Magic's dead

magicaedestruit:

^Papa.

^{When the man’s feet landed on solid ground once more, the first word that rang through his mind was just that. Papa. For so long, he had gone under the guise of Neal Cassidy out of stubborn principle, for the sheer fact that his father had abandoned him. Neal had become a mask to hide behind, a means to distance himself from his father and their shared past. Now, it was no longer an excuse, but a necessity; whereas he had pushed the identity of Baelfire aside in dissociation of his past, with recent developments, there was no Baelfire.}

^{He had stood frozen, then, and in that moment every bit of personality that identified the boy named Baelfire, every emotion connecting him and his father, had boiled to the surface. In that moment, he had been powerless against the choice his father would make. For a large part of his life, he had wished his father would do but one thing to make everything right, wished he would make but one sacrifice to show him that he still loved him, despite having chosen the power of magic over the bond between father and son. And just as he had begun to expose the more vulnerable side of him once more, the boy that had still been present deep inside him, merely in deep slumber for the opportune moment to be reunited with his father once more—-he was forced to watch him perish before his very eyes.}

^{There was no more Baelfire, only Neal Cassidy. Baelfire had been a lively young boy with hopes higher than the peaks of beanstalks that had grown in the golden era of giants, a boy who had held his father so dear he had been willing to give up a familiar life in favor of starting anew in a completely different world.}

^{A boy whose essence, with one stab of a dagger, crumpled up like a paper plane caught in a rainstorm. All hopes were crushed, washed away at the sight that unfolded before him, and all that was left was the bitter shell of the man who had always balanced the fine line between sacrifice and survival.}

^{For so long, he had made idle wishes. And here, at the turning of the tide, his father had made good on his promise. He had made the ultimate sacrifice.}

^{I love you, Bae.}

^{And as he fell to his knees onto the soft forest soil in the lands he had once spent part of his childhood in, so very long ago, he had but one single wish.}

^{I hope you realized I love you too, Papa. I should’ve told you that when I had the chance.}

^{A bitter notion, to know he had finally gotten what he had wished for all along. Oh, but at what cost.}

              ^{He was the very essence of Neal Cassidy now.}

                                                   ^{The boy named Baelfire was gone.}

            ^{And his father had made the ultimate sacrifice.}