She let go of our entwined fingers and sang. I wanted to hold hands for a bit longer but her dancing figure basked in silver moonlight is so captivating, even more so than the black gleaming lake reflecting the large moon behind her. How long since I’ve last seen her like this, I wonder.

“Thousands of prayers shall not be heard

Millions of hopes unbeknownst

For whom did you shoulder that blade of unfaltering will?”

She looked at me and smiled before continuing her song.

“Crisscrossing roads of dreams yet unfold

Our fate never to be linked has now conjoined into one single unbreakable link of dark rusty chains.

Oh, did you choose me knowing our cruel destiny woven into an inevitable tragedy as never before?”

She smiled again, now with tears tracing down her cheeks.

Standing in the middle of the lake banks filled with swaying white and blue nightbell flowers she opened her arms wide. Her long silvery hair and white dress are fluttering in the cold night wind.

“You see, Erik. I am one of those creatures you loathe the most...”

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I stood and faced her, steeling my resolve.

Wings sprouted from her back, wings of which I am already too familiar with.

“I am a dragon.”

Her smile gone, now replaced by a sorrowful expression mixed with both regret and anger. Anger directed at the world and at fate itself.

I approached her and used my hand to wipe her tears.

“Yeah, I know.”

She smiled again to my words.

“You’re kind… so kind it is cruel.”

We hugged. I’m sure both of us wished that the cog of time will never move again. But we knew better.

After a short-lived eternity we released the hug and looked directly at each other’s eyes.

No more illusion, no more lies. We both know what to come next.

“Erik…”

“I know, Luna…”

She smiled again in her earnest, as if to assure me that everything is okay.

“Kill me.”

I reached to the sword she presented at me. The sword that has saved me more than once, the sword by which I swore to protect her.

Although my hands are heavy I forced myself, trying my best to erase any hesitation.

I raised the sword with both hands and she closed her eyes.

“Erik, you promised.”

“Yeah… I did.”

“Please, put an end to this never ending cycle forever.”

I shouted, expelling all the air stored in my lungs yet I heard nothing, I feel nothing. When I came to the sword in my hands has pierced her in the heart. Her white dress is now red with blood.

She fell to my arms and with the last of her strength she kissed me, for the last time.

“Erik, I… love you…”

She then closed her eyes, never to open them again.

That night I wailed. If not for our promise I would have cursed the whole world, I would loathe everything, I would even kill myself.

I laid her body to rest surrounded by the nightbell flowers she loved the most.

With the sword I used to kill her in my hand I walked away from the place I might never return.

There waiting for me was Celli. She looked at my face, realizing the choice that I made she made a sad face but then she followed me who walked past her without saying anything.

“Erik, I just want to let you know that you still got me and everyone else. We will follow your decision even if it is to destroy this wretched world.”

Without looking back at her I replied.

“Yeah, then let’s give that other me a final battle he will regret to the core of his being.”