#aphblr

You help revise the Oath of The Guard to prepare for an impending danger, to protect the people you love. The decision was already hard enough, but it is made more difficult when your Lord, the woman you love, expresses her horror that this newly implemented rule would mean forcing someone she cares about to end his own life.

So for her sake, you keep it a secret. For her sake you turn a blind eye. Just this once.

Years later—after your relationship with the person you were previously warry of transforms from rivalry, to friendship, to something more—you forget about the oath.

Until one night, your heart comes to you, sword in hand, and kneels before you. Begging you to end his life in order to protect the woman you both love. He explains that he is a danger to everything you both swore to protect. He pleads for you to uphold the long forgotten oath on his behalf.

Dread begins to swallow you. The realisation settles in your bones.

'I did this...'