Cassandra Pendragon

“As you wish,” she said and pulled me towards the tables, while the spit roasted… creature was taken from the fire. I couldn’t imagine how we were supposed to enjoy our meal with the continuous downpour from above, but I was willing to give it a try. From what I saw, there wasn’t much in the way of garnish or sauces anyways, we’d have to make do with cooked potatoes and meat. Those things, at least, couldn’t float away.

When I got closer, the scent of sizzling fat and cooked pork became stronger mixed with the aroma of heated fruits the roast had been stuffed with. I smelled apples and berries as well as a variety of different herbs I couldn’t identify properly. All in all it was surprisingly appetising, even though the crispy skin was already glittering with water and a puddle was rapidly growing underneath. Up close, the creature even reminded me a little of a fattened pig, albeit with an additional pair of legs and an absurdly long snout, almost like an ant-eater or an elephant.

Xorlosh handed me a huge knife, more of a sword if I was honest, and gestured for us to address the crowd before we dug in. I exchanged a quick glance with Ahri and she inclined her head, indicating she wanted me to speak.

I took a deep breath and my gaze roamed over the assembled dwarfs and kitsune, the fey and demon who looked at me expectantly. I even spotted Pete in the back, disheveled and wet as he tried to keep the younger kids in line. He seemed… happy, despite his dripping hair. Suddenly self conscious with a mouth as dry as the desert, I scrambled for the right words. I knew what I wanted to say, but I just couldn’t think of a fitting way to start. Oh well, I’d only make a fool out of myself and it wouldn’t be the first time, nothing overly bad could happen.

“Tonight we celebrate what was and everything that can still be because four bright and brave souls decided to pick up their weapons and fight. Despite the odds, which would have sent anyone except a stubborn dwarf running for the hills, they rose to stand by your side and to… well, to save my sorry ass when I had stumbled down a hole, deep enough that I couldn’t find the way back. Graciously, none of you have said as much before but the simple truth is, that I wouldn’t be standing here if it hadn’t been for them and if it hadn’t been for me, these four,” I gestured towards the still open caskets, “could still enjoy a hearty brew with their comrades at their side. So, before anything else, I want to thank you. Not only the dead, even though they paid the steepest price for their valour, but also the living. Xorlosh told me before that I don’t have to thank you for something that you’d have done either way, but the simple truth is, that makes it all the more remarkable. So again, from the bottom of my heart, thank you, thank you all for being there for me and mine when the darkest hour of the night was upon us. You protected us from flames and fiends, you shared everything with us without demanding gratitude or compensation. You fought and died for people who treated you as strangers and never did you waver. The lot of you, the dead as well as the living, are what makes me think we can endure, we will survive, whatever else this crazy world throws in our way. And for that, I’m grateful.” I turned to the side to brush a tear from the corner of my eye. While I had been talking, the memories of our fight on Boseiju and down in the spider’s tomb had risen to the surface like a speck of poisonous oil in a clear pond. My sorrow and grief, regrets and guilt felt, once again, like a crushing weight on my shoulders and I barley managed to continue. If it hadn’t been for Ahri’s tails sneaking around my middle, I wouldn’t have.

“You give me hope that loyalty and compassion, trust and friendship will, in the end, prevail. We might have to bleed and suffer but ultimately, it will be worth it, for there is beauty in the world. Beauty, honour and love, things worth fighting for and when push comes to shove, worth dying for. Love… the second reason why I’m standing here, tonight. I’ve never imagined that I could have the good fortune of actually falling in love and if it hadn’t been for you, Durgin, Fenni. Guthri and Borim, I wouldn’t have. You gave me a chance to live and I don’t intend to squander it. Life is short, sometimes violent, sometimes peaceful but always complicated. We don’t know what awaits us down the road and I don’t think we should, otherwise how are we suppose to find the strength to keep going? But I do know one thing for sure. This girl, my angel,” I said while I pulled Ahri to my side and took her hand.

“She asked me if I wanted to spend the rest of my time with her. A question I would never have heard if it hadn’t been for the victorious dead, the happiest moment of my life and I would have missed it, it if hadn’t been for them.” I turned towards the caskets and continued:

“You made it possible for me to stand here and tell them all that I’m going to get married! That I won’t ever be alone again, that I’ve found someone who loves me, even though she already knows me pretty well. And for that as well, I’m grateful. I can never repay what you, all of you have done for me, for us, but I’m glad you can still bear witness to what will come of your sacrifice.” I turned back around, caressingly placed my hand on the back of Ahri’s head to pull her in for a long kiss. She was surprised at first and squirmed in my embrace but soon I felt her melt into my arms and the heat her body gave off ever since she first activated her core intensified.

A breathless moment later I had a smile on my face and looked down on a grinning landscape of beards and tails while wolf whistles and applause flowed through the night. “Tonight, I want to celebrate my engagement as a last farewell for those who made it possible. Tonight, I want to sing and dance, to eat and drink, I want to revel in the joy of what I can still look forward to and I want to remember who made it possible. I want to cry and laugh until the sun rises in the east and the dawn chases away the clouds and carries us along, to new shores. But first, my friends, let’s eat!”

Cries of “hear, hear” and “congratulations” rang out, filling the night with the deep, resounding bass of the dwarfs and the clear, high pitched voices of the kitsune. Even Mephisto had a smile on his face when our eyes met. He nodded solemnly and mouthed: “good luck, you’ll need it.”

A few made their way towards us, Reia and her friends, Xorlosh and his family, Morgan and Pete. They shook our hands and wished us all the best for the future, some more eloquently than others. While Estrella simply pulled us down into a hug, Pete mumbled a few words and Etosh had to be dragged away, otherwise he wouldn’t have found an end. For the first time I could remember, I didn’t mind the litany of repeated platitudes, though. Every word they said came from the heart and I was finally celebrating something that meant the world to me, not someone else. I couldn’t stop smiling, which would have been abysmally out of place at any other funeral, but seemed welcomed here.

“Thank you,” I whispered in Ahri’s ear. “I didn’t know myself how much I wanted this.” She kissed me tenderly and the taste of honey on my lips was the sweetest thing I could imagine.

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“Don’t thank me. There’s no need, not anymore. You’re mine and I am yours, forever more. You were right, you’re never going to be alone again, for as long as I exist. In this life and the ones to come, I’ll be by your side, this I promise.”

“So do I.” A torrent of energy crackled into existence between us, while I felt another band of power settle around my core. I looked into Ahri’s emerald eyes, the flickering fire light reflected in their depths, but as another wave of force rushed through the sigils above our hearts, the spark ignited. Red hot flames streaked across her eyes, fire manifested and danced in her hair and a wave of heat pushed against me. Holy hells, she was transforming and from the looks of it, it wouldn’t go over smoothly. I didn’t hesitate.

I slung my arms and tails around her and catapulted us into the sky. A heartbeat later, the confused faces of my friends had turned into dots of colour among a blanket of inky darkness while the girl in my embrace became brighter and brighter. Wreaths of fire were pouring form her like the rain from the clouds, a ring of crimson flames that swirled around us and threatened to set ablaze anything in its way. Her wings appeared, larger than I remembered, four feathery silhouettes filled with blinding flames. They began to move, stirring up torrents of scathing air while I struggled to reach the clouds.

Silver and crimson clashed wherever our wings touched, another layer of chaos in a maelstrom of power. I felt her energy around me, dancing over my skin, vanishing along my wings, but while it couldn’t hurt me, I was still getting cooked slowly.

A snarl formed on my face when my skin began to blister from the heat she gave off and I smelled the stench of my singed fur. Still, I never let go of her and carried us higher and higher, away from anything she could burn to ashes.

“Ahri,” I screamed in her ear, “talk to me! What’s wrong?” She went rigid and the heat diminished for a split second before it returned, even more brutal than before, a terrifying storm of light and embers.

“I… I,” she gasped, each syllable an uphill battle. “Aurora, she warned me… my transformation, I don’t think I can control it… go, leave me! I don’t know what’s going to happen to me…”

“I’m not leaving.” I used our connection to push against her mind, panic a growing block of ice in my stomach. “Let me in, please…”

“You’ll burn,” she whispered. “The fires you see… there is so much more in here…”

“I don’t care, please…” I kissed her gently and mumbled against her lips: “let me help.”

For the first time since I had seen the sparks appear in her eyes, she fully looked at me again. There was pain and confusion in her gaze and an overwhelming fear that threatened to drown her, to carry her down into a pitch black hole with no escape. And then, she nodded gingerly. While we passed through the lowest layer of the clouds, thick vapour exploding all around us, her body and mind pressed into me and I tore down the last barriers between us.

Light, heat and eternal flames. For a split second I thought I was back in hell. Mountain high torrents of fire, crimson and cruel, surrounded me on all sides. Winds raged around me, hot enough to sear flesh off bones and strong enough to pick me up and throw me around like a rag doll. I tumbled through the glare, my wings flailing, a helpless leave before a scorching desert storm.

Head over tails I fell, the fury of the elements much too strong to resist. I didn’t know which way was up or down, where I had come from and where I wanted to go, there was only an onslaught of crimson light from all directions while heat enveloped me like a strangling blanket and each breath turned into a mouthful of fire. Tears ran from my eyes only to dry out or be whisked away the very instant they formed and I thought I felt the tips of my hair catch on fire while the flames of Ahri’s transformation ravaged us both.

“Enough!” I thundered, my voice layered with more transcendent energy than I had used before. A ripple of force spread out around me, like a wave of ice that froze everything it came in touch with. Crimson turned into silvery blue as my power raced through the realm and threatened to extinguish everything it touched.

With a thought I stopped in mid air and commanded the tide to return, to come back to me and leave everything else unscathed. Dread sliced through me when I realised that I was on the brink of hurting the love of my life and I redoubled my efforts, pulling back even more desperately than I had pushed. Blood dripped from my nose and I felt several veins in my eyes pop, but I never stopped. With an herculean effort I threw everything I had against the wave of glittering light, fuelled by fear and desperation. I wouldn’t hurt her, never again!

Gradually, the silvery torrents slowed down, quivered and finally receded, leaving behind a changed landscape. I shivered in the air and when I raised my palms to rub my eyes, they came away bloody. A hollow laugh escaped me, shaky and hysterical, but it soon turned into a stifled groan when I felt the first streaks of pain race through my body. With clenched teeth I channeled more of my energy into my bruised limbs and looked around.

It seemed like I had found my way from hell to the heavens. Wondrous silhouettes of flames, frozen in an instant, formed a forest of glittering beauty around me, illuminate by crimson lights that still burned in the distance. Shadows and colourful reflections chased each other through the spiralling splendour, into a maze of magic and memories. As much as I would have loved to stroll through the different parts of Ahri’s life that shimmered just behind the curtains of glass, I couldn’t. Somewhere close by she was still suffering and I had to find her. Quickly.

When my skin didn’t feel like it was on the verge of peeling off anymore and my ears had stopped ringing, I sped off like a bullet from a gun, shattering the fragile towers in my wake. I didn’t know if this place was even real or if I had stumbled into her mind directly, but my wings worked just fine. Within moments I had left behind the frozen fields in the radius of my blast and soared through scathing flames again. This time though, their heat couldn’t touch me. I had created a small barrier on my skin which insulated me form the ravenous fires and since I didn’t have to fear the eruptions of pure energy themselves, I didn’t slow down.

There was no real direction, everything seemed exactly the same but I knew that somewhere in front of me I’d find her, somewhere in front of me she was still alive. Faster and faster I flew, my speed increasing with the growing knot of fear in my stomach as I realised that I was truly flying through a burning forest, memories the precious fuel that went up in flames. Every moment I hesitated, she would lose a small part of herself. It would be gone, burned to keep the fires of her transformation alive. Hopefully I wouldn’t be too late.

Blood hammered in my ears and I felt cold, despite the hellish imagery, the vision of what might happen if I couldn’t find her in time a constant nightmare at the edge of my thoughts. Panicked I sent wave after wave of energy into my eyes, focused on my newly gained senses and pushed against the tattoo on my chest with all my might. Without avail. Flames and fire, light and crimson colour, but nowhere I turned could I make out something other than the dancing towers of burning dreams. I wouldn’t lose her, never again! Think Cassandra, think.

Magic still flowed through my tattoo, but it wasn’t directed, it seemed to come from everywhere at once, there was no stream I could follow, no torrent that would take me to her side. Everything around me was a part of her…

“Ahri,” I screamed. “Where are you? Show me the way! Please…I can’t do it myself.”

At first nothing happened but then the flames began to move, a wave that slowly spread around me until I saw a path, a tunnel, that led me deeper into the burning maze. Without hesitation I charged forwards, praying that she could hold on, hoping that I’d find a way to help her, even if I got there in time. Without warning, the fiery walls receded and I shot into a dome of flames, at the very centre of which Ahri hung in the air, her eyes burning pits of crimson light.