Disclaimer: Characters and world are property of Tamora Pierce. If they were mine I wouldn't have so much trouble with scholarships.

Author's Note from Erkith: Will attempt a fluffier one-shot with KN eventually… but I'm really such a KD fan… difficult!

Enjoy!

Erkith

PS - will update as frequently as possible during X-Mas break!

Burnt

This is a story of neither triumph, nor glory.

It is the defeat of a hero greatly loved.

He found her on charred ground, looking out over the blood-soaked grass of the field below. She looked deeply chilled.

"Kel."

The face she turned to him was devoid of expression. Ice-pale, her eyes accepted him with a blink.

His throat seized as her cool demeanor clawed at him. She should be raging, screaming, crying, but here she was coolly composed. Her hands were still at her sides - her mouth rested unshaped, her face unlined, and her posture rigidly straight. She stood beyond emotion – beyond the need to mask emotion. Neal looked into her eyes, stripped of their normally dreamlike quality, and stared into a vast emptiness.

Shudders gripped him. The involuntary movement derived not from frigid air and dampness; though there was plenty of that, but rather a different sort of cold. Fear.

He hugged her close. She was still with him. She had to be. She was all he had left. She didn't hug him back. "Kel, lets go inside."

She turned back to the battleground. It wasn't a defiant gesture, simply absent. She hadn't heard his request at all. Neal followed her gaze. The carnage before him turned his stomach. Nausea threatened. Disgust didn't bother – it possessed him already. Before him lay all that remained of thousands and thousands of men.

The Last Battle they called it. The fight to end all fights. And yet even as the flocks of stormwings defiled their prey, Neal knew it was not to be. There would be more fights, more battles, and more wars. What a waste. What an utter waste.

"I can't do it anymore."

"Can't do what?" He looked at her sharply.

"This." Kel jerked an arm at the pit of death below her. "I can't lead good men into that. To become that…"

Neal laid a hand on her arm, gentle, soothing. She brushed it off.

"It was bound to happen eventually. They've been saying it for years…" the sound that emerged was a cruel mutation of a laugh. "Should have listened to them. I wasn't cut out for this. Burned out at 25 summers. Mithros. What were we thinking? Women were never meant to be pages or squires or knights. Alanna was a freak and so am I. She's dead and I may as well be. What more proof do we need? Not a single girl has followed us. Not a single one."

Her apathy was stunning. Her bitterness drew blood. This wasn't the girl he knew. Where was Kel? Kel the rock of reliability, the seeker of justice and equality, the unreservedly generous and optimistic, the strong, stubborn woman who never gave up… Kel, the most driven of them all.

"There were years between you and Alanna. Many, many years… There could be others."

"No, Neal. There will be no others." The dead certainty – her conviction – made him shake her.

"There will be others, Kel. There will be. I'll recruit and train them myself."

"It doesn't matter, Neal. None of it matters anymore."

"Why, Kel?" Neal asked. "Why are you giving up? Why doesn't it matter?"

Her hollowed eyes blinked at him. For a moment, he thought he saw anger flicker, but if it was; it was as quick gone as come.

"They're gone. All of them. My parents, my friends, Yuki, Merric, Fanche, Gil, Cleon, Daine, Numair, Alanna, Owen, Prosper, Jump, the sparrows, Raoul, Tobe. Even Dom." Her breath caught on his cousin's name. "They're gone, Neal! They're all gone! What's the point? Why should I fight? Why should I lead men and women and children to their deaths when even I can't keep the ones I love alive? How can I ask them to march into that carnage? How can I ask them to do that when I can already see their corpses rotting, trampled and defiled, when I look them in the eyes? How can I ask that of them? How, Neal?"

Torrents of pain battered her. Her words were sobs by the end. Scorching tears burned her eyes. Her grief was vicious and unforgiving. Freed of its restraints, it tore at her mercilessly, ripping her into shreds of who she'd been.

Neal held her tightly as barriers collapsed. Their limited comfort was all he could offer her. But it wasn't enough. Not nearly enough. He could feel her shattering against him.

Wracking sobs coursed her body, scraped her throat raw.

"I don't know… but you have to."

Could he appeal to the old Kel? Could he appeal to the Protector that was so much a part of her? Would sharing his misery collect her or topple her over some final edge?

"You don't understand."

He didn't understand? He was a healer for Mithros' sake! He understood! How could he possibly not! Anger and frustration decided him.

"Do you know how many men I've had die in my arms today, Kel?"

"No." She choked.

"Neither do I."

She hugged him close, burying her face deeper into his shoulder. She cried with him until he was no longer sure who was comforting whom.

A/N: Please read and review! Reviews make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside and help me write. And if anyone has an idea for a one-shot I'm up for writing one!

Don't forget to read the new chap of Different Kinds of Magic!