A Short Story

Fog always has a great deal of figurative power, the older thought, gazing across the meadow that would soon be his home. The future is always shrouded in mystery, even now.  What will all this look like by this time tomorrow?  Next year?  Next millennia?  Will anyone care?

A wry smile came to the edge of his mouth, and a cool breeze slid through the tent and caressed his face, pressing his sleeves closer around his arms.  It was warm and gentle, like a summer breeze in the early morning should be.

"Morning," came the always jovial voice of his younger brother from the next tent over.

"I'm sure it was," the older muttered under his breath.  He had heard the sounds coming from his brother's tent the previous night, and had seen the silhouette of the woman leaving a mere two hours ago.  He really ought to scold him for what he was doing with last night.  But then, ultimately, if it made him (and her!) happy, then was it really his place?

Also: the scolding never amounted to any change in the reckless young man anyway.

"You look way too sober, as usual, my brother."

"I'm stoic."

"Sullen."

"Stoic."

"Miserable," the younger smirked, knowing this argument from the thousands of times he had won it before.

The older let out an exasperated sigh, and reached over to grasp his brother's arm.

"Listen.  I know you seem to get so much more cheap joy out of life than I do, and normally, I'd say it's a character flaw, but given our current circumstance I'm willing to let you have this one."

The younger's eyes turned a rare shade of serious, and the older's arm fell to his side.

"I thought we were pretending it wasn't happening until it did," he protested, "We agreed on that, brother."

"My apologies.  You seem so much more able to forget than I."

The conversation petered out into silence, and the two brothers turned to face the slowly brightening glow that was shining through the fog, creating an almost fuzzy effect over the meadow.  Everything about it was exactly as they remembered from when they were children, with the one notable exception of the single stone that was just becoming visible in the center of their vision.

"There it is," The older brother motioned with his hand.

"You know, I think it looks better every day." The younger commented.

The older looked at the younger incredulously, "It's Dad's grave," he remarked, "when did those start looking good?"

The younger shrugged, "Fine.  It looks awful."

"Not what I meant."

"Depressing!  Horrifying!  A despairing and constant reminder that we are but mortal men, doomed to die, never to be seen again, and with all we knew-"

"Aw, shut up."  But they were both laughing now.  It was good to share this moment with each other, and to be able to laugh about it.  The rest of the day would be significantly more trying.

As the laughter faded into yet another long silence gazing over the meadow, the fog began to quickly fade, and a brilliant sunrise made the entire meadow almost shine with radiance.

"Beautiful," the younger whispered.  No matter how many times they saw the sight, it always gave them the same tranquility.

"It's never looked so majestic," the older agreed.

They stood shoulder to shoulder and watched in silence as the sun rose over the meadow, and the glow slowly shifted to what appeared to be another normal day.

"So what should we do with the day?" the younger broke the silence nonchalantly.  The older raised an eyebrow.  What indeed?

"Well, we have no way to know for sure when we're due, so why don't we just act as if we have all day?" the older suggested.

At first, the younger seemed to not like the idea, but eventually, his face softened as if to recognize worry for the waste of energy and time that it was.  He smiled, nodded, and the two of them walked into the meadow down to the headstone.

The older's eyes began to mist over as they approached.  It had been so long since his father had died to save them, but the wound was still so very real.  The familiar lump rose in his throat, but he forced his feet to keep walking.

The older knelt down and brushed the dust away.  It had been too long since they had been, but life, of course, had kept the living away from the dead.

And every second of it all was completely pointless, the older thought to himself as he knelt there staring at the inscription.

"Dad," he started, "today's the day.  We're leaving very soon, and we won't ever come back.  I know we promised we'd stay forever, but we can't keep that promise.  We weren't strong enough.  We – we failed you," his voice caught in his throat, and his vision blurred through the tears.

"He can't hear you, brother," the younger's voice was softer than it had ever sounded before, but that only served to fuel the older's emotional tailspin.  As he descended into sobs, the younger knelt beside him and wrapped his arm around his shoulders, holding him up so he didn't fall completely prostrate.

For a few moments, the only sound between the sobs wracking the older was the wind bustling around.  The flowers swayed and bowed in the wind, seeming to mirror the older's prone position, as if in that moment, the entire world was kneeling somberly for the lost father.

Steadying himself, the older rose to his feet, and stared wordlessly down at the grave.  The younger came near and put a hand on his shoulder.

"Not your fault, you know.  You did all you could.  We both did.  It's just time, that's all."

"How do you so easily make peace with this?" the older demanded.

"I don't," the younger responded, "you think this is easy for me?  I may cope differently than you, and I may put this smile on and wave at all the horror as it flies at us, but that doesn't mean I'm not just as torn up about it as you."

The older continued to look down, but was listening very intently.

"I want nothing more than to wake up and see that this is all a nightmare," he continued, "but you and I both know that there's no undoing this.  God knows we've tried.  All we can do is heal as much as we can, and face this. Together."

Finally, the older looked up.  For the first time in a long time, there were tears also in the younger's eyes.   The sight was both unsettling, for the older was very unused to the picture, and also reassuring, for the gravity of the loss was obviously not lost on him.

The older extended his arm, and the younger took it.

"We're not going to treat this like any other day, are we?" the older asked with a smile.

The younger sniffed, smiled back, and said, "No, brother.  I don't think we can."

"So what do we do then?"

After a few seconds, the younger met his eyes again, "I don't know, brother."

Together, they turned back to the grave in silence.  The breeze picked up to a small wind, the whispering grass now rustling louder to herald a coming storm.

"Let's go get drunk," the younger suggested.  He knew that the older would never have agreed if this were any other day, his conservative approach to life being very much at odds with his more licentious tastes.

The older brother smiled at the deliberate ploy to get him to abandon his morals for the day.  For so long, he had fought with the younger on how to live life.  Now, in front of this grave, it all seemed so trivial.

"Let's go get drunk," he agreed uncharacteristically.

***

The sun had passed over their heads and approached the horizon by the time the older and the younger stumbled back out of their tents.  The two of them had spent several hours tasting the myriad different libations that the younger had accumulated through the years before collapsing into a drunken sleep, reawakening, and continuing the festivities.  They had spared no bottles at all, cracking open every single one.  The wind had begun to howl by then, but they were giddy, warmed by the alcohol swarming through their systems.

"That was fun!" the younger exclaimed.

The older grinned widely back at him, "You…scoundrel," he waggled his finger playfully in the younger's face, "that…that, sir, was not… was not…" he searched for the words but was trying not to giggle, "was not…fun."

"Hey, it was fun!" the younger laughed back, "I've never seen someone so quickly conquered by a bottle!"

"Hey, hey, hey, hey," the older countered slowly, "you… don't know!  You don't know!  Maybe…eh?  Maybe I'm not conquered at all!" he couldn't maintain his fake indignation, so he just grabbed the younger and collapsed onto the ground.  The younger, not exactly steady himself, came tumbling down with him, and the two of them lay together watching the world spin, laughing at the slightest provocation.

About twenty minutes later, as the alcohol worked its way through their systems, the giddiness gave way to a profound honesty.

"Brother, I want you to know that I never meant to hurt you with my choices," the younger leaned against the older and wrapped his arm around his neck.

"Your choices were always your own to make," the older responded, "and it was I who was the fool and let something so trivial come between us.  It was I who divided us for so many years, not you."

"I never stopped caring about you, brother.  I know I acted like I didn't care, but I always did."

"I know.  I always did as well.  That's why I was so angry for all those years.  I couldn't be angry without caring, could I?"

"Well… I love you, brother."

Before the older could respond, the howling wind suddenly died down, and a rumbling sound began softly growling in the distance.  It was like thunder, but the rolling sound came on, not as if it had started from a lightning blast, but as if it had started out of earshot and moved closer to them.  Unlike thunder, it didn't rumble back into silence, but continued rolling, a constant soft growl from the western sky.

The older sat up and stared, suddenly very sober.

"It's time."

The younger rose to his feet and held his hand out to the older.  He took it and the two of them stood together to face the western sky, the lowest point of the sun just touching the horizon.

"How long?" the younger inquired.

"A matter of minutes, brother.  Shall we make our last stand?"

"A hopeless cause?  I'm glad I'm drunk."

"If you want to just let it happen, I'll understand," the older offered.

"You wouldn't ever let it just happen, and after the day you've given me, there's no way I'm leaving your side."

"Then we'll stand together."

"As it should have been all along."

They looked at each other, and the younger's eyes had a powerful fire in them.  They nodded knowingly and moved into position.

The older reached in front of him, and a black line appeared in front of him and expanded into a hole in the air.  He reached inside and pulled out what looked like a smooth black stone.  The younger responded by doing the same, and they both held the Elder Stones out with both hands toward the sunset.

The rumbling was getting louder every second, and the sunset before them began to blur out, with the sky growing lighter at the edges instead of darker, as the fire spread through the sky.

Concentrating hard on the stones, the older and the younger merged their thoughts together.  Focusing on the energy that they were channeling through the Elder Stones, they willed themselves into the air, floating up about five hundred meters in seconds.  From there, they could see the desolation that was coming.

A massive column of blazing fire that seemed to be coming from heaven itself was descending on the ground and blasting along the ground.  Both the older and the younger knew that the demon within it would not stop till everything on their world was completely consumed.

Open the field, the older commanded with his thoughts.

The energy is dissipating as quickly as we build it, the younger responded.

We need to contain him as long as we can, the older knew it was hopeless, but he'd be damned if he didn't at least slow the demon down.

I'll go around the back to flank him!  If we hold the field from both sides, he'll have to divide his attention between us, with a blink, the younger vanished and reappeared several dozen kilometers away, on the other side of the demon, can you boost your field?

I'll do my best, the older responded.

The rumbling had grown to a roar at this point, and the fire had burned away all the grass and melted the headstone, and the mountains in the distance were beginning to melt down into a molten ocean.  A red glow was angrily rising from the very earth as the crust began to give way to the magma below it.

I'm holding him back over here, the younger shouted through the telepathic link.

What's the sequence? the older grasped onto the hope that maybe they could stop him.

A long string of thoughts came back to him in quick succession, and he quickly organized them and flung them with all his might into the field he was generating before him.  The column of fire swelled to the width of the mountain it was consuming, and the heat came rushing at the older.  He steeled himself fast, but he still felt the fire hit his field.  It pushed him back slightly, but he held fast, and with a mental grunt, flung it back.

It's working, he yelled to his brother.

Of course it's working, doofus!  It was my idea!

How are you sarcastic right now?!

In response, the older could hear his brother's maniacal laughter through the link.

He refocused his energy on the demon, determined to fling its version of hell right back on its face.  He moved forward, shielding more of the land he was putting behind him.

Can you get closer, he asked the younger, I want this damnable thing damned!

Last one to the center of the mountain is a rotten egg, the reply came.

The older laughed and with an angry growl he pushed forward, slowly forcing his way toward the column.  The fire angrily jettisoned flames in every direction, furiously trying to penetrate the two fields that were closing in on it.

The older found every centimeter was getting harder to cross, and soon found himself at a standstill, unable to charge any further forward no matter how hard he willed it.

I'm not getting anywhere over here, the younger's frustrated voice came through.

Me neither, the older responded, it's too strong.

We need Dad here, the younger complained

The older didn't respond.  He didn't have the heart to tell him.  Not even now.

I'm losing my field, the younger reported.

Back off, younger, the older commanded, we'll regroup and charge it together from a single angle.

I'm coming.

With another blink, the younger was back beside the older, his skin blackened, and his smile gone, the fire in his eyes replaced with a resigned knowledge that this was his last fight with this demon, and that they would lose.

I'm going in for a last ditch strike, the older grimly thought, you with me?

Let's end this, the younger responded.

Through the Elder Stones, the younger and the older together merged closer, their bodies converting to energy and merging into a single unified force of will.  Elongating their field into a long spike, the fire immediately swirled around the field as its edges compressed inward.  With the landscape completely stripped bare, and nothing left of the world they had spent thousands of years protecting, the two brothers fired themselves and their sharpened field directly toward the center of the column.

We're going to make it, the younger's mind shouted.

The older didn't respond, knowing what they would find if they ever reached the center of the column.  Instead, he just shouted back the closest thing he could imitate to a war cry.  The younger joined him and they flew faster than they'd ever flown before, both screaming in rage at the demon before them.  All sound was drowned out by the roar of the flames that began to lick hotly at their very souls, searing them both with pain.

The mental spear plunged into the center of the column and burst through the surface, exploding into the central area where the hottest plasma immediately began to undo the fabric of their souls.  The older knew they would only exist for a few short moments in here, but he intended to do as much damage as he could in those few minutes, preferably without the younger realizing what was happening.

Suddenly, in the swirl of plasma in front of them, a furious visage appeared, human, but with elongated teeth bared at them in rage.  The mouth opened, and a deafening, ghoulish eruption of all the rage and hatred of hell fell upon them.  As the older felt the last of his field drain away, he could only hope that his brother didn't see the face he just saw.

Despair crushed that hope when he heard the younger's last word before they both dissolved into nothingness:

Dad?