Balance. Each world needs it.
If
there exists a being who can do no evil, there must be an
equally
powerful being incapable of doing good. The
Emperor didn't take
sides. He sent his son to do good, and I
came to match him.
We
countered each other, small skirmishes, minor battles.
Games. Neither
of us took it harshly until I raised the
stakes. I have a tendency to
break the rules when bored. I
injured and exiled, and he did not
return for a hundred
years. A brief time, by our reckoning.
I
ruled the land cruelly, according to my nature, waiting for
his
return. He keeps the rules. When the children arrived
and the first
part of the prophecy was fulfilled, he came to
answer the end of it.
I
knew the children would bring my doom, and my other
half back to me.
There's
not so much difference between hate and love. It's
a matter of
intent. The passion is much the same between
the two, and so I call
the emotion hate, while he knows it is
love. His nature would not
allow him to bring me down
without love, but above all he would
counter, and it was his
turn to conquer.
I
held off as long as possible; I am malevolent, after all. I
tried to
keep my country, delay the battle, detained him, ran
my fingers
through his locks and shore them off, and then I
killed him, hating
him all the while.
He
loved me too much to stay dead. Where would I be
without my match? He
crossed me on the field, took me
down, and I died, as I was meant to.
I
sat on a rocky shore and eased my broken body. I saw him
while still
a long way off and made him halt.
"You killed me," I said.
"You'll live," he said.
"Not yet," I answered.
"I'll wait."