Word: tare - noun - 1a: a deduction from the gross weight of a substance and its container made in allowance for the weight of the container; also: the weight of the container; 2: counterweight
The Warrior of Light awoke amid a pile of rubble. He'd not expected to survive the final clash with Chaos. He'd seen the explosions and felt time collapsing around him and had accepted his death as a necessary sacrifice to end this cycle of destruction and decay.
But he was alive, and he didn't know what it meant.
Leaning heavily on a fallen pillar he was somehow able to stand. While his entire body screamed in protest at even the smallest of movements, he merely grit his teeth and set a foot forward. He could see where his companions lay. If he had survived there might be hope yet.
The Warrior hauled himself forward, an inch at a time. Even before he got too close, he could tell they could not have survived. He had been the farthest from the wall when time collapse, and that seemed to have made all the difference. He need go no farther in this direction. The broken limbs protruding from the rubble at odd angles spoke clearly enough.
Garland was there too, laying motionless near the center of the ruined shrine. His armor was surprisingly intact, considering the carnage surrounding the fallen form. His body must not have been returned until after the destruction caused by Chaos's demise.
He didn't know why he felt the need to do so, but the Warrior stumbled over to the fallen knight, reaching with shaking hands to remove the man's helmet. Removing the helmet freed a mass of tangled gray hair. The Warrior brushed it aside to have a look at his enemy's face.
The face was completely nondescript. He could have been anyone.
The Warrior wasn't sure why he felt disappointed.
It took him ages to clear away enough stone to reach the outside of the shrine. But he hadn't been alone in the shrine for long. There had been rasping whispers, telling him secrets of the world and the crystals and himself.
The voices had laughed at him when he'd demanded that they show themselves, saying they were in the world around him and that he'd see them soon enough.
The outside world brought him no relief. The whispers, if anything became more insistent. His thoughts were filled with swirling blues and greens and reds and yellows. Even in his dreams he could not escape images of crystals.
His travels always seemed to urge him back to to the chaos shrine. Eventually he gave in. After wandering for so many years, enough to turn the red of his hair and armor a dull grey, he gave in. There was no other choice.
His own crystal, the one he'd carried since before this ordeal and that had brought him to the other Light Warriors, had been dark for years, but flashed as he approached the ruins of the once-great shrine. He plodded onward, putting one foot in front of the other.
There were skeletal arms reaching from the rubble, but the Warrior ignored them, digging through the rock instead for the brightly colored orbs.
It was only when he pulled the last orb from the pile with bloodied hands that the whispering finally stopped.
Instead it was replaced by triumphant shrieks, four voices calling out in exultation. The Warrior felt a once-familiar pull as the keening voices and the crystal orbs were sucked away into the stream of time.
"Don't forget," he heard, echoing in his head along with the grating laughter. "One last thing to do."
His eyes fell on the dust covered skeleton near the center of the cavernous chamber, horned helmet on its side next to a gray-haired skull. Whispers urging, he picked up the helmet.
It fit perfectly. Garland wasn't surprised.
He could have been anyone.