What If...
It wasn’t her fault and he knew she’d HATE him for doing this… but he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t let her challenge the hypocrisy of the people she’d sworn and given nearly everything to protect. Now that the demon king was dead, he KNEW what her fate would be and he couldn’t live in a world without her. He wouldn’t want to.
But she was FAR too good a person to just ignore the injustices and corruption. She wouldn’t be able to help herself and, now that her use was done, the kingdom didn’t need her anymore.
Or, at least, it thought it didn’t.
He was a Sage. He KNEW they would murder her on trumped-up charges, the people would be easily swayed and would cheer.
People were like that.
What people liked more than a Hero was to see a Hero fall.
His holy maiden was beautiful. She was still young, not even having seen her twentieth year yet and she was everything a Hero should be… and that no one else would be able to live up to. People would resent that, resent HER.
And he wouldn't have it.
He hated himself. He did. It was a betrayal of everything she stood for doing this but… it was the ONLY way to keep her alive!
He’d do more and worse than simply drugging his beloved to keep her in this world!
The deal he made was for that.
They had said (and he had a Magically binding contract of it) that if they retired to live quietly in the countryside he and his beloved would be left alone.
On their side, they were not to be called on, ever.
Since this was what the ‘people’ had demanded, if shit started happening, they would have to deal with it themselves.
This Hero and Sage were PERMANENTLY retired.
According to everyone, the battle with the demon king had taken a great toll on the Hero and she had fallen deathly ill. Her sage partner had taken her away so she could live her last days in peace and so he could try and find a way to help her.
He hated seeing her like this. Dazed, unfocused and slow… unable to even train or so much as wield a kitchen knife safely and he knew he was probably fooling himself… but he loved her FAR too much to just let them kill her.
He wasn’t even sure it was safe to have a child since they would always be targeted.
He’d changed their appearance, moved from where he’d said they’d retire to (after leaving some dummies of course) and locked away anything that might give away their identity.
For her, he was willing to throw away his studies and become a simple farmer or something similar.
She would hate this. Hate that he threw that aside… but he needed her to LIVE. Even if he wasn’t sure her current state could be called that.
It wasn’t permanent. He couldn’t bring himself to actually harm her, even if it meant the dose had to be carefully monitored and controlled.
Besides, if something happened to him, he wanted her to be able to care for herself, even if her memories of being THE Hero were locked away. In that event, it would wear off slowly, over a week or two.
When the crunch finally came, and the populous was wailing for the Hero to save them, he sneered, took his slightly dazed lady and retreated to a safe spot of his.
It had been a simple life but enjoyable in its own way and he wasn’t giving it up for some invading army of idiots.
He and his lady weren’t intimate. Doing that with her when she wasn’t in her right mind felt wrong and he didn’t deserve it for inflicting the drug on her in the first place.
Simply being with her and caring for her was more than he deserved… Having been lovers while on campaign together though, it made him miss her all the more. His well-deserved penance he supposed.
It hurt… but he could ensure the two of them could wait the idiots out and nothing had ever been said about not assassinating the other party.
Once they were gone, he could stop and allow his beloved to return to herself.
They just needed to wait this out.
She got sick… and, even though he had eased her off the drugs, she wasn’t getting better and he didn’t know what to do. It was a race between her returning wits and her failing body.
He didn’t know what it was but he felt this was planned. Someone, somehow had planned this.
He went over the contract with a fine-toothed comb but it wasn’t that… no, it was a poison that had been linked into the drugs. If he… if he should ever take her off them, she would die.
(He wasn’t naive or an idiot. Of COURSE, he’d checked everything about them. The drug should NOT be doing this and he didn’t know how they’d slipped this passed him. Right now the how and the why didn’t matter. What mattered was that his beloved was dying!)
He had a choice. He could put her back on them where she would die more slowly but WOULD die in the end… or he could allow her mind and body to become clear and fail.
Oh, they would pay for this. They would PAY.
He couldn’t tell her. Couldn’t face the betrayal in her eye from what he’d done to her.
She wouldn’t suspect, not him but…
He didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t lose her. He couldn’t!
Faced with an impossible choice… he chose a different path completely. After all, what was the point of being a sage if a person didn’t have access to even Forbidden Magics? He’d never delved into them, never needed to but for her, it didn’t MATTER if his soul was tainted or whatever. What mattered was his wife and her life… also her will, but mainly her life.
The ritual was dark, and there was a chance it would kill her but she was dying anyway. He could at least ask her what she wanted to do.
It broke his heart.
She knew.
Somehow, she knew but she still smiled at him, even if there was pain in her eyes now. Pain he’d put there.
He HATED himself… but, she just shook her head, smiled and cupped his cheek like she always had.
She told him not to hate himself or this world.
How could he not though? They were taking away the one thing in his life that gave it meaning.
Let me wake up. She told him. Let me spend my last days with you properly as your wife.
Two months. Two blissful months when she was there fully with him again… and then she was gone.
Worse, she’d wanted to see the outside just once more before she passed and he’d indulged her.
They were caught in a conflict and she was to weak to even lift her sword.
Even with his power, it wasn’t enough and they were chased over the edge of the execution ridge, where traitors and commoners were thrown after they were killed/ died.
He felt her last breath leave her even as he leaped. What was the point in remaining in a world without her?
(No one had expected him to awaken three years later as an undead, him least of all, sweep the kingdom, what remained of it, clear with his undead army and set himself up as the ruler. All of those who had been responsible for his beloved’s situation and the circumstances that killed her were wiped out… even if it wouldn’t bring her back.)