Disclaimer: Oh, were these characters yours? You really shouldn't be so careless with them. Someone could steal them!

A/N: Wow, last chapter. I just wanted to thank all of you who have made this journey with me. And a journey it has been, through life, through writing styles, through time. Thanks to my beta, Valgorúth, for all of his wonderful work, and his help in making me a better writer. And thank you, to everyone who has been reading this, for your support and your help throughout the years.

My Life is Made of Patterns That Can Scarcely Be Controlled

When Catherine woke up, she was cuddled embarrassingly within Fie's arms. She straightened up as much as her weak muscles would allow with a muttered "Sorry," glad that he couldn't possibly see her burning cheeks. Trying to get distracting thoughts out of her head, she looked down. She realized that they were just arriving back at the Library, and it was Snowfire's descent that had awakened her.

Kit's brain was still sluggish as she processed the images below her, but when she was done, she wished that she hadn't. The carnage at the battle scene below was horrible, and utterly beyond anything that the half-elf had ever even conceptualized. She could not contain a shudder and a gasp of horror, and Fie tightened his grip on her. Despite her inner turmoil, Kit could not say that she wasn't glad for his warm comfort.

"Don't worry, you'll be fine." It wasn't until Fie spoke that Catherine realized that her muscles tensed and she had begun to breathe harder. She attempted to calm her nerves, though she didn't try to move from his arms.

"I… I don't want to die again." It was hard for Catherine to admit this, but if anyone deserved to know her feelings, it was Fie. The arm that wasn't resting around her waist rubbed her arm soothingly.

"You're safe. Everything will be all right. I've learned a bunch of new spells, and once we get to the Library, you can go rest." As he spoke, Fie had to take a moment to shoot a spell at a horror that was descending from the sky. Another shudder wracked Kit's body as it plummeted towards the ground.

Catherine closed her eyes, trying to will herself not to cry. Due to the events of the past few hours, though, it didn't quite work. By the time that Snowfire was safely on the ground behind the shields, Kit could no longer hide the sobs that were tearing at her petite body.

Fie caught her as she slid off of the dragon and held her close, murmuring in the general direction of her ear. Half carrying her, he led the distraught young woman towards the Library. Dalamar held the door without comment. Fie didn't let Kit collapse until they reached the room where she had stayed before her death. While they had been away, someone (Astinus?) had put an extra mattress on the spare bed, and piled on soft-looking blankets and pillows.

Gratefully, Catherine collapsed onto the bed, sitting with her head in Fie's shoulder as she cried in pain and anger and general confusion. She was amazingly embarrassed by the fact that she was showing such raw emotion, but simultaneously she realized that there was absolutely nothing she could do about it. Surrendering to her rampant emotions, Kit just let herself continue to cry as Fie held her tightly.

"It's all right. No one will make you go out there. We didn't bring you back just to lose you again!" He rubbed her back soothingly. Kit hiccoughed, finally attempting to get a hold of herself.

"Really?" She knew how dumb she sounded, but she could not help asking the question that had been plaguing her waking moments since life had been returned to her. "I wasn't brought back to finish the war?" She hated the way her voice was breaking, hated the weakness she was showing, hated that she could do absolutely nothing about it in the end.

"No." Fie forced her to look up at him. "Dalamar wasn't very clear with me about why you were brought back, but I am pretty sure it wasn't for any immediate cause. I know the gods bent the rules for some reason, but this war is not it. And if it is, I won't let them do anything to you anyway. The gods have interfered enough in your life with that stupid prophesy, and I refuse to let them ruin it again." He hugged her tightly around the shoulders. "Now, you need sleep."

Suddenly too weary to protest, Catherine allowed Fie to help her climb under the many covers. By the time the young man had reached the door Kit was already mostly asleep, despite the turmoil within her mind.

After he left Kit, Fie went to find Dalamar. The older mage was outside, surveying the battlefield. "You didn't bring her back for her to die, did you?" Fie's tone was belligerent.

"Of course not!" Dalamar sounded offended at the very thought. "The gods allowed me to return my daughter to the realm of the living because she had not been fated to die at that point. That is all." Wisely, Dalamar made no mention of his suspicion that his daughter was to provide a check on the dangerous unknown that was Fie's power.

Satisfied, Fie stalked away to his own room to be alone with his thoughts. While he knew that he needed sleep before he could do anything useful, sleep would not be immediate in coming. He was too confused about everything that had happened in the past few hours.

First of all, there was the magic. Fie knew that he needed to be wary of it, that it could consume him. When the time came to use it, though, it was not at all easy to remember that. He could still practically feel the sensation of the magic rushing through his body as Dalamar channeled the power for the necromantic spell. The blind rush of power was like an amalgamation of all the pleasurable senses he'd ever felt in his life, and yet like none of them. It was addictive, intoxicating. He knew that now that he'd experienced that kind of power, he could never go back to more mundane uses for magic, let alone giving it up in any way at all.

And then there was Catherine. He had never really been attracted to anyone before, at least not in the real way. Over the last few months, however, he'd learned to love her personality. And now, all of a sudden, she was no longer in the body of a seven year old. Fie didn't quite know how to deal with those thoughts. Finally, he managed to push them aside and allow sleep to overtake him.

In the morning, the mages met in front of the Library once more. Dalamar, Fie, and Jenna looked refreshed. Catherine seemed to glow with life, as she looked around at the broken and damaged surroundings with the awe of one who never truly appreciated beauty before. She was also much steadier on her feet, after a night of coping with her new body.

"The sun… It is so beautiful…" Catherine looked up, through the smoggy haze that seemed to perpetually coat the battlegrounds. "I never really noticed before."

The half-elf's reverie was broken harshly by Chaos. Apparently, he had decided that it was no longer good enough that his forces were holding the defenders of the Library in stasis, and it was time to end the battle for Palanthas.

"Foolish mortals. You actually thought you could resist me? The only reason you still live is because I have taken pleasure in watching you die painfully, one by one. No more, though. I grow impatient." The giant had appeared so suddenly that it defied logic. Now, he towered over everything, even the dragons.

Kit could not contain a squeal of fear as she faced a being so much more fearsome as the one who had killed her in the first place. Chaos barely spared her a glance as he nonchalantly shot a bolt of his molten essence at one of the buildings next to the Great Library. The building was incinerated within a second, not even leaving ashes in its wake.

While he seemed to take some sort of abstract pleasure out of the destruction, he did not laugh as Arash had. As unsettling as that had been, the cold indifference shown by Chaos was infinitely more terrifying. It seemed as though the only reason he cared at all for the destruction was because it was a means to an end, and it created the feeling of hopeless terror that was his glory.

"Do none of you have the backbone to stand up to me? I know not what my children see in you insipid, vacuous little maggots. It matters not. You will be dead soon enough either way."

A soft padding sound was heard behind the defenders of the Library. "No, we won't be." The voice which spoke was calm and collected.

Evelynn walked calmly in the space which Dalamar quickly vacated for her. Just as tranquilly, she passed through the shield and directly up to Chaos. She had left the ill-fitting suit of armor behind, and was dressed instead in a simple robe of white. She had a light sword that did not seem to encumber her too much.

Chaos looked around quizzically, trying to find the source of this rebellion. Finally, his monstrous eyes alighted on the ancient elf who barely came up to his mid-calf. For a moment, Chaos could do nothing save stare at the silver-haired woman glaring at him so fiercely. Then, he burst into laughter.

"This is what you send up against me? This … This decrepit weakling? If all your champions are one such as these, it will be mere moments before I conquer Palanthas. Simple days before I wreak destruction on the rest of the world." Suddenly, Chaos gasped in shock. In his merriment, he had all but forgotten the woman who was the object of his scorn.

With a mighty effort, Evelynn had cut through Chaos' shifting skin and threw the sword away. From a pouch at her waist, she withdrew the two halves of the Greygem. Before Chaos could react, she brought one of the halves up to his leg where the Chaos essence that flowed through his veins dripped.

She had no chance to close them and finish her goal, however. With a roar of fury, Chaos grabbed the elder around her waist, his hand completely encompassing her chest and lower body. Evelynn could not contain a slight scream as she was yanked off of her feet and pulled dozens of feet into the air.

"You actually thought that you could defeat me with that pitiful toy of your puny gods?" He began to squeeze. The people on the ground could do nothing save stare with helpless horror.

"Do something!" Catherine whispered desperately to Fie. "You must be able to!"

Fie shook his head. "I can do nothing against him. At least not yet. I don't know any spells strong enough." He put his arm around Catherine, pulling her close, shielding her from the sight.

In Chaos' grip, Evelynn struggled desperately. Luckily, she's had the instantaneous reaction to raise her arms so that they wouldn't be pinned to her sides, but she could not help a desperate effort to reclaim the life that was being squeezed from her body. Finally, she fell still, realizing that her effort was only making the pressure on her ribs and lungs worse. She turned her attention to the task she'd originally been attempting, the joining of the shorn Greygem.

She lifted her arms from where they had been hanging limp against Chaos' immense fist. Once her arms were parallel with her shoulders, however, she began to feel resistance. Straining against the force of the Greygem, she moved the halves together slowly, inch by inch. As she moved the Greygem closer to itself, she hoped that she would be able to join the halves before she was crushed.

Evelynn felt her mind slowly disconnecting from her body, abstracting itself from the pain through one of the meditative techniques she'd learned as a girl. As her arms strained to push the Greygem together, her mind strained to calm itself, to come to terms with her impending death. She thought about her life, what it was, what it could've been.

Finally, her mind cleared of its morass of pain. She realized that, looking back, there was very little that she would've done differently. Yes, there had been pain in her life, but there was pain in all lives. She had been able to experience so much joy as well, and she was content with that.

As her mind reached that moment of clarity, her arms slammed the halves of the Greygem together. Instantly, Chaos' grip tightened spasmodically as he felt his spirit being pulled into the newly whole gem.

Evelynn gasped and her back arched. She could no longer going to absent herself from the pain, and she could feel her ribs collapsing. After a either a second or an hour of excruciating pain, suddenly Evelynn ceased to feel the pain. The gloom of the battlefield evaporated, and Chaos no longer held her in a grip of death. She stood in a field of infinite beauty, and her white robes were no longer sullied with dirt. She suddenly realized that her robes had gone from the simple style that anyone could've worn to a fancier style that only the higher orders of clerics wore.

For a moment, she was so distracted by her own appearance, that she did quite register her surroundings. Then, she looked up. Coming towards her were two men, one cloaked in pure light, one in darkness. The light one she recognized almost immediately; it was the avatar in which Paladine had first appeared to her – Fizban. She looked at him in wonder, the faith lost long ago restored at seeing his infinitely kind, infinitely wise face.

Her recognition of the other man was delayed only by the time it took for her to tear her gaze away from Paladine's holy face. When she finally did, she had to take a step back. She had so long since dared to hope…

"Fie…"

As Chaos dissolved into nothing and his being was taken into the jail of the Greygem, Evelynn's limp body fell to the ground with a sickening crack. As her body hit the hard ground, a last breath of life left her body in a sigh audible to all in the battlefield.

"Fie…" There was a small smile on her face and a peaceful look in her staring eyes that were attached to a neck twisted in an unnatural direction.

Dalamar had watched the battle with trepidation. What if Evelynn failed? He watched in helpless horror as Chaos began to squeeze Evelynn's body, and time seemed to slow as she pushed the halves of the Greygem together. Chaos' creatures stopped attacking, the knights held back, and even the dragons suspended in midair slowed their motions as much as possible as they waited with baited breath.

After moments or hours and what seemed to be a colossal effort, Evelynn finally succeeded in drawing together the two halves of the Gem. Dalamar sighed in relief, barely even feeling a twang of remorse that the woman that had saved them all was dying a painful, horrific death. Chaos was trapped within the Greygem once more, and both he and his minions began to fade from the mortal plane of existence. The Greygem fell to the ground, along with Evelynn's body, and as it rolled along the torn, broken ground, the crack around its circumference healed itself.

Evelynn's head jerked back unnaturally. "Fie…" Her last breath spoke of awe and peace.

Dalamar picked the Greygem up off of the ground and put it into one of his pouches for safekeeping. The Conclave, or those left of the Conclave, could figure out how to deal with it at a later point.

Dalamar, Raistlin, Catherine, and Fie trudged back to the Tower on foot, all too exhausted, both physically and emotionally, to suggest the use of magic. Upon their return, they all collapsed immediately into a dreamless sleep.

The next morning, Catherine awoke to a pounding on her door. Groggily, she crawled out of bed, ready to curse the intruder into oblivion. "Go 'way," she demanded as she opened the door.

"Did you just wake up?" Fie sounded astonished and just a little bit disdainful.

"And if I did? Why? What time is it?" Catherine was surprised to remember that she only had to look up a couple of inches to meet Fie's eyes, rather than over a foot. She smoothed her hair absently, making a futile attempt to calm the sleep-induced tangles.

Fie looked at her oddly. "It's nearly noon."

"Oh…" Catherine sounded slightly embarrassed, but she recovered quickly. "So? If you had just gotten resurrected, you would need sleep too," she said snappishly, only half-joking.

"That is what I wanted to talk to you about." Fie swept past her into the room, disregarding the fact that she was still wiping the sleep from her eyes. "What was death like?" He plopped down onto her bed, eyes wide with curiosity.

Catherine grabbed her brush, and began to comb the tangles out of her hair. "I really don't want to talk about it right now." She faced the mirror, not looking at Fie at all. "Even if I did, I don't think I could put it into words." She sighed.

"Sure you could. Why don't you want to talk about it?"

Kit looked at her friend sharply. She didn't like the way he seemed to disregard the feelings of all around him when he was in pursuit of knowledge. She liked learning things as much as the next person, more even, but she respected personal boundaries!

"I don't want to talk about it because I don't. It's private. I'm still coming to terms with it myself, and I need to think about it alone. I appreciate the support, but when it comes down to it, I need to handle this myself." As she spoke, the half-elf realized how sharp her voice must've sounded. Fie was out the door before she could apologize.

Raistlin was reading a book in his study, occasionally glaring at all of the spellbooks lining the walls that he could no longer read. At the soft knock, he looked up. "Enter."

Fie walked into the room, his hands hidden within the sleeves of his dark robe. "Master, I wish to learn more." His voice was cold, and had an odd, unreadable timbre. His eyes were hard, and the light in the room seemed to glance off of them.

Raistlin barely spared the boy a glare. "Can't you see, I'm busy? Later you will have your lesson."

"Ah, yes. You always put everyone else after yourself. How foolish of me to forget. All of that lovely knowledge that you can't even use any more, and you want to keep it for yourself."

Raistlin felt a chill run through his soul. History was repeating itself, and he was helpless to stop its relentless tide. "I don't wish to keep it all to myself, Fie. It is merely not time for you to learn all of it."

As Fie approached his desk, Raistlin realized that he had never felt more helpless in his life. Before he knew of his magic, his twin was always there to ensure his safety. After he learned how to harness his magic, of course, he had always had its security. Without it, he felt naked, weak. He still had his wits, but there was very little he could do with them.

Fie glided closer to the desk, a nasty smirk on his face. "No, it would never be time, would it? I would have to learn to appreciate the power, harness it 'properly.' Well, I do appreciate it. If I don't have it, how can I harness it? You're all too weak to try. Even you, reputed to have been so goddamned powerful. Well, now the knowledge will belong to someone who can use it."

Before Raistlin could respond, Fie whispered the words of a spell, and Raistlin felt phantom ropes securing him to the chair. Even though he knew the futility of it, he struggled against the ropes as Fie watched with a silent sneer. Finally, Raistlin grew still with a sign of weariness and resignation.

"Don't do this. It is not worth it. You may gain knowledge, but you will also scar your soul, and that you will never be able to reconcile." Raistlin was only able to keep himself from shaking by an immense expenditure of will power as Fie made the chair float to the center of the room.

"Not worth it? Of course it is worth it. I know that you have secrets that you would never share with me. I know that you fear me, fear the magic within me. Well, you were right to." Fie finally removed his hands from his sleeves, and revealed a deep red stone clutched in one fist.

Fie's eyes looked past Raistlin, seeing into the depths of his mind for a spell. He slowly placed the bloodstone on Raistlin's chest, which was suddenly rising and falling much more quickly than it had been before. Slowly, yet confidently, he began chanting the words. The words that Raistlin had known so well in his youth, had used so artfully.

As Fie chanted, Raistlin felt a great pain throughout his entire body. He could not contain a scream as his back arched, yanking his limbs against their invisible restraints. He felt years and years of knowledge being ripped from his brain. He felt his body sinking, shrinking even closer to his gaunt frame as the only thing that had been worth living for was cleaved from him. His face became a mask of death, skin stretched tight over hard bones. He felt the life leaving his body.

Finally, the pain abated. He knew that he had only seconds left on the mortal plane. Gasping, he drew in one final, painful, rasping breath. "Thus, the circle turns again. Thus is the cycle complete." His head snapped back, and the former archmagus began to laugh.