Originally, I never wanted this thing.
It belonged to the man I once referred to as my father. He wasn't really . . . but he sure acted like it.
I followed him everywhere. Through the village, through the woods, through the fields . . . through the path where he was killed.
He was the most of a dad I really had. My real father left, and my adoptive never cared for me. But him . . . he loved me.
Jaren Ward.
And when he died, the weapon that was originally his became mine. It was gold and black, with a nice heft to it and well-fit grip. On the barrel, it had the words "Tex Machina" inscribed in gold.
Fastest gun in the system, for all I know. Surely still is.
. . .
I can still remember that evening.
The exchange of shots—with one yin sound firing after the yang—was all I heard while he left me behind. I wanted to run in, but he taught me better than that. But thirty minutes later, his ghost came to me. It scanned me with its one, singular eye, before letting the silence mellow. It was the first time it spoke to me.
"Jaren is dead," it told me.
I didn't believe him.
So I ran through the woods—all the way to where the gunfight was. There lie his body, with the weapon firmly held in-hand. In his chest, there was a crude spike planted in deep. It fed off the light left in him.
"Voice playback, initiated," his ghost booted.
I tearfully listened.
"Hey, ghost?"
"Ward."
"This guy . . . I'm not too confident in what'll go down."
"Yes?"
"The boy, ghost. If I somehow die . . . him."
"What do you mean."
"I want you to give him my gun. Make sure he has it. It's his. And you . . . become his. The light in him is loud. Bumbling. Bustling."
"Do you believe you'll die?"
"No. I'm just not confident."
"Understood."
The next days were rough. Or, more like years. But I remember him. The darkest shadow I would ever know.
He towered over me that day I saw him. I was still young. Untrained. He could have killed me. But he was too twisted. He squinted and examined me, noticing Jaren's gun on my hip. He scoffed. Smiled. His wicked, evil grin is something that drove me to silently hunt him for the following years.
And only four years later, I had learned a lot. The sun timed in at about noon, and that man stood just paces away from myself. His gun hooked onto his hand as if he couldn't let go. My thumb brushed over the hammer of the cannon at my side.
"Been a while," he dared to speak.
I kept silent, remembering Jaren's lifeless form.
"The gunslinger's sword . . . his cannon," he spoke, nodding towards the iron clad on my hip. "That was a gift."
Could suppose that he would have taken it when he killed Jaren. But left it.
"An offering from me . . . to you."
My hands strained to the weapon.
". . . Nothing to say?" he asked, tilting his head lifelessly.
". . . I've been waiting for you. For this day. . . . Many times, I thought you'd faltered. Given up," he continued. I hadn't a word for him. My light attitude had been absent for the last five years.
He raised a hand waved it off gently.
"But here you are. . . . This truly is an end."
Before his sentence had found an end of its own, Jaren Ward's cannon flew up in my grip. My arm tensed as two beams of light burst through the muzzle. Both placed in his chest. He fell, not given the chance to react.
I walked up to the hollow body, staring down to it. The cannon burning with an intense flame of light, I levelled it with the creature's motionless head. The final respect I'd pay to the man I would call my father.
The words that followed flowed off my tongue in respective silkiness.
"Yours . . . not mine."
I holstered the gun. It was now mine. And my gun was the weapon to have that final term.
The Last Word.