So it is done

Standing behind the small, peculiar curtain that hides him from the eyes of the assembled people- thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of people, does the number change anything? Jonathan was feeling nervous. It was far, far more than he had ever been in front of. As the time for his impending part comes closer, Jonathan was deep in thought.

When did his life change so dramatically? What series of events had exactly led him to this moment he had found himself in? Holding the prepared speech in his hands, preparing to utter precisely these words, for a very specific purpose, Jonathan was suddenly struck with a sense of vertigo. When did it happen? The thing that led him to this point?

Did it happen a week ago? When Captain Aisa had shared her plan with him, the craziest idea he had ever heard?

Did it happen two weeks ago? When he had changed the geography of Mount Glenn with meteors?

Was it eight weeks ago? When he had escaped Atlas to this city?

Was it when he traveled the Umbra with the old man?

Or did Fatum truly exist, that destiny something more than just the consequence of human actions?

That everything was already predetermined the moment he was born - no, even earlier? That the established rails of certainty simply followed the pre-established form in a single canvas, drawn at the time of the creation of the universe?

What would the Old Man say? Would he laugh at his rambling and give a pat on his shoulder? Maybe shook his head reproachfully? Would he give some parting advice?

What would the Order say? His Friends, few of them there are? His Teachers?

What will the people say? What will their descendants say? Would what he did be remembered at all? What will happen next after this?

What will he do, and what will others do in reaction to it? How will his action affect this whole world? And how have they already influenced it?

If nothing else, Jonathan now knew that he suffered greatly from stage fright, if the way his mind seems to be overworking itself from his nervousness.

As the captain's speech was over, not that Jonathan could actually tell what she was speaking about through his haze of thoughts, Jonathan heard his name being uttered. Was that his cue? He had forgotten when he was supposed to enter the stage. It must have been, as there was now a hushed silence. And so, with his heart thumping in his ears, Jonathan took a step forward through the curtain, finally appearing on the impromptu stage.

A moment later, he was pierced, pinned down by hundreds of thousands of eyes. All the people in the room stared intently at him, some with incomprehension, some with respect, some with adoration, in some he could see disbelief, that they refuse to believe that it was this boy, slowly walking, leaning on a cane, who was the one that saved them from Grimm, and yet, those were not the worst that he could see. In some of them an almost alien emotion could be seen, some sort of fervent faith that he was their savior, something more than just man.

In a way, they were right, it didn't mean that their blind faith in him was not any more eerie.

As Jonathan walked to the podium, he heard neither the sound of his cane nor the sound of his footsteps, the hall was completely silent, no whispering, not even the sound of anyone breathing, as if they were holding their breath as one. Everything seemed so quiet, it is as if, the world had frozen, as he walked those steps.

Cinder is a few steps behind him, Jonathan didn't need eyes behind his head to know that she was looking at him with concern, ready at any moment to rush and support him if he were to stumble. In the past few days, she had become more and more desperate in her actions, in her pursuit of something. Jonathan knew that some ideas were floating in her head, something that he never wanted to put in there, but something had found its way there anyway.