fleets: First of all, I am so sorry it took this long for me to upload another chapter after that cliffhanger I left everyone with the last time. I'd meant to update a week later, but a lot of things happened in real life (some involving air travel, and although I thought I could write on the plane that doesn't happen, or rather doesn't happen well, when I'm not getting enough sleep BECAUSE PLANES).

The good news, also the sad news, is that you will never have to wait for an OA update ever again, because this will be the very last one. Yes, you read that right. Last update. Because I am going to be submitting 3 chapters all at once tonight that will finish this series forever.

Which brings me to my next bit; there's another reason why this update took longer than I thought. While writing this, I started becoming incredibly nervous. So nervous that I couldn't bring myself to submit the chapters I'd already finished. Why? Because endings are, well, ENDINGS. Let me explain:

I can write a really enjoyable, decent story and then BAM write the lamest, most horrible ending ever to grace the planet and all of that effort I'd put in earlier wouldn't mean a thing anymore. And there will be nothing more I can do to fix it or make it better. Once the damage has been done, I can't go back and un-end and ending. It just doesn't happen! Mass Effect 3, anyone? Yeah. Take a great series, and ruin it all in the span of ten minutes at the very very end.

With that said, I would like everyone to not judge these last few chapters until you have reached the final word. I already anticipate that some of you might get a little upset by where I take things from here, but please... yell at me only when you're still unhappy after the very, very last chapter at #29.

Chapter 27: The World and Death

The World and Death:

There will be conflict. The life that The Magician knows will be overthrown or even ruined. There are two possible outcomes of this change, and they're not mutually exclusive, mind you: achievement of great and glorious things represented by The World, or –

…Death?

Yes. The loss of everything. Abrupt, complete change. That is the card of Death.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

He'd won. There was no way anyone could stop him now. He had the Wishing Cap and he would use it for far greater things than what the self-absorbed wizzrobe had wasted it on. Dugal clutched the surprisingly soft fabric of the damning cap tightly between his fingers.

The problem with Thistle's wish had been that it didn't protect him from the cap being stolen. Dugal would make sure the same thing wouldn't happen to him.

He had the cap. He was never going to let it escape him. He couldn't believe he was holding such a powerful thing all for himself, but then again, he could: after all, a part of him knew he would come out on top eventually. He always did.

He continued to run past the frozen characters, sneering as he did so and admiring the cap in his hands. What should he wish for first? There were endless possibilities. He could wish for as many things as he wanted. He could have all the answers to any questions, all the impossibilities would be granted, and he could even bend the laws of physics if he so wanted. The world was his and his alone.

No one could stop him.

It was a great feeling. An indescribable feeling that made everything seem small and insignificant. The peculiar feeling was heightened by the surreal surroundings of everything stopped in time, from the small sparks of fire that remained completely motionless as though in a picture and the immobile expressions of Dark, Thistle, Thyme, and Vaati who were in the middle of fighting. It was unreal.

Without warning, Dugal, who had been in the middle of running suddenly stopped, a hand to his chest. A jolt of searing pain shot through him, a million needles piercing every inch of his skin. He couldn't breathe. His chest felt like it was going to burst.

What… is this?

He fell to the ground, still refusing to release his hold on the Wishing cap, his body failing him. Everything else was still completely peaceful in its frozen state, and the only one suffering was the man lying on the floor, writhing and clutching his heart with one hand and the cap in the other. He couldn't even move his hands to place the cap on top of his head anymore.

Am I dying? Dugal's vision was fuzzy. His glasses had fallen off crookedly on his face after he'd fallen and now he couldn't really see. I can't breathe.

From his blurry vision he could make out the outline of Thistle in his dark blue suit. Ah, he remembered bitterly, I only had two months to live from that time he cursed me. But… didn't I have at least another week left?

His consciousness was fading. The Phantom Hourglass, running out of the last of its power that remained in the sand, released the time-stop. There was an explosion of sound and movement as time unfroze. Dugal gave the world a sour smile as a thought occurred to him just. Ah, I see… abusing the hourglass must have shortened the time I had. 2 months-worth of time had already passed for me. I don't believe it.

Halstead Dugal blacked out just as Thistle, Vaati, and Thyme all looked at him in disbelief, finally noticing his sudden appearance out of seemingly thin air.

I… I of all people… miscalculated.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Dark watched the fight between Vaati and Thistle, and then looked at the sword in his hand. Energy projectiles flashed around them, shooting across the room and exploding quickly like firecrackers. The two sorcerers appeared and reappeared constantly in different locations, and occasionally some weird shadow creature was summoned to join the fight for added chaos.

What could he even do in a fight between these two extremely powerful people? All he had was a simple sword, a rod that shot fire, and a claw that could bring things closer to him. What could any of those do against Thistle?

Honestly, probably nothing. But there was something he could do and that was to help the woman who was still bound against the wall by some invisible shackles. "Bates!" he called.

The sentry, who had been making his way towards Vaati to help fight, turned briefly towards Dark, debated whether or not he should help Vaati instead, and then irritably flew back to where Dark was. "Yes?"

"I want to free her. Can you help?" Dark waved his hands towards Thyme who looked up in surprise.

"Are you cognizant of the fact that she was in league with the wizzrobe?" Bates pointed out.

"Then why would he do this to her?" Dark snapped, while he looked closely near her wrists to see if he could see what was holding her up.

Thyme stirred, noticing the boy and who appeared to be talking to himself as he tried to find a way to free her. She looked up sadly, and then sighed heavily. She mumbled something under her breath, and the only thing Dark could catch were the words "I'm such an idiot."

"Indeed. My ensorcelled ocular perception can identify several spells chaining her in place. I can remove these promptly."

Dark nodded at Bates who went to work removing the magical binds that held Thyme in place. He held out his hand to steady her when they were removed. "I don't know who you are and what you've done, lady," he addressed her sternly when she continued to hang her head, "but now's not the time to regret the things that happened. Learn from your mistakes."

The three of them moved out the way, ducking their heads as somewhere behind them, Thistle swooped down to attack Vaati. The sorcerer and the wizzrobe were just barely evenly matched, with Thistle holding a little of the advantage, and the wind mage appeared just slightly distracted by the new people who had joined them in the battle grounds. Thyme returned a blank, lost look at Dark when they were away from danger for the time being. "I don't know what to do anymore…"

"You can help me find a way to stop that lunatic!" Dark grabbed both of her wrists tightly. "Now are you going to help me end this or not?!"

At that moment, Thyme's blank expression lightened up into one of surprise. Her eyes widened, her brows arched, and her jaw dropped slightly with a shocked gasp. However, she was looking at something behind Dark, several feet away.

Halstead Dugal had appeared out of thin air, and in his hands was the Wishing Cap.

Everyone had turned to stop and look at the man who had magically appeared from nowhere.

The Wishing Cap. The Wishing Cap was right there. Just lying there.

The cap.

The Cap.

Thyme felt a small but purposeful tug on her wrist. There was a determined, do-or-die expression on Dark's face as he launched himself towards the Wishing Cap that was clutched in Dugal's lifeless hands. Thyme's wandering gaze hardened as Dark's words echoed in her ears.

Are you going to help me end this or not?

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

I give up. I literally give up. Time to go home and go to sleep and forget this whole thing ever happened. This is too crazy for me and I can't keep up. Vaati stared at the unmoving body of Dugal that had suddenly appeared in the middle of the room. First, Thyme had jumped in out of nowhere. Next, Dark had jumped in out of nowhere. Now, Dugal had jumped in out of nowhere. Where the hell had he come from, and why was he lying on the floor like that?

Wait, was he even alive?

Vaati then noticed that the man's face was becoming a ghastly shade of grey, and his eyes were open unblinking in a blank stare. Well… if he happened to be alive at all he sure wasn't in a good state. Maybe he felt some pity for the guy; after all, he'd been a pretty decent contestant (maybe he'd even let him have the name 'rival?'). There wasn't time to ponder any of that, however, because what he saw next made his breath catch.

There was something purple caught between Dugal's fingers.

The. Goddess. Damned. Wishing. Cap.

Vaati's head swung immediately over to Thistle, who appeared to be just as shocked as Vaati about the appearance of Dugal on the floor. The wizzrobe's hands were patting his head dumbfounded, the cap no longer there. His grey hair was fully visible without the cap covering it.

Thistle no longer had the Wishing Cap.

The next few seconds were a chaotic blur as everyone in the room dashed for the enchanted cap on the floor, sitting between the unconscious Dugal's hands. Vaati saw Dark rush in next to him, and a long claw attached to a chain shot from the teen's arm towards the cap. The sorcerer heard Thistle shout angrily as the Wishing Cap flew towards Dark's fingers, and before Vaati could stop him the wizzrobe summoned a pillar of ice that froze Dark in a massive ice wall. Before Dark was completely trapped, however, he'd managed to make a desperate throw to the person nearest to him, who turned out to be Thyme.

Thyme caught the cap, and for a moment she looked as though Dark had thrown a bomb at her. She stared at the troublesome thing in her hands in a mix of awe and terror, and then she noticed Thistle lunging towards her in a stricken frenzy. Her next actions surprised Vaati so much that he almost tripped over himself mid-dash towards the cap. A brief look of determined finality passed her face before she chucked the Wishing Cap as hard as she could towards the wind mage. The cap slapped him softly right on his nose when he failed to catch it, as it had caught him completely off guard. He heard the enraged yell of Thistle as he nearly crashed into Thyme, now empty handed and who was looking at her former partner with an expression of defiance.

Vaati hurriedly swatted the cap out of his face, and then clutched it tightly between his fingers. The familiar red jewel gleamed back at him as though it were leering back with a wide-grinned 'hello.' He looked back towards the wizzrobe one last time with an incredulous sneer and shoved the hat down on his head.

He'd waited for this moment for so long ever since he'd started formulating an idea to recreate the Wishing Cap. He'd had weeks to wonder what his first wish would be, and he'd never been more certain about this wish.

Of course, back when this wish had first occurred to him, he had thought himself crazy. Once this wish was made, there was no going back; even the cap's awesome powers would not be able to undo this one wish. Back in the age where Hyrule still existed as a monarchy and monsters still crawled around in the deepest dungeons, he would never have even considered making the wish he was about to make. But times had changed. He had changed. And he knew in his gut that he was making the right choice.

Vaati closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. There wasn't a lot of time to second guess himself.

I wish for magic to disappear from this world.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Thyme looked back at the pale haired teen who had hurriedly rammed the Wishing Cap down on his head. It sat crooked, and a little too far down his eyes after he'd pulled it down over his head too quickly. Why hadn't she made the wish herself?

Because it couldn't have been her. Her feelings would have gotten in the way.

But him? She was sure, from that time she'd had that conversation with him a while back, that he would be able to do it. Some time ago, she'd asked him a question:

"So what would you have wished for, if Thistle hadn't tricked you into making the cap for him?"

Vaati scrunched his nose at Thyme's question in disgust. "He didn't trick me into making the cap for him, I offered to make it so I could steal it back and dethrone him."

"Oh, well, good luck with that. The whole stealing thing I mean." Thyme snickered, covering her giggles with an elegant hand. They were sitting in the luxury lounge, chatting on one of the big leather couches near the abandoned chess sets.

"Yeah, well, he was a lot more thorough than I thought…" Vaati muttered.

"Okay but besides that, what would you have wished for anyway?" Thyme pressed, curious. "Would you really wish for something so boring like 'get rid of Thistle?'"

"Nonsense, I wouldn't waste a wish on something so boring."

"Huh."

"Oh come on, I'm a little more imaginative than that."

"Pffft. Infinite riches? World domination?"

"Why would I want that?"

"Oh I don't know, you look selfish enough."

"Heh. Fine," Vaati chuckled before his grin slowly drooped down into a small, troubled frown. "But really I'd wish for something completely different."

"Like what?"

Vaati paused, letting his chin sink into his hands as he leaned against the couch's armrest. "A sacrifice, I suppose? If I wasn't some kind of villain some people might call it a selfless sacrifice for the greater good. Feh. But since I'm the real antagonist here, despite what others might think, I'd rather people think of it as completely selfish. Why? Well for one thing my motives are selfish. A lot of time has passed since I first wished to be the Greatest Sorcerer in the World. I thought my life would be so spectacular, then. Nothing would be able to stand in my way. I would be able to do whatever I wanted! I almost had it, you know, if it weren't for my carelessness and arrogance."

"And now, now times have changed. The idiot masses are a lot more powerful now. They have huge organized armies and incredible technology capable of killing millions with the click of a button. It's the age of information, power alone won't let me do whatever I want. It takes more than overthrowing a single king to take control of a whole nation. And so I've been thinking, what did I actually want before this whole mess started? I'm not talking about this current mess, but this WHOLE mess, right from the beginning. Right when I first started plotting about stealing the Wishing Cap from that daft old man thousands of years ago. It's easy to forget sometimes, in the midst of it all, what this whole thing was about. All I remember, vaguely, is something about wanting to show them all what I could do. That I was the best. That I could do anything I want and no one would be able to stop me. I guess I still kind of want that, I mean who wouldn't, but at the same time…"

"It's so much effort now. I mean sure, with the Wishing Cap I could really do anything I wanted. But even if I wished for something that would let me do that, what then? There's going to be someone like Thistle. Din, even if I got rid of him forever, well, there's going to be tons of people just like him and I'll always have to worry about someone trying to pull the same stunt he did. Do I want to do that forever? It sounds like a pain to be honest. Maybe if I had the patience to care about what other people were up to I could do it, but I can't be bothered with that."

"I've lived a long time. I'm tired of it all. It seems like everything magic has ever done to me is make everything more complicated. Everyone kind of assumes that magic can make life easier, but what has it done to me? It let me be great, but then it led me to be trapped in a stupid sword for a stupid amount of time. It gave me the power to take over kingdoms, but the consequence was to be trapped in the same stupid sword AGAIN. And then what? I achieved immortality through reincarnation only to curse myself into losing all my memories every time I died. By the time I remembered who I was, someone else had taken my spot and had established himself a pretty organized system to basically do whatever he wanted. It was… kind of what I wanted, actually. Complete, utter freedom. Except when I actually saw what it took to achieve that it didn't… it didn't really seem all that free. I love the wind. You know why? It does whatever it wants. No one can stop it. No one can bend it. It goes where it pleases whenever it wants. No one can push it around. What Thistle has… it's like he has to put down all these cages around himself to keep that illusion of freedom. Some people can deal with that, sure, but I can't. I finally understand how stupid this world is and I'm sick of it. It would be better off if no one had magic. No one."

Well… that was everything Vaati had thought of saying in that moment when Thyme had asked him what he'd wish for, but he hadn't said a word. Instead, he gave a small sneer, almost laughing out loud from the irony of it all. "This seems disgusting coming from me, but what if I told you I'd wish for the world to be a better place?"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

As Vaati made the wish, he saw a brief flash of light. He found himself far above the clouds, all alone. There was a faint ringing in his ears that muted all other sounds. There was a white light hovering in front of him, and as he squinted his eyes, they became the shape of a woman.

The woman spread her arms wide as she walked slowly towards him. Her eyes looked upon him with ageless wisdom, as though she knew everything everyone had ever suffered. Vaati's heart fell from the way she smiled at him proudly but tinged with sadness. She sank to her knees where Vaati knelt, stupefied, and the woman embraced him warmly. She whispered in his ear just before she faded away into nothingness.

"You made a brave decision. We are proud of you."

Vaati opened his eyes and the vision disappeared. Farore?

There was a clear, crystalline crack that whipped through the air like the ringing of a silver bell. The red gem of the wishing cap had shattered to dust, and with it the cap itself disintegrated into a blue light.

Thistle stood in front of him, frozen. The wizzrobe's eyes snapped wide behind his mask as he saw that the hat had vanished, and then he abruptly fell to his knees as though something had knocked him down.

"AAAAaaaaAAgGGHH!"

The wizzrobe gave the most horrific shriek as he clawed at his head, and he eventually fell to his side, writhing on the floor. Dark energy swirled around him and the wind picked up as the aura dispersed to nothingness; as it did so, the wind seemed to howl with the shriek of a different creature. Perhaps it was the demon that Corbin Robespierre had once, long ago, allowed to possess him. Vaati watched pityingly as Thistle clutched his throat, gasping for air. You lost.

It was a ghastly way to go, Vaati thought as he watched Thistle's writhing slow down to a few twitches and eventually to complete stillness. Wizzrobes were creatures of magic. They were demons that had taken control of the soul of a foolish man who had thought he could take the power of dark magic. Without magic, wizzrobes were nothingness. They could not exist without it, and therefore neither could Thistle.

The demon that had possessed Corbin Robespierre was dead. Corbin Robespierre himself had died long ago. The wizzrobe Thistle was undoubtedly dead, wished into nonexistence.

There was a small, raspy yelp as Thyme gasped in shock a few feet away from Vaati. She took a few shaky steps towards the lifeless body of the creature who had come so close to ruling over everything. Then, she broke out running and collapsed before Thistle. "No…" she whispered hoarsely, "come back." She shook his shoulders. "Come back, please." She shook his shoulders a little harder, but the wizzrobe remained completely still. His inquisitive green eyes wouldn't open, and he wouldn't greet her with that silly laugh of his.

Vaati looked down at his feet as Thyme refused to believe that her partner was dead. It wasn't his fault, really. It was that wizzrobe's fault for ruining everything. Why did she have to make him feel guilty about it? "He's not coming back. Look… so, he's a wizzrobe. Wizzrobes are just… empty husks of men possessed by a demon and… demons are creatures of magic." He paused, finding it difficult to continue with Thyme so heartbroken. "When I wished for magic to disappear I… basically wished away his existence. Face it," his voice hardened suddenly, as though he'd become annoyed and frustrated that someone was crying so much over his wish. People crying only made him angry. "He's gone and there's nothing we can do about it. He brought this upon himself!"

Thyme wasn't really hearing what Vaati was saying as she sobbed into Thistle's shoulders. Her bottom lip quivered as she failed to hold back her tears. "I'm sorry. Oh goddesses I'm so sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry!" Thyme wailed, her voice becoming a barely comprehensible sentence interrupted with heavy sobbing, "Why does it have to end this way?!" She buried her face on his chest, her body shaking in grief. She cried some more in a messy gurgle while everyone else straightened themselves out to figure out what damage had been done. A few paces away, Dugal spluttered and coughed, gasping for breath and looking incredulously around him for an explanation. He looked around, puzzled at the scene while Thyme, hiccupping quietly now, was hunched over the dead Thistle. Her voice was now but a small whimper. "Why couldn't you just be happy with what you had…? You're such an idiot, it's all your fault. All your fault. It's… it's all my fault."

Vaati walked over to Dugal, leaving Thyme alone to herself. "So you're alive," he stated matter-of-factly.

Dugal's surprised expression returned to his usual self-assured one. "Indeed," he spoke lowly, picking himself up from the ground. His right hand moved over his heart before it dropped to his sides in a fist. "My time was supposed to be up," he said this almost accusingly at Vaati, waiting for an explanation.

Vaati smirked bitterly. "Heh, you still believe in curses? Because those things don't exist anymore."

Dugal looked towards him questioningly. Then, something occurred to him and he looked wildly around the room. "The cap! Where…?"

"You still believe in magic, too?" Vaati sneered.

Understanding dawned on the other man when he pieced everything together, and his head turned towards the lifeless Thistle and the woman grieving over him. His expression softened. "I see…" he whispered. He gave a small nod. "Did you wish…?" he trailed off.

"I ended it. That's all."

"End everything."

"Yeah. For good."

Dugal paused, then he gave a small tired smile. "I see…" he repeated.

A rustle of frantic movement caught Vaati's eye, then, and he noticed Dark walking wildly in circles around the room, searching for something. He was calling out to some invisible thing in the air while clutching something tightly in his left hand. Dark was still drenched and shaking from the ice that still clung in certain parts of his clothes, but he didn't seem to care. Vaati caught the name 'Bates' being repeated a few times as Dark continued his search through chattering teeth and sneezes. Vaati sighed. Oh for Nayru's sake…

The sorcerer walked over to Dark and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Hey, Dark…"

"Bates! This isn't funny Bates, where are you?" Dark continued to call.

"Dark…"

"I know you like Vaati better than me but you can at least let me know you're okay!"

"Dark!" Vaati forcefully turned Dark around to face him. He was shocked when he saw that the other teen's face was pale and distraught. The sorcerer had trouble forming words with the look Dark gave him.

"Vaati," Dark's voice cracked. "What did you do?"

"Hey, I didn't realize you were so attached to that thing," Vaati wrinkled his nose, uncomfortable by all the depressed atmosphere. This was a victory. He'd fixed everything at his cost. Why were so many people so upset, then? Goddesses damn it. Of all the people in the room he should be the most upset.

Dark shoved Vaati's hand away from his shoulder angrily. "Bates," he shot heavily, "is not a 'thing.' He's my friend, and you had something to do with this. Where is he? Where is he Vaati?"

Vaati's cheeks reddened, annoyed. "The hell Dark it's just a sentry! I set things right by getting rid of all forms of magic, and that also means I can't summon sentries anymore. The thing's gone and it's never coming back, so snap out of it!"

Dark looked at Vaati blankly for a moment, and then his hands curled into fists. Then, they relaxed and he slumped down onto the floor, sitting on the puddle of water that had formed around his feet. "Just a sentry, huh?" Defeated, he hung his head with a sad, disbelieving smile. He stared pointedly at his feet while Vaati waited impatiently, wondering what to do about all of the feelings flying around the room. Dark shook his head slowly, and eventually he spoke. "You know what he said to me, just before he disappeared?" Dark spoke more to himself than to anyone in particular. "Right when I regained consciousness he appeared right out of nowhere in front of my face. 'Don't have much time,' he'd said. 'Before I surrender, there is but one thing I would like you to harken.' Little guy has such a weird vocabulary I didn't understand what he was going on about at first. But you know what he said right after that? 'Our meeting was a blessed felicity. Our partnership an indomitable tempest. Our farewell a contrite mourning. You are a good friend, Dark. Goodbye.'" Dark looked up at Vaati's flat expression with a pained smile of disbelief. "And then he disappeared."

Vaati threw his hands out wide, exasperated from how this was turning out . "What do you want me to do, Dark? What?" He paced around in small circles, as though his feet needed somewhere else to go but couldn't decide where. Anywhere but here. "I just stopped an insane wizzrobe from turning the world into his nightmare. Sacrifices were needed."

Dark stood up abruptly. His brows were scrunched together, his pale blue eyes narrow. "Yeah," he breathed. Then, he suddenly swung his left arm forward and punched Vaati right in the jaw, sending the sorcerer flying backwards. "But you deserve that one."

The wind mage sputtered in fury, one hand to his cheek, and he angrily shouted at Dark. Vaati tried to summon a small wind to knock Dark off his feet. He stared at his own outstretched hand, poised to summon something but unable to do so. He could no longer tell the wind to move as he wished. Nor would he ever be able to do such a thing. Vaati sighed, and looked at his pale hands, still feeling the sting along the side of his face from Dark's punch.

A mix of emotions welled up and a sinking feeling gripped his heart. Regret? He'd lost so much this time. Had he really made the right decision?

His hands absentmindedly rubbed his shoulders where he could still sense Farore's lingering touch. The sensation indescribable; he'd never felt more at peace than when the goddess had embraced him. He still had trouble believing that had been real, but he could still remember the feeling of her acceptance.

Peace.

Vaati looked around one last time, and began to make his way out of the room. Dugal was talking to Dark over by the corner. They looked up when they noticed Vaati walking out the door. "We're done here. Let's go home."

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

Thyme had long since stopped sobbing uncontrollably, her cheek painted with salty tear-stains as she laid her head on Thistle's lifeless body. The boys had left along with Dugal, who had gone to fetch the rest of his men on the upper floors to do some last minute cleanup. They'd left her behind, perhaps because neither she nor Thistle was a threat any longer.

I don't know what to do…

All she'd had since her memories were wiped was Thistle. She didn't have any other friends because of the nature of her work, and she didn't know who she could go to. She didn't even remember her real name before her memory was wiped, or who she'd been. She never felt more lost.

Thyme heard confused voices nearby, most likely from the guards who had been brainwashed to serve them. They probably didn't even know where they were, or what they had been doing the past several years. Eventually they would go search for answers and find a story no one would ever believe.

Thyme sighed, and lifted her head slowly to look at the monster who'd almost had it all. Monster, huh? It seemed like such an unpleasant thing to call him. While there was no doubt that she had done the right thing in stopping him, she still couldn't bring herself to call him that.

She reached towards his mask, running her fingers along its smooth contours tentatively. Thistle rarely took his mask off, but she'd seen his face once, long ago. She remembered that it had been a bold, daring face which was also ruthless to the point some people might call it cold. But a monster? No, that's not what she remembered at all.

That's not what she wanted to remember.

Her fingers paused as they brushed past his gray hair near the edge of the mask. She began to remove the mask slowly. Suddenly, the beak of the mask slapped her palm away as a loud cough and a gasp came from the supposedly dead wizzrobe, and his green eyes snapped open but for a moment. The two locked eyes for a moment of shared disbelief, and then Thistle went back to sleep almost as though in relief.

Shocked by the improbability, Thyme gasped and clutched at Thistle's shoulders. Her voice trembled. "Thistle…?"

Slowly she put her head on his chest.

She could hear his heartbeat, the soft rise and fall of his chest as he breathed slowly.

She hugged him tightly as though she were afraid of leaving him. "Thistle," she sobbed.

Mirria1: I'm sorry! But now you'll never have another cliffhanger from this story ever again! :O

Anonymous: 'hope Dugal won't end up being a bait and switch boss' ... UMMMMMM so yeah that happened eheh... oops? But I couldn't kill him off, nope! As for your question on whether or not Thistle would have been able to take them all at once, he would have been able to ONLY if Dugal (or someone else) had wished something that would logically counter his wish to 'be the Greatest at (literally - including team fights) Everything.

Reily96: BAD STUFF HAPPENED (shot) ok so yeah I don't have a story I can share on here, just a vague idea. Bad stuffs. Yes.
AND HEY I WANT IN ON THAT I DON'T CARE WITH WHO
Well no more anxiety any more, because with two more clicks of 'next chapter' I will have no more chapters for yous D:

LoZMadLover: AND WE'LL NEVER KNOW WHAT HIS WISH WAS. You can count on it being terrible for everyone else though :P And thanks! I have a soft spot for those two :3

Ayame Wolftail642: YES jump aboard! And hello there! I hope I didn't keep you waiting for the update too long! :O