You will understand when the time comes, my child. For now, just watch....

  Inside a castle, a young man who would one day become Andrews the Last trains. He falters in a swordfight with his trainer, resulting in a cut to his arm. Andrews still has the cut to this day, in fact. He also still bears the scars of the whip, used in punishment for his weakness. This, too, can be seen.
  Outside the same castle - some time has obviously passed, for what was a small town is now an enormous walled city. Andrews bursts from one of the side doorways of the castle, followed nearly immediately by several armed guards, obviously in pursuit. Andrews has killed his trainer - though the boy himself claims it was an accident on the training field, he and everyone else knows full well that Andrews did it purposely. He is brought to his father, who instead of punishing the boy, encourages him. The young Andrews has obviously surpassed the trainer, and deserves to be recognized as such. The next week, a new trainer arrives from the far southern lands, and the harsh training continues. The cycle repeats until Andrews is nearly an adult.
  Inside the center of the ever-growing city, Andrews, no longer so young as before, stumbles drunkenly toward his home. He cannot let his emotions control him like this, he knows, but he cannot help it. Not this time. His father lies in wait, on his deathbed in the castle - a death bed which Andrews drove him to. Poison was not the young prince's tool of choice normally, but it would suffice in this instance. Now, however... now, in the dawning light of day, Andrews faces his deeds. His emotions tear through him - guilt, anger with himself, and perhaps most disturbing, a sensation of raw power. He had felt it before - the trainers which had perished under his blade had died increasingly gruesome and humiliating deaths, and each time he had committed the deed, he had felt powerful, as he does now. It scares him, but it lures him as well. Power, to set right what wrongs had been visited upon him. For years, everyone had worked against him. They had trained him into the ground, and punished him at every sign of weakness. They deserved to die. Even his father, no - especially his father - deserved to die.
  Inside the center of the city again. No longer its majestic self, it seems to have lapsed. Though all the inhabitants are still there, they go about their business as though being constantly watched. This is not far from the truth, as soldiers dressed in an unsettlingly familiar fashion pervade the streets. Inside a barracks, apparently central to all the others, Andrews stands upon a podium and delivers a speech to all those gathered before him. He is giving the Tyrant Knights orders to march from the city, and spread their ways across the land. Explore countries, learn their weaknesses, gather power and then conquer them. Such thinking had already "united" the quarreling kingdoms bordering Andrews' own as well as several near those. Rule by Tyrant Master Eric Andrews spread like a disease upon the earth, seemingly the very nemesis of goodness itself.
  More time passes, and more of the continent falls under Andrews' sway. His hold over the populace, and over his knights, is absolute. He stands in his private room of his castle and ponders over what he has accomplished. So much - yet he is not happy. They have not paid for what they did to him. Andrews is aware that the innocents of the neighboring countries did not do anything to him, of course, but some part of his mind insists they did. If only not by intervening, they did. They are at fault - all of them would pay. There was not a human being fit to walk this earth, so far as Andrews was concerned.
  Chrystle Andrews enters the room then, interrupting her brother's internal anger. In a moment, the elder's fury is gone. He was wrong - if there is anyone that deserves to walk the earth, it is Chrystle. Her heart is innocent, caring - qualities which Andrews can never realize in himself. Caring is weakness, innocence little more than foolishness. But that doesn't matter to him, because it doesn't seem that way when his sister is around. She is everything that Andrews might have become, had they not changed everything. A brief moment of anger flashes through his mind, but is quickly gone. Chrystle smiles up at her sibling, completely unaware of what he truly believes himself to be, only aware of what he is.
  Time is growing short now - Andrews is in his throne room, glaring down at the robed man before him. He is supposedly an emissary from one of the far lands which the knights have investigated. He is able, the men say, to wield the ancient magicks which have been lost to mankind for untold ages. That he was somehow able to convince the knights that he should be brought back to see Andrews speaks well for his ability. Andrews converses with the man, learning that he is on business for his king, and interested in allying himself with Andrews' tyrant knights for the purposes of overthrowing a nearby rival. Having understood that the Tyrant Master was a tactical expert, the magic-crafter came to his kingdom to seek aid. Andrews, in return for a large sum of gold and books of lore long forgotten, agrees to plan the assault. He does not participate, however.
  Two days later, he is assassinated. Destroyed by a militia using the very tactics that he had planned alongside the war-lock. His treachery had become his own undoing.
  Time is short, chosen one, but listen well!
  Whiteness everywhere.
  Broken images: Fire, pain, suffering, and then whiteness. Andrews' father, and the fathers before him. Family. Chrystle
  No, please don't let her be here, don't let her be dead!
  Everything is made clear to Andrews. Everyone he hurt stands before him, every soul that was destroyed or would go on to destroy others stands accusing, staring at him. He caused this. They had done nothing to him - Nothing!, and he had served them by giving them death. His family can be seen dimly in the distance, all hanged. Dangling from trees, their eyes gaze toward him, miles and miles of ancestry, each generation responsible for the sickening of every successive one, each pointing their dead arms toward Andrews, and the noose which waited for him.
  Chrystle was there. Chrystle was there! She can't die! Andrews screamed in horror, pain, and shame. He had done this, he had condemned untold innocents to die, and he had paid the price. This he would accept, he would gladly take his place on the noose of the afterlife, and hang forever as penance. It was not they who needed punishment, it was only himself. He would accept it gracefully. But his sister had died. His own tactics had robbed Chrystle of her life! That he could not stand.
  A Voice.
  You will live again, young king, if you value the safety of the innocent so much. You will be cast out of your home, for it no longer exists, and forced to live on the land for the rest of your time. But the innocent shall live again. Guard her, Andrews. You are being given a second chance to right what wrongs have been visited upon you, and the wrongs which you have visited upon others. Stray not from your path, Andrews, for what your actions have awakened will surely be your undoing.
  Stray not from your path.

  "Alexis, wake up!"
  Alexis nearly bolted as her dream (vision) merged into reality for one shimmering moment. The sight of Andrews - unmistakably the man who she had seen during the nightmare - had nearly sent her running. It took a few moments for her to calm down and remember that he hadn't hurt her. But the truth.... Oh, the truth was a horrible thing to know. Andrews had told her his true nature the day before, when she had asked, but she hadn't known if she believed it. She did now. The man she saw before her now - the kind man who had freed her from slavery and twice saved her life from those that might destroy her - was Andrews the Last, the Tyrant Master, quite possibly the most horrible person ever to live. Half of her mind wanted to run, but the other half... the other half rejected such frivolity instantly. Andrews had done nothing but show kindness for her. He had been given a second chance, and he had taken it and become a different person. The person that he had been was gone.
  "Alexis, are you all right? You were thrashing about in your sleep, I was worried...." Eric looked concernedly toward her.
  Alexis smiled. Her earlier fear seemed all the more irrational now. "No, just a nightmare."
  "I get those too, sometimes." Chrystle said, her eyes solemn. Eric shivered suddenly at the thought of what Chrystle might dream.
  Alexis nodded. "But I'm awake now.... I'm sorry to have disturbed the both of you."
  "Do not worry about it. I was already awake." Eric smiled a little and continued. "It's nearly morning anyway, would you like to begin our walk?"
  Alexis nodded and got to her feet. She didn't think she'd be able to get back to sleep anytime soon anyway.
  Eric walked back to his own arrangements and started packing what possessions they had away. The others weren't watching, so they didn't see him shivering. He was, however. Alexis had been murmuring in her sleep, the same sentence over and over. Though the had told neither of them this, her speaking had been what motivated him to wake her. It was too close to home for him. Much to close. Possibly, even a sign. Even now, the words echoed through his mind.
  Stray not from your path
  He had come close, but he had not yet strayed....
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