Prompt:
“If your main character saved the world but suffered a mortal wound, what would they say?”
As the trees around becomes pillars of flames, Fidelis wheezed. His breath mixed with splatters of red as he leans onto a tree– supported by the only leg he has left. He looks at the few men that surround him, his priests lying on the grass– some clinging to life, others look up with vacant eyes. “I sought a good death for you all, be it in bed or on the battlefield. Yet now we lie here– waiting for this flame to consume us all.” He lets himself slide onto the ground for one final burst. “LATORIS. PRESENT?”
The man lying a few feet to his right garbles his words and tries to raise a hand in response. Fidelis strains his eyes as he recognizes Latoris from his bleeding stump of an ear. Fidelis mumbles a chant under his breath, the last of his reserves now drained. Latoris’s mangled speech becomes clear “…to your holiness”.
Fidelis’s lips have a slight curve as he speaks one last time “Recite the rites.” He tilts his head back as he listens to the same liturgy said for his father and closes his eyes– entering a final rest.
Seven days later, the fire finally dies out– leaving a razed forest. The ground around the stump is thick with their blood. A few weeks pass by as the forest starts to grow back, starting from the stump with flowers growing from the corpses. As time continues to pass, their deaths bring the start of a garden– their stalks tinged with vermillion.
Author’s note:
This is the result of doomscrolling. Fidelis is going to be my main character, and as such= I’ll probably write more lore about him in the future. Perhaps I should write him as my most ideal self.