Chapter Twenty: To sacrifice and lost

Amissa Moon was staring at the window from the infirmary with pain that only one who had spent her entire life ensuring life and health could. She had a look of quiet horror craved into her pale features that merged with the lingering chill of her ancient craft. In her eyes was the sum of all the futility, all the pain and horrors that people had dared covered in words like valor, duty and courage. Great as those virtues may be, in the end, they were still only words. Words that had caused too many people their lives and she had long since stopped believing in. She stood there, frozen in her place, unable to tear her away from the madness but wishing with ever fiber of her being the strength to walk away.

"…Secret."
            Amissa turned to regard her patient. The Runes coupled with Ari's natural Kaga immunity had taken her out of immediate danger but she was still critical. She shouldn't even be conscience, let alone able to speak. Amissa doubted that Ari even knew what she was saying.

"You should be resting, Erised." Amissa whispered sternly as she walked to her side. "Everything is fine."

Erised's eyes flickered to the window, with a similar look of helplessness that on the surface seemed to mirror Amissa's but she knew better. Ari's distress came from the most fundamental aspect of Ari's personality. She was Kaga, under all the sins and booze and disorder and darkness- she was Kaga, like all Malone were and she longed to protect and fight for their adopted cause.

Amissa fought down the swell of hate she felt from that. She had hated Ari for a long time because of her undying devotion to duty- from the fact Sydney had had that same devotion, and that Ari hadn't been strong enough to save him. Amissa cursed herself because of this truth but she could not suppress it. She couldn't understand why things were so cruel and unforgiving as they were. She hated that some would live and some would die tonight and there were no rules to ensure her love ones made it.

Amissa jumped as she felt something touch her hand. She looked down and stared at the disfigured hand that was clinging to hers. Ari's thumb was stroking her palm, her tired gray eyes studying Amissa, searching for some way to comfort her Mistress even though she had never been able to. The feud between them had lost its purpose now it seemed. Amissa flinched from this revelation.

Ari had lost things in this war, and it wasn't only scars and lost fingers. Hers had been a terrible price, not only loved ones had been lost but even her own soul, if she had one.

But still she fought, even if she did so for no other reason then that's all she knew.

"Secret…" Ari began again. She strained to speak and for the first time in a long time compassion struck at Amissa's heart for her sister. Ari opened her mouth again and took a break. "Find the secret…"

"What secret?" Amissa frowned, getting that wary gut feeling again. "What secret, Ari?"

"If I can't," Ari began, and moved to reach for her neck, feeling for her necklace. She frowned suddenly as if terrified to have lost it. She began to turn her head searching for it.

Amissa looked to the table where she had put it, and remembered. "Severus took it, Ari."

"Severus? Where?"

"In the battle, at Hecate." Amissa saw the fear in Ari's eyes and knew how to comfort it. "He'll be okay, Erised. He'll survive and come back."

Ari looked very weak against the pillow suddenly and Amissa knew why. There had been one thing constant and as true in Ari's life as her duty and that was her love for Severus. It was deep and fierce, and as strong as the ocean. Even Erised hadn't understood the bond but had gone through each ebb and flow of this desire for a man that could not be hers with the same faith she had gone through her battles with. She had to believe that the bond she held to Severus, whatever it was unbreakable and therefore her strength.

But that didn't stop the basic and most profound need that a woman has for her man- the assurance that even though they're not there, he'll be okay.

"Promise me?" She whispered to Amissa, with naïve, trusting eyes.

Amissa wiped something from her eyes as revelations led to understanding. The self-imposed twenty-year hell Ari had put herself through was finally losing its sway. In her near death state, Erised would finally allow herself to feel what she had denied for so long. If only for a moment…

Amissa gripped her hand. "I swear."

"Alex holds the secret." Ari said, tapping her neck where her necklace should have been. "If I can't…protect it. Alex can find it. He's the Keeper…"

"Amissa," Albus Dumbledore's voice echoed through the empty infirmary. "The battle outside has is not going well. They need medics. I'll watch after your patient."

Ari gripped her hand once more. "Remember." She released Amissa's hand and rolled her head to one side. Wordlessly, her eyes closed, her breathing stilled and she was gone.

Amissa inhaled uneasily. She turned to Albus, "I hate it when she does that. All Kaga do that…it's rather annoying. Their whole bodies shut down like a state of death."

"I know, she was once my Companion, remember?" He said, as he walked over and sat down besides Ari. "She's safe with me."

Amissa watched as he brushed Ari's cheek, gingerly. "You care for her, don't you?"

"As much as my own blood." He said simply. "I trust her with my life." 

"So did I." Amissa said as she walked away. "Once."

Phoenix Hawke fell to his knees but didn't scream.  He was biting his lip so hard that it drew blood but he didn't scream. There was no pain worthy of such a reaction. Instead, his body ached from dull pain that began somewhere in his back and spread to the very tips of his fingers. He was aware of the sweat on his face, and the burning that the salt caused when it touched open wounds. His jaw ached from the after effects of Mordred's close quarter punch and despite the vertigo it would cause; he shook his head doggedly to quell the ringing of his ears.

"You know none of this is real." Mordred was saying as he paced around Hawke like a jackal. "This is all some dream. It is the great, epic way all men wish to die to become the heroes of storybooks and legends…you should be thankful, Auror. How many heroes meet such a fitting end."

Hawke looked up and regarded him but wasn't really paying attention to his words. Instead, he was watching the face, the strong eyes and assured walk that seemed to make the world look and notice this child prince. He was noticing the charisma that wrapped around Mordred like a cloak. He was noticing the history that walked with Mordred that shielded him and raised him on a dais to be Royalty without ever earning that title.

And right before Hawke's eyes, Mordred began to change- maybe it was the haze, or true magic, Hawke couldn't tell but there was a transformation. Mordred's face became older, wiser and sadder.

And Kaiser stood where his grandson had.

Kaiser walked towards him slowly, leisurely with no malcontent or ire towards him but rather just a soft confusion. He tilted his head to one side, as if he had never seen anything like Hawke before and was trying to understand it. He looked away briefly, only to study the chaos surrounding them with the same confused look. He must have been wondering how could it come to such an end. He must have wondering what had had happened to bring such a dire end. What could warrant such denouement? What sins had to be redressed? What sacrifices had to be made for tomorrow to come?

And, in turning his attention back to him, Kaiser asked another question.

Who would pay the cost?

Phoenix closed his eyes. Kaiser was asking a simple question. One anyone would ask. It was a question as old as time and memory itself, as old as wars and peace, life and death. For as long as there had been good and evil in this world, there had to be means of attaining each. How much do you pay for the end? And is it even worth it?

Hawke heard a soft chuckle behind him and a voice that belonged with Caesar's ghost in the past. "Big questions, Aiden." He heard the voice say as if he had heard Hawke's musings. "But they are not for you to answer."

Hawke looked at Mordred, to the newcomer. Whatever strength he had left was lost as he stared into the face of a long dead soldier.  Into the very eyes of not Kaiser but his heir.

"No," Hawke whispered as his reverie ended. "It can't be…"

Before him was Sydney Van Ness, alive and well. But that was impossible. Sydney was dead, and had been for decades now. He had died with his brothers on Day of the Dead. Hawke himself had packed up the belongings, had held a weeping Amissa in his arms as they held a memorial ceremony and had himself mourned for this fallen soldier.

But yet, there he stood as whole and healthy as if the past two decades hadn't come at all. His face was still the fine mixture of fading youth and regal age, a blend of years and sorrows that dimmed his blue eyes and was barely beginning to touch his dirty blond hair with gray.  His top lip was split from a boyhood injury that Hawke use to tease him about endlessly during his Academy days. He was even wearing gloves, something Sydney had been know to do even during the most sweltering of Hecate's summers.

But no, it could not be him. Sydney was dead.

Hawke looked up, through the awe and outrage. "What are you?" He asked the thing- and indeed he refused to acknowledge it even as human.

"Ask me what I was." The creature answered, mockingly. "For I am death, conquered. I am slave to a great Master, who reduce this world to ash and claim the next as his throne."

It was Sydney's voice, and Sydney's laugh, but everything in Hawke screamed this was untrue. The words he had used frightened Hawke. He strained to look past the pride in Sydney's eyes for semblance of the man he had known, some inkling of the former self.

"Sydney…it's me." He whispered, dumbly. "It's Aiden." He made a movement to reach out and touch the creature, only to watch it step back.

"Careful, Auror." The thing taunted, "You'll wake Samedi."

Samedi…

Hawke jerked his head up and winced from the pain. Sydney must have caught this terror-driven action and acted on it. He smiled at him and nodded. In his arms, he was carrying a bundle covered in a blanket. He turned to the bundle and whispered something into it before pushing back the edge of the blanket to reveal a beautiful blond haired toddler. Sydney was very reverent in the way he pushed back the makeshift hood, to let her wave of golden hair fall around her face, framing the deepest sky blue eyes Hawke had ever seen.

And the girl smiled at him. Something strange happened then, Hawke felt every pain fall from his body like an ill-fitting robe. Every sorrow and pain seemed to fall off him like rain as he looked into her eyes, and with it every care and responsibility with it. He suddenly wanted very much to stay with the child forever, to feel the serenity that seemed to flow into his heart to replace whatever had been there before. It was not love he felt for the child, that much was certain, nor was it joy that he received from her. Instead it was more like a calm, gentle rest that came after what seemed like a lifetime of labor.

"Yes," Sydney was saying but Hawke was only half-listening. "Beautiful isn't she? Not some fearful monster most people believe she should be. She's the beginning you know, after all this is over, even if Voldemort and the others fail, she'll still exist. She always has, and always will. That's her power, you see, the power even the Dark Lord fears…and now she is my Master's. The most powerful of all weapons is now with the proper Lord." Sydney glanced up at Mordred and nodded. "And this is just the beginning."

Mordred grabbed Hawke's neck and twisted it firmly, smirking at the wonderful snap sound it made as the Auror fell dead to the floor. He kneeled down and began to undo the gauntlets from Hawke's wrists, glancing up only to look briefly at the child. He paused for a moment, staring into her eyes and feeling deep within his soul a fear he could not name. He jerked away from her, unwilling to gaze on anything capable of making him feel so afraid and unsure.

"She's a weapon?" He asked, quietly and tried not to care.

Sydney was tickling the girl's chin, cooing her back to sleep. "She will be, when Imre is done teaching her. She'll be the ultimate tool for my Master. She can be no other."

Mordred flinched as he fastened the gauntlets onto his wrists. He felt the magic course through them as they tightened onto his wrist to  guard him as they had their former Master. He still had work to finish here, he told himself, and tried to ignore Sydney as he disappeared into the darkness. That child was none of his concern.

But it still bothered him. He had been raised as a tool and a weapon as well and that was no life to live. Who was he to change that for the girl? He was just a tool himself after all.

Wasn't he?

Amissa shut her eyes as debris showered her as she ran from victim to victim, doing what she could to help those who could be saved, and comforting those who couldn't be. Things were blurring in her eyes, from smoke and terror and hundreds of other reasons she didn't fully understand or even want to. Her mind was pushed to its limit from the chaos. She had never before seen war this up close, and instantly her mind traveled back to the horror stories she heard from Day of the Dead.

This had been the kind of hell that Sydney had died in…

Inwardly, she made a note to apologize to Erised after this was all over. Somehow, the monster Ari had become seemed more understandable.

"Amissa!"

She turned, and saw Gideon running towards her. "Gid! Oh thank Merlin, I was worried you'd…"

"Come on, Remus has a wounded student over here! He needs your hel-" Gideon's sentence was cut short by a loud explosion behind him. He was thrown forward, falling face forward on the ground.

"Gideon!" Amissa screamed as she raced to him. She fell to her knees and grabbed his shoulders, rolling him over. Gideon was choking on dirt that she brushed away quickly. He tried to laugh and when that failed, smiled at her. She swallowed, looking over his body and seeing nothing. "Come on, Malfoy, I'm taking you inside to help. Up, come on-"

"No, no, no, Amissa." Gideon laughed a little as he reached over and grabbed her arm. "Here I fell, and I'm going to stay." He smirked again grimly as he tried to reach behind him.

Amissa followed his hand and slid her hand around and felt it. It was a thick piece of wood that had embedded itself in his liver. "Oh Merlin, Gideon come on…I got to get you…"

"Amissa, shush…" He whispered, suddenly. He had turned very pale and was beginning to shake. "You know, Missa…I wasn't really a total cad." He said, trying to finish his sentence. "I really only ever loved Chandra…please tell her for me. I love her, I'll always love her. I'm afraid I never told her enough…"

Amissa closed her eyes against the tears. "You'll tell her yourself, Gideon…come on, let's get up."

He smiled thinly now. "Do me a favor? Bury me with my family, Amissa, not at Hecate…I want to die a Malfoy."

"Gideon, don't, please…"

"It's one of the only things I'm proud of being…" Gideon whispered as his eyes slid close. He went quiet as he fell into death, going limp in Amissa's arms, she let him slowly fall to the ground. Looking up, she screamed at the top of her lungs before slumping over the frame and crying.