Always.
It is a loaded word for someone like me. Always. Forever. Without exception. Uninterruptedly.
This is our final hour. Always may no longer apply. Tonight will see us try to ensnare a foe that has spent the past year ravaging the earth. Are we ready?
So many conversations I have yet to have, avenues I have yet to explore. My mind is a whirling muddle and I need to impose order upon it.
I am told that a vampire that is confronted with his own mortality, his Final Death, can be a brooding, broken monster, who, in his final moments, frenzies his way into oblivion. I have been taught better. I have lived better. My Beast and I have come to grips, and it is I who am in control.
I am rambling.
Much like events thirteen and a half years ago, the end of our city, of our world, has brought together the wary elements of the supernatural. Tonight will see vampire, werewolf, hunter, mage, shapeshifter, and so many others working in concert to defend this city, these people, from utter annihilation.
Strange bedfellows indeed.
I have no doubt we will prevail. Putting aside our decidedly hometown advantage, this ritual will seal them away for a long time. A very long time.
And if it does so above ground, the Field Museum gets a new exhibit.
The only question is who, and what, we will lose. Those lost will spur their companions on, but who will it be? Who can I afford to lose? I wonder if even Marcus can tell who will fall tonight. Fate seems...cloudy when one involves the Titans.
Regardless, once the dust settles, we will be thrust into a new world, where the Veil is torn away and the Masquerade dissolves to ash. Will the fact that we, that supernaturals and hunters, came together in humanity's defense stave off the mob mentality I fear will form? Or will we be faced with a modern day torch and pitchfork scenario, fear overcoming rational thought?
It is of no consequence.
I have been urged to set up a far away place for shelter, after tonight's events. I have also refused. I have spent too long, become too invested, in Chicago, defending her people, and mine.
And that will be the hardest part. For so long I have fought supernaturals in defense of humanity. (To be fair, it started out in hatred, but I would like to think my goals became far nobler as time marched on.) Now I feel I may need to act in reverse - protecting the supernatural from humanity. Once mortals realize the power they wield, when they embrace that numbers are their biggest strength, we may be in trouble. It will take some very public explanation. I will likely take part.
My beast cringes at the thought, urges me to stay hidden...but hiding is no longer an option.
Besides, I am Gavin Abrams, CEO of Ultor Corporation, Angelslayer, former Ace, and Geralt Dessalines, Ventrue childe of Viviana, Carthian, and Restorer of Relics. Hiding is not in my blood. Not anymore. And I will always act in the defense of others, be they mortal or supernatural.
With time stretched before me, it both interrupted tonight and simultaneously stretching to the horizon, always seems so very far away. "I will always..." Pretentious, perhaps, with the nature of what I am working against me. Yet there is a single idea I must cling to.
We are who we choose to be.
Without that, I am truly lost. I will only become a monster if I allow myself to become a monster. Do not misunderstand me, I am no fanciful vampiric hero, fighting my nature in some noble quest. I have done some small share of despicable things that I had, at the time, a rational explanation for doing. No, I am simply a man doing what he can to prevent lasting harm to others.
Is "always" possible? Does "always" take into account immortality? Or is the word made even more powerful to those who have the chance to live forever? We shall see.
Perhaps "always" is unattainable.
But I shall always be trying.
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
((Musical inspiration: The Hollow Men, for trumpet & string orchestra - Persichetti))
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