face— it was gruesome to watch, how the sword sucked him in and glowed red in the demonic blood, and Rhen knew now why the Oracle called it cursed— she was going to be sick, but the demon was gone—

"We— we did it," she panted in disbelief, turning to stare at the others

Dameon stared back, his mouth slightly open, his body still shaking.

She dropped the cursed blade and stumbled to him— she had thought he was lost— he was safe, he was safe—

She buried her face in his chest, stained scarlet where the spell had hit him—

"Rhen—" he gasped softly as her forehead pressed into his collarbone. "I— I am a traitor."

She wrapped her arms around his waist, pulled him closer—

"I am wretched."

She tried to say something but her breaths were coming in quick little gasps—

His hands settled uncertainly on her back, and he traced warm, soothing circles. "I deserve death."

And then the whole world was trembling, and rocks were falling all around them—.

"Come on, everyone!" Lars shouted. "Let's get out of here! This place is collapsing!"

But instead she collapsed against Dameon's chest, and he picked her up and carried her and her sword through the crumbling caverns. He sent up an earth shield and the rocks bounced off it and he tightened his jaw but he didn't flinch, and— they came at last to the end of the caves and burst into the sunlight— the sunlight, it was still there, after everything.

Dameon gently set her on her feet, and then he kneeled in the sand in front of her and held her sword out towards her.

"Rhen," he said, in that same dead voice from before. "Take what is yours. Take my life. I cannot be trusted."

She reached out and traced the bones of his face, where the tears would have fallen if he had any left. "You came back to me," she said.

He took a careful, shaking breath. "He wasn't supposed to hurt anyone."

"Your life belongs to me now," she realized, as she took her sword from him.

He bowed his head, ready for the blow that would finish everything.

In the end it was death—

But she sheathed the cursed blade, and tilted his chin up so that he had to look at her.

"I choose to set you free. Your mind is yours." She brushed his hair behind his ear and looked into those dark eyes, glittering in the light. "Let your gentle heart guide it."

— or forgiveness.