Title: The Choice
Author: homesweethomicide13
Rating: T
Pairing: Several mentioned
Warning: Profanities, may contain minor violence and character death.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: A man wakes up, many years in the future, and he is given a choice. A choice to change how he lived his life. A choice to make things better.
Author's Note: Hi all! Wow it's been a while... well this idea came to me and wouldn't go away, so I had to post it. First chapter is a bit short but the rest will be longer. This one would have been longer but I got to the end and felt like it was a good place to stop, so... the actual story will start in the next chapter. And yes, you can probably all guess who it's centered around. It's me, after all. Would I choose anyone else? Oh and there is some MAJOR ANGST going on here, so be warned. Bear with me, this will contain pairings that are CANON (shocking, I know) such as LiefJasmine and BardaLindal, but as it's not the main focus of the story, they will be in the background only, unless it's significant to the plot. Shouldn't be too long a story, as I know what I'm like with multi-chaptered stories... Anyway, enjoy!
The Choice
One
You've wondered your whole life about death – what it's like, what happens after. You've spent your whole life preparing for it, never knowing when it might catch you. It's terrifying, really. You hope to live a good, long life, and you hope for a peaceful death, painless if possible. You don't want to die young, unaccomplished, a failure in your own eyes. That is one thing you pray won't happen.
I've seen death, in many forms. I've seen men die – the brave and the young, the wise and the old. I've seen women die, and children too. I've seen death come to those of bad intent and evil will, to creatures of all shapes and sizes. Some have been peaceful, painless, or kind. Most have not.
As a soldier, you're expected to know death. To be familiar with it. To look upon it with the same expression as you would look upon a friend. A good soldier is not bothered by death. A good soldier is strong enough to cope with it. Death goes hand in hand with war, and war is what soldiers are made for.
I've seen too much death. So much that now I barely notice it. Another friend dies and I shrug it off as nothing. People may think me cold-hearted because of it, but they're wrong. Those who know me better know that I am not so, that I only react like that because I am too used to death. Too used to friends and family perishing whilst I can do nothing. I spoke earlier of the failure of dying young. I would prefer that to failing to protect those I care about. I would gladly give my life to save theirs.
I knew death from a young age. My father vanished from existence when I was but seven years old. He was never declared officially dead – just missing – but to a child that is like death. To never see someone again, to never hear their voice or be held in their arms ever again… that is death. I would know death again at the age of sixteen, when my uncle would perish right before my eyes. Because of me. I was a foolish boy, only just a palace guard, and too arrogant for my own good. I got myself into trouble, facing a danger I could not escape… and then he arrived, saved my life at the cost of his own. Nobody ever spoke a word of blame, never held me responsible. I did. Every day.
I used to think that was bad, feeling so utterly responsible for the death of one person, feeling that loss build up inside. Looking back now, that was nothing. Nothing compared to the pain, the suffering, the agonising loss of my entire world.
Four years later, I would be broken. My friends, my colleagues, my neighbours… all of them dead, or as good as. Everyone I knew, torn away from me, battered and bruised and beaten until there was nothing left but shattered memories. That was bad enough. But alongside this awful torment, I suffered something much worse. The biggest loss of my life, and the greatest pain I have ever known. This is the sole event that tore me to shreds and left me a broken man.
My mother's death.
No. My mother's murder. They told me she'd fallen, must have landed funny at the bottom of the stairs. A terrible accident. Such a shame. And who told them this? Her killer, most likely. For there is no doubt that she was killed. There is no greater coincidence on this land than a woman mysteriously falling to her death after overhearing a dark plan to invade the palace and kill the King and his family. I would curse both myself and the king for years to come, for she had told both of us what she had heard. The king had turned her away, believing her to have fallen asleep and dreamed up this tale she was telling him. I had believed her, for why would I not? She had never once lied to me in all my twenty years of life, and I did not for a second think she would start then. I had promised to protect her, promised that I would look after her. She was so certain that she was in danger. I should have not left her side, should not have gone back to work. If I had stayed with her, perhaps she would not have died. Or, perhaps, we would have both met our ends that fateful night… it cannot be known how things might have differed from what actually happened.
I still blame myself to this day. A fault of mine, I suppose, is that I always blame myself. I blamed myself for my uncle's death, and for the death of my friends and colleagues. I should have fought alongside them during the invasion, but instead I ran as my mother had instructed me to do so, for I always listened to her. I blame myself for every friend I have lost over these long years. I shouldn't, I know, especially when I am most certainly not to blame, but I cannot help but think I could have done something to prevent it. I often used to wish I could go back and change what happened. But what is must be, and must remain. I know that now. All of those losses… they made me who I am today. If I were not the man I am now, perhaps more people would have died, perhaps things would have happened differently, but for the worse? Again, it is impossible to know. But what I do know is that I would not change who I am, not for the world.
Who am I, you ask? Why, only the bravest, strongest palace guard of them all… or so it is said. I do not listen to such things. I have no need for high praise. I do my duty, and that is all that matters to me. Palace born and bred, but with none of the less endearing qualities of the nobles, who used to turn their nose up at anything (and anyone) they considered to be beneath them. My mother, and indeed all that knew me, used to say I did not belong in a palace. My heart was too great, my nature too kind. I was a man of the people, they said. Born to two high servants – the prince's nursemaid and the deputy palace guard – raised to be a proper gentleman, and grew up with one sole purpose – to protect my king and my people. At the age of seven I began to train with other boys to become a palace guard. At sixteen, I completed that training and earned my uniform. At seventeen, I reached the rank of 'Captain', at nineteen, the rank of 'Sergeant'. At twenty years of age, I could have been the youngest Chief or Deputy in history, if it had not been for the invasion that occurred but a week before my new position would have been announced. At thirty, I took on the challenge of keeping a ten-year-old boy out of trouble on the streets of the city. At thirty-six, I made a promise to that boy's parents that I would look after him as we made our travels through the land on a dangerous quest to rid our land of the evil tyrant who had invaded and enslaved us sixteen years before. At thirty-seven, I returned to the palace of my birth and I was given the dream title of Chief of the palace guards. At thirty-nine, I, along with my two companions and good friends, had successfully rid the land of all evil. At forty, I left my old home, my city, my family if you like, to start a new family in another town. Later that year, my dearest mother would have received her fondest wish – I was a father. She had always longed for me to settle down and have children. Oh, how she would have loved to see me now, for over the years my darling wife gave me five more children, totalling six in all.
You must learn now that I never longed for a peaceful, painless death. No. As a soldier, and as a man who would die to protect family and friends, I longed to die in battle, all glory and heroism, an honourable death. Every fight, every battle I entered, I prepared myself for the knowledge that I might not make it out alive, and I would find that every time I told myself this, it did not once unnerve me. I felt it slightly reassuring. I would die how I had always longed to die. For my king. For my people.
They called me the bravest. The strongest. And in my younger years, the fastest. None of those were necessarily true. My chief – that is, to say, the chief in the days before the invasion – was the one man who ever got it right. I wasn't the bravest, or the strongest, or the fastest. Not by a long shot. What I was, however, was the most determined. The most loyal. The most honourable. That is what made me the guard everyone talked about. If you kicked me down, I would get straight back up. I would fight until the end. And I still would.
I never achieved the title of the youngest chief in history. What I did achieve, however, is the title of the greatest chief the land has ever seen. Even now, having long ago given up the title and the job, those men still listen when I talk. If I bark orders, they follow them without hesitation, without question. If I walk into battle, they will follow me. They will fight for me, fight with me, no matter what the outcome may be. Because I will always be their chief.
Because I am the chief of every warrior in Deltora. I am King Lief's right-hand man, his soldier.
Because I am Barda, Deltoran hero.