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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 4037764" data-attributes="member: 143">And heeeeere's Varo:* * * * * Chapter 352THE APOSTATE’S SACRIFICE  Varo noted the details of the vault almost absently.  He was alone, but that did not really surprise him.  There did not appear to be any exits; he glanced back and saw the black portal, recognized it as the exit, but did not bother any more with that. When he looked back toward the center of the room, he was no longer alone. “I should have figured it would be you that would be sent to test me.”Serah looked almost as she had when they’d first met, but she was clad in a simple robe rather than armor.  “I am not here to test you, Licinius Varo.”“No?”  He walked forward, his heavy armor clanking slightly.  He was still not accustomed to its bulk, even though the blacksteel was barely heavier than the breastplate he used to wear.  She waited for him, until they stood together in the center of the room, separated by the stone bier.  “So, you are not real?”“I am real as I need to be.”“An enigmatic answer.”She shrugged.  “As was the question.”“I know that I will be asked to sacrifice.  But to be honest, I do not know what I have left to give.  My life, I suppose, but that I have always expected to be forfeit.”“Without hope, life has no meaning.”“One can hope for others.”“Is there nothing else you have left?”“What have I not given up?  My youth?  The satisfaction of a career?  The respect of peers and friends?  Family?”“Love?”“Even if you are just a shade of myself, do not mock me.”  “I am not trying to mock you, Licinius.”  She took a step along the edge of the bier, but did not come closer to him.  “Do you blame yourself for my death?”“I would like to believe that you knew what you faced, what we all faced.  That you came of your own free will.”“Ah, free will.  That is an interesting one, wouldn’t you say?  To what extent are our lives governed by free choice... and to what extent are those choices forced upon us?”“I do not seek absolution for my own choices, Serah.  I made them freely.”She looked at him with such sadness that for a moment he flinched.  “I know, Varo.”“If you can, tell me what I must sacrifice.  I am ready.”She came around the bier then, close enough so that he could smell her, the fragrance of newly washed hair and skin with a faint hint of flowers.  It sent a pang through him, in a way that he’d thought long since burned away. “Is this difficult?” she asked him. “Yes.  But it does not matter.”“It does,” she told him, taking his hand in hers.  “For what is asked of you is that you give up the very things that have carried you this far.”“I don’t understand.”She turned his hand slightly, and touched the symbol that dangled from his wrist.  “You carry my focus.”“It is a powerful weapon.”“Is that all that it is?”“Serah.”  He closed his eyes for a moment.  “I know that you are not real, that you are here to challenge me.  But still...”  He opened his eyes, met her gaze.  “I wish that there could have been more.  I do.  But with a world in the balance, all other desires must fade.”“No, you do not understand.  In such times, those other things are that much more important.  Look at Dar and Allera.  Do you consider them weak, for their love?”Varo frowned.  “It may make it harder, or even impossible, for them to do what must be done.  Talen, and Shay...”“Do not use them as an excuse, it does not change the basic question.”“What do you want from me?  What I must give, I will.”She stepped forward again, until they were almost touching.  She was several inches shorter than he, and slight against his metal-clad frame, but somehow she seemed to loom over him.  Her eyes swallowed his in their brown depths. “Certainty.  Doubt.  Those you must give up.”“But... they are opposites.”“No.  No, they are not, Licinius Varo.  You are driven, and you are as hard as a sword.  But a sword will break, when struck by a hammer.  And sometimes, a sword is not enough.”“I do not know what to do.”“That is a start.  Remember, that there is truth, and there is Truth.”He swallowed.  He could not turn away, and as he stared into her eyes, understanding came in a gentle wave.  He was overwhelmed, and would have fallen to his knees, if she hadn’t taken her in his arms.  “I...” he could not speak.  I do not know if I can.I know.  Darkness enfolded him.</blockquote>

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