A/N: Thanks to LittleSpooky and Mysil for reviewing chapter 35. I warn you that this, 36, is almost the end of RTN. I'm anticipating one or two more chapters, then it's going to be over. Sadly. But, good news, the threequel, which has no name yet, is already three chapters and growing. Any suggestions for a threequel name? Go ahead, be creative. If I choose a suggested name, the winner gets **MAJOR** spoilers (only if they want them).
Sara walked back and forth on the shale outcropping, keeping her body between her warriors and the rebel camp. She watched them with a careful scrutiny as they prepared for the oncoming battle, missing nothing and ignoring very little. The entire group needed to be on the same page more than ever. Things that she had let slide in previous battles were not condonable during this one. No matter how much she resented being relied upon to be a strong, fearless leader, she knew that she had to be. There was no turning back now. No chance to reject the title and the responsibilities that came with it. No chance to dump the group on Rhea without getting everybody killed in the process. Sara was all in now - betting all or nothing with thirtee lives that weren't hers. Had it been only her neck on the line, she knew that she would have finished the fight months ago. Her life wasn't worth thousands of hours of training because it was simply not valuable enough to her and almost impossible to end, besides.
The mages of the group, needing no preparation for battle, were clustered at one end of the invisible line Sara was pacing. Each time she passed them, she dissected them all with her gaze. She felt terrible inspecting them to such a degree so frequently, but her trust was still skewed and it rested with very few of them, despite everything they had been through together. Everybody who needed weapons or supplies was working fervently in the camp, the whole scene a textbook example of organized chaos. Warriors were scattered through shape-shifters, all yelling to one-another over or through somebody else. Though there were so few of them, they still created an unparalleled noise level that, had it not been masked, would have alerted the rebels to their location.
"It's almost time." Jordan followed Sara step for step as she paced across the shale. "Think they'll be ready in time?"
"Maybe. Hopefully." Sara didn't look hopeful.
"You're worried."
"You're not?"
"I didn't say that."
"Jordan, I don't need you in my head right now."
"Sorry." Jordan crossed her arms over her chest and looked out over the preparations. When she spoke again, her voice was quiet and fragile. "This could all be gone tomorrow. The trees, the rocks, the sky, the clouds..."
"If we fail." Sara finished her friend's sentence in a whisper. "I know."
The setting sun silhouetted the two women against a fiery sky as Jordan wrapped an arm around Sara, and Sara wrapped an arm around Jordan. Sara's eyes swept over her group, but none of them lit a fire in her heart that willed her to fight like Jordan did. Sara looked to Grissom, the man she had loved forever, and to Akona, the man she had only just met but still didn't want to see destroyed. She looked to Catherine, Warrick, Nick and Greg, and knew that she may very well have to return to the mortal realms without them. She looked over all her magical allies - Violet, Rain, Shade, Hazel and Rhea - and knew that if there was ever another battle, she might be forced to fight without them. But, looking to her very best friend, she knew that there was only one person she would fight to protect.
Jordan's blue-grey eyes, so familiar that Sara could have picked them from a line-up, were obstructed by the dark chestnut hair that hung past her shoulders, curling softly and naturally, dancing gently in the wind. The colour put Sara in mind of her own hair growing from the head that encased the brain that Jordan had saved many, many times before. It was Jordan, and only Jordan, who had been there when nobody else was - when Sara had been deserted by everybody she had ever known or loved. Despite everything Sara had ever done to her - every bad thing she had ever said or done - Jordan was still here, standing at Sara's side, the two of them drawn together on an equal footing, no rank separating them. Sara could recall every hateful thing she had ever done to Jordan in perfect detail - every word she had thrown at Jordan with the intention to hurt her, every fight they had had where Sara had the upper hand, every secret Sara had revealed that wasn't hers to control. She could remember every time Jordan had flinched at Sara's words, every time she had left the room before she could say something hurtful back, every time she had been reduced to tears at the hand of the person who was supposed to be her best friend.
Despite all that, though - despite every wrong Sara had ever done - she was still standing here, her arm around Sara's shoulders, watching, waiting for the battle that was to come. No matter what happened, no matter who she had to sacrifice to do it, Sara swore that she would protect her best friend. She swore it to the goddesses who had taken her as theirs, to the memory of her ancestors, to the setting sun that lit the sky on fire and, most importantly, to the very essence that made her who she was. Now, everybody who mattered knew her goals. Now, her mind's eye could picture her will to win the battle and save the realms as a human form - a person striding along a beaten path. But now, right beside her battle aims, a smaller goal strode along. A small, child-sized goal with an innocent face and two familiar hands holding everything together.
"Tonight," Sara said, "History will be made. We are not all entirely magical, but we are equally not all entirely mortal. It is our diversity and our acceptance of both worlds that makes us strong - makes us who we are - and I wouldn't have it any other way."
Sara was standing on a boulder with her warriors surrounding her. Every great leader she had ever heard of had given a rallying speech before a battle, but she didn't see how. The sun painted the horizon a bright, bloody red as it slowly disappeared, bathing her warriors in an eerie red light. Sara could imagine that, in a few hours, they would all still be red from head to toe, but not at the hand of the sun. She was shaking violently before them - so much that she had to weave herself a glamour to hide her terror - hoping that her morbid thoughts stayed safely in her head.
"In the absence of light, darkness reigns, and we are the only aspect of light left that is willing to fight. We are fourteen people - the fourteen people - who will write the future of these lands. This does not have to be your battle. I am bound to it in a way you are not, and I will not hold any desertions against you."
Shaie, who had only been with them for less than two days, took the opportunity to slip out. She cast an apologetic glance up at Sara, mouthing the words Too young to die as she ran through the forest and back to her safe haven of a home. Sara swallowed back a wave of emotion and turned her full attention to her remaining warriors, all of whom had stayed.
"We are thirteen very important people this evening. No matter who you once were, you are them no longer. You are now one of the dozen people who have chosen to stand by my side to face what may be the end of the world as we know it. Your jobs no longer define you, your power no longer makes you one thing or another, because tonight, you become the Future. Your choices will govern these realms in a fashion that has never previously existed. You will, tonight, by your own hands, seal the future of these realms.
" Fate has defined our world for centuries, has shaken and has rendered us powerless. It has brought us prosperity, but also poverty. Happiness as well as sadness. Light as well as dark. Where nothing exists, everything cannot, and, similarly, in the absence of everything, nothing cannot be defined and, therefore, cannot exist. In the absence of one, another shows itself. These relationships define us, and have defined us for as long as we have existed, but tonight, for as long as this battle rages on, that will change. History will change. Definition will change. Because, in the absence of fate, a flower blooms by the name of Choice. The Choice between light and dark, between failure and victory, between life and death. This Choice is awarded to very few. Specifically, it is awarded to thirteen people. Thirteen people of varying backgrounds with various talents, but thirteen people who have made it their mission to take the full weight of that Choice on their shoulders and bear the burden until our battle ends and fate can be restored."
Sara paused then, looking over the small crowd, searching for words to describe what they meant to her. How much it meant that they would stay and fight, that they would bear the burden of Choice alongside her. She felt pride swell in her chest until it spilled over on to her heart and her essence, turning a once black-and-white picture into a beautiful masterpiece in the most vivid, glorious colours she could never imagine. With tears sliding down her face underneath the glamour that hid her fear, she stepped down from the boulder and took her place at the front of the group. She couldn't bring herself to face them, for she knew if she did, everything she was trying so hard to hold in place would dissolve and free itself in a mess of tears and emotion.
"I want to see everybody leave this battle alive, understand?" Her voice broke along with her flimsy glamour and every pretence of calm shattered. Her group - her friends, she realized - stood silently. Her hope soared skyward as she realized that the glamour must still be in place, but a hand on her shoulder told her otherwise. They could all see through the glamour that wasn't there, and now that there was no hiding her sheer terror at the thought of the battle - her, the most seasoned, powerful fighter they had - she knew they would all leave. When the all-powerful Sarayelle Alkina had no hope, how could they? She closed her eyes and waited for them to leave and focused on the steady hand on her shoulder, the only thing that remained to accompany her into battle, the best friend she had sworn to protect.
But she was wrong.
When she turned to face her one and only ally, the owner of the hand on her shoulder, she almost collapsed. Jordan was nowhere in sight, but everybody else was. Rhea was standing to Sara's left, in the traditional spot of a second-in-command. Her friends - all of her friends, of both magical and mortal origin - were fanned out behind Rhea, organized perfectly in order of rank and power. In front of her, a solid, steady presence, was Violet, the mind-reader she had never trusted. Seeing that the one person Sara trusted the least had taken the place of the person she trusted the most made Sara's knees buckle.
"Wh..." She couldn't form a single word with her trembling voice. Violet's eyes were soft and shiny, full of tears she hadn't shed.
"Right here." Jordan murmured, her breath warm on Sara's ear. She squeezed tightly, drawing her farther in to the careful, reassuring hug that Sara had never even noticed.
If she hadn't already turned to jelly, Sara would have at that moment. Her warriors were still with her, every single one, and they still trusted her, even though she was showing the weakest display of leadership.
"I...this is..." Sara tried to form a coherent warning through her tears. She wanted to tell them all to run, to hide, to never come back. She wanted to tell them that the odds were impossible and that they were thirteen people against the world. She wanted to know that they were safe in the mortal realms and she wanted to erase their memories so they would never know what they had almost gotten themselves into. She wanted them all - even the ones with magical origins - to forget about magic and to forget about battles and, most of all, to forget about her so it would be easier not to miss her when she died in a battle that she should have fought alone right from the beginning.
We know. Violet used her hand on Sara's shoulder to project a clear message straight through her rambling thoughts. The voice wasn't Violet's, but a combination of the timbre and tone of every single warrior standing in front of her. The words sounded mundane, but the emotion they encompassed held every ounce of love and friendship and absolute trust that the group had for Sara. The voice sliced through Sara's head cleanly, a breath of fresh air in a space that had been closed off for too long.
They knew the risks, they knew she had been lying to them about the odds, but they still stood by her.
Sara straightened, a renewed sense of purpose lighting her heart for the second time that day, but this time the fierce desire to protect was directed at every single one of them.
There would be no sacrifices today.
A/N: I know there was some concern about Sara's serious lack of trust. Hope this resolved it. Please R&R, and see you next chapter!