(Were you hoping that perhaps Minoie wasn’t really dead?

If so, I’m sorry, but…)

No.

It was the only word that existed, the only concept that was present in this terrible mockery of the world.  No.  Pure, unshakeable denial.

No.  He wasn’t dead.  No.

Not Minoie.

“You could try CPR,” Paul said, and his voice was lighter now, like the voice of Jonathon’s own dear friend, but this was also mockery.  “You could try a spell, what with your brand new magic.  Go on; try it.”

“You killed him,” Jonathon whispered.  He was on his knees, holding a sack of flesh and bone that had once been- had been-  “You killed him.”

He didn’t cry, but tears were falling.

“Jonathon-“

And that was Niang, her hand outstretched, stopping when she saw what was in his arms.  Who, who was in his arms, oh he was dead he was dead-

I’ll kill him, Chehl said somewhere in Jonathon’s breaking, clouding mind, not with violence but with shock and horror.  I’ll kill that son of a bitch I’ll kill him oh Jonathon I’m sorry-

“Stop it!” Jonathon shrieked, and now he was crying, in great huge heaving sobs.  He buried his face in Minoie’s shoulder, pressed against his throat and trying to tell himself that there was a pulse, there had to be, oh please he was dead no no-

It was Niang who screamed like a hunting eagle and threw herself, all of her life and light and energy at Paul, expending all her rage in order to kill him, to punish him.  It was white-hot lightning, the fire at the core of a newborn star, but it wasn’t enough.

Her light, her life, bled into his black hole eyes.  Niang fell to her knees, keening in loss and in pain.  Oh, please.  Oh, please no.  Jonathon, Jonathon, I tried I failed I’m sorry-

“With me, then,” Chehl said, and he was taking Niang’s hand and pulling her up, facing her with a smile that wasn’t anything but real love for the first time since the beginning of time.  Jonathon looked up at them with nearly blind eyes, watching as two halves became a whole.

And as they died together.

Paul raised his hands and it was like the sky split apart, with the sound of a great bell, and all human guise was stripped from Chehl and Niang.  For a moment, there was the strangest mix of light and shadow, and Jonathon could hear them in his mind.

Jonathon do what you must Jonathon what must be done-

And the sky was Paul’s eyes and his eyes were the mouth of nothingness entire.   He ate them, Chehl and Niang together, and he ate them raw.

Jonathon felt the emptiness in his mind.  His mind, in accordance with the nature that abhors a vacuum, must fill a vacuum, collapsed on itself.

“He is dead, you know,” Annia said, touching Minoie’s face with one gentle hand.  “You can’t help him.”

Jonathon wept.  “Please.  You can save him, please.  I know you can.”

“Only a god can bring someone back from the dead, Jonathon.”

“No, you step with the outside foot first,” Niang instructed.  She was incredibly patient.  “It’s the only way it will work.  Do you know the word for that?  For when something must happen a certain way, or be a certain way?”

“When it needs-“

“He is dead, you know,” Annia said, touching Minoie’s face with one gentle hand.  “You can’t help him.”

Jonathon wept.  “I am not a god.”

Chehl was smiling.  “There’s nothing to be afraid of, you know.  There’s nothing in the dark but us.”

“He is dead, you know,” Annia said, touching Minoie’s face with one gentle hand.

Jonathon wept.  “A god, Annia, he needs-“

Niang was looking over his homework in the last few rays of sunshine.  “I like math better than English.  It’s more straightforward.  What’s a synonym, again?”

And Chehl was sitting in the shadow under his desk.  “I bet you don’t even know what a noun is, dummy.”

“A noun is a person, place, or thing,” Jonathon recited.  “We have a test tomorrow and I need-“

“He is dead, you know.”

Jonathon wept.  “I love him, Annia.  I need-“

Words exploded into the shifting mass of confusion that was Jonathon’s mind.

I NEED TO WAKE UP

THERE IS SOMETHING I NEED YET TO DO

Phoenix from ashes, Jonathon looked out of his own eyes again and saw the world, saw Paul standing above him and looking down.  He was going to die if he didn’t do something-

But why do anything? he thought.  It wasn’t bitterness; it was true, honest, black-hole despair.  Why save anything?  We’ve already lost.

“The last great war has begun,” Paul said quietly.  “The humans and the Rentaio are destroying each other; hunting each other down even as we speak.”

Here at the end of all things…

“You killed him,” he whispered again.  He wasn’t crying anymore.  There were no tears left; there was no hope left.  “You killed Niang and Chehl.”

“I did.”

Jonathon could see it, with that vast power that had been his for so long and he’d never known.  They were killing each other, human and Rentaio, in a terrible dance that wouldn’t stop, wouldn’t end-

“End it, then,” Paul whispered.  Jonathon’s sight was dimming; it was swimming in blood and useless tears.  “Say the words and I will stop it.”

Here at the end of the world…

He understood.  The pain was never going to end.  Even if there was a god, this great Cielen whose crown he had been carrying, as Annia claimed, it wouldn’t stop.  He could bring them back, he could bring Minoie back, but the pain wouldn’t stop because they wouldn’t stop.

Killing, always killing.  Hatred and murder and despair.

“Stop it now, then.  Don’t let anyone else be hurt.  You can end it all here.”

There didn’t have to be anymore children crying at night because their parents were dead and gone, there didn’t have to be anymore bodies buried in shallow graves.  No winged corpses, no charred wingless bodies; it could all end.  Here.

Here at the end of all things…

All things.

“All things,” Jonathon repeated, and knew he could not do it.  He pulled Minoie close and let his last tears, the ones that had hid in some frozen part of his soul, out into the world.  “I’m so sorry.”

This world, his world, would not end.  He would not let it.

“Why?” Paul asked, and the words fell like tears from Jonathon’s lips.

No, they fell like drops of rain, which carried no salt and allowed fresh things to grow.

“I am Necessity,” he said, and the dying world shuddered.  “I am what is needed, and that is not nothingness.  Everything- we need everything- and we need a second chance.”

He stood, staggering a little under Minoie’s weight, but he didn’t drop him.  “We need a god, Paul.  We need Cielen.”

Paul’s terrible black-hole eyes closed…

…and the world ended.

“’It was an unexpected sunrise’,” Nithia said.  She was staring down into the valley, hugging her knees to her chest.  “That’s what High Priestess Annia said, about the first day of the world.”

Charr rolled his eyes.  “The way you’re always quoting her, someone would think you wanted to be a Rentaio.”

“So what if I do?” Nithia asked.  She lifted her chin in defiance to Charr’s sneer.  “They can fly!  Who doesn’t want to fly?”

Jonathon watched them bickering under the bright blue sky and shook his head.  “Some things never change.”

“What do you mean?” Minoie asked, peering over his shoulder.  “Did you really expect them to act polite to each other, even today?”

“I don’t know,” he answered truthfully, then laughed.  He leaned back into Minoie’s waiting embrace and watched the twins, wishing that his parents hadn’t insisted he keep an eye on them while they went ahead to the Temple.  It was the Promise of Peace Ceremony, where all surrounding tribes of Rentaio and villages of humans met together with their god.  “I think they must get along together sometimes, you know?  How else would they get into so much trouble?  They’ve got to be cooperating.”

“Mmm,” Minoie agreed, rubbing his cheek against Jonathon’s.  “What did she say to you, by the by?”

“Who?”  Jonathon smiled as Charr tried to apologize to Nithia, who was now pouting with all the force a seven year-old girl can muster.

“Annia, when she chose those of us who would be eligible to become Priests of Cielen.  She took you aside and said something, about those dreams you said you had.  Remember?

The faint sound of celebration from the Temple rose for a moment as the wind drifted their way, and Jonathon looked to the east with a thoughtful expression.  “She said that sometimes, things go so wrong, so quickly, that the only thing you can do to save it is to start over.”

Minoie sounded surprised.  “That was her answer to your dreams?  Maybe you should have asked Cielen directly, instead.”

“I tried that,” Jonathon admitted.  He couldn’t repress a feeling of awe at how easily Cielen had spoken to him, as if they were old friends.  He’d been more interested in Jonathon’s dreams than Annia had, and had listened to everything Jonathon could remember with wide, kind eyes.  “He just smiled and said that I was given certain gifts, and should let these other things fall by, or something.”

Certain gifts… well, he had a good family, a good life, and would someday be a full Priest of Cielen, even as Minoie would, though he would work with the human element that was still wary of the Rentaio and Minoie’s work would be exactly opposite.  And then, too, he had Minoie.

“When will your parents be back to watch the twins?” the Rentaio asked, pressing a gentle kiss to Jonathon’s neck.

Jonathon shivered and smiled.  “In a little while.”

Yes, he could let a few strange dreams- a war, a world outside of their own, an identity so secret that even he didn’t even know it- he could let these things fall by, half-memories easing into a forgotten shade of gray.