I have come home. But it is nothing like I remember.

Everything is the same and yet it is not. The castle looms in the distance, a grey shadow nestled among valleys and mountains. It comes closer and stays still with every footstep I take. Things should be as I have left them, but they are not, and I am a traveler once more, walking through rivers and plains that I have seen but never really noticed until now.

I move forwards. I travel on foot but through time and space as well. The forests part and the mountains grow taller and then recede into the distance.

It is all as I left it, but nothing is quite the same. In all my journeys I have never been back before, but now as I approach my home in the distance from a different time and direction I begin to muse on the futility of it all. It doesn't quite matter what I do here.

Perhaps it is just as well. After all it is all already over. There is just one last thing to be done before I say farewell for good.

The castle is exactly as it is in my memory, each painting, pillar and statue where it used to be. The shadows cast by the draperies are the same as when I last saw them, but yet they cannot be, because it has been far too long. More inconsistencies. Everything that should be, is, and yet it is not.

It is all too excruciatingly familiar. I walk past as fast as I am able, not wanting to tarry a moment longer. It is not that they are too painful to see, but there is a certain wrongness about them that I am anxious to be rid of.

But something about the wall hangings and embroidered palings calls to me, and against my will I find myself walking through the corridors of old. My pace slows and I am transported once

again to ballroom dances, to tea parties and chandelier-lit evenings. Before the wars, before my travels, and before what has come to pass.

I cannot deny that it tugs at me, at things long ago left buried and forgotten. I want to forget and yet I cannot. Maybe that is why she has done what she has.

There is no way to know. And at that thought my legs once again pick up speed and bring me forwards. Before I know it I am passing the carpets of the antechambers, the stairs of my first duel, the climb to the minarets and beyond, where I know she is waiting. It does not take me long to get to where I am going, and before long the doors of the great hall loom in front of me. I open them.

She is sitting there, sipping tea, smiling quietly to herself, unchanged as the day I first saw her. I am relieved and disappointed at the same time.

I bow. "My lady." Because after all this time I am still her knight, sworn to serve. That is why I am here. To bring her back to her senses, when she has clearly taken leave of them. Or has she? I know what she has done, but not its full extent. Maybe there is yet time to change her mind.

She doesn't turn to me, or acknowledge me in any way at all. Is she angry? Tired? Uncaring? I don't know and it does not matter. Seconds turn to minutes and we stand there, standing, sitting, staring. Watching. Waiting.

"Why have you come?" She is the one to break the silence. In past times she was always the one who spoke first, and that at least hasn't changed.

"You know why." And it is true. We both know why. I have come to render one last service, to make her see the truth of her actions.

"My lady, your castle is empty. The courtiers have all gone. The grounds have not been swept. Everywhere the storm rages, but it is just that you do not see it." All this and more I know to be true. And it is more than likely she knows as well. But nevertheless some things have to be said.

"But everything is the way it is meant to be. Nothing is gone, and nothing has broken. Don't you see?" She smiles and gestures around her. And in many ways it is as she has said. Everything IS the same. But at the same time it is not.

I stare helplessly at her. How can I make her see? The end of the world has come, but by her will, at least in this place alone, it is eternally forestalled. And she is possessed of nothing if not a strong will. When the hordes came so many years ago, it was her strength of the mind that raised the shield wall. When the floods threatened the land it was her power once again that broke them. In this place at least, nothing changes without her permission.

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Even as everything else decays and is destroyed, she will endure unchanging, should she wish so. Which is the crux of the matter. If she wishes so, and she does.

As I look on, watching, waiting, praying, hoping, staring at her hopelessly, it suddenly dawns upon me. I cannot do anything. If she does not wish it to end, it will not end.

"Do you remember?" Her voice breaks my reverie.

She smiles and I smile back, and suddenly we are no longer there, but among the meadows of the past, the unlit skies and the marshes we traveled to when the realm was whole. And once when things were too busy and hectic, the tea party just for the two of us that she tore a hole in two dimensions for, just so no one would know we were there. I know that she is in the same place I am, that our thoughts are travelling the same pathways to the places that we knew in a past life. All that is there slips away, and all that was past comes back.

Lifetimes pass in that instant - for we have both lived many of them - and then we are back, in that eternity that still awaits destruction.

She stands. "I wish to go to the uppermost tower. You will come with me." It's an order, not a request. I stand to attend her, and it is like old times once more, master and servant. We both walk out slowly, her skirts trailing on the floor and my feet keeping pace with her.

The way to the tower is long, but we pass it in silence. What else needs to be said?

I know why she has come here, because I have often come here for the same reasons myself. For solitude and solace, away from the seemingly endless cares and troubles of a realm that was never settled, even in times of peace. Always a dispute to be resolved, always an affair to be mediated and looked over. But here...here we could be alone, and have some time to ourselves. Time to rest and recover and recollect before the next crisis loomed.

Up here you can see everything. Far and near, the lands spread out before us. Forest, woodlands, rivers, mountains - as far as the eye could see and beyond. Our world, that we protected for a thousand thousand years, until the day came that everything was over.

What brought the end? None of really knew. There were storms that had always raged at the borders of the world, but the prophets always told us that they would never break the barriers that our ancestors had erected at the cost of their lives. And for a long, long time they didn't. There were powerful ones, but none that could break the shield wall that my lady had strengthened with her will. None like the world breaking typhoon that had shattered all pretense of safety and that now threatened to consume...HAD consumed everything.

And so today as we stand on the battlements all we can see is nothing. The world beyond the barriers was gone, an empty yawning chasm of oblivion. All that remained was this small bubble that stood within the chaos and destruction, the remains of a kingdom that once stretched beyond vast plains and towering mountains. All gone but for her unyielding will.

She stands tall and silent on the parapet in the waning light, and I am struck again by how beautiful she is. This is not the first time I have looked upon her and thought this. There was the northern campaign, where the dawn shaded her in whites and yellows which set off her the satin of dress, and the time in the desert where the swirling sands brought out the color of her eyes. I am seized by a sudden desire to go over to her and hold her by her slim shoulders, but I restrain myself. Such actions are not befitting of one sworn to protect.

"Do you miss it?" she says suddenly, gesturing. "All this. The realm."

"No." I am surprised by my own answer. But it is true. Everything must die someday, and I am no exception. Perhaps she can defy time and fate eternally, but at what cost? Living alone in a castle with only one occupant, constantly surrounded by mementos and remembrances of the past and better times. It seems no paradise to me but rather a purgatory of her own devising.

But in the end I am only her servant. I have known her for countless years, but I cannot read her thoughts or her emotions, only make guesses that often prove wrong - for she is as capricious as she is wise. When the snows came to the northlands instead of melting them she transmuted the ice floes into a million snowflakes ("the better to entertain the children with" she said) When the volcanoes erupted in a shower of rocks and lava she sent the knights to bring in every last flaming stone to make sculptures with. In her service to her and our

lost realm my blade has felled thousands of foes, but I have often wondered at what she keeps hidden within. All that power and will, forever a mystery to me.

What is going through her mind as she looks out on all of before, on a world that has already ended? I stand and I watch, and I wait. That is all I can do. She knows my thoughts on the matter, and we understand each other too well for me to say them again.

Eternity passes.

I can feel it even before it happens. A silent shaking in my bones and in all of reality. I turn to face her, unbelieving, and she smiles at me.

"It is done." I don't know what to say. A thousand questions form and die between us as our eyes meet. But once again nothing needs to be said. She has let go.

I walk forwards and take her hand. Before us the realm crumbles as all that was kept at bay rushes forwards. The black wisps of the storm spin and whirl through everything, and though I cannot see them I know that the seas are churning, forests swaying and breaking apart. The mountains split and are torn asunder and the vast plains which we once rode through catch fire and burn. Everything is coming to an end.

What has happened to make her decide I shall never know. It does not matter. She bows her head and closes her eyes and I can see no tears. There do not need to be any, for the end of the world does not need to be a sad thing.