My name is Tobiei Sebastion.
If you don't think you've ever heard of me, don't hurt yourself trying to remember... You probably haven't. Which is a good thing.
There's still a chance. You can turn now, and save yourself the tale of my past. There's no need for you to stay.
So. You choose to stay? Well, I certainly won't drive you away... It gets lonely some nights, thinking about all of those years separating then from now... It helps, to have someone listen...
I was Captain of the Altadorian 45th Volunteer Swordsmen Division, back then... Almost eighty years ago. I was twenty-five when I took up the mantle - and it was during Altador's first spat with the Darkest Faerie that I met Komichi.
She was the most beautiful creature I had ever met, a pure-white lady with the darkest of blue eyes. She was soft-spoken and gentle, but on the battlefield she was also fierce and deadly with her long rapier. She captured my heart, and after that war ended, we were wed.
Knowing I had a liking to metals, she gave me an assortment of rings, as a kind of joke. In return, knowing she and her kin were a God-fearing, pious family, I gave her a necklace with a gold cross.
It wasn't long after that that Altador came under siege again. Komichi joined the fray once more, this time united as Captains the same Division I had captained solely during the first war.
That was when the tragedy struck.
We were patrolling the edge of a farm, where there had been reported sightings of the Dark One's minions. Rustlings in the corn alerted us to our enemies, but not quickly enough. They outnumbered our half-dozen force at least three to one.
My heart began to unravel as I saw companion after companion fall beneath the demon's flashing swords. Soon it was just Komichi and myself, back to back in the midst of snarling, cruel demons.
A club struck me in the ribs and I slipped in the churned mud. As I went down I caught a glimpse of Komichi, her face set in determination, screaming in the faces of our assailants.
Then everything went black.
I woke under a canvas awning. I sat up quickly, wincing at the pain in my chest and glancing down at the crimson blot beneath the bandage around me.
A wandering gypsy had found our bodies. She had explained that I was the only zafara she had seen, however, and I talked her into giving me a weapon and shield.
I was going hunting... Maybe for the last time.
I found the demon's tracks not far away. They were moving slowly, due to the massive injuries we had inflicted upon them.
I flung myself onto them, attacking with the savagery of a wolf. The first three were easy - I caught them completely by surprise. They quickly retaliated, however, and I found myself hard pressed. My own injuries did not help me at all.
Still, I was able to destroy the entire group. As I sat among the bodies, I heard a shriek. Looking around, I saw a zaffen demon approaching, her blood-colored pelt covered in jagged bumps and calluses. She charged, knocking me to the ground. We grappled, her trying to get her claws around my throat, me merely trying to hold her off.
I wasn't on guard from her tail. She wrapped it around the hilt of the sword the healer had given me. Above her batlike wings and gleaming fangs I vaguely saw it glitter dimly in the sunlight as she raised it.
Then my paw came in contact with an article around her neck... It was an amulet... The cross-shaped amulet I had given Komichi on our wedding day...
The sword went in up to the hilt. Her dark blue eyes flashed in triumph.
It was overkill. The knowledge that this was my beautiful white angel... This death-maddened, killing machine...
Komichi?" I reached up to touch that snarling demonic maw.
She jerked back, then something like recognition flashed in her eyes. Her harpy's hissing quieted, and for a moment, I held Komichi in my arms again.
She hugged me to her, weeping. My blood ran down her cleansed, whitened pelt, red and white, the colors of death and hope. Weakly, I put my arms around her, holding her close.
I'm sorry." She sobbed. "I couldn't... I didn't see..."
She went quiet, her last words ending in a weak sigh. Then she collapsed against me, a cruel arrow protruding from between her sleek shoulder blades.
I kissed her as I pulled the amulet from her neck, settling it around my own shoulders.
I took the sword she had dropped, still stained with my blood, and as the ambushing demons charged, my sight turned the color of Komichi's blood, and my mind blacked out. The last thing I remember was screaming as I brought the sword crashing down on the head of the first demon.
I woke some time later. I was standing in a field of snow, pure and white. Komichi stood at my side, clasping my paw in hers. Beautiful white wings poured from her back in a rustling flood, silvery and translucent. Suspended above her dark eyes was a halo, shining gold like the sun. It hurt my eyes to look at her - her entire body radiated light.
Another angel was with us. He stood before us, a book in his hand.
Tobiei Sebastion?"
Yes."
You are not yet ready."
His words stunned me. He took Komichi's hand, and she gave me a look of sorrow as she released my hand, turning to go with the angel.
She spoke as she released me. "You are charged, Tobi. Watch over all of our kind. Watch over them, and keep them as safe as you can. If they fight, you must be the mediator. If they are oppressed, you must be their savior. If they are murdered, you must avenge them."
Then I stood alone on that silent, white plain. I dropped to my knees. Even now, after all that had happened, was I too be kept from my love? My angel?
A terrible pain flashed in my chest. I looked down and saw that the wound Komichi had inflicted had opened. The sword that had caused it appeared in my hand.
Tobi?" I looked up at Komichi's voice, but could not see her anywhere. "Keep the sword. Always keep it. You must not be separated from it... From me. Remember, Tobi. Remember your charge. Do not forget it. Do not forget me... Do not... forget. Tobi... I love you."
The snow suddenly turned to blood. Voices filled my head, pained, desolate cries for help. I held my head, trying to drown them out with my own screams of pain as darkness descended upon me.
I awoke. Opening my eyes, I found myself in a hospital in Meridel, surrounded by gasping nurses and a doctor. Wondering how on earth I could have possibly gotten there, I asked the doctor what had happened. In a breathless voice he replied that I had shown up on the doorstep one day, covered in blood.
He also told me that I had been in a coma for two years.
I asked him about Altador - how had the war gone? Was it still standing?
He looked at me funny, and said that my brain must have been damaged. He and the nurses spoke over me now, as though I weren't in the room. I escaped from the place that night, retrieving all the accessories I had had when I had come to the hospital. There were my Captain's earrings and bands, my rings, Komichi's cross and...
And the sword. Using bandages, I tied it to my tail, then left that place. I have not removed it since.
Since then, I have wandered, remembering what it was Komichi had told me. I have lived now one hundred and ten years, finding that I am invulnerable to kinetic and physical weaponry. My skin can be penetrated, but I cannot be decapitated, burned, or electrocuted. I can be knocked unconscious, I can bleed - but I do not get sick, and I do not feel pain.
At least... Not physical pain.
One day while wandering Sakhmet, I came upon the royal palace. Attempting to enter the courtyard with a tour group, I was stopped by the guards, who told me that no one could enter with weapons. When he asked me where my owner was and I was unable to answer, he told me he was going to take me to a jail until my owner came looking.
Jail? Big deal, to an immortal. I didn't mind, and was affably about to allow him to lead me away, when we were intercepted by a pair of zafaras, one yellow, one faerie. The yellow one, a sweet-looking little girl with hauntingly familiar blue eyes, grabbed me around the arm.
There you are, big brother!" She cried, smiling. "Thank you so much for finding him, sir!"
Big brother? I was about to protest when the other zafara shook the guards hand. "Thank you so much! We've been looking for him everywhere!" Then he whispered, "He's a little soft in the mind, if you understand. Not quite all there. Spaces out like this all the time."
Before I quite knew it, I was being introduced to their owner, anime_zafara, aka Iris. The two zafaras turned out to be Brighty and Jay, a pair of Iris's friendlier zafaras. There was one other, Royken, who turned out to be a thief... But that's another story.
For now, consider this: True love lasts forever. Through life and death. Unless you are willing to give your life for someone, you do not truly love them. Search yourself carefully before loving, and before allowing someone to love you in return.
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