In a good story there should always be a tear for every laugh, and tGA is no exception.
- Leon Alcibiates's death. What makes it all the more tragic is that Leon's actions to prevent the warlock Arawn Losstarot's rise to power in fact helped Arawn in a cruel Self-Fulfilling Prophecy.Chuckling, Arawn drove Leon's own dagger into his chest, again and again and again. Leon's vision went red, and the world ceased to exist for him, except for pain and the sound of Arawn's laughter. Then, the pain changed, and Leon knew that Arawn was charging the dagger with his power, making use of the intricate force-matrices woven into the weapon for just this purpose. It would be over soon. What would it like to be dead...?Soon, even pain and awareness faded away, and Leon heard a soft melody on a flute. He lifted his own flute to his lips and played counterpoint, just as he had back in those days in Montblanc when the worst thing he had to worry about was getting beat up by his brothers or his brute of a father. He lost himself in the melody, and then Sara was there, the dear sister who had been the only one to ever comfort Leon when he was a child, until their father had beaten her to death in a drunken rage. He smiled up at his big sister, and then Hiroshi was there, smiling widely as the samurai never had in life, and Leon knew that everything would be all right. Someday, Agarwaen would come, too, and maybe even Raistlin.Everything would be all right.
- The scene of Leon Alcibiates finding Dorcas Luchester's confession of her feelings to him just as Dorcas is to be executed:Thus had Leon found himself cleaning out Luchester's cell mournfully as she was led off to face the firing squad. Her diary spilled open to the floor, and Leon had begun to read as he heard the drummers drum outside the window."Ready!" had come the command, and the archers readied their bows as Leon began to read:...but the most tragic thing about how this has all ended has been the man Leon Alcibiates. Always, though I was an enemy, he reached out to me in kindness. Alcibiates is a good man, serving a foul foe. I pray that he not suffer over much in the doomed world which I am about to leave...."Aim!" came the next command. Tears streaming down his face, Leon read the last page of the diary of the last descendant of the last person he'd ever loved with all his heart:...Perhaps the kindness Alcibiates showed me was meant to be my reward for a life spent doing everything I could for what I felt was right. I can now go to my grave content, for at long last, I have felt a thing which I can confidently identify as love."FIRE! came the command through the cell window. Leon gritted his teeth as bowstrings twanged and he heard the wooden shafts whizz through the air. As he heard the wet impact of steel arrowheads on soft flesh, the air was filled with an earsplitting howl of agony, a howl that sounded like it had come from a wild beast.It was then that Leon realized that the howl was coming from his own throat.
