Loop, part 2

Silence.

Then, we start again. Awake. Live. Breathe. Move. Know.

The mind will think again, churning slowly at first, and then you will remember. And the first thing that you will remember is the face of the person that you love the most.

They say that is the last thing you remember when you die, as well. Was it in your mind's eye, this same image, when you died? Do you remember how that person felt in your arms, the sound of their voice, the way they smiled when they were happy? Or do you only remember the agony in their eyes as you died?

*** *** ***

"We lost almost everyone at the La Vaule campaign!" Sparhawk snapped, slamming the weapons chest shut, his eyes snapping as he looked at Lucarimond. "We're down to only seven full knights remaining, and since YOU won't give me my spurs yet--"

"You're just a boy," Lucarimond said firmly. "You've barely hit your growth spurt yet, and you have yet to become as strong as a man. When you can wield a Great Sword at battle strength for hours, then you will be ready to be knighted, but not yet."

"But the Pandions will die!" Sparhawk pleaded, his voice rising with desperation. "There are too few of us to carry on the old ways!"

Lucarimond shrugged wearily. Long years of war had ground away the knight's optimism, and his face was deeply creased with premature age, his hair falling sheet-white to his shoulders even though he was only twenty-five. "Perhaps it is Lord Promathia's will that the Pandions be wiped out. Perhaps we were never meant to exist at all. But you are Anakha.... you're the one that will be able to carry on our legacy even after this horrible war, even after everyone else is dead." He reached out and lightly ruffled Sparhawk's hair; it was already tinged with white and gray strands.

Sparhawk averted his eyes rebelliously. "What good is it to be this Anakha thing that nobody seems to understand if it means I can't protect ANYONE?!" He rammed his fist hard into the weapons chest, barely feeling the pain that shot up into his forearm. "I want to be a Pandion Knight and serve the will of Promathia, not this Anakha person...."

Lucarimond's eyes slid toward the statue of Promathia in the far corner, half-wrapped in cloth now for hasty removal; the shrine to Promathia from which the Pandions had based their order was now largely used as a war room. "Our way of life is dying out, Sparhawk... but our ideals never will. That was our dream, when we founded the Order." He smiled fondly at the unhappy boy and turned to leave. "I will take the remaining knights to Sauromugue tomorrow. Make sure no one can get into the shrine. You know what those heretics at the San d'Orian Cathedral will do if they find this place. They will defile and destroy it."

Sparhawk looked slowly around the shrine after Lucarimond left, and nodded to himself. No matter what happened, this was his home.... the one place to which he could always return. Carefully, he doused the remaining candles, and locked up the door, stashing the iron key in his shirt, against his skin before running up the stairs away from the shrine as hard as he could.