[@CorpusMundum]

[center][h3][url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFZyw6mr2Zs]End of a Youth - 4[/url][/h3][/center]

The world stopped for him. He saw many things despite closing his eyes. A final gift from his nature and insight. The true nature of what he had to protect.

Ah, so that was it’s true farewell. 

This was the end of Percival, this was the birth of Percival. 

He found himself cradled for the last time. His spear growing into a full tree that enveloped him with the love of all those who had nurtured him. The embrace of his mother and sister, the camaraderie of his fellow knights, the light and rune of his master. How fitting was the willow. It was perhaps fate, for it marked the spear and himself better than his master could have ever known.

He was cast in darkness, yet he only saw light. The different branches shone with the events of his life. The admiration of knights, the hunting of boar, the doting mother, the defiled and wronged duchess, the lady that laughed at and praised the fool, the red knight who stood before him, the king who he served. The end of a utopia, the end of a life. The beginning of a war, the hunting of rats, the meeting of great legends and stars, the death of thousands.

Event after event mixed together, painting the sky in a full array of colors. More and more memories, records and possibilities branched out further and further declaring other colors of his life. What has happened elsewhere from faint records in the throne, whispers from the voices spread forth as what could have beens. Possibility in all shapes, that have happened, could have but will not happen, and that which will happen. 

How overwhelming was the potential and possibility in one record alone.

But there was one straight path that faced the heavens directly, the one with the strongest form, that held a gravity that the other branches were drawn to.

The path known as his life. The here, the now.

He saw his sum, his eyes focused only on himself. Then his gaze shifted, attracted by an even greater shining light.

He saw the future and he changed.

[color=fff200][i]One Step Changes All.

A Second Glance Sees Possibility.

Third Came The Confirmed Future (Dream)

Four Unknown Meanings

Five Timeless Words

Six Simple Prayers.

Ten Would See It All

Stand Against/Bring Forth: The End.

With Six Humanity will reach that which lies beyond Seven (Evils/Beasts)[/i][/color]

He held none of their nature, nor did he hold the love that would turn his blade upon the world for the sake of the world.

He will not save the world.

How funny considering that he came to ask for the strength to do so. But then again, to begin with if that was what he wanted then he would have gone for the grail quicker, or accepted the love of the one who manifested and bared his fangs upon humanity to safeguard it. It was a lesson his self in life in Britain had already learned.

The limits enforced were needed. Mankind was not yet grown enough to live a life unshackled. The possibilities brought forth and carved into the world by the pioneers had meaning precisely because they overcame a previously undeniable law, a binding upon the potential of humanity. By their efforts they invited mankind to rise to meet that new possibility opened to them. Grow, grow, grow, grow.

The tree returned into his spear and filled his hand. It was surprisingly concrete, contrary to his expectations that it would be as slippery and hard to grasp as air. But as it came into his grip again he felt that it would be impossible to tear from his hold. Returning to its place, it began to shine brightly. A rainbow of colors as it took in possibility, like a kaleidoscope. A rainbow formed as the spear twisted into itself, branches curling around each other as the shaft of the spear became an intertwined spiral of colors.

If the tree earlier was the scattered representation of possibility and time, then the spear was a focus that showed their purpose in striving towards one path, one end point.

Two colors shone the brightest.

That of a greedy [color=00aeef]Blue.[/color]

That of a peerless [color=fff200]Gold.[/color]

[color=00aeef]The color that mankind was progressing into.[/color]

[color=fff200]The color that held its ultimate end, his ultimate hope and that which he saw and found beautiful.[/color]

There was much suffering, much terror in this world. There was progress and there was joy as well. Yet to say that this adolescent stage of mankind was able to balance the scale so as to justify the past was hilariously naive. Not even in a few hundred years of peace, even as mankind swelled to become larger in number than it ever had before there was too much tragedy in all of human history to overcome with good.

But it would be worth it.

Ah, how beautiful it was. He saw the stars, and he saw the fate of people intertwined as they left their cradle.

Surely the ocean beyond the world (space) will captivate mankind the same way those knights had captivated the him who had known only that glen, with his mother and the leisurely days of ignorantly hunting boars.

If the growing pains of history were the fuel and price to pay for that future.

Then he will protect this present, with all its good and all its bad to the end.

It was perhaps an evil, to expect and hope for this suffering and struggle of growth upon all of humanity. Perhaps his master would understand just how much he was asking. The man who had seen his transformation first-hand, every step of the way. Perhaps he would consider it not his business, perhaps he would simply accept it as the yolk of the future.

But that suffering, that hardship. He understood it to be too great for all, and yet so small and inconsequential compared to that which humanity will face. It was cruel, much too cruel. He could perhaps understand why the one who decided that his own brand of cruelty would be preferable.

But he trusted in the shine of gold. So he would bear his own blade against the one who would break order.

Yes, in the name of order, in the name of that future. He would deny that overflowing love.

The youth did not rise again after all. What rose was instead a man, a blossomed adult who reached the end of his journey as an adolescent. His body grew, his eyes grew keener with wisdom and experience. Still a fair young man, still a beautiful knight.  Yet that was hardly the end. Taking his spear in hand, he looked to his cousin before moving to greet those who came to visit the two.

[color=fff200]“You.”[/color]

That was all that needed to be said indeed.

He raised his spear.

[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/92gTWCF.png[/img][/center]