As a reader, I'd like to think that Bobby's choice to destroy the flume on Ibara wasn't some last minute decision. As a fanfiction writer, I'd like to think he's as human as the rest of us.
Warnings: A darker Bobby than you're used to.
Disclaimer: I don't own Pendragon.
Cause and Effect
1.
You don't really think about the consequences of what you're doing until Siry asks the fatal question. Your stomach clenches at the decision you've thought round and round for days-- Press never mixed territories--but you're sick and tired of losing and you're sick and tired of not having all the answers and in the end you're just sick and tired of being sick and tired. That you know he wouldn't approve, know without even having to think about it, tells you it's wrong.
That it doesn't stop you is the first visible warning.
2.
It's so ridiculous that they look up to you like you're some sort of leader. In your head you're still the same Bobby whose extent of leadership in his lifetime was going to be to lead his basketball team to the championships. You like to think that some part of you is untouched in all this, that some part is still innocent to the machinations and cruelties of this life.
The Travelers don't realize that you had a life, a family; that in one fell swoop you lost your mother, father, and little sister. Worse, in a way, than some terrible tragedy. At least with the other you would have known what became of them.
They don't realize that you still dream of home, sometimes, when the nightmares fade.
They don't realize that you wake up blinking back tears anyway.
3.
Dropping Courtney off on First Earth is one of the hardest things you have to do in your lifetime.
You care for her, even now. Despite all the time that has passed and the changes you have endured, the two of you are still kindred spirits, perhaps more so. Like you, she too has fallen.
Leaving her on First Earth inspires an eerie sense of déjà vu, and it isn't until you've repressed the urge to say "This is the way it was meant to be" that you realize why.
The little hero (heroine) is being left alone to try to take on Halla's troubles. The parallels are disturbing, because as much as she knows there are just some questions you can't yet answer.
You've become your uncle.
Except that you haven't.
4.
You've seen enough death by now that the loss of the Jakills doesn't even sway you from your course.
Siry is fifteen and terrified.
It takes you too long to remember that you should comfort him.
It has been too long since you were fifteen (but you were always terrified).
5.
Somewhere on Eelong, Vo Spader vows he'll follow Bobby Pendragon to the ends of Halla.
Somewhere on Ibara, you pray for a time when no one will look to you and ask, "So what do we do?"
6.
"I'm starting not to care," the newest Traveler says. It's supposed to be something stupid, you know you're not supposed to take it seriously, but the words hit a little too close for comfort.
It's one of those sad, contradictory half-truths you know firsthand. To want to die, if only to end the dread that dogs your every step, yet to never stop fighting to live because of that constant. It's been there since you finally realized just how powerful Saint Dane is, since you finally realized how mortal you and your loved ones are, since you finally realized that no matter how hard you fight, Saint Dane will always have the upper hand.
You're not sure if you should cry or laugh at the sheer futility of it all.
7.
Aja is going to die.
You may not have liked her at first, but you've always respected her. She has held the dying territory of Veelox and its people together, enough to create a new territory. When Siry tells her the truth, you can't stop that hard little pulse of shock and sorrow that disrupts your heart.
You didn't want to tell her, didn't want her to make that choice.
In your attempt to rid Veelox of Lifelight she never let you forget who had the upper hand, no matter what your position was. Now, as you try to save her life only to be turned down do you realize the truth.
She was always a better Traveler than you. It was never a matter of skills or titles or duties. Aja Killian was always more noble and self-sacrificing. She would never turn her back on anyone.
And yet you're not sure whether her choice is difficult or not, if it's what she really wants. Death, and its subsequent escape, are so much easier than dealing with its aftermath, after all. Her sacrifice is noble, yes --
--but she'll also be freer, even in death, than you will ever be.
8.
Recalling the history of Zadaa's turning point as you steal one of its dygos in order to complete a plan that breaks all the rules you were taught is as surreal as the churning of hope and trepidation in your chest that you'll meet its Traveler in the tunnels.
You remember that you loved her, once, maybe. The worry seems wrong in comparison, somehow, but by now it's such a part of you that you barely even register it.
She would never allow this, probably beat you over the head first. She would pick out every single flaw in your plan. She would tear it apart, tear you apart.
She has never had to make the decisions you have had to.
She would not have an answer.
She would never understand.
9.
Overbearing governments and quickly approaching doomsdays or not, Ibara is a paradise.
When it hits you that this is the sort of place you've always dreamed of, and that in the next few days it will be raped and razed as brutally as any battlefield, a deep rage fills the pit of your stomach.
The emotion is simpler and cleaner than you thought it would be.
10.
"Say you will think twice before doing something you may regret," Alder says, eyes sharp in the strange light of the flume.
You don't answer, because you've been thinking of this since the first time you saw someone die. You've been thinking of this from that first moment of terror.
The plan hadn't actually been formed, but now you've got a loophole.
Self-sacrificing and purposeful, yes. Saint Dane will be trapped here, you hope.
But so will you. And perhaps unsurprisingly, this is what you want.