A.N: WHEW. Well, I suppose this is the last one for this Christmas collection. Sorry about all the trouble with updating, and thank you all for your support. Enjoy.

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Toy Soldier

Anonymoussi

Just this once, I'd like to see Polaris again.

--

When Aurel was five, his mother would take him around to all the toy shops in Prontera during the wintertime. Through waves of softly drifting snow, they would admire every display, with their bright dripping lights and spreads of dolls and sweets.

On Christmas Eve, his mother would let him pick one toy.

When he was eight, he chose a toy soldier.

--

The pain was nearly unbearable. Thank goodness it was only a memory.

Aurel stood on the cliff before the impressive silhouette of the city and let his distant past pound down on him like the blizzard clawing at his clothes.

The snow whirled around him and howled forlornly. Other than that, there was silence.

He sighed heavily and began to walk.

--

The toy soldier sat on his bedside table for a night. His mother had wanted to wrap it up and have a real gift-opening ceremony about it. Aurel had wanted it by his side. He let her tie a red ribbon around the soldier's helmet, and that was that.

When he woke up in the morning, the toy soldier was still there. The ribbon was there, too, red as the paint on the soldier's jacket.

He ate breakfast with the soldier by his side. It peered at him through eyes painted white with wide dots of black, and his mother laughed at him and called him silly.

While his mother wrapped last-minute gifts and tidied the house for Christmas dinner and put the ham on to roast, Aurel danced around with the soldier. When he was tired of that, he played sentry and guard with it, and after that, heroes and villains. Just for the sake of his new, best Christmas gift yet, Aurel had let the soldier play the hero. And after they grew tired of that, his mother had announced that it was time to go out and meet their family for brunch.

She wouldn't let him take the soldier with him. He wanted it with him, pleaded and put on airs and faces and almost, almost pretended to cry. She said no. Someone might take it, she reasoned. And finally, he begged her if he could unwrap the gift.

She had hesitated. Her eyes had traveled between Aurel and his toy, uncertainty he had never seen in his beautiful, strong mother. And in the end, she had said yes.

Off flew the ribbon, and it fluttered and settled onto the carpet, where it lay for who-knew-how-long. The toy soldier grinned its poster paint grin at him as he walked out the door, led by his mother's hand.

He had grinned too. I'll be back, he'd said. And he could have sworn that its eyes had twinkled in response.

--

The snow dripped through his long hair and into his eyes. He stood before the boarded windows and doors, the badly repaired cracked glass with a large black X painted on it. There was a worm sheet of cloth tacked over the window, soaked through with the snow, that read "Out of Business."

Ten years. Ten years was all it took.

Aurel stretched a hand out. Through the bandages on his fingers, he could still feel the smoothness of the glass where it hadn't been shattered and then taped jaggedly together. Cold and hard.

"I'll come back for you," he whispered, like he meant it.

The windows and empty streets were there to watch him walk away.

--

Hypothetically speaking, the world had ended on that afternoon.

On the walk to the restaurant, his mother had seemed distracted. Anxious, maybe. She glanced from left to right, sometimes turning all the way around, as though looking for someone. And then, when she wouldn't find the person, she would turn forward and walk on.

He had asked her if there was anything wrong. She had told him no, knelt down and hugged him. If anything ever happens to you, she had said, run away as far as you can from our house, and never return.

How could she say things like that if there was nothing wrong? He had told her so. For a moment, she had looked troubled, and then she had ruffled his hair and smiled like usual. Of course, she was being silly. What was she talking about? And then she had hugged him one last time, and told him that he was the best little boy that she could have ever hoped to have.

Going up the walkway to their favorite café with the snow falling lightly around them, his mother had stopped as though frozen. When he asked her what was wrong, she didn't answer. And when he had tugged on her hand, concerned, she had crumpled to her knees and fallen face-first into the snow.

--

The Christmas tree had fallen over. Aurel didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

Other than that, everything was the same. Dust had collected on the carpet, making its rich wine color even darker. The grandfather clock in the far corner of the room was still ticking. The brass of the pendulum was tarnished nearly black. The glass casing was mottled brown with age.

Aurel cast his gaze across the floor and found what he was looking for.

There was a small gold bell laying on the floor as though it had been unceremoniously thrown there. Aurel picked it up and pocketed it, and then blinked at something he had not seen before.

On the carpet next to the bell's vacated spot was a thin ribbon curled about itself. Its color was iridescent, the red of soldiers' blood.

On impulse, Aurel took that, too. Then he left, scattering dust in his wake.

­Aurel breathed hard through his gritted teeth and hurled a knife at the wall. It missed the man's hand by an inch.

"Your anger is unreasonable," his victim crowed disdainfully, despite the fact that he was on his death bed.

"You've no room to talk," Aurel snarled, and threw another knife. It thudded hollowly on the other side of the man's hand. "All your officers are dead, your wife deserted you for another rich, filthy debonair, and your scheming and conniving relatives are no longer breathing, which will be the same for you."

The governor waved a hand. "My wife? She was a minx. She only wanted my money, and now it can't be hers. And my officers' lives were of no consequence."

Aurel flicked his wrist. This time, the knife was a hair's breadth from the governor's ear.

"So they were just pawns, too?" he huffed, drawing his katars. He had seen enough of child's play. "And they weren't even that much in the end."

"That can also be said of you, can it not?" the governor said. "Legend says that you are bound by a curse."

His fourth knife, his last, soared under the governor's chin and landed by his neck. The thud echoed loudly across the governor's study chamber.

"Ah, that struck a nerve," the man said delicately, moving away from the wall, where his head would have been trapped by the thrown knives that nearly met their marks. "But that would mean it's true. Gypsies, whose magic artifact had fallen into the unsuspecting hands of many who subsequently grew doomed. The same can be said of you, innocent young boy who had once convinced his mother to buy it for him."

He had no knives to throw. He had no insults to hurl. The governor smirked at his frozen expression hidden behind strands of unruly black hair.

"And now you think you can find this little toy, the thing that bound you, and thus find the secret to being free? Boy, while my ancestors' blood still runs through those that are alive, you will not be free. And when they still live, they can kill you like the nothing that you are."

His hands shook, and he bled sweat and years of pain and anguish and tears and blood.

"An expensive tool, with no freedom and no escape. You are that toy soldier, and you will die a most bitter, solitary death."

Something snapped. Aurel flew at him in cold, cold rage.

It was not until he stood with death and blood written over his hands that he realized his last hope for release had been destroyed at his own will.

He would die with that man, because that man had died by him.

He turned around. His hands were shaking. The least he could do was leave this wretched place, leave behind the terror he had caused, and walk out into the cold winter and die a lonesome, peaceful death. But when he looked up, he froze mid-step and did not move.

Standing in the doorway was a young girl with black hair like ink and even darker eyes and pale skin like that of porcelain or perhaps white glass. She stared at him with listless wide eyes and he stared back, and suddenly it occurred to him that she had the governor's jet-black eyes.

Before Aurel could start breathing again, the girl slipped out of the doorway and had disappeared.

--

The palace of Morroc by night was looming, silent and slightly foreboding. Aurel stood on the roof, watching the stars wink in the deep night sky, and breathed a sigh.

He walked to the edge of the roof and knelt down. The drop was a sheer six stories, and the streets below were hard sandstone, strong enough to crush bones. The former he knew by research, and the latter by experience.

He gripped the smooth stone lip of the eaves and threw himself over.

Once he was standing on the thin stone ledge that ran under all of the sixth story windows, Aurel leaned against the walls and paused to consider. No matter how skilled or careful he was after eight years of this, he could not go on with a precarious balancing act along the perimeter of the palace and hope to live. So he was left with…

Offhandedly, he leaned slightly to his right and peered through the closed window. Then he drew back.

A moment later, he had a pocketknife at the lock of the window and was prying it open silently. He shuffled back along the ledge to let the shutters open all the way, and then he inched forward again and slipped deftly onto the windowsill.

The shutters creaked in the passing wind.

--

She was there.

The girl was swathed carefully into the folds of the bedspread, hair spilling every which way like a river of ink. Dim golden light from the lamp at her bedside cast a warm circle of light over the edge of her bed.

The doll was there as well, tucked under one arm and resting in the crook of her elbow. Small fingers, slender to the point of frailty, curled around the doll's shoulders.

Aurel stood beside the bed and stared.

If he killed her, he would have the rest of his life, and freedom.

His throat tightened painfully, testament to ten years of dwindling health and despair.

The face of the sleeping girl was soft and untroubled. The curve of her chin was delicate, and her eyelashes were thin and dark like the edges of silken fans.

There was hardly any hope for her, either.

Her hands were thin and almost bony, her lips pale and chapped. Aurel reached out and held his hand to her forehead. She was cold to the touch. He stood back and studied her again, carefully. She looked helpless.

How could he kill someone who was already destined to die?

--

Aurel stood on the windowsill, overlooking the rest of Morroc, and prepared to jump, when he made the mistake of hearing someone cough.

He made it worse by pausing, both hands gripping the shutters and poised to push.

And then he dug the hole deeper when he stood straight and turned around.

The girl was wide awake, staring at the doll in her arms with impassive surprise. Tied around its shoulders was a crimson ribbon, and from its feathered cap dangled a bell.

Aurel stood frozen in the window as she very carefully set the doll down on the covers.

"If you are leaving, then take me with you. I want to see Polaris one last time."

--

She would die at midnight.

He cradled her gingerly in his arms, as though she might fall into pieces at any moment, which could not be far from the truth. She clutched the doll firmly in both arms, and they trekked across the desert together, the wind blowing their footsteps away as soon as they made them.

"There," she whispered suddenly, breaking the silence, pointing forwards. He followed her indication and his eyes fell on the dark blur of what looked to be a small grove of palm trees, shielding a shallow pond.

He set her down gently on the sand when they reached the little oasis. The wind did not blow as fiercely under the shelter of the trees, and she could breathe easily.

"I don't know who you are," she confessed quietly, an arm curling around the doll.

"Aurel."

"You have a last name?"

"Mertense."

"Ah."

Her hands sifted through the sand.

"You left Prontera to move away from the snow?"

He stared at her. Her smile was slightly rueful.

She sighed and let her head tilt against the curve of the tree trunk.

"My name is Mariana. My mother thought it sounded pretty…I haven't talked to anyone aside from my maid for three years, so I wouldn't know what anyone else thought of it."

She smiled at him.

"What do you think?"

He bowed his head.

Mariana sighed and stretched her arms to the sky.

"I'm sorry…"

He cast her a sideways glance.

"I…haven't seen stars in years. I suppose…"

She looked imploringly at him.

"Would you carry me out to the sand?"

--

Aurel lifted her easily again; she was impossibly light. He fought against the roar of the wind and stumbled up the side of a sand dune, something he had gone through many times before. He laid her down gently at the summit and helped her sit up.

"I can see it now," she said, and lifted her hand to point.

Far above, nestled in the deep clouds, was a single bright star, winking gently.

"The North Star. It never moves."

Aurel sat down beside her. The wind rustled and whispered around them.

"My father was right. Life commands us like soldiers, and we are driven by things we must do and things we cannot let alone. And sometimes, when we are bound to a fate that we cannot control, we despair in thinking about all the things that we were never able to do."

Mariana held the doll tightly to her. Its grin seemed more of a leer.

"We don't realize that in the time we spend worrying over ourselves and others, we could be taking steps, however small, to help make our lives better."

She carefully untied the ribbon. The bell made a clear, tinny ring that was swept away in the wind.

"I don't think I'll be able to see the sun again," she said, smiling sadly. "But when I leave, you will not be bound to this anymore. Promise me that you will do everything you ever wanted to do, and do not hold back."

She was fading quickly, Aurel could tell. He helped her lay down, and placed the doll in her arms. She hugged it to her chest and sighed contentedly.

"I'm closing my eyes on the stars tonight," she said happily. "Would you admire the sun for me tomorrow?"

--

At midnight, Mariana closed her eyes. She was wearing the ribbon tied gently in her hair, and in her arms was the toy soldier.

She was smiling slightly as Aurel stood to leave. He returned the smile.

As he walked away, the first fingers of dawn crept slowly up the horizon.

WOW. That took a while XD. Had the idea swimming around for quite a bit, but didn't know how to voice it. Still, it came out alright. And, characteristic of anything I do, it's angst.

I hope you all enjoyed reading everything that we (the people over at Oh! Porings concocted). It took quite a bit of work getting updates here, because our muses are fickle and the plot bunnies kind of...died.

So, thanks to everyone who took the time to read this. Double thanks and a cookie to those who decided to review, and hugs to everyone in general 3. Happy Holidays, and have an excellent New Year, on behalf of the Porings! (and please excuse the super-long A/N x.x).