The last moment.
Some people say that in your last moment, on your final breath, your entire life flashes before your eyes. And that you get a single chance to reflect upon your past mistakes so that you may for once be at peace with what you have done. If this was true then the gate-keeper Gerion never lived. As long as he could remember he had been locked away, forgotten, inside the tower Temen-Ni-Gru. It had been revived less than a few hours before his last moment, but before then he couldn't remember living much of what mortals would consider a 'life'. The traitor, the accursed blasphemer Sparda had sealed him away to rot with the others before casting the tower into 2 millennia of limbo.
The first two months were torture, never mind the first 2 years or the entire 2000 of them. He had nothing but an abandoned arena, long since vacant, and a heavy steel carriage attached to the harness on his body. It slowed him down and he had to drag it everywhere he went. He knew it to be but another curse placed upon him by Sparda and he learned to despise the thing. It's heavy design and gothic features made it awkward to pull, but that was nothing compared to what it did to his mind.
At first it was nothing but a mild annoyance. He told himself that it would just forever continue to be so, and nothing more. However it quickly started to anger him, making him hate it's burden even more than it was healthy to do so. In another word it made him notice all the little things, every single disturbance, everything he would consider mildly irritating were suddenly transformed into major annoyances.
Even the silence started to take it's effect, and he normally enjoyed the peace and quiet. Gerion found it comfortable when there was no other demons around to bug him, sure some of them were okay to spend time with. But when time is nearly all that you have and there's no other type of simple pleasure to indulge in, then the time is all you feel. His punishment tormented him for long enough to eventually start sending him over the line. It started with him beginning to notice himself doing strange things he would never normally do, and start craving strange things.
The first thing was where he slept. Normally he would sleep in a corner or next to a wall to conserve a small amount of heat, keeping him comfortable. But one morning... day? Night? He didn't know. The loop his prison was thrown into had no such distinctions. But he awoke in the middle of the arena. He picked up his head and looked around, frowning as he did so. He never figured out why he had fallen asleep in such a cold position, but he did recognise that it was the very start of all those strange things.
The only thing he could relate it to, in words, was he began to feel like a mortal would. A demon with infinite vitality such as him would normally be born accustomed to spending long periods of time alone. Mainly because it was bound to happen and it was almost programmed into every demon that ever was. He didn't know if the other gate-keepers felt the same way, but after a painfully large period of time, maybe a year? All he wanted was for everything to be normal again. But he had forgotten. Being alone was the normal now.
It was then that he gave up waiting for Sparda to be brought to justice. He concluded there was no way of the sealing spell being broken before he went insane, and he resorted to the long sleep. He would sleep away the time. With a calm sense of knowing he cast a spell which would put him into the realm of dreams until his services as a gate-keeper were forced back into effect...
-... Strange thing, the dream realm. He knew a immortal who walked the dreams like he did. They could only roam their own dreams, make whatever the wanted, be how they waned to be. She was trapped too and was just like he was. She him visited sometimes. Not for long, just briefly. Every now and again...-
But before he knew it, he was awake again. The dream had passed in what felt like a second, maybe less. So when the Temen-Ni-Gru eventually came back to life, so did the spirits of a now demoralised equine. He had spent so long asleep that imagine his confusion when low and behold, into his arena entered a half blood. He could sense it. Half human, half demon, and it was trying to go through him.
He fought, he had to. It was his duty. He chased the demon as best he could and he used all of his abilities to his advantage. His ability to slow time while remaining at normal speed, launching explosive bolts of his demonic power at the fiend. But the more he fought the more he saw Sparda in that warrior. He only clipped his agile form once or twice, but the small and powerful being cut away Gerion's life like it were nothing. Just like the traitor had done to his own bretherin 2 millennia ago. Then it hit him.
The red warrior was the son of Sparda. It had finally come, the last moment.
Some people say that in your last moment, on your final breath, your entire life flashes before your eyes. And that you get a single chance to reflect upon your past mistakes so that you may for once be at peace with what you have done. If this was true then the gate-keeper Gerion never lived. His soul left his form and the red coat covered being took him from the world he knew.
"Wake up."
"Gerion, please wake up..."
Gerion open his weary eyes to a scene unlike anything he'd ever witnessed. Above him was a sheet of a deep blue, almost black. And white dots lit up like tiny pin pricks of beauty. He saw patterns in the dots, lines that connected and made up the outlines of objects. He gazed at the night sky for a moment. It was a thing of pristine perfection he had not been allowed access to in the real world for far too long, and as he took it all in another shape leaned over his face. The smiling face of another equine like him.
Those blue eyes...
That night-like mane...
Gerion had finally come to the home he always wanted, a home he promised himself he would find.
"Luna..." He rasped.
"Gerion." She replied with a smile of gold, a curve of the lips that filled his heart with joy. A short moment of silence followed before the air was abruptly filled with their overjoyed laughter.
