Your Prompt is: The world has been saved, the demon lord slain. But at what cost? The climatic final battle destroyed several cities and killed thousands. Now the hero is being charged with war crimes and must defend themselves in court.

A Hero’s Worth and Hero’s Vain

Click clang, click clang. I tugged at the heavy chains around my wrists. Exhausted and drained from the battle before, I could barely muster my strength to resist. With every step I took, I was on the verge of collapsing, my muscles crying in agony and my lungs felt like they were on fire.

I, Edrnenon, the hero that stopped the would-be apocalypse this morning, was now a prisoner to the church and council of Wildrensendorf.

“I said keep moving! The guard behind me pushed me forward and I stumbled almost landing on my face. “The septon is waiting.”

“Septon,” I sneered. “The squawb who ran away when the world was on fire and the capital in ruins? The squawb who was willing to abandon his own people just a night before? My, have things turned out so bitterly. “

“Watch your tongue,” the guard beside me kicked my shins. “If it weren’t for the trial you must go through, I would have ripped your pretty little head to shreds.”

“And for what reason,” I retorted, “We were on the same s-“

He yanked my hair and I winced in pain. He pulled me upward to look at him in the eye. “You let my beloved Letizia and Hermione die,” he snarled, “While you were willing to save one soul and sacrifice countless others, Yet your words have always been to cut the few to save the rest.

You were a selfish cunt, and thought yourself above the rest of us. Your stupid actions got hundreds killed when their lives could have been spared. You fucking bastard-“

“That’s enough, Aszoern! Aszeorn!” The soldier pulled the other guard away from him just as he was about to bash my brains against a broken wall, partially still covered in soot and ash from the war.

“Aszoern, we have to march him to court. Septon’s orders. He’ll pay in due time.” Aszoern glared at the other guard and brushed him off. I continued walking, this time obedient and silent, their words sinking in. The feeling of dread began to take hold and linger, , the feeling that deep down, they were right…

Before I knew it, my boots had already appeared at the doorsteps of the Grand Sukelnsoen Hall.

The council, I muttered under my breath. Never was on the right foot with that bunch, and now my fate and judgement laid in their hands.

With a crack, the towering doors opened to reveal a hall with torn curtains and dead bodies scattered throughout the aisles. Some of them were…former council members. The beloved lady Alazan laid to the right, her golden wardrobe once speckled with stardust now speckled with blood. Master Olasfin laid a few rows further down, bathed in his own pool of blood. I passed by a few more bodies, most were servants save for two more councilmembers. The other six councilmembers -I had watched them perish on the battlefronts.

“Edrnenon. You are here stand trial for the destruction of several cities within the Amnspheirome Empire.” Emiros, the high-priest’s apprentice now turned Septon stared me down from the tip of his nose, his eyes cold with silent rage.

“7 of our 18 most populous cities were burned to the cinders, with hardly any survivors. Word has it that you sacrificed them as mere scapegoats in the battle.” Reinas, Alazan’s twin sister, sat on the seat representing House Sanclare.

“I was trying to save what we could. There were…sacrifices we had to make in order to save the greater good,” I stated.

“That is true. But your actions also gave rise to unnecessary deaths,” Lord Banraosos chimed in. “Had we received word of it, we could have evacuated many of the cities that were damaged beyond ruin. The first three cities to befall -Ansftern, Hosfandl, Turionse, you scoffed at the demise and decay as a matter of miscalculated plans. The other four cities – you had hindered our emperor from decreeing an evacuation, c

laiming that you need the traps to look as real as they come.”

“We had. to. take. risks. In war, is there no guarantee that plans will work. Some strategies fail. I did what I had to do to save the millions, no the trillions of lives that would have otherwise been lost. I-”

“And do you call it so when your friend needed saving?” Reinas interrupted, the tremor in her voice giving away to her fury lying beneath. “For three friends, you sacrificed 12,741 soldiers and over 274,000 civilian casualty deaths, even when your friends agreed to stay behind and fight.”

“I needed them in the war. They had the most capabilities than 12,000 of your men put together! Without them, without mine and their combined forces, we would have lost-“

“Edrnenon,” Emiros stood from his seat. “You were foolish, arrogant, and you caused more unnecessary deaths than needed to win this apocalypse.”

“I SAVED YOU ALL. YOU DAMMIT-”

“YOU NEARLY KILLED US ALL. HAD YOU NOT ANGERED AND PROVOKED THE DEMON LORD OF ANASRON, SMUGLY WIPED HIS CLAN FROM THE FACE OF THE WORLD AND TAUNTED HIM, THERE WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN A NEAR APOCALYPSE IN THE FIRST PLACE..”

Emiros walked down the stairs of the auditorium’s stage, his red cloak trailing down around him. He grasped my chin and forced me to look through the broken windows of the chamber. Outside my sister knelt, gagged and chained. Tears streaked down her face as she yelped in pain when the chains pulled, pulling her wrists in opposite directions as they hung in the air and pulling at her legs.

“ELISE!”

“Since you love sacrificing others, perhaps its good to know a taste of how it feels,” Emiros whispered into my ear. He gave the signal.

“ELISE NO!” I screeched hoarsely but to no avail. The dragon that laid at their command blasted its flames and covered her in fire within seconds.

“NO, NOOO!”

“Since you play the dastardly hero that everyone so desperately believes, I’ll honor your glory in the history books. Then the commonfolk will not have to wonder where their beloved lying hero went. A quick death should it be, for a hero of your scum’s worth.”

Solders,” Emiros signaled. “Send him on his way to the depths of Zolvokyn.”

I hardly felt the sword swiping through my neck however as I looked furiously where my sister’s remains laid. I could not even tell how I managed to, but I appeared at her remains, trying to cradle the charred body but all that I could muster up in my hands were ashen and soot.

I failed her. I failed everyone.

I sat there for a long time disbelieving for what seemed to be hours. Until a pink pocket bunny she had had jumped out from underneath the soot. It was the bunny I had saved for my sister.

My sister.

The pink bunny waved their tail in trying to comfort me perhaps but I couldn’t care less. I could not care for anything. Which is why I didn’t notice the very next thing when the pink bunny multiplied until hundreds gathered around me. Within some unknown time, I was no longer in my world but theirs. For whatever reason, I do not know that day until many, many years later.