Fungal Halo

There is always a Dark Monarch. There is always a Princess in Gold. There is always a Hero and always a conflict between light and shadow.

In defeat, in victory, in death—whatever the outcome—the cycle begins again with the coming of a new age.

But this cycle is different.

What a lovely afternoon to relax with an old friend and reminisce over tea.

We laugh over stories of our adventures together, and for a moment, it’s like we were never apart.

She reaches across the table and takes my hand, and I smile like I haven’t in years.

“At last, you arrive in my lair,” the Dark Lady of Nightmares drawls with a confident air of menace.

She rises from the Throne of Thorns, her seat of power overgrown with wild vines bearing threatening spikes which somehow never pierce her smooth, perfect skin.

Once upon a time, there was a group of stalwart, incorruptible heroes who ventured forth on a quest to save a kingdom from ruin. Monsters had overrun the land, and these were capable warriors with the power to dispatch them.

But they needed someone who could keep them alive.

You never could quite destroy me, no matter how you tried. Your greatest hero could diminish me, certainly, but never destroy.

So you shackled and chained me in the deepest, darkest dungeon you could find, and you called it victory.

You never did understand my nature.

The Chosen One’s blade finds its way home at last, buried to the hilt in my chest.

I look up from the wound into brilliant blue eyes, where I find triumph and questioning, “Did I do it? Is it over?”

I smile in reassurance. It’s over. This whole charade is over at last.

“We are not so different, you and I,” the Dark Sorceress declares as I confront her at last in her great tower.

I grip my sword and grit my teeth. “You’re a cold-blooded killer who consorts with demons and whose idea of freedom is born of chaos and destruction.”