Spoilers for Critical Role Downfall.

A raven cries for the first time, and he is amazed at how powerful those little lungs are. Galdric wines and bats at his ears.

Purvan smiles.

"Hello, my Lady."

He watches from afar as her mother cleans her face, yet another meal scattered across the ground.

Galdric laps it up and then noses around for more, his great head at eye level with the Little Lady, who stares at him with wide eyes.

"You're getting fat," Purvan remarks. Galdric huffs derisively.

There is a shout in the distance, the call of a Raven; he reaches for his weapon.

"Keep her safe," he warns, and his great wolf is already moving. He gently pushes her mother to carry her inside and sets up before the door.

He listens as she animatedly chats with her new friend.

"She is my Darwing," she states happily, holding up a Raven in her chubby toddler fists, "A fwiend like you and Galdwic!"

"I am certain you will be the best of friends," he says, smiling down at her, wondering not for the first time the destiny he has been given.

He teaches how to fish, how to forest, how to cook, and how to patch a wound.

All the things she will need to know to survive in a world consumed by war. Not live, survive. She is far too young to have to simply survive, but he can't give her the life she deserves. But she will survive, as he promised.

And he observes the moments when the greater part of her pokes through. Pausing in battlefields and graveyards on their travels, staring around like she has stumbled into somewhere she half-remembers. The half-step she would take towards any field hospital or the medic tent they passed. The raven feathers she would adorn her hair with, many found at random on the road. Her standing outside is far past what should be safe when the seasons change into winter.

The change is coming.

He finds her, in a temple scarred and broken, tears tracking down her face, eyes uncertain, magic burning across her fingers.

"My Lady?" he asks, putting so much into that title than he has before in this, her second life.

She looks at him, calm trying to overtake the panic, but this is far from settled yet, far from understood. It will be his place to explain as best he can. Galdric brushes past him and curls up next to her, offering wordless comfort.

She gladly takes it.

His job is the easy one.

"What am I?" she asks, voice quavering.

He smiles and kneels down so they are at eye level.

"A miracle." he intones. He means it with all his heart.

She comes into her power, she changes and grows and learns in ways he could not have expected.

He finds himself wondering if this is how she had been the first time, where the Little Lady ended and His Lady began.

It isn't long into her young adulthood that she takes the lead, and he follows gladly, going where ever she wanders, hunting, searching, seeking, on a quest that she never quite fully shared.

Not until the end.

Aeor.

All is clear.

It is an end, but it won't truly be hers, for she is eternal.

Yet, the grief in his heart remains no matter how hard he tries to shake it free.

"It has been my absolute honor," he states.

And she looks so calm, yet so sad.

The face he knows now does indeed hide behind the mask.

She goes to die so that she can live.

And there is nothing he can do to stop her.

Yet, still, he has his purpose.

To support her.

"Can I ask you one last service?" she asks, sad eyes distant.

"Anything, for all of time." he returns and will mean it for just as long.

"See that family over there, the two children. Get them out safely."

He nods.

He bleeds atop the hill, fulfilling his purpose.

His wolf at his side, his new wards at his back.

He will not fail her.

And then there is light more resplendent than he can remember.

The Children blazing, definitely like the Dawn long hidden.

She had ever been drawn to those with sparks of greatness hidden within.

And the purpose of the Champion of Ravens is ever one to protect the whims of fate.

He does so gladly as Ravens sing a chorus on the distant wind.

Yet his heart still burns with grief for the girl he raised, having Risen again.

He hopes they can be reunited as long as Fate is Kind.

But for now, he will ensure these new sparks are not snuffed out in their infancy.

One Last Service.