Sandra opened her eyes to blinding white. All was white. Holding up a hand, she could see that, at least. She could feel herself, feel her breaths. She was alive, but the place she was in had no form, just white. She did not stand there. She just… was there. Floating would have implied some amount of bobbing or motion. She just was there, suspended in the white.

"Hello?" she called out into the nothing. "Am I dead?" She could feel her breath, but she had seen undead things that seemed convinced they were yet living. "Did we lose?"

There were no words, but an impression that was impossible to ignore. She was, in that instant, aware of the totality of the tower and its many byzantine rules that guided its function and purpose. They were dizzying and overwhelming.

But they also had a spot, right at the end. It was an itch, and urge. She could put what she wanted there. She could imprint her will on the tower, and it would be. It simply would be. The tower would follow her whim, and it would be so, forever. At least until or unless some future person came and did what she was doing, possibly invalidating it with some new desire.

"Wait…"

She was at the top. She was being given a wish. She could have anything! "What… Where is he? Where is everyone else?" But she could not know that. They weren't there. She knew everything in maddening clarity, how the tower worked, all the rules it followed, but she did not know a single thing about where her friends were, or her enemy.

She had won? She had won! She laughed a delirious little laugh, hand slapping against her head, overwhelmed by the measure of what was before her. "Does there need to be?" She sent her mind through the maze of impulses. There was once not a guiding force. It was one of the last wishes that made it otherwise, placed the lord of the tower they had met in his place. It had elevated the tower, changed it. It had gained a will, even if that will soured with time, regretting its place.

But the tower itself had no will, only instructions. It followed the instructions with a devotion that would embarrass any priest of any level of zealotry. The tower knew nothing but to follow its directives.

But how had she arrived there? They were being punished, denied a victory. There, a rule, a firm rule. Defeating the last guardian meant it was time for the next rule to be placed. That was not negotiable. That was unchangeable. That simply was. Even if one wanted to place a rule in opposition to it, she could feel a mountain of resistance against the notion. That rule was old. Very old. Maybe one of the first? It would not be brushed aside.

Even by the sapient will of the tower. Not that he had been the tower itself. He was simply a part of it. Bound by the rules…

She wasn’t alone. A presence was with her, almost immediately, and the masked man was there. His presence, sometimes mysterious, sometimes overpowering, was greatly diminished. He groaned and popped his neck. “You’re really intent on making this hard for me, huh?”

But it was a posture, an empty one. The tower was waiting for her to make her will known, to imprint on it. She had won. There was no taking that back. "It doesn't have to be hard," she noted, looking at him, watching him. It was comforting, in a way, to not be lost in blinding white.

“You are not in the position to tell me what is hard or not,” the man nearly growled. “I spent a lot of time and to be honest more than a few failures to get you here, right now. I’m not going to be denied this here just because you ran ahead.”

“Ran… ahead?”

The man raised an eyebrow. It didn’t matter she couldn’t see his eyebrows, she knew he was there, and he chuckled. “You really don’t remember? Well, that’s fine, your mind’s a little occupied at the moment.”

“That’s right… I understand everything about the tower, now,” Sandra said, casting an even stare at him.

“No you don’t,” the man replied flatly.

“I-what?”

“You think if I really knew all the ways the tower works I’d trap myself here forever? Knowing what it was? No, you know a lot, but everything? It’s hard enough to keep track of the damn rules, much less figure out what they all mean when they intersect.”

Almost instantly, she saw wish after wish of people who didn’t want to make a sacrifice, or the sacrifice was too much, or they never understood eternity here. Even people who simply wished for the wrong thing. Except… “It’s been a long time since you made your wish, Logue.”

“That it has.” He sighed. “A lot of time to think, a lot of time to plan.”

"You made things better." Logue jerked, surprised perhaps? "I'm not kidding. In a lot of ways, the tower was… better, for you coming, for doing… all you've done." She rolled her hands, trying to pantomime her scattered thoughts. "You did a lot. Not… all good." She could vouch for that. "But a lot of the rest?"

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Logue snorted. “Well I’m glad somebody appreciates my art, but I’m done with it. Eternal slavery, a thousand parties and a thousand boring wishes.” He looked straight at Sandra. “So it’s time for it to end.” He pointed at her. “You’re going to wish I’m not here anymore. Knock me off the tower, end me, whatever. I’m the one holding all the strands of fate here, and when I’m gone, it’s all gone.”

In an instant she knew it was true. The dragons held there in that world, the curse of ‘heroism’. All tied to him, and when he was gone, all of it would be over. Nothing left to tether them, nothing left to guide it. The tower didn’t know what heroism was, only the will of the tower.

He even made wishes more interesting.

The tower would return to its unthinking state, doing because it was there to be done and nothing further than that. "It doesn't have to be that way." That wasn't the ending Spike had wanted. That wasn't the ending Smolder had wanted. Alright, so Garble didn't much care on that front, still, two out of three dragons disapproved!

"You deserve freedom." Almost a whisper, her hands coming together. "They all do, even the freedom of an ending, if that's what you want."

“I don’t know what ideas you have in your head,” Logue said. “You’ve been muttering about it for floors now, and I’ve been listening, but you don’t have to go out on some limb to save everyone.” He stepped back from her. “All you need to do to get everything you want is deal with me.”

Sandra stared at him, brought back to her original goal for a moment. “What did you do with Spike and Smolder? And for that matter, Twilight.”

“Time out.” He gestured, creating an image of them asleep in bubbles, cradled in his hands. “Waiting for your wish, when I’m gone they will be restored to where you want them to be.”

“Gone…” Sandra felt a pang of regret. “That’s the end of this in every case, isn’t it.”

He shrugged. “They don’t really belong here, the tower connected them, as you no doubt have surmised by now. The tower was not happy when it’s power was used to piggyback Twilight in that way.” He put his hands down, the image fading. “Once you are rid of me it will be over.”

Sandra stared at his cloaked face. “And what do you think is going to happen to me if that happens?”

The man had a sad smile on his face. “If it’s direct? The tower likes life for a life. You can boot me off and take my place, if you’d like, but you’ve seen how it is being in the tower. I wanted to stay here and all I want now is it over.”

“You’ve been priming me for this,” Sandra said, her voice stern. “You’ve been planning to make someone sacrifice themselves for your freedom.”

He waggled his unseen eyebrows. “Maybe you can wish for a weapon capable of destroying me and in one final climactic moment end me, maybe the tower will let you do that and you won’t have to be gone.”

"Enough." She waved the thought aside, the one syllable coming with an unseen but certainly felt force. "This cycle ends, but a new cycle begins." To destroy without replacement was how all the worst parts of her life had come to be. "They're going. I wish them the best." A faint tickle. "No that isn't an order." She had to smile. The tower was really kinda dumb in some ways. "They can make their own happy ending without me, back in their home."

Her heart stung. She had grown close to them. They were… They were family, but they had a place they needed to be so much more than at her side. "Tabitha. She is vital to the law. I must speak to her."

Her will made clear, Tabitha took a half step as if coming in from somewhere else, groggy and confused. "You won't jus--" her half phrased denial fading out, taking in the great whiteness around her. "What… Sandra, what's going on?"

Sandra took her hand. "Tabby, this is it. This is the top. You made it."

Tabitha craned her neck left and right, taking in the formless white that engulfed them. "I… imagined more than this."

"We get our wish," firmly assured Sandra. "And I think I know what I want. What we want."

"Besides helping your friends?" Tabitha's fingers clenched around Sandra's hand. "I was ready for that."

Sandra returned the grip. "So was I, but they're going without a wish. So we--"

"--still have ours," finished Tabitha, realization dawning. "Holy wow! We could have anything! We could be--"

Sandra clapped a hand over Tabitha's mouth. "We're already heroes. We're already famous. We're already rich if we wanted to be. I am not spending this wish on anything stupid and selfish."

Tabitha brushed Sandra's arm away. "Right right, I get it." She folded her arms, taking measure of her friend, eyes darting to Logue watching silently. "What's up with him?"

"This involves him, and me, and you." Sandra smiled gently. "Tabitha, this tower needs a mind, and a heart. Tabitha… Will you help me? I've already asked so much of you. You were there, when I was a scared child. You were there to help me make the last steps. Here, at the top, will you help me one more time, until you get bored of it?"

Tabitha furrowed her brow. “What exactly are you suggesting, Sandra? We have been vividly shown how awful the tower is for the people ‘living’ here.” She gestured with air quotes. “I’m not sure either of us should be chomping at the bit for it.”

Logue took the opportunity to interject. “And it’s not her responsibility. If I’m gone all of the things I did are gone, and I already proposed a solution that would allow you two,” he glanced over at Tabitha. “To avoid the consequence of eternal slavery.”

Sandra wheeled around to him. “You got me involved with this by making me a hero, and having that magic work on me for years and years. I don’t even know what my life would be like if this were gone, maybe I’d be happy with a family still, but instead here I am, at the top, being the hero.”

“But that’s not what I wa--”

“What you want is irrelevant,” Sandra cut him off. “It is our wish and our ability to choose.”

“But even then it’s too ri--” Logue protested but was cut off again.

“And your input is no longer necessary,” Sandra said, her words echoing with power.

Logue felt his very being gripped, threatening to tear him out of the magicscape they all found themselves in, but he focused with all the power he had, staying rooted in place. He opened his eyes to exhort her again, only to find that he couldn’t even open his mouth, much less make any noise.

Sandra looked back to Tabitha, who stood there with a mixture of astonishment and pride. “I’m going to change the rules. Logue put himself as the top slave in the pen, but remained a slave. I’m going to put us on top of that.” She squeezed that hand, looking into Tabitha's eyes. "This is a brave new adventure. It could go wrong, or so very right. Tabitha, will you join my party, one last time?"