Innocence's End
The ever-observant gods converged, their brooding cloudy sanctuaries blanketed Fasnakyle skies.
A single, collective tear splashed upon Lawrence face.
Was it a reaction to their inaction? Of their inability to intervene in the realm of mortals? He always figured their struggles were mere games, mere drama to dull their laziness, their eternal struggle against boredom. And now they have the gall to weep for him?
Lawrence trudged on. Divisions upon divisions of small obelisks dot the hilly landscape, uniform in nature, stroked by the occasional lone tree or bush. More droplets, soaking the white cobblestone track. Their tears like wastes from careless birds.
He wasn’t sure how long he trekked, how many thousands of gravestones he passed. These empty, meaningless graves whose victims were long reduce to atoms. All that remained were names, their very statutes, their shrines to the meaningless efforts of their distant shore struggles.
Two figures emerged over the horizon. One was hunched over the nondescript black obelisk, and the other stood over then, And as his soak-filled vision finally gathered, upon paces of the two, did he know who they were. It was Charlotte . . . And Frank.
Frank turned to him. They locked gazes, perhaps the first since Zeta. He was matured now, older. His soaked blond hair obscured him, but Lawrence knew for sure he was staring him now. There was no smile, no relief to see him. Lawrence knew his fury was bound to see no end. His explosive rage was primed, and now the moment came to pass where it could be contained no longer.
Frank took a step to Lawrence. Then another and another. He stood less than a arm’s length’s away, the difference in height too evident now. But at that moment, Lawrence didn’t feel like the bigger man. He was still the little, young lad chasing after Victoria’s long-gone phantom, her place among the unreachable stars now. The tears shed by gods now a torrent of grief. The rain never relented, never showed mercy. Not for him, Victoria, not for anyone, let alone Frank.
It was the first time in years, nearly half a decade now, Lawrence saw into the evergreen eyes of his, melancholic as they are now. He saw the reflection of what was once a man, now a a towering stack of broken misery.
Frank finally grew up. Or maybe he outgrew Lawrence?
He turned away, towards Victoria’s gravestone.
And just as quickly as he did, he spun around—a blur, then Lawrence felt sheer, unimaginable pain, his world spun. No time to react, or rather, he chose not to. He expected this faucet of release for the better part of the decade. The bed of cobblestones assaulted his senses. Splotches from the Olympian observers perched upon their dark stormy clouds pelted his vision. Frank’s figure, his retribution, his unpaid dues, towered over him. Zeus threw down a lightning bolt, but for whom’s sake? For whom the son of Cronus favored?
Frank crouched down and sat on Lawrence. He raised his right fist, high above his hand. His free hand grabbed Lawrence’s collar, jerking it upright. Lawrence didn’t resist.
His right hand fell like a meteor, and knocked anew Lawrence’s senses. His vision doubles of Luke . . . Of Frank.
“The nerve of you, you of people, to come here,” Frank said. His wrath came down again. Lawrence didn’t resist. Frank primed for another punch, his fist shaking. His teeth gritted like a wolf. Olympus wanted to intervene, but their action merely soaked the two in their collective sadness.
“Why couldn’t it have been you?” Luke’s question numbed him. His hand, heavy as the asteroid Zeta, crushed him harder than any battle Lawrence ever fought. His vision as starry as ever. Lawrence didn’t resist.
Lawrence only saw the aftermath of Luke—of Frank, as he raised his fist again, raising it as a sieging army would its trebuchet. The fist fell down, much as Zeta would’ve fallen on Fasnakyle. Lawrence didn’t resist.
“Why didn’t you protect her?” Frank gasped. He brought his fury down. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. Lawrence didn’t resist. Was it his tears now, or was it the Gods? A crimson curtain drooped his swinging vision.
“Why didn’t you save her?” Frank said, a mere whisper under the rampant downpour. His wrath brought down once more, a torrent now by this point. “Why, just look around you—you couldn’t save a damn thing.”
Lawrence didn’t resist.
The unrelenting tears from Mount Olympus soaked each man, their body and soul. And for a briefest of respites, they prevented Frank from landing another strike, at least at first with this lull. But not the great cosmic beings could hold back Frank for long. Frank raised his fist again. His fist, a limitless reservoir of grief, balled and channeled into hatred. No outlet for his frustration, not until now.
He brought it down. But this time, Lawrence sprang into action. He not only dodged the attempt, but the positions became reversed. Lawrence gripped Frank’s collar with serious concern, not contempt, not revenge. Only pure sorrow.
A weight upon his back. Charlotte embraced him from behind, she was shaking violently, overcome with tears. She spoke, but her face was pressed against his back and he didn’t hear her.
The longest ever white peace followed between the two men, per Charlotte’s intervention. There was only the matter of Olympian tears upon Lawrence’s back, and Frank’s face.
“Do you have any idea how long I’ve relived those events?” Lawrence said, his tone wounded. “How for six years and two days, I wondered what could’ve been. Do you know what I experienced, then and there, the moment I could’ve followed Luke down the Styx river?” The pains from Frank’s barrage fueled his, exemplified it. All the effort Frank went to punching was channeled into Lawrence’s steel grip. “Do you, Frank?” His voice strained.
Their gaze never averted, yet his answer was deafening more than Zeus’s bolts of grief.
“Nothing,” Lawrence said. “Not the aftermath of his suicide run. Not even an imprint. Do you get it, Frank? I couldn’t stop him—I couldn’t prevent his meaningless death, his snuffed-out heroism.” Strong winds, the son of Cronus’s grief swept over them.“Vic ridiculed me for being a coward, for abandoning you on Zeta. And in her dying moments, she told me it’s okay to be a coward. Do you know why she went back on Zeta, Frank?” Lawrence raised a fist, Charlotte struggled to keep his arm down. He slammed it next to Frank, pain surged from the canvas of beady pebbles. “To save you, Frank.”
Frank’s silence was deafened by the crack of thunder. A atomic bomb went off in his mind.
“She unleashed all of her fury upon Zeta’s fleet, all by her lonesome. . . . Frank, she clogged the River Styx for you. A entire fleet. I chased after the aftermath of it to get to her,” Lawrence said. A long silence, pelted only by cosmic tears. Lawrence cleared his throat and continued. His fist clenched into a fist, the pebbles crushed within his hand.
“She came back into my life at Azincourt nearly as soon as she left it. She was mortally wounded . . . dying,” Lawrence said. “Even if she died in my arms. . . . I pleaded for her to abandon her duty so I could cradle her in her final moments, Frank... she refused, she knew millions more would’ve died if she did. She wouldn’t want to die without putting up a fight,” Lawrence choked. “Azincourt was her swan’s song. She wouldn’t have it any other way. I wanted to... I wanted to go out guns blazing by her side, but . . . I had a duty to do, we both did. She didn’t do it for honor, she did it for us. She was a angel of death who loved humans like us dearly.”
Frank, still paralyzed by the revelation, went catatonic.
Lawrence rose to his feet, he ignored Charlotte.
Slowly, he walked with a limp towards Victoria’s grave, his knees weaker the closer he got. And soon enough, he collapsed before the jet-black obelisk. He inched closer, on his knees now, until he was able to wrap his arms around it. He rested his forehead against it, above the inscription VICTORIA.
Lawrence sat there, and wept. He shed tears for Victoria, for Luke, Frank, for the play the Gods forced upon them, for their inability to prevent this tragedy.