AN: Thank you all so much for sticking with me. It's been a wild ride. Cheers.

Richard had run from the monastery, had thrown all his dignity to the wind and literally run, run until he'd found a way to move faster by stealing a horse, ridden it to death; then run until he'd found a ship and snuck on board, and he'd only killed five people along the way. Never getting tired and never needing to sleep were suddenly the most useful qualities he had.

Slouched between two piles of boxes below-decks, rocked back and forth by the waves as the ship traveled steadily away from Destiny, Richard finally took a moment to think. Richard finally paused in his mad flight.

Richard suddenly realized that Destiny was not pulling him back.

He sighed, somewhat satisfied, and laced his fingers behind his head. "Now, this is more like it." he commented to no one in particular. "No responsibilities, no worries—we might even meet a kraken!"

The velociraptor in the cage across from him opened one golden eye, looking peeved at the interruption to its sleep.

"Don't look at me like that," Richard accused. "You don't know what it's like to get pulled into someone's Destiny-with-a-capital-D. You're just a dinosaur."

The velociraptor shrugged, as if to say, yes, I'm just a dinosaur. Please stop talking.

"I wonder if I could be a dinosaur," Richard pondered, considering the implications of such a thing. He turned inquiring eyes to the velociraptor. "How many of your vital organs do you actually need?"

The dinosaur's lip curled, just a little, just enough to show off the point of one very white, very sharp tooth.

"Oh, fine." Richard slumped back into his improvised box-throne. "It would take too much effort, anyway. I'd rather just be king of the boxes."

The velociraptor's eye closed and it sighed.

Richard finally allowed himself to relax after all that running. Slowly, he slid into the trance-like state that passed for his sleep, and wondered, briefly, if there were many towns across the sea in need of pillaging.

The years passed, and Richard found himself growing restless. Massacring the population was all well and good, spreading fear and chaos were still his greatest pleasure in life, there were plenty of babies to devour and furry woodland creatures to incinerate, but he began to feel that there was something missing. He was plagued by thoughts of the little monastery across the sea, of the old monk who had told him he had a Destiny, or a part in someone else's. Snippets and flashes of his old life, before he died, kept coming back to him—voices in the woods, nightmares, hallucinations and dreams.

It took seventeen years for him to get fed up enough with the persistent bombardment from his mind to finally stalk his way back to that monastery. He took his time, pretending that that particular place was not his destination. He would go check on Maikos and the family manor. He would go visit Wiles and the Brotherhood of Darkness. Some of the towns he'd burned down might even have been rebuilt. Someone, dread to think, might have started a religion, and Richard was missing it! So he headed back to the sea, back across it, back through well-traveled cities and uninhabited woodland, burning and killing as he went—you know, to pass the time.

But finally he found himself standing in front of the monastery.

And the weight of Destiny pressed down upon him again.

Richard waited until night to wander in. Somehow, it seemed appropriate. He briefly considered hiding behind corners and jumping out at the monks, but realized after the first one clobbered him in the face with a quarterstaff that he really wasn't in the mood for it.

Again purely by accident—or maybe, he supposed, Destiny—Richard found the old master, looking older and more masterful than before, sitting cross-legged before a shrine with his back to the door. Richard stood on the threshold for a moment, considering what the best entrance line would be.

"You're back." the monk said. Richard cursed himself silently. There went all his badass-one-liner points.

"You remember me!" he cried gleefully. Where badassery was lost, humor could always be used as a fallback.

"You're not exactly forgettable." the monk replied, rising creakily and turning to face him. Then he sighed, something like sadness on his face. "I suppose this is the sign I've been waiting for."

Richard raised an eyebrow. "Is it a sign of the apocalypse?" He rushed forward and grabbed the monk by the arm, clinging to his elbow. "Please tell me I'm a sign of the apocalypse!"

The monk brushed him off. "No. It is time for Cale'anon to leave this place. It is time for me to cut his ties."

"You say that grimly. It makes me think there will be killing involved. Will there be killing involved?"

The monk's only answer was a look of grave and hollow despair. Richard tried not to squeal with glee.

He failed.

He watched the old man kill the elf's young wife. It was strangely unsatisfying. The elf had already run off, screaming like a girl over his lover's apparent betrayal. Richard disliked the old man's plan (it lacked pizzazz), but he had to admit that it had so far been effective.

He walked into the room as the monk was cleaning the blood off of the knife and his hands, lingering in the doorway. The body was still on the floor, her eyes wide, lips parted, throat slit.

The old monk looked up suddenly, startled, his face aged ten years in the last five minutes. When he saw Richard standing just outside the room, he looked back down.

"My role in this is done." he said gravely. "I leave him in your charge."

"I like making friends." Richard replied. Destiny kicked him in the heel and he stepped into the room, slowly, quietly.

The old man sighed. "It had to be done," he said, almost to himself. "It was necessary that he cut all ties. He can never return."

"Of course. Destiny demands." Richard said. Destiny demanded he take another step forward by kicking him in the back of the knee. Richard didn't try to resist. He could see where this was going and he liked it. For once, he and Destiny had the same thing in mind.

"I wish there had been another way," the monk lamented. He took a deep breath, centering himself. "But this guilt is my burden to bear. It was my duty. I will carry it for the rest of my days."

"Sure you will." Richard said. He was within arm's reach of the monk now. His face darkened and his voice dropped to a hoarse growl. "That shouldn't be very long."

He let the monk turn around, because he had to see the fear in his eyes. And there was fear. But there was also . . . gratitude? Richard didn't pause to examine it. He grabbed the monk by the face, his thumbs digging into the eye-sockets. The monk screamed, green light poured from his open mouth and his bleeding eyes and tiny snakes of green fire raced up Richard's arms as he sucked the monk's soul from his body. In moments, it was over, and the monk fell to the floor, mouth agape, unmoving.

Richard smacked his lips ponderously.

"Tastes like chocolate," he said.

At a small scrabbling from the corner of the room, he looked over. There was a cage with greens and grasses and a rabbit. The rabbit looked at him with large, shiny eyes. Its nose twitched.

"I don't know why you'd think you'd be exempt." Richard snapped at it. "I eat cute woodland creatures like you for breakfast." He paused to consider. "Sometimes literally."

The nose twitched. The huge ears slowly stood up. The shiny eyes gleamed.

Richard sighed and slumped, defeated, the chocolaty taste of the monk's soul still lingering on his tongue. "Oh, all right. I'll open the door. That's all. That's it. Then you're on your own."

The rabbit hopped over to the door of its cage. Richard could feel Destiny prodding him in the back as he shuffled over to let the rabbit out. When he did, the rabbit looked at him for slightly longer than was comfortable, then hopped away with calm determination.

Richard glared at the sky. "I'm going to burn down this monastery," he declared.

Destiny didn't seem to object.

Once he'd gotten out of sight of the ash plume from the monastery, it didn't actually take Richard all that long to find the elf-boy-woman-thing. He could smell the righteous optimism from a mile off. You'd think he hadn't had his heart torn out by his wife just a few days before.

The task was made especially easy by the fact that the stupid child was soliloquizing.

He was standing in a clearing with the sun shining down on him. Richard wondered how long it had taken the boy to find the spot. Considering his strange and innocent optimism, he had probably stumbled on it by accident.

"Greetings, world!" the boy cried. Richard rolled his eyes and leaned himself against a tree, wondering if Destiny would mind too much if he stole the Chosen One's cloak and ran off with it. "I am Cale'anon, the young and bold adventurer seeking to become the greatest hero history has ever known." Incredibly, unbelievably, a bluebird flitted down and landed on the boy's finger. Richard nearly gagged.

"I will help people in distress—"

Richard couldn't take it anymore. Destiny was winding up to kick him in the knee again and he'd had enough. If he was going to accompany this idiot, it was going to be on his own terms.

"Cough," Richard said.

And the young elf turned around, his eyes full of hope and a smile on his face. . . .

THE END