#decretum

"Set me free from this Fate that I chose,

This darkness tainting a heart that was once of gold,

Numb, so numb to the curse's ascent

Forgive what I've done, this was not my intent".

I’m still plugging along blindly trying to learn harp.

Epphetha, epphetha-

Kayle is seven years old when she meets the man who will be her god for the rest of her life.

This would not be so impactful were he not god of the whole world as well.

She is upset, lashing out, fighting the other children in the town square; they had made fun of her little sister, and Morgana’s tears are the only thing that make the solemn child angry or spiteful.

She is seething, hands curled into fists at her sides and flames burning around her fingers and above her head. So she jumps, startled, when a gentle hand falls onto her shoulder and an unfamiliar man kneels to speak to her.

Blue eyes, uncomprehending, and quiet words. Her aunt and uncle lower their heads in the background, because all hope for her having an ordinary life is gone, as though it had not been shattered enough by the death of the girls’ parents.

But the crown is there, and she has been found, and the little girl does want to be a hero and a knight, shining and good, so she promises to go when he comes back for her.

Et cum spiritu tuo-

She is twelve when God returns, and with a very nice formal bow and a bright smile she goes away to train with the archangels, bringing her sister to live with her in her new quarters.

She is the sharpest little girl they have ever seen, and she never loses a fight. She is not always refined, no, nor even the most skilled, but her eyes are clear and she sees the chances and mistakes the others don’t.

She begins to comprehend God as just a person, but she still does not dare utter his name.

She lives for the gentle praise he gives her when she visits the library each day after she is done, sweaty and grimy and covered in ash, and then they sit together and simply burn for a while, halos of lightning and brightest flame flickering in the evening quiet.

Fides et ratio-

She is thirty-one and the youngest captain of the heavenly host, fierce and proud, but she does not suffer from the same arrogance many others do.

She is full of life, though, and she is sure to leave just a little early each day, finishing the practice flights and marches first so that she can sneak into the house and correct the ingredients in Morgana’s baking without her knowing. She still hates to see her sister cry, no matter the reason.

She is quiet, and she never stops visiting him each day. They are something undefined, each ageless in their own manner, and they have always been equals in a way, though she does not see it.

She falls in love with her best friend, a beautiful girl as fierce as she is, but she does not burn the same way. No one does.

The day she goes to bring her flowers, when she is due to return from the battlefield, she finds tears and death in that once-bright home. She swears love is not worth it, and she tells him as much, but he just pats her shoulder and tells her it will heal.

She does not believe it, but she bows anyway and takes her leave. He merely smiles.

Genuflectant omnes in plano-

She is fifty-eight, and the two of them begin a game of chess that will not end for centuries, on the night she is knighted general of all of the host. They both do not look their age, though as he tells her, he looks much better for his. She has to agree.

He laughs, delighted, at her first move, and she ducks her head, embarrassed.

“You are always honest and straightforward, even now,” he says, and moves his pawn in response. “Yet you know the world is not like you.”

“I know,” she says, quiet. She has already had to make many judgments, and her name grows each day, heavy with blood and golden glory.

He glances at her, amber eyes bright and sharp. “You have already guessed why it is you are different, have you not?”

She hesitates, and her piece clinks softly against the board, decisively. “I know.”

“Good,” he breathes. “You cannot lose, ever, dear heart. Win or die. But you don’t know the meaning of defeat, do you?”

“I do not,” she replies, and their crowns burn brighter.

In vitam aeternam-

She is one hundred twenty-six, and their game continues, the most complex machinations and brilliant stratagems their world has perhaps ever seen. But only the two of them witness it, the grandest battles played out in miniature between a god and his heir.

The Lord, and his Judicator, growing each day in glorious, blinding flames of righteousness.

“Did you choose it?” she asks, one day, suddenly, settling a rook neatly in its place.

He laughs, then, as he takes his turn. “No one chooses this fate. It is worse than death, though each takes its own form. You are the first and last of a new generation, of this I am sure, little lionheart.”

She does not make her move, and she does not look at the board as she considers him. “Only one, then?” she asks, solemn, considering. Oh, she has always been so very slow and ponderous, but she burns bright and true.

“Only one,” he says, brightly, uncaring. “Now, isn’t it your turn?”

“Yes,” she murmurs, and turns her attention back to the board.

Detestatio sacrorum-

“Will it hurt?” she asks on her two hundred fifty-seventh birthday. Click, clack; the dance is now so familiar to the both of them that the pieces settle and change almost without pause.

They are, after all, equals now.

“It is lonely,” he answers. “And I fear it will be worse for you. I knew you would come, but I feel no one after you. Eternity, for you.”

“And loneliness is the worst pain,” she acknowledges. Click. Click. “Do you think I can do it?”

He laughs, that warm, delighted sound that is as familiar to her as her own hand. “Dear heart, you can do anything. That is what makes you beautiful.”

And she knows he speaks the truth, now, because neither of them will say a word, but they both know that love runs deep between them.

And they both know the true agony for her will be his end.

Eritis sicut dii.

She is five hundred ninety-two when her world comes crumbling down.

“Why?” she cries out, the tears streaming down her face, and the crown above her head is brighter than ever before. His is black, weary, ominous shards of light spiraling in dizzying flux enough to turn her stomach.

His face is streaked with darkness and hatred, but not of her. Never of her. “Dear heart,” he croons, and he reaches to stroke a gentle thumb across her jaw, in the same shining armour as she. Older than time. Older than thought. “What did I once tell you?”

“Even gods may die, if they overstep,” she whispers, and his blood is warm as it runs down her blade and across her hands, staining her gauntlets with crimson.

He laughs, as light and happy to be in her company as ever despite the sword through his chest and the blood trickling from his lips. The corruption in his soul aches, dark and snarling. And it is there by choice, they both know it. “Precisely! Now, shall we finish our game?”

She lowers him carefully with a heavy heart. Perhaps fitting he had chosen this place, that they had spent so many nights in, year after year and decade after decade. They both knew how it would end.

They had always known, from the day they had met.

There are only two more moves to make, and there is no way out for him. It is time for her greatest decree of all, and she makes the right choice, as always. She is crying as she topples over his king and her queen takes its place, the black glass shattering on the board when it hits despite there being no true force behind the fall.

“Look at you,” he chuckles, voice fading as her fingers lace with his, tight and desperate. “You truly do not know the meaning of defeat. This is why, you see, dear heart. You will be the best of all of us throughout our miserable time, all of us that lived longer than thought and died bleeding and forgotten. None of us have shone, not like you. You will endure forever, and ever.” His voice is nearly reverent, full of adoration and boundless love for her. His goddess, his love, his one and only equal.

She closes her eyes, and fire takes him. He does not cry out, merely smiles as he burns, finally free from an eternal struggle that none of them had ever wanted to be a part of.

Finally, finally, Justice born of blood and cast of flame steps away from fallen Wisdom, face like stone and blazing so bright that all that could see were blinded, holy fervor everlasting.

And it would last forever.

She stops counting the years after that. There is not a need to.

The audio for the hardest sheet I’ve written.

Decretum: Theme and Variations by Kajura Yuki for piano