Prompt: #50 Writer's Choice

Summary: It is now the Age of Freedom.

A/N: This is the end! I would like to thank all of you that have left such awesome reviews to keep me going and to all the readers who have stuck with me during this long and arduous journey.

Libertas Aeta is Latin for, "Freedom Age".

Libertas Aeta

The people of Nihilsomno were calling this, the Freedom Age. A two fold meaning. A new start with the freedom of choice restored. This time, they were finally and completely free from the oppression of being what they were by majority, the Undead. Most importantly, they were given back their free will. A freedom often wasted by simple minded fools, who did not appreciate the gift of choice. It is hard to understand what it is like to lose such a basic freedom until it is taken away so absolutely. The people had been in uproar once they had realized that they had been played and controlled in such a way. It was to be expected, of course and he had sympathized and agreed with their anger. How else would any one react when they realized that they had, had their free will taken away from them? Their on consolation, and the reason they had not rebelled into justifiable chaos, was that their own Prince had also fallen victim to the same ill treatment that they had. Their shared injustice had united them instead of tearing them apart. Something Muin and the clone had not anticipated.

Only, they had the deniability of living the past five years as if in a dream. These last years were as a figment of their imagination. A pleasant mix of cloudy and hazy images that never really came up to the surface of their consciences. That none of them had been forced to do anything malicious or wicked, made all the difference too. He, though, did not have that same luxury. This whole time, each and every day, every moment had been spent in helpless awareness. Muin and the clone had made it so, thinking it a fine torment for him and his "failure", so that he would know what he was being forced to do and tortured by the things he could not stop. The worst thing in the world is to know you had no control over your own body. To be aware of the terrible things you were doing as you did them and unable to stop it from happening. It was more than torture. It was an anguish of the most acutest sort. He had been forced into following a plan he would never have wanted to be a part of and would have fought vehemently to stop.

Not that he had been a total puppet the entire time. There had been a small amount of times that he had managed to maneuver certain things. Rare moments where he had been able to manipulate the outcomes, but they always had a very high price to his energy. Like the time he had managed to give the guys banishment instead of unseen slavery. He knew that they would never actually leave the city and that they would use the time wisely in hiding. It would be difficult for them, but they would have fared far better than in the mind control that had just started taking place at the time. He had known the clone would known that they would never leave as well, but that he would leave them be as long as they did not stir too much trouble. Through the years he had tried his best to keep their activities away from the clone as best he could and those were the only times, when his emotions were strongly in the reverse, that he was able to do it. Small, very tiny increments though they had been, they had been there. What the clone had not known was the sign in which they would finally act.

Stella.

Stella's arrival would be when they all would be forced to act. Her coming would provoke him and the guys just enough to stop whatever the clone was devising. He had also known that Stella would effect his clone too. They were the same afterall. So it was a given that she would touch the clone where he thought he was lifeless. His own feelings for Stella were elemental and inevitable and he knew any copy of his would feel the same way. A fact that he had learned too late to acknowledge and was a source of constant regret. He should have admitted to it earlier to her. That did not mean it did not sit ill with him to use Stella in such a way. There was just no way around it. He is only glad that she understands why. She was the only one who would see beyond what she saw. In that way men and women were different. Men saw only what they could see in front of them. Women, felt and that was exactly what he had been counting on for her to save them all; for her to save him.

Waiting so long for her was agonizing. The days past slowly and then months had gone by while the clone's control strengthened throughout the city. After awhile his mind became numb and listless to the inactivity his consciousness played in his daily life. To preserve the strength to fight when it was needed, he went into a mode of idleness. He was always aware and covertly manipulated when he could but on the whole, he was forced to play along and did his part. In the latter years he was more like a stringed dummy, doing the will of the one so much like him, that even he had begun to be afraid nobody would figure out the duplicity. That passage of time became almost a moot point in the hazy existence in which he had lived. Five years spent so numbly with only the occasional ache of missing his friends and missing her ,the only thing to prove that he was not completely dead. He had begun to think that he would wait forever in that void.

And then, there she was.

Even in a surprisingly natural looking auburn wig with a concealing cloak, he had known her right away. He would know Stella no matter what she did to vainly try to hide her identity. His body had switched on in response to her presence The tension and alertness that tightened his entire body at noticing her was hard to shake off after being so malleable for so long. His body had been so languid that the alertness would surely be apparently to the clone immediately. So he had forced himself to relax and tried not to let the awareness of her show in his body language.

The events that followed did not surprise him very much. It delighted him to give Stella chase. He had never more been proud of her than in that moment when she had fairly flew from rooftop to rooftop, after her dangerous mission to get a blood sample from the clone. To see her flee so fluidly and uninhibited reminded him anew of all those things that had made him love her so. She was beauty personified. When, in her flight away from him, her cloak and wig had flown off her body, shedding the fake, he had been glad to see her as she should be seen. Her blond hair glistening behind her in a glittery ray of hope that had him recalling why he had tried so fervently to push her away before. He did not deserve this creature of light. Women like her should not stay with men like him. That had always been his reasoning until he realized, when she had beckoned him to wait for her to figure out how to save him, back at the hideout, that he could never try to push her away again.

Not that he had ever wanted to push her away. It had only been his self preservation kicking in to force him to be mean when he had really only wanted to comply. Of course, he was not entirely nice either. Not all of him was so obliging in nature afterall. When she had cut him for his own sample, little had she realized that she had already begun to save him. Her showing up at the Arena had been the beginning of his salvation and return. She had awoken him from the blank numbness of controlled helpless consciousness. With that slice of her blade and the consequent pain that resulted, he had never felt more alive. For he was finally able to repeat what he had done so long ago when they had poisoned him in the labs. He could finally, by small incremental amounts, push the poison of control out of his veins. He had only to keep it from healing to keep the process going. Fortunately, neither the imposter nor anyone else, had noticed this steady endeavor. Just as he had missed that first time.

The hope of the clone feeling an attachment to Stella had bitten him in the arse when they had all been in Ignis' lab. Seeing the intimate way in which the fake had gazed at Stella. Witnessing that longing that he himself felt when looking at her. How he had made to kiss Stella, had caused a boiling in his blood that had surfaced to a physical presence when the building began to explode. Yes, he had known Ignis would have placed fail safes in these hideouts. Yes, he had felt a measure of satisfaction at forcing the clone away from Stella. Yet no, he had not wanted to lose such control of himself in that onslaught of intense fury and frustration. All that hate, resentment and agony that had been building up for those long years had destroyed a building. It had not just been the explosives, but a combination of his own rage that had been so destructive. It had all accumulated. What they had taken from him. What they had stolen from him. The rage and destructive power that he always tried to keep in check had been unleashed and there had been no stopping it once it began to unfurl.

That fury had not died down even a little until he heard her call out his name. Like a switch or splash of cold water or a healing balm, hearing his name uttered in her voice had snapped off his anger in an instant. The sounds of his name, his real name, were tangible after having to hear him addressed by that detestable name of Erebus for so long. He had not realized until that moment, how much he had missed hearing someone address him with it. To call him what he should have been called all along. The return of his identity when he had lost it and nearly lost himself along the way. That it should be Stella made it that much sweeter to hear. She had seen him, really seen him. Where no one else had. True, he had not given the guys a chance to, but he had always known that it would be Stella who would look past it all, as he had expected. It was victory of great worth to him.

Now that things were as they should be, instead of wanting time to linger and gather himself, all he wanted was to rush forward. No hesitations this time. He had found himself feeling as he had when his powers began surfacing in full force and Ignis had to tell him to slow down. Only now, he could appreciate the prudence of patience. Improvements would be slow, to be sure, as the world accepted him and what had happened. Stella had already begun the process of accepting the Undead into society. Making people understand that they were not so rare, all things considered. He was not naïve enough to believe that prejudices would evaporate instantly, now they were more wary of him than they were of the Undead. The wariness which he would use to his advantage because he was not going to let any acts of hostility towards his people and those like him, to be tolerated any longer. Any act would be met with justly. He had lived through enough violence already but sometimes a use of force was necessary and he was not above using it when protecting his people. Bullies had to be confronted or else they would never back down. Turning the other cheek was not always the way. Justice had to be met.

There are so many things to consider now. Things that had, admittedly, being a puppet had saved him from having to face. Now, he had a nation to run and a world to guide and it was no easy feat. Unlike when he had been younger and impatient and impulsive, he has learned to be wise. He has seen both sides of control and how a balance needed to be made so that everyone benefited. He has learned so much through his experiences that all these things that needed to be addressed, did not seem so daunting. In fact, they seemed a bit easier to face than what he needed to face now. It all seemed so much easier than facing Stella and telling her, no convincing her, that being by his side for the rest of their lives was a wise decision for her. She was a princess, but would she be his princess?

"Stop that," she says, in that low melodious voice of hers. She is leaning against him on the floor of the observation tower in the spot where everything started.

Their special place. It did not matter that it did not look so special now, having suffered neglect through the years.

"Stop deliberately self deprecating yourself," she adds in.

"You cannot even see what I am doing," he replies with a smirk on his lips while his arms tighten around her.

"No need to," she says with a smirk of her own in her tone. "You have gone all tense on me and that is usually never a good thing."

He smiles at her knowing and a moment passes in easy silence.

"You do know how much I need you, don't you?"

She twists her body so that she can see his face. Her expression is apprehensive and worried instead of satisfied at his confession.

"I told you then that I needed you as long as I live," he explains.

She does not respond but looks as if she is waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"I am wondering whether you needed me just as much."

At that, she looks even more confused. She wants to know what he is getting and she has gotten it into her head that he was trying to put distance between them again. Which was not so. There would be no distance between them again because he would never allow it again. Not anymore.

"If you found you did not, I was putting together reasons why you did."

Her expression changes dramatically and she rolls her eyes at him. He regrets the relief so obvious in her face now. He had given her so many reasons to doubt him. That was going to stop too.

"Because I want to marry you."

"You... you want to marry me?" she stammers.

It should have been a given, after all that they had been through. She had every right to demand he ask. To see her look so surprised made him feel even more guilty.

"I want you to be my princess."

"You are not going to ask?"

"I do not want to give you a chance to say no."

She gives him a speculative look. "Do you not wonder whether I would have endured so much for someone I did not?"

"You are nice," he says simply. "You would."

"So what reasons have you come up with to convince me to marry you?" she asks instead of addressing that statement.

"Because I need you and I could never been the same without you."

"You are not the same anyway," she says bluntly.

"No, but you are the one that can keep me from the blackness."

"Then I will," she states, looking at him evenly and not at all like a woman who was ecstatic at having been asked to marry.

"You will?"

"Yes, I will," she repeats. "But my reason would be because I love you."

He gives her a long, intent look for a moment before answering.

"Love, does not seem a strong enough term to describe how I feel for you."

"How would you describe it then?"

"My world without you was all darkness and despair. With you the drab world is brilliant, bright and blisteringly vibrant. You make me feel everything."

Her hand on his face startles him and he feels revived all over again at her simple touch.

"Are you sure you want that?" she asks quietly and he can understand her need to ask.

His old self had run from feelings. The man he was now craved it. Yearned for it because he knew what it was like to have all those things taken away. He knew too much of losing freedom and he realizes now that it is only through feeling everything, that he could truly be free again. That is what they had done. They had freed him from the dreariness of control.

"Yes," he says in a vow, before pulling her into his arms and feeling that all encompassing need for her. That need, for life.

El fin.


Author's Note: I am creating an entry at my LJ that lists all the prompts in chron order if one desires to read it all linearly. I hope you enjoyed reading this Fanfic50 series. :)