ToughSet: We Had a Good Run...

For nearly four months, Launa sat there in the graveyard long after the precession has ended. Not caring about of what is going on around her as she sat there on that gravestone talking away at every opportunistic time she had. With magic in hand the sorceress hid herself away from prying eyes but her faint tones can still be heard from the distance. Often of stories from a time now long gone. For the first time, Launa is scared to leave the stone but knows that too can't last forever. For those who don't know, that tombstone belongs to Launa's first, true lover and husband: Roland Hannsen-Viander. Since that fateful night at the 24-hour gym where he both worked and owned, the two developed a strong relationship that not only broke far more than species barriers. Through thick and thin, the two felt inseparable.

After the Battle of Amsterdam, the two developed a stronger relationship that ultimately became final in matrimony. Things progressed and changed. Rolo became president of his own chain of all-day gyms shaping-up future generations whereas Launa continued running Dark Kat until her human guise turned into its fifties and her "mascot" for an additional ten more years before finally hanging up the jumpsuit for good and turning it over to her predecessor and rival. As more time goes goes by, Launa and Rolo grew old together until the day she did made an offer to make him immortal like her but he refused. She never questioned his reasons for refusing such an offer, but wished she did now. Often his stubbornness is the source of his vitality it what helps him fight off the grim reaper till the very end. Now the year is 2086. A good 74 years after that night, Rolo's battle with death has finally claimed him. Old age was the cause doctors said to Jennifer as she in her formed old age slowly descends to tears.

Now after the funeral, Jennifer dropped the form and revealed herself as Launa, the real woman Rolo knows since then. For those four months, summons went unanswered, college frat boys left without their "just desserts", no run-ins with old rivals and police alike. No. While the world starves of mischief and chaos, Launa, sat there, at her late husband's gravestone recalling all the tales they had together. It's no coincidence that her last night with Rolo is also on the day they first met.

"HAHAHA!!! I remember the look on your face when you got smashed on that space cake and you ran through the streets with nothing but your underwear on our thirtieth wedding anniversary." Launa says laughing it up

"I will never forget the times you saved my life more times than I can count. Even as far as to come into the Underworld to rescue me."

She looks back at the gravestone stroking her hands gently over the deep grooves of the chiseled name admiring the work the stone carvers have put into it. She spared no expense in making sure his funeral didn't became a burden on Rolo's family. As much as it pains her that she didn't have family of their own, at least not biologically.

Things have been empty since, Azzy has finally found a way to return to her home world and Sabrina returns to North America with David to start a new pack. Leaving Launa back alone again with her husband until he left the mortal coil as well. Which in turn gathered up enough strength to ask the question she never asked when he was still alive.

"Why Rolo? Why did you refused my offer to become an immortal like me? We could have been happy together forever, share incredible times and see the world through... my... eyes..."

It came like a bolt of lightening to her mind and her heart. Rolo knew he didn't want to answer because he knew it would only lead to a hurtful fight and he loves her too much to do such a thing to her. Launa realizes just now why he refused immortality.

"I understand now... It would just be unfair, compromise everything we are. All you wanted to show me a world I so have long for but couldn't because of my curse. You wanted to show me how to be human again."

The realization drives Launa to tears, Rolo, all this time knows that falling in love with an immortal would be difficult so he made it his best to make sure that the best moments of their lives where spent in the now even if he won't live that long for it. Launa feels that she should hate him for that but that would be unfair because he gave her a gift that she had long for centuries: Humanity. Never once he was intimidated by her muscles, towering inhuman exterior or great power. All he saw was a incredible woman who defied reason, common sense (in a good way) and the worst odds to become what she is now and deserved the best: Someone who loves her for her. She remembered another person did but left before any declaration was made.

It midnight and now the time has come for her to give her last goodbye, her mighty heart races in anticipation of the fear of going back into the cold loneliness of existence immortality has given her but she knows a whole world needs her more than Rolo. Gaining leaning up closer against the cold granite, Launa makes her last words.

"Rolo, it's time... for me to say my last goodbye. It's not easy for me, I'm too scared to leave but I can't stay here forever. The world needs me and... I just don't know what to do from here, but I'll give them what they want. I'll know you'll be safe here and in the great beyond, wherever that may be.

*sniff*

It's going to be an empty home again without you baby, but don't worry. You made me a stronger survivor than I ever was, and all you had to do was say no. Thank you... thank you for giving me the best gift and the greatest moments in my long life, my loving hero. Thank you for giving me my humanity."
Standing up, Launa can already feel the sharp pain and cramps that come from sitting so long unmoving from the grave. She looks back down at the small monument and bends down and gives a soft kiss on the top of the stone. A few tears land and freeze on the cold surface. Whispering softly...

"I love you Roland... Goodbye."

Where her last words as she sobs softy, slowly disappearing into the darkness leaving the grave site finally at peace. Off the distance and unaware for the whole time, a being whose magic is strong enough to be undetected clutched his shirt tight and tears streamed down his face. Feeling the regret of leaving her after that wild night a century ago but knows he couldn't come to her after this, not now. He only hopes in time she will find someone again for now, as he walks away from hiding in the past path of where Launa once treed, reaching his hand out to now faded figure he only says those words out into the darkness.

"Launa... I'm sorry."

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This is the first dramatic commission I gotten from Toughset depicting this feeling, it's part of the main storyline and an fixture to Rinji's clash of the immortals though the depiction on my side isn't as severe. As many have already said it, this is the one of the problems of being immortal. You live on, they won't. I wanted to show that Launa is a different kind of immortal that doesn't put mortals in a lower plain than they are giving her the strength to go about the world that rises and falls around her. It would be 250 years before Launa falls in love again and for that time that someone has been waiting for a long time.


Art (c)