And there was light.
Not a light to consume the darkness, but a light to exist within the darkness. A tiny piece of the endless deadness had come alive. And that was enough. Even a sliver of hope can be counted as hope. Hope to see five more minutes.
Five minutes was all there was, but five minutes was all that was needed. For five minutes there would be a light. A continuation of a life which certainly should have already been dead. Faded into the darkness like all the rest.
That's all they were in the end: darkness. Endless and without hope. Not even a sliver would save them. But it was enough. Five minutes would be spent doing a single deed. A deed which would change nothing, and mean nothing.
A deed which would take five minutes, because that's all there would be. Five minutes to fix any wrongs done or change the course of time itself. Power like that should only come in slivers.
There was time to perform a single deed, but what would it be? Would the light bearer waste the light, or use it wisely? Perhaps it didn't matter. Not really. Maybe it never did. Happiness and enjoyment were to be taken from life and everything else could simply be forgotten. All that wasted time truly was wasted.
It was almost funny.
At the end of the light, absolutely nothing would matter, and the light bearer knew this. She would have all the power in the world for five measly minutes and when those were up, the world was done. Over. Gone. Finished.
No matter how fast the light is, the darkness is always there first.
The light bearer felt fear for the first time in those moments before the task would happen. The fear of regret, and the realization that immortality is a lie. For one who had lived as long as the light bearer had, this fear was painful. It infested the light bearer's body, reaping the harvest of all of the thousands of years she'd spent doing nothing. An entertaining nothing, but a nothing nonetheless.
Finally understanding life's big curses can be a painful thing, but never so much as when the curse immediately applies to you. From the distance, death means nothing. It is true, real, definite, but not right.
And what is not right must not be real. But it is. Death takes time to work its magic on the living, but the dead have forgotten what time is. Time is life. And time is death. Time knows all, because everything happens and has happened and will happen inside of time. Time might be the only true reality, and as beautiful and perfect as time is, the time for bad things to happen is often so dreaded.
The light bearer dreaded time, but in the light bearer's heart, there was only disgust. Disgust at what the light bearer's life had been. Disgust it what the light bearer had done. Disgust at what some would call perfection. The light bearer knew better than most, that if perfection wasn't the lie it almost certainly was, it didn't exist inside her, and never had. For the light bearer, perfection was a lie. But a necessary lie.
Before the light bearer began the journey, a few things had to happen. First, there would need to be light. Not a physical light, but a spiritual one; a light to keep the light bearer right during the journey. So like the countless thousands who had prayed to the light bearer for protection over the years of existence, for the very first time, the light bearer prayed.
Not to any god or deity, but to any being at all. Any being who would listen. She spoke three words in this prayer, but like the sliver of light, the words were enough, just. There were no other sounds in the darkness. There was only darkness. And a single flicker of light.
She was ready. Ready for the five minutes of life that she had left. A final attempt to do something. It didn't matter what; she had the power to do anything she wanted during this time, but only for five minutes. So with a smile, the light bearer unleashed the light. That precious light.
And then the time began. Five final minutes for the light bearer to say goodbye to creation. The light bearer could travel anywhere in space or time to spend that final five minutes. Any moment could be relived. A hug, a kiss, a smile, a soft snowy breeze. A final moment. What would be the perfect moment to relive?
There were so many beautiful, wonderful moments she could experience during these final minutes. So many places, friends, and times to see. She could go back to the very dawn of creation and personally witness what really happened. She could say goodbye to her precious student before she gave her life away. She could do so much.
But the light bearer didn't move.
The light bearer laid down on the floor of the world, taking in the darkness. And the light bearer cried. Her mind was filled with such joy and all those she loved, but her heart was filled with sadness. Truth. Reality. And for a moment or two, the light bearer thought it might have actually been just as beautiful.
The moments her friends had left her behind, without another smile to ever be pointed at her from them. The moment a sister had left her behind, determined to own the world, and never satisfied with her share of things. The moment a student had been granted immortality and the moment that same student had willfully given her immortality away, just to protect another. Such a wretched being as the light bearer.
There would never be enough time to relive a thing. Each moment was too precious to miss, but the light bearer didn't need to miss any of them. She had already lived them. Every moment. Beautiful and ugly. Everything, every tragedy, every lie, every curse. They defined the light bearer.
And she knew the truth. She was the same as a child, her useless maturity meaning ultimately nothing. She was innocent, unknowing of reality. She only knew more than the others did. That didn't mean she wasn't just as lost and messed up inside as they were. All the time she'd spent avoiding mistakes, teaching, bettering herself, being the best, the true best. It was a waste. A glorious waste she could pin her name on and call her life.
It was her life, and she didn't know what to think of it. She couldn't think of it. Her time was almost up. Just a few more seconds remaining, and when those were up... darkness. The light bearer didn't know darkness. She'd never known darkness. But it was there. The darkness was just as real as the light. And perhaps it was beautiful.
Perhaps an end to all things was right. It certainly seemed wrong, but who could truly take on eternity and stay sane? Perhaps immortality was the true curse, and the light bearer was about to be freed, not murdered. Perhaps they were one and the same.
For a moment she wondered if she should have perhaps gone back in time and relived a precious hug with one or two that she'd loved. Maybe that would have been a better usage of her final moments. She knew the truth though. She'd done right, staying in the sliver of light alone with her thoughts. That's all she'd ever been: alone with her thoughts. The others were just company. Beautiful company, but company nonetheless.
And then the light bearer remembered her name. She was a princess, but not of noble blood. She had been given her immortality by a friend. A friend she had later come to murder. A friend who had let his immortality bring him into madness. Such a beautiful friend. She was given a light by that friend, a passion, and an image on her body. She had learned how to love her friends, no matter how far they fell. And maybe when the friends wouldn't start falling, she could bring them to the top, if only for five minutes.
Her name was Celestia. Such a beautiful name, she thought.
It was time for a final thought. She wasn't prepared, but she knew the darkness didn't care. So she thought. She thought a final thought. A glorious, brilliant, beautiful, childlike final thought. A thought of compassion and a thought of love. She thought she was glad that she had chosen to give up her life. She was glad that she had taken their place and taken the darkness for them.
She had lived an eternity, and now they would too.
And then the light flickered out. And along with it, it's bearer.
And she slept.