Fallen Returned

Prologue

~Prologue~

     He was restless.

     It had been what... four months? Six? Since he'd been relocated to this luxurious and quiet home and fully retired from his occupation as a soldier.

     So why did he feel so... hollow? So fidgety and jumpy and unsettled? Why couldn't he sleep at night?

     Granted, his mind was indeed filled with nightmares and flashbacks from his time with the Fallen Ruler but... it wasn't fear for his life that made Steven so restless.

     Rather... it was the feeling that he was missing something, that he should be somewhere else, not here! Something was happening, something he wasn't even sure he would make a difference in... but it still bothered him, nonetheless.

     Maybe it was too late... he was probably too weak as well.

     Steven groaned, flipping over to lay on his stomach, draped over his window seat. His head was hanging off the edge, legs resting against the glass, but he didn't care.

     How could he, when it was midnight on the fifth—or was it the third? —sleepless night for him.

     All he could do was play the scene of Herobrine's exile in his head over and over again... in all its vivid, gut-wrenching glory.

     Steven heaved another sigh.

     Ugh... Everything in his entire being was telling him he should have done something, could have done something. But could he really have changed a single thing that went on that day??

     And how much of this feeling was truly his own will?? What was to say that all of this awful emotion and these sleepless nights were due to the fact that he was, quite literally, linked to the Fallen Ruler?

     Or... maybe awful things were going on right now, and he was feeling Herobrine's own apprehension as the Second Ruler slowly succumbed to the darkness that had latched onto him.

     Steven shuddered. Great... all this fresh pity wasn't helping his slowly crumbling resolve.

     He turned again, staring at his now upside-down couch. Herobrine was in literal hell as he tossed and turned in a tiny mansion in a cool, rainy forest...

     ...and the thought of the Second Ruler slowly losing sanity, unable to fight the anger and his lust for killing, with nobody at his side in a fiery world that was slowly suffocating him—

     Steve shivered again, trying to push the thought away. What could he do to even attempt to change either of their circumstances? Going up against Notch, the First Ruler, the creator of worlds was simply suicide. He'd be committing innumerable treasons and felonies if he tried, in any form, to even contact the Fallen Ruler. Besides, he could be unleashing the rage of the very Nether itself if Herobrine somehow escaped...

     'YOU are the remains of every shred of my mercy and emotions... YOU are the weaknesses I stripped from myself under the influence of that dark power. Every bit of your being is NOTHING but MY lost kindness and regret and pity!!'

     Steven grimaced, not bothering to adjust his position again as gravity slowly dragged him to the floor. Herobrine's own instincts had kept him from killing Steven, back in that dark cave... but were those instincts still present now?

     '...you are an unreliable cure, one that will take too much time to figure out. And while that time passes, the darkness only grows stronger.'

     Which... implied it was weaker when Steven was around, did it not?

     An idea flashed over Steven's mind so vividly, he nearly hit his head as he scrambled upright.

     If releasing Herobrine was too risky...

     ...then who was to say sealing himself away in the same dimension as the Fallen Ruler wouldn't work?

     It was foolish, daring, downright stupid, but it held a trembling flame of hope, like a battered candle in an open window on a stormy night...

     He'd risk releasing Herobrine, Nether, he'd risk killing himself. He'd be in the same grasp as the man who had tormented and healed him just to make him suffer more... And he'd be in a dimension that made nightmares come to life.

     But if he wouldn't do it... who would?

     Who else held the same amount of connection to Herobrine? Who else could boast of catching and holding the interest of the crazed Second Ruler, and who could say they had faced him and lived?

     And who else could afford to lose their life without endangering the entirety of the human race and the Valkyries...

     Certainly not Notch, or anyone else, for that matter.

     With a huff, Steven glanced over his shoulder, out over the open lake rippling peacefully under the full moon. His hands curled into fists, resolve brightening his eyes, sending a thrill of fear and anticipation up his spine.

     Maybe... maybe there was hope for fixing this broken world and mending the rent between its torn Rulers...

     Very well... he would do it.

     After all, he had no one left in this world who would be saddened by his death...

     ...Herobrine himself had taken care of that.

     Within a short week, Steven was ready to head to the Capitol.

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