Ashes

Steven felt Connie take his hand as he watched the van burn, choking down the tears.

A deep, echoing crack in the distance drew her attention, but not Steven's. His gaze remained fixed upon the burning van.

Connie said nothing, but he could feel her apprehension. My grief is hardly more important than all the rest, he thought to himself; or perhaps she thought it, and he only heard the echo. They were apart so rarely now, the difference had become almost meaningless.

Finally, Steven turned around as well. He saw that the others had arrived on the beach; a thousand, at least. In the distance, walking on its fingers as if they were the legs of a spider, a colossal, gleaming blue hand moved slowly closer, the ruins of Beach City ground to dust beneath its inexorable advance. At sea, in the distance, a golden hand struggled against the ocean itself, shaped by sheer will into massive watery chains which attempted to drag the Gem ship into the crushing depths.

The remains of the cliff on which the lighthouse had once stood held the smoking wreckage of another ship; a silvery-white pile of twisted, torn metal fingers. Beneath its husk lay a tangle of stone arms and wooden debris, and Steven tried to keep from thinking about what else had been buried there, tried to remember that the most precious thing was still alive, still hidden far away.

Connie squeezed his hand tighter. "Are you ready?" she asked, gently.

Steven smiled. "Of course," he said. He remembered, as he always did before battle, the song his father had played to him once, long ago; the words were from an old, old poem.

Together, they recited it to themselves as they danced; not the embrace of lovers, this time, but the careful dance of a duel, the march of a battle formation.

"How can a man die better," Steven quoted, spinning and lifting his shield high, one arm outstretched.

"Than facing fearful odds," Connie replied, falling backward into his waiting arm without a glance, her saber held alongside his shield.

"For the ashes-" he almost hesitated, almost broke their union, but the words themselves carried him through with barely a stutter; - "For the ashes of our fathers," he finished, as the light swept over them, uniting them in body and mind.

From two people, one person emerged, an eight-foot giant, holding a sword in one hand and a shield in the other, black hair whipping in the ocean wind. "And the temples," they shouted together in one voice, loudly enough that their followers echoed it back, loudly enough to overpower the sound of a thousand charging footsteps, "The temples of our sons!"

And a thousand voices took up the call, and followed behind one person – one person who, an eternity ago, had once been two.