Ever Sunward Wheel of Destiny — Morimens

"Wear your garland straight, my dear young knight; let this be your accolade." In those days, when daisies carpeted the fields, idle men-at-arms would often draw the lad along in their sauntering under the guise of patrol. A garland, woven from the commonest blooms of the Duchy of Aequidan, was laid gently upon his golden hair. "Sir, perhaps... we ought to return to our drills?" The boy murmured, yet he meekly straightened the pure white garland upon his head. This little flower, always bathed in light, was a symbol of hope in the boy's homeland. When his eyes opened again, all those sunlit visions were gone. Warhorses screamed; the enemy swarmed forward in disdain. Amid a thundering press of steel, he stood utterly alone. Suddenly, the cacophony ceased— A tide of viscous blackness surged into his soul. There followed the sickening tear of a spear through flesh, the gurgle of welling blood, and the wailing of the enemy. The scorn upon the enemy's faces vanished, replaced by all-engulfing dread. The youth moved with soulless rhythm—thrust, withdraw, raise again. Until the last soldier fell. Smoke and dust obscured countless faces. Conqueror and conquered lay heaped together, indistinguishable at last. The shadow coiled about his spine, sneering. "Go on... Bring your spear down... Just once more." "Between the guardian and the destroyer, there is but a hair's breadth. And now... you have already made your choice." Darkness eclipsed the heavens; blood soaked the soil. He looked toward the distant fields—in a single night, their former hues were lost forever. The wind lifted his hem and brushed against a patch of meadow the slaughter had spared. There, in the silent dark, in a corner hidden even from the fiend, a faint trace of white still lingered in his eyes. It was the last daisy of this realm, growing quietly where none cared to look. Though its stem was bent and its petals stained with crimson, it refused to fall.