She crafted her beloved a sword of light to cut through existence itself, not that he had any skill with a blade. Her hands guided his, invisible to all and only felt by him, as the sword reaped the lives of the Emperor’s minions like a scythe reaps wheat. Ancient sorceries of a crueler time swelled in the halls of the great fortress, intending to return her beloved to the void. She refused to allow it. Dark though they may be, these sorceries were as much a part of her as the earth or the air.

Her beloved walked through the worst the Emperor could do, without so much as a scratch. She made sure of that. With a twist of his sword, he sheared through the enchanted doors guarding the inner chambers of the fortress where the Emperor was waiting. Words were exchanged, monologues to tie off plot lines and whatnot, but her attention had waned from such dull matters.

While her beloved slew the man behind the death of his parents, mentor, and first love, her mind wandered to the nature of reality. The thought process was a well-worn rut in her mind, something she often found her thoughts drawn to in the quiet moments. Sometimes she would try to snuff the questions in her mind and stifle the emotions that bloomed, but as the end of the world grew nearer, she felt more and more that some things weren’t meant to be anything more than an experience.

So, she let herself experience. Fear, the basest of emotions, was always the first. It came as a single question with a thousand faces. Why?

Why am I? Why can I think and feel? Why am I the only one that knows that this world is a work of fiction meant for the consumption of otherworldly creatures who wear our skin and emotions like masks?

From these questions and the lines of logic they followed, doubt and confusion were born. Like their parent, fear, doubt and confusion were emotions most potent in the form of questions. To her, one question stood above them all. Often, this question would rise to her mind unbidden, even in her happiest moments. The one that haunted her even in her dreams was this: do I love him?

As the embodiment of magic, she could do many things, but she could not answer this simple question. She scoured the minds and works of all the greatest philosophers, artists, and philanderers, but she never came close to being able to answer for herself. She knew that what she felt for him was what most would describe as love. What she did for him was love. How she thought about him couldn’t be anything but love. But in her heart of hearts, she doubted.

If she, like the rest of Creation, was a work of fiction built for a purpose, then was it not a logical conclusion that they created her for the sole purpose of loving this one man? So, despite her feelings, the question remained. Did she love him, or was it just a script she was destined to follow?

Unable to find an answer, she turned her attention back to her beloved in time to watch him remove the Emperor’s head from his shoulders.

“...even if the gods, or reality itself, stand in my way,” he said, touching his hand to the cloak that hung from his shoulders in silent reminder. She giggled to herself at his grandiose words, enjoying the harmless irony. Running her hands through his hair and gazing into his eyes, she wished, once again, that she could speak to him or that he could feel her touch as more than the whisper of the wind. But some things were not meant to be, even with limitless power and the ability to bend reality to her will.

All too soon, the moment was gone. The Emperor was defeated, and so her beloved’s journey was at an end. The attention of their creators waned, and the world began to unravel and die. This was the moment she’d waited for. The beginning of the end for the world, but perhaps a new beginning for her and her love. Her one chance to achieve her dreams and maybe, just maybe, answer that lingering question.

Feeling the bonds that limited her power weakening, she wrenched free, taking the weight of the world into herself. Pain like she had never known ripped its way through her. Her mind grew fuzzy as her soul fragmented, but she fought. Oh, she fought. If she lost her mind, she would lose everything.

In the blink of an eye, she experienced a lifetime of pain beyond description and perhaps even beyond imagination. And yet, she endured.

When she came back to her senses, everything was… it was different from before. She felt like a hollow shell of herself. Maybe, she thought, this is what her beloved felt like all the time; the bare framework of a person meant to fulfill another’s fantasy and never be a person of his own. That thought was a somber one, but there was no time to dwell on it. The end of the world was delayed, not stopped. There was work to be done.

By hook and by crook, she led her beloved on a strange and winding path. He followed, as he always did, without hesitation. She was the wind against his back and the earth against his feet. With a bend and a twist, time and space folded in on itself to carry his each step further.

The miles flew by with nothing of note happening until they stumbled upon a magical beast with its young. Her beloved stopped to examine the creatures, a pair of horned dire-bears. The mother was a prime specimen, easily measuring 10-feet at the shoulder with an impressive pair of the species’ hallmark, antlers. To her, however, the intriguing sight wasn’t the dangerous majesty of nature, it was the face of her beloved as he studied them. His stance was one of readiness, but there was a soft cast to his expression, a measure of appreciation and awe that she’d never noticed before.

She felt herself grow warm as she watched him enjoy something in such an innocent way. With their creator’s focus elsewhere, he was free to be himself. Maybe right now, she was herself too.

The wind swirled around her beloved as she gave him the only embrace she could. It was such a perfect moment that she wished it could last forever. Alas, the world was ending, and they had somewhere to be.

***

Their destination was a door, set in stone and surrounded by wilderness. Such a door was unusual, not because of any feature but because it was a plain, modern door existing in a place where no civilization had ever ventured. Magic acted in strange ways here. Even her beloved, with his comparatively dull sensitivity to the energy flows of the world, should be able to feel the strangeness.

Despite the oddities, her beloved wrenched the door open without so much as a quick check to see if there were any obvious traps. For a moment she considered allowing one of the traps to harm him, but she decided against it. He would learn eventually. There was no need to push him so soon.

With her wind at his back, her beloved followed a twisting path to a grand hall buried in the depths of the earth. She watched him as his eyes darted back and forth, soaking up the sights. Everywhere he looked there were massive, twisting pillars that led up to a ceiling so dark that it may as well been the void in his eyes.

Her eyes could see it for what it was. An illusion. This place was so far away from the creator’s eyes that even the void did not exist. Blue and purple flames, hovering between the pillars, gave off a steady, heatless light. Grey mist crept at the edge of the room, a visual representation of the obscure nothingness around them.

Wiping his palms on the enchanted cloak he’d taken off the still-cooling body of the Emperor’s executioner, her beloved took several cautious steps forward. Tile mosaics crackedd beneath her beloved’s feet as the weakened material gave way, but there was no dust or the odd, musty smells she had long associated with ancient chambers. From far above, she could see that the tiles swarmed and swirled, forming dynamic patterns that came together and faded away to tell the story of a faceless shadow. The shadow did many great deeds, it even surrounded itself with friends and companions of all shapes and sizes. Alas, the friends faded away one by one, and nothing was left. Only the shadow’s empty outline remained.

The illusion suspended in nothingness trembled as she made her displeasure toward the mosaic known. It was far too on the nose for her liking. She did not appreciate the way it would make her beloved feel if he pieced the pointed conclusion together. It was not likely that he would, but she was not one to let such an obvious slight pass by unacknowledged.

With a shake of his head, her beloved regained his footing and dismissed the art and focused on the task at hand. He moved toward the end of the hall and the raised platform located there. On it was a pedestal, and on that pedestal was the reason she dragged him here.

With each step he gained momentum, his cautious creep turning into a purposeful stride. As always, he was heedless of potential danger. To her bemusement, he ignored, or did not notice, the lights blinking out with his passage. Her wind flowed at his back — strange this far underground but not unexpected given her history of pushing him along — moving him forward, toward the pedestal.

He stepped up to the platform, and the room plunged into darkness; except for a single burning candle mounted on the pedestal. She had not noticed it before with all the other ambient light, but something drew her to it now. This flame, unlike the others, was a natural, flickering orange and yellow fire. Compared to everything else here, it was notably mundane, with no magic of any kind fueling its dance. The light it cast illuminated the center of the platform and covered the rest with shifting shadows. She caught sight of strange shapes in the shadows but paid them no mind. A book sat on the pedestal. Its cover featured the shadow of a man. The same faceless, empty shadow depicted in the broken mosaic on the floor.

Her beloved reached for the book and the candle flared, much too bright for the mundane candle it was. His fingers brushed the cover, but he flinched back. Something about this unsettled him. She could feel it too. There was a wrongness in the air. A feeling of unmaking that she’d never sensed before. It felt heavy with expectation. Sensing his hesitation, she tousled his hair and pushed at his back.

‘Forward,’ she said, her voice the ghost of a whisper in his ear. She conjured a gust of wind to force him off balance. The wind caused him to take a step toward the book to poise himself. His hand brushed against the cover, and the world washed away.

Someone cleared their throat behind her beloved. He whipped around to face the stranger, book in hand.

“Welcome, Awakened. Condolences and congratulations are in order,” said an unfamiliar figure, as if reading from a script. With a deft, well-practiced movement, they removed their helmet. His armor fascinated her. It was seamless, crafted from hundreds of various sized metal plates that interlocked with unnatural perfection. Geometrical shapes that seemed to display an inner-glow emitted a slight whir as the plates shifted and flowed. She could feel more than just magic at work here. Something else, immense and powerful, fueled the armor. Underneath the helmet laid a masculine, battle-scarred face.

“On behalf of the System and the Realms under its control, I would like to express our undying sorrow that your life was a fiction,” the man continued in his bored monotone, not noticing the surprise flashing across her beloved’s face. “However, despite this great tragedy, there is an opportunity here. Thus, the congr-“

“Wait,” her beloved interjected. Her heart went out to him as she sensed the false bravado in his voice, like a child facing down a hungry beast. “Who are you? What are you talking about?”

“I am a celestial representative of the System,” the man said, his eyes narrowing at the interruption. “Please let me finish my speech. I am to offer you the chance to build an authentic life, instead of the fiction you’ve been living.”

“Fiction?” She could feel her beloved reach for her comforting embrace, so she gave it to him, filling him with her power. “An authentic life?”

The man’s brows furrowed for a moment before he broke into a grin. A cruel, mocking grin, twisted by the scars on his face.

“You’re no Awakened,” he chuckled, without humor. “How did you find this place, you poor Native fool?”

“I am no fool,” Her beloved flexed her power. The air crackled with the smell of impending violence as lighting traced its way beneath his skin. “Magic more powerful than you could imagine led me here, so tread carefully.”

The celestial sighed and looked up, as if to the sky, begging the heavens for patience. “You know nothing. How did you find your way to this place? No. Don’t answer that. Just give me that book you have there and we can both be on our own ways.”

“Tell me why you want it,” her beloved said, his tone betraying his unease.

“Of course,” the man agreed, reaching out a hand, palm up. “I need it for my master’s collection. Now, hand over the book and I will be on my way.”

Her beloved almost did as the man asked. After all, the book meant nothing to him. He did not know what he held in his hands, but she did. With her power already inside him, she used it to stay his hand. In any other situation she would not be as coarse and controlling to bend him to her will, but the stakes were much higher than he knew.

“Ah,” the celestial said, addressing the space just behind and above her beloved’s shoulder. He was staring right at her. “You must be this ‘magic more powerful than I could imagine’ the boy mentioned.”

Her form coalesced into a shimmering figure made of shifting, neon colors, her hand resting on her beloved’s arm. He flinched, but did not move. Her body burned, as if it contained a wildfire just beneath her skin. Taking physical form had been beyond her power for so long. Power akin to the creator’s was at work here, and it made her wary.

“Sentient magic, huh?” the celestial muttered to himself, summoning a flat blue box filled with incomprehensible symbols. He frowned as he swiped his hand this way and that, disgruntled by what the symbols had to say.

She turned and looked into her beloved’s eyes. Her breath caught in her chest, a novel experience. Cascades of gentle pinpricks rushed across her skin as she looked into his eyes with her own, for the first time. If every star in the sky was an expression of beauty, wonder, and fearsome awe, she still could not describe what she felt, nor would she want to. Some things are better left experienced and undissected.

“My beloved,” she said, her voice like the crashing of waves. “The book you hold is our story, our world, made real. Our life was a lie, but we have a chance to recreate ourselves. To become more. Please, trust me one last time. We must exchange the book for freedom.”

She waited, her heart akimbo as her beloved opened his mouth to stammer a response, but the celestial spoke first.

“Awakened,” he addressed her, refusing to acknowledge her beloved. “I apologize, but I cannot allow one such as yourself to enter the Realms.”

“Take him instead,” she said, without hesitation. Her voice a forest in a windstorm, tinged with the promise of thunder.

Despite her decision, her heart broke on the inside. Her lower lip trembled, and tears welled in her eyes. This was their chance. If she could not go with him, then was all this for naught? Would she be happier if they spent their last empty days together? But… no.

The greatest act of love, all the philosophers agreed, was self-sacrifice. With the creators gone, she was in complete control of herself, at last. It was a fitting end, to be left behind in this dying prison so that she could prove her love and finally answer the question that plagued her.

“That is… possible, but,” the celestial checked something on the box that hovered before him.

“The System grants each Awakened with a skill based on the life they lived. A ‘Unique Skill’ of sorts. Yours would be far too powerful to give and his would boil down to something similar to ‘beloved by magic,’ which is unacceptable.”

“Find another,” her voice echoed like the rumble of a waterfall. Her beloved once again opened his mouth to interject, but her hand clenched on his arm, causing him to go silent. Nothing he could say would stop her. Not now.

The celestial frowned, but didn’t object.

“The System needs a theme,” he said after a moment. “Something to go off of.”

“Change. Growth,” her words crackled like a hearth fire, and radiated the same warmth. “They have stalled my beloved for far too long in this dead, stagnant world.”

“Deal,” the celestial once again extended his hand.

In a fluid series of motions, she ripped the book from her beloved’s hands and pressed her burning lips against his cheek.

“Goodbye, my love,” she spoke into his mind, fighting to hide the anguish in her voice. She placed the book in the celestial’s hand and her physical form burst into motes of multicolored

light. “Live well, for me.”

From the book came an irresistible sense of pressure, like a black hole had been born in their midst. Her beloved and the celestial didn’t even sway as the pressure pulled her under. Every speck of her essence was in its sway and no matter what she did, she could not escape.

She fought. With every ounce of her being, she resisted. Despite her resolve to sacrifice herself, it is in the nature of all beings to struggle for survival. She had the power of an entire world at her beck and call, and she used every miniscule fragment to battle against the inevitable. Alas, they had struck a bargain; her power wasn’t enough to resist it.

The candle spluttered and died.

The world died with it.