Between two towering walls of rose-colored stone was a sea of lavender. Every leaf of every tree in this region of Vin was a stunning lavender color that made each leaf give off its own alien glow when the sun was seen through it. Every tree branch swayed gently in the afternoon wind, every tree’s shadow dancing in unison over the underbrush.
Perfectly positioned in the middle of Lavender Canyon was a single monolithic tombstone made of the same pinkish rock that the walls of the canyon were made of. Engraved on the tombstone was a single name:
TRIA KESTAI
Flint was an alien in the landscape, an unexpected presence in the garden of eden. The tombstone stuck out in the landscape, but at the same time, fit in perfectly with the carefully moving shadows moving along the ground.
“How long are you going to stare at it?” Aurein asked, not in impatience, but curiosity.
“I don’t know,” Flint replied. “I just can’t believe that we’ve gotten this far.”
Flint approached the tombstone, every step making his heart race faster, and sat in front of it. The obelisk was almost his exact height while sitting. In its presence was not only a majesty of beauty, but a sense of profound power that he had only felt in one other place before.
“It’s definitely here,” Flint said.
Aurein was silent for a long time before responding.
“But will you take it?”
Flint already knew the answer to this question. He had pondered it during the entirety of the long journey here.
“No.”
Flint stared at the tombstone with tenderness. Imagining what this woman had gone through in her life twisted Flint’s heart.
“I think it’s a testament to the unfairness of life that those who deserve power don’t seek it. Coming all the way here, I’ve realized… I don’t deserve this power. Everything I’ve learned, everything I stand for—I could never dig up the grave of a good person. Ever. I would disrespect this woman’s entire life and entire death, and then what would I be? I would be no man, and I never would have been.”
Flint chuckled to himself.
“I’m just an outlaw. I’m just a simple outlaw from the far reaches of the galaxy, an outlaw just like the rest of us are, coming to a place like this seeking power. This whole time, I thought I was the sheriff—I thought I was the judge and jury, but really? I’m just an outlaw. Think of all of the people we’ve killed during this war. I mean, we were assassins for hire, for Nora’s sake. Who do we think we are, coming to a place like this to try and make it our own? The sheer presumption that all of this should be ours?
“I think it’s one of the great paradoxes of life. That the ones who seek power don’t deserve it. It might haunt me forever.”
“Then what would you like to do?” Aurein asked. His voice was gentle.
Flint looked up at Aurein. In his expression, there was no desperation or longing.
“Do you not want it?” he asked.
Aurein pondered for a moment.
“I think I’ve come to terms with my Val,” Aurein said. “I blamed myself for what happened to my brother… I blamed myself for a vast number of things. Allef helped teach me that all of that guilt doesn’t actually mean anything. Removing my Val won’t make the world better… in fact, it’s possible I could even get good enough at it with enough practice to return my brother to normal. No, I don’t need the Terminus.”
Flint thought of his parents’ faces before they died. He sighed.
“Well,” Flint said, “I do have eternity to find a way to see my parents again. I think I’ll figure it out somehow.”
“Then what should we do?”
“I’d like to protect it. The Terminus. The ones who seek power are the ones who don’t deserve it—people like Hazni—so let’s make sure nobody ever reaches the Terminus.”
Only seconds after Flint uttered that last word, the wind in the canyon changed. They could hear footsteps approaching from the trees, accompanied by a constant, subtle shattering sound. Zero’s piercing blue eyes were visible before the rest of his body was, accompanied shortly by the trail of sublimating air that followed his every step. He stopped his stride upon seeing Flint and Aurein. Flint stood to face him.
“I think we’ve found our first customer,” Aurein said.
“What are you doing by my sister’s grave?” Zero demanded. “I didn’t think I’d ever see the miscreants on Epstrum ever again. I assume you are the Tempest City spies, too, then?”
“Get out of here,” Flint shouted. “We don’t want to fight you.”
“I’m afraid I cannot do that, for two reasons,” Zero replied. “One, you have trampled upon my faction’s name. And two, you are standing in front of something that belongs to me.”
“Get ready,” Aurein said. Flint nodded, pulling his ghostly guns out of thin air.
“You want to try and shoot yourself over here again?” Flint said. “‘Cause I’ll personally make sure you stay put.”
“There’s no need for that,” Zero said, looking at the falling leaves. A gust of wind blew them in the direction of Tria’s grave.
Suddenly, Zero started to move in unison with the leaves, approaching at an inconsistent but quick rate. Flint fired several shots of his ghostly gun, but even the ones that he had intended to phase right through Zero’s body stopped at the surface of his skin. Flint lowered his gun and clicked his tongue in frustration. Zero stopped his leaf-movement and strode powerfully towards Flint, who put up his guard. Zero swung a fist at Flint’s face, sending Flint flying into a tree and freezing the skin and muscle on his guarding arms.
Aurein landed a kick on Zero’s chest, but even through Zero’s uniform, Aurein’s leg began to freeze. Zero didn’t even budge. Aurein barely managed to stumble away from Zero before Zero could grab Aurein’s head with a hand.
“And just like that, the path is clear,” Zero said, walking unobstructed to Tria’s grave. He noticed Flint’s unmoving body and found himself surprised that he had died so easily.
A scream-like gunshot echoed from beneath Zero, and he instinctively made a wall of frozen atmosphere in front of his face. The ghostly bullet impacted the translucent wall right in front of Zero’s nose and stuck there until the frozen atmosphere sublimated back into a gas.
“I’ve figured it out,” Flint said. Zero looked down to see the ghost of a child half-underground, holding a gun in the direction of Zero’s face. “You wouldn’t be able to breathe if every part of your body stopped the things that touched it. But you can. Aurein, go for the inside of his nose and mouth! Those are his weak points!”
Zero sighed, pulling a device out of a pocket in his shirt. It was a small, translucent plate with a single glowing light on the corner. He pressed it to his face and it began to shift and transform into a gas mask which sealed his nose and mouth from any outside air. Aside from one complex-looking opening by the mouth, it was a seamless defense.
While Zero was applying his gas mask, Aurein had his fingers dug into the soil nearby. The soil transformed into gold, spreading in Zero’s direction until Zero leapt onto a nearby boulder to avoid it. The golden surface slid towards Zero, rising up into the air until it became a tall, solid wall of gold that blocked Zero from Tria’s grave. Zero moved to his left to dodge around the gold, and the wall expanded left. Zero moved right, and the wall expanded right. At last, Zero pulled a gun from a holster on his side and aimed it at the gold wall with one hand, his other hand placed onto the boulder he was perched upon.
He fired, and the boulder rocketed towards the wall of gold with the speed of a bullet, tearing the wall to pieces and creating a shower of both gold and stone shrapnel that annihilated anything that came in contact with it. All nearby trees were reduced to splinters, and a wide, fan-shaped scar in the earth spread out from Zero’s location. The tree Flint was standing beside was hit by a piece of reddish stone and immediately cut in two. Aurein was hit by a piece of rock in the leg, shattering the bones in his calf.
Flint rushed over to help Aurein, writhing in pain, but Aurein refused his help, pointing at Zero, who was running towards Tria’s grave. Aurein extended his hand in Zero’s direction and then clenched it, and the scattered pieces of gold leapt into the air and formed a blanket that landed on Zero’s head, draping over him. The golden tarp wrapped around Zero’s neck, stopping its movement upon contact with his skin.
“Try breathing through this, you son of a bitch!” Aurein yelled. “You can stop whatever you touch, but once it’s already over your mouth, it’s too late!”
Zero turned to the sound of Aurein’s voice and sprinted towards him as if he could take full breaths. Zero grabbed Aurein by the neck and began to freeze him, shattering Aurein’s skin as he dug his fingers in. Aurein choked, gasping for air, and he momentarily lost control of his Val and the gold blanket turned back into dirt that crumbled over Zero’s head.
“I understand my few weaknesses better than anyone else,” Zero said once he could breathe freely again. “I have trained myself to hold my breath for upwards of thirty minutes, specifically for situations like these. You…” Zero dug his fingers deeper into Aurein’s neck, drawing freezing blood. “Cannot beat me.”
Flint leapt towards Zero, aiming his guns at Zero’s open mouth. Zero released Aurein’s neck to grab ahold of Flint’s arm instead. Zero eyed a bird flying rapidly overhead, and then Flint was suddenly flying through the forest at the bird’s exact speed, smashing into tree after tree until his soul was ejected from his ruined body.
Aurein lunged out at Zero, who threw a pebble behind him. Upon contact with Zero, Aurein was launched away at the pebble’s speed, scraping painfully along the ground until coming to a stop.
Zero walked freely to Tria’s grave once more, Flint’s body destroyed and Aurein lying unmoving a ways away. Zero dug his hands into the grass-covered soil and threw piles of dirt out of the way, eagerly digging deeper and deeper into the grave.
“Tria,” Zero said as he dug, “with this power, Keila will reign supreme forever. Never again will anybody dare to defy us. This is the way it was always meant to be.”
Flint’s soul grabbed Zero’s arm. Zero turned to come face-to-face with Flint, whose face was a mix of desperation and rage.
“Stop,” Flint said. “Don’t do this.”
Flint’s translucent hand, even though a ghost, began to freeze on contact with Zero’s skin. As it froze, it became corporeal again, and began to crack, revealing glowing light as his hand slowly came apart.
“I’ll never stop,” Zero growled.
Zero threw Flint’s soul aside and dug a final scoop of dirt out of the grave. Draped over a dirt-covered collarbone and lying on top of a pile of white ribs was a silver pendant. At the pendant’s heart was a red compartment. Upon seeing it, Flint was struck with the presence of overwhelming power. Zero reached down to grab it.
Zero fell backwards. The pendant lifted into the air by a seemingly invisible force, but it wasn’t long before the force manifested itself.
She existed only in the gaps between the light that shone between the trees above, the motes of dust that floated about over her grave, but she was undoubtedly there. Glowing, ethereal, and majestic, Tria’s soul stood at her grave, only barely visible enough to be seen at all. With calm eyes, she looked at the ruined scenery before her, then made eye contact with Flint’s damaged soul.
Flint could hardly believe his eyes. Another dead soul, manifesting itself in the physical world? Such a thing was only possible with Flint because his Val kept his soul in the physical realm instead of allowing him to pass over to the realm of the dead. Clearly, Tria had broken the barrier that separated the world of the dead and the world of the living, but such a feat required unimaginable energy. Then Flint realized—all of the energy that Zero took away with his Val had to travel somewhere.
This was where that energy had ended up. In the soul of his own sister. All of the energy Zero had removed using his Val, for his entire life, had built up in his sister’s soul. And Tria, a pacifist who refused to hurt people with her Val, had never released that energy back into the world, and it continued to build. It built until this moment, where enough energy existed in her soul to allow her to temporarily exist in the realm of the living.
Tria held the Terminus in Flint’s direction, just in front of his face. She then said three words:
“Go get him.”
Flint reached out his remaining hand towards the pendant. He grasped around the pendant’s center.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Then, Flint touched Infinity.
For a moment, time stopped. An amount of energy that had no numerical value poured into Flint’s soul in this moment between time, flooding Flint’s synapses past their breaking point over, and over, and over, and over, and over…
Above Flint was a wide, bright light that penetrated through the endless void around him. He recognized this as the place he visited when he died, the tunnel in which souls traveled from the world of the living to the dead. Usually, when he came here, he would be plunged back into the darkness below, finding himself shortly on solid ground again, but this time, Flint moved both up and down. He also moved left, right, forwards, backwards, in every direction conceivable and inconceivable all at the same time, until he was immersed in endless light and endless darkness.
Within the light, in the land of the dead, he came in contact with the soul of everything to have ever died in the history of the entire universe. Every bug, every fish, every creature that flew or walked or swam or moved in a way that was in between the rest, every person, good or bad. Flint came face to face with each one of them individually in the span of exactly zero seconds. With each meeting with each soul, he innately understood the conditions in which they had died and the lives they had lived, however brief or long.
He met Myasma, who told him all about how proud she was of him, thanking him for protecting her sister and apologizing for the decisions she had made. He met Tro, who congratulated him on making it this far, expressing his wishes and regrets.
And Flint met his parents, his beloved mother and father who told him how much they missed him and the unfathomable pride they felt towards him.
“We love you, son,” his mother said. “Thank you for staying strong without us.”
“By the way, Flint,” his father began, “in case you’ve forgotten, your last name is Graymore.”
Simultaneously, Flint returned to the physical world, where he briefly touched the soul of every living thing. They each kept their lives a secret, but with every touch, he could feel their vulnerability, their wishes, their dreams, their wills.
Backed by the power of every soul in the universe, living and dead, the zero seconds ticked off at last and Flint was returned to Vin. His soul floated several feet off of the ground, regenerating its light-emitting wounds with bright flashes. Once his soul had regenerated, his body regenerated, too, tendons and veins weaving themselves around Flint’s soul from thin air until Flint’s original body, just as it had been before he died, had been restored, the Terminus embedded in the hand that had grabbed it. Behind Flint, from any and every viewing angle, was a dimensional rift that shattered the invisible boundary between the living and the dead. Visible from that boundary were the eyes of every soul to ever have died, shining out of the rift with an eerie glow, every eye willing Flint to go on.
Flint’s mind returned to the present, and his consciousness was filled with a stunning clarity. When he gazed around at the world around him, he could see not only what others saw, the people, trees, and grass, but their individual souls. Clear as day, he saw the souls manifest themselves, as physical and fragile as their vessels were. Flint could touch any of them at any moment.
Zero’s face was not one of fear, but rage. This was reflected in his soul, glowing with anger and hate. Millions of voices whispered in the back of Flint’s mind as he made eye contact with Zero.
“Go get him,” they all said at once.
Flint moved in Zero’s direction and found himself effortlessly pushed to where he wanted to be by trillions of claws, fins, legs, and heads. Flint grabbed ahold of Zero’s soul, which was unobstructed by Zero’s Val, reared back a fist at Zero’s head, and punched it with all of his might.
Brought into the space between living and dead, akin to the space of the mind in which Flint dueled souls for a body, Flint’s and Zero’s souls fought. Flint landed blow after blow to Zero, oblivious to the stars whizzing by this dimensional space like flying bugs. The souls fought, trading blow after blow, but backed by the power of every dead soul, Flint’s power was overwhelming. His punches shattered and cracked Zero’s soul like a glass vessel, forcing Zero to do everything he could to survive the onslaught of blows.
Zero tried to run, fleeing across the landscape of the mind. Flint extended a hand in his direction, and the hand of every person whose death was Zero’s doing grabbed ahold of Zero, holding him in place before dragging him back to Flint, who slammed his fist into Zero’s face again. Zero’s face had almost shattered at this point, but he still found it within himself to twist it into rage.
Zero landed a swift chop onto a pressure point in Flint’s wrist, to the hand that connected Flint to the Terminus. Flint’s connection to the Terminus fluctuated for only a brief moment, but it was just long enough to eject the two from the battle between their souls and replace them in their own bodies.
Zero’s body reflected the damage done to his soul, and he bled profusely from his head, taking a moment to gather himself. By the wide-eyed expression on Zero’s face, this was the first time he had bled in many years. Zero reached again for Flint’s left hand, the Terminus still embedded within, and grabbed his wrist, freezing it. The freezing of Flint’s wrist happened in erratic bursts—Zero was losing control of his Val, and could not keep it on at all times—but it further hindered Flint’s connection to the Terminus, and he could feel the voices of the dead fluctuating in his head like a poor radio signal. The connection to the Terminus fading in and out paralyzed Flint, making it hard to react to Zero’s attack.
“You will never kill me!” Zero yelled, trying to tear off Flint’s hand at the wrist, twisting off the frozen parts of his flesh. “Keila will live forev-”
A loud crack rang out through the air and Zero’s head exploded into a fine red mist. Zero’s hand went limp over Flint’s wrist, and his headless body fell to the ground with a thud. Flint looked in the direction of the sound to see Viisi, bloodied and battered, standing in the forest with a hand aimed in Zero’s direction and several pebbles floating beside him. Viisi lowered his hand, let the pebbles fall, and let out a sigh of relief.
Flint’s connection to the Terminus was severed, and the pendant ejected itself from Flint’s hand, falling onto the forest floor. Flint collapsed as the power left his body, and it took him several seconds to recover enough to look up at Viisi again, who was standing over Flint.
“You… came back…” Aurein’s voice said from afar. He was heavily wounded, and it seemed to take everything he had to speak.
“I did,” Viisi said, “and now it’s finally over. So Tria had the Terminus here the whole time, huh?”
“She gave it to me,” Flint managed, pushing himself to standing. His head was spinning. “Her soul manifested itself here.”
“How is that possible?”
“The energy Zero took away with his Val had to have gone to her,” Flint said. “And there had to have been a lot of it, because a physical soul takes a lot of energy to maintain.”
The three were silent, taking in the scene. The once peaceful forest had been torn to pieces, remains of trees littering the scarred earth, and Zero’s headless corpse was a gruesome reminder of the violence that had occurred here. Tria’s grave had been defiled, her bones exposed to the outside air and a pile of dirt laying beside it. The Terminus, embedded in Tria’s pendant, lay innocently on the grass.
“What was it like?” Viisi asked. “To hold the Terminus?”
Flint pondered for a second, scratching his head with his uninjured hand.
“I… don’t remember a lot of it. I touched Infinity, and not all of the information I took in while I had it was able to fit in my head.”
Flint did distinctly remember meeting his parents again, their joyous expressions, their words of praise. Flint was filled with a deep, powerful satisfaction and peace that relaxed his entire soul.
“Why did she pick me?” Flint asked no one in particular—maybe the question was directed to Tria herself.
Viisi smiled softly.
“I don’t know. I wasn’t there. You tell me—why did she pick you? If I could guess, it’s because she thought you, of all people, deserved it.”
“It’s because of what you said,” Aurein’s weak voice rang from nearby. He was in a half-sitting position on the ground, cradling his shattered leg. “She had to have heard you. When we were in front of her grave, what you said had to have indicated you were the one who really deserved it.”
Flint gasped softly. He looked over towards the monolith atop Tria’s grave.
Thank you.
“We should put it back,” Flint said, pointing at the pendant on the ground. “The Terminus. We need to fix Tria’s grave.”
“Agreed,” Viisi said.
“I’ll help, too,” Aurein said, attempting to crawl over but stopping when he was hit with a terrible jolt of pain.
“Stay still,” Viisi advised. “You seem severely injured. Let us do this.”
Flint and Viisi carefully replaced the Terminus over Tria’s neck, or, rather, her bones, careful not to touch the pendant’s heart. They buried it again under the dug-up dirt, and Tria’s grave looked almost undisturbed again. Viisi coughed up blood on the ground nearby, wiping a trail of blood from his mouth.
“Do any of you happen to have acute radiation poisoning medication on you?” Viisi asked. “I might be in trouble.”
A set of heavy footsteps grew louder through the plant growth, and Allef’s bloody face appeared. She briefly took in the scene before letting out a yelp upon seeing Aurein’s body, then she ran over to him and embraced him. Aurein held Allef as well.
“I’m so glad you’re all okay,” Allef said. “I tried to come here as fast as I could, but my ship was damaged.”
“It’s alright,” Flint said. “But we need to get out of here. Everyone needs medical help, and fast. The Lucre Main’s medical cabinet should have enough supplies to treat the four of us.”
“My ship has a few things, too,” Allef added. “And who’s this, by the way?” she asked, pointing at Viisi.
“That’s Viisi. Ex-member of the Big 5. He has severe radiation poisoning,” Flint answered.
“Ah. Yeah, you’re right—let’s all get fixed up first.”
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“So,” Viisi began. The four of them were all covered in bandages. From an outside perspective, the people inside of the Lucre Main couldn’t have been more different—a child, a cyborg, an ex-Tymin member, and an ex-Big 5 member. But they all shared one thing in common.
“I want to start,” Viisi continued, “by thanking you. All of you. It was the three of you that made this possible. As you must have read, Tria wanted to end this war in a more peaceful manner, but it looks like this is how things turned out. But without your help, Zero would have the Terminus, and the Domain war would stretch on for… who knows how long.
“What are you going to do with the Terminus?” Flint asked.
“I’ll keep it here, under watch of Keila.”
“You will?” Aurein repeated.
Viisi seemed hesitant. “Yes. According to customs in the Domain, if what Allef says about Iskay is true, then I would be next in command to be instated as Keila’s leader. My goal as Keila’s new leader won’t be to ensure Keila’s victory, but rather the end of the Domain war. And Keila’s in an advantageous position, holding the Terminus on our turf. We can use it as a deterrent force to help encourage peaceful policies in the galaxy while maintaining power.”
“Won’t you need someone to protect the Terminus, then?” Allef asked. “If it gets out that you have it here, everyone’s going to want it, and everyone’s going to come after it.”
Viisi actually smiled. He seemed like he was about to say something he’s been waiting to for some time.
“I actually wanted to ask the three of you to be the Terminus’ protectors. I can promise you safety while living under Keila, and I was thinking you could even live here on Vin.”
Flint, Aurein, and Allef looked between each other. The answer was clear.
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Connected to a small path that led straight to Lavender Canyon was a small wooden house. It had been built from the trees that had fallen during the battle against Zero, and thus its walls were a comfortable violet color that blended into the rest of the forest.
Allef and Aurein’s house had only been built for a month now, but it already felt like home. Routine walks around the wooded scenery always put them at ease no matter what mood they were in, even if Aurein’s leg had yet to fully recover. They enjoyed televised broadcasts not from Keila, but from a collection of intelligent, artistic civilizations on the planets nearby.
It had taken significant time, but with Viisi’s help, the area around Tria’s grave had been repaired, new saplings planted where the trees had fallen and fresh soil filling the scars in the earth. It would take nature some more time to return the area to its original beauty, but it got closer every day. Zero was buried separately from Tria in a far away continent on Vin, in a nameless grave without a gravestone or any indicating signs of his presence.
One afternoon, Allef approached Aurein in the living room.
“Where’s Flint? Is he still off-planet?”
Aurein looked towards the door.
“No, he should be back by now to visit. He’s probably out somewhere, doing his own thing.”
Allef shrugged. “His loss. He’s going to miss the food crate delivery, and no way am I leaving any snacks for him this time.”
Right on cue, a soft whirring noise came from outside, and Allef and Aurein left the door to see a Keila drone descending upon the small launchpad they had built. The drone, the same kind that was once used to chase after the two upon their escape from Tempest City, deposited a large crate with Keila’s colors plastered onto it next to the Lucre Main with a small thud. The drone rose back up into the air and zipped away, the wind it left behind rustling the tops of the trees as it went.
Aurein approached the crate to find that it had on it a small screen. Aurein tapped the screen and it came to life, displaying a message:
I made sure to pack your favorites this time. Tell Flint not to steal all of the orgo nuts again!
* Viisi
With a few small whirs, Allef picked up the large crate with her hydraulically-powered arms and carried it to the house. When they got inside, Aurein saw that he was receiving a call on his transponder and walked over to answer it. With a sinking heart, he saw that the call was from his father. He hadn’t called since Aurein ran away. With slightly shaking hands, Aurein answered the call and put the transponder to his ear.
Allef couldn’t see much of what was happening—Aurein was facing away from her. She heard a faint voice coming from Aurein’s transponder, but it was far too quiet to make out. Allef only knew something was wrong when she saw Aurein’s back shake with a heaving sob. She put down the crate, preparing to comfort him, but then Aurein turned to face her, and his eyes were dripping with tears of profound joy.
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The fighting did not stop immediately. In fact, it had yet to stop at all. Even with Viisi in control of the strongest faction, even with him doing everything he could, the scarred and angered hearts of the people fighting the war were not yet in any position to forgive, much less forget. Tempest City erupted with anger on the day that Viisi declared Keila would not be participating in the war any longer, and most people saw him as a weak leader or even a traitor to Keila instead of an envoy of peace. Truly, Tria’s plan five years ago may have been the fastest way to end the war succinctly, but now, it was up to Viisi to do the best he could with what he had.
But the momentum of the war still changed. Other factions may not have halted their fighting, but the shocking declaration of peace from the strongest faction in the galaxy struck deep into the hearts of everyone. No longer was the war an unstoppable force of accelerating hate, but a war that was changing, moving in the direction of forgiveness without most people even knowing it. It would take time—a long, long time—for the war to come to an end, maybe longer than Viisi’s lifetime, but the end, after nearly a hundred years, finally came into sight.
Flint had climbed the highest mountain he could find near Lavender Canyon and sat on top of it, watching the sun set. He was out of breath from the climb—his original body was far smaller than any of the adult bodies he had possessed over the years, and he had forgotten how difficult it was to hike with shorter legs.
As Flint sat, feeling a cool breeze wash over him, alleviating his exhaustion, he did something he hadn’t done in a long time—nothing. He did nothing as he watched the sun set except for enjoy the sight, totally at peace with himself. He felt one with the world around him, but also a significant member of it.
He knew that this was not the end for him. There would always be more hardships, and there would always be more to do—he still felt like he had not truly found his place in the world, that he had yet to find where he really belonged—but in this moment, he was perfectly content with watching a glowing reddish orb fall over the landscape.
Flint watched the sun set slowly, patiently savoring every second of it. He savored the ground under his feet, the stars in the sky, and the person that he was. Flint continued to watch the sun fall for a long time, lower and lower, until the final, tiniest sliver of light vanished over the horizon.