"You want this, then?" I asked quietly, feeling the blood slide along a bruised and broken leg. The fiery, lanky man grinned. He was so short. I couldn't believe he was as small as I, and at least several times more deadly. I was heaving my breaths in, and out again. It took so much effort to keep the image upright and clear before me. The rock slid between my lifeless fingers, a symbol of a time and place long dead; a symbol of nothing but endings.

I glanced down at the clear gem, wondering what it must have been like for my mother. I had used the crystal before, and had died twice in the attempt. Even now, I knew the icy clench of death was tearing at the back of my throat. Did it matter? What was I using this life for anyway?

Once, when this all started, I believed that there would eventually be some goodness from it. But all of that has been lost now, gone for weeks. I had given all I had to help, to serve, to protect. I wasn't perfect, nor did I ever pretend to be. All I get in return is a spoiled brat, and a shallow husk of a drained life. Especially now. I didn't dare turn around, for the fear that seeing him again would shove the pain deeper and deeper into my shallow tomb. The battle continues even after our ill-fated love triangle bit the dust and buried itself six feet under.

The scepter fell from my bloodied hand, sliding free beneath the soft squish of thick crimson life that dripped endlessly downward. I should have laughed, said something clever. But I was so tired. There was nothing left to give –nothing but the gift a mother once gave to her loved ones long ago.

"That and the Rabbit, of course." Rubius' pixie face lit with all the inner fire of a demon mid-game. It made me sick.

"If you can take her from me." I whispered, pulling the crystal forward. Raw, burning energy pulsed through my arms in wild abandon, drowning out the pathetic cry of the others. I buried them, as I had whatever particle of life there was left, as deep into the shining talisman as they would go, forcing every inch of me into the hard, lifeless rock as could be done.

I had once wished for a normal life, but that was never to be. Beryl had taught me that. Ann and Alan had taught me that. No matter where I go or what I do, there will always be a battle to fight and a war to win, and more death and loss and despair than should be absorbed by one single person. I was tired of fighting –it was something I had never been designed to do. The idea had been absurd even from the beginning, even to Luna who had recruited me off the streets. She had known on the first day that I would never be the warrior she needed.

Of all the things I could have wished for, of all the things I really wanted, none of it mattered. Any part of this world would eventually turn to ruin, and loss, and decay, and fighting, fighting, fighting. A tear slipped free as my arms began to quake uncontrollably. No matter what I do, there will always be more, until there is nothing left of me to give.

Unless I give it all now.

I sobbed, crushing the weight of the power deep into my chest in the vain hope that it would smother whatever heartbreak still lingered there. I wished to be free of this place. I wished to be done fighting, to move on, to see my mother again. I wished to go back, before I had ever met…

The world crashed into my broken leg, sending the shock careening through mind and body and soul, and filling the crystal before me with blooming, oily blood. I screamed, angry with myself for being a ditz right up to the end, and forced the crystal forward till my bones ached with the effort.

This time, I won't seek for peace or normality or love.

I just want to be free.

The soft, inaudible tinkle of broken glass fell all around, and lifeless I watched in peaceful bliss as the others swarmed the small, broken figure, and the shards of a time long ago. I watched as the pink-haired girl faded, screaming, into the wind. I watched as he came to my side, too little too late.

I just want to be free.