Your antagonist has died. Who leaves flowers on their grave?
There hadn’t been much of a funeral. I went. Of course I had. It was what was expected of me. I said my farewells and dropped a few flowers onto the freshly turned soil, and that was the end of it.
I continue on with my life. The city was being rebuilt brick by brick and I helped with some of it, going home tired after a long day of toil. I tried not to think about the grave.
Everyone knew me by now. There were no consoling words or gentle hugs like there would have been if it had been anyone else. Just glances and glares at the woman who had doomed the entire city before turning her sword and saving it.
A few friends stopped by with news. They pardoned me. Oh goodie.
I go out to the county for a few days to my parents house. Neither of them could look me in the eye. I spend most of my time in the kitchen, working side by side with the servants. No one pays me a second glance.
I leave soon enough and I’m back home. I begin wearing my hood low over my face. I can’t stand the looks they give me when they see my eyes.
I apply for a new job. I become a clerk in one of the banks I had helped to rob. Something about it being best to put what I did in the past. I work well, long days and even longer nights. I don’t sleep as much as I used to because every time I close my eyes I see his pale face as they lower the casket into the earth.
The next day is a sunday. No work. I shove my hands in my pockets and hurry down the street. No one gives me a second glance. One of my friends had gotten me some contacts to cover up how wrong my eyes were, so now I was just another civilian.
I made my way to the edge of town with the flowers. They would have never given a villain a place in the local cemetery.
At first they had opted for an unmarked grave, but no one had stopped me when I placed the cheap tombstone. No one cared.
The flowers were daisies, cheap and common but his favorite.
The grave was under a tall pine tree, and was already covered in pine needles. I brushed them away, revealing the grey earth underneath. Even in death he could still corrupt. I sat, my back against the tombstone and set the flowers down next to me. I pulled out a sandwich i had picked up from the deli and began to eat, staring at the waving branches high above.
I didn’t talk. There was nothing I needed to say. The man buried beneath me had ruined my life. He had killed thousands, destroyed so many lives other than my own. Was it wrong to miss him? He had said it was to fix the world but in doing so he just blew it up. Maybe he wasn’t the only one to blame. I had after all joined him.
We had been so distant for so long. I just wanted to be with my brother again.