Lucius saw the apprehensive expression on Dominic’s face.
“What troubles your heart, my boy?” he asked gently.
“Many things, sir,” Dominic answered. “At the moment, getting Raina and me out of here safely seems to be sitting at the top of the list.”
“Of course,” Lucius replied as he patted Dominic on the back. “You felt the same protection for the others, I gather?”
“Yes, sir,” he answered against a shock of pain and guilt. He was trying hard to not allow the grief to overwhelm him before they made it out safely. “I came on this trip prepared to give my life for all of them if necessary.”
“And you?” Lucius inquired with curiosity that may have been real or may have been feigned as the headmaster seemed to know a great deal more than he should already. “What did you want for yourself from this great venture?”
Dominic’s eyes darted toward Raina but he glanced away just as quickly. Standing finally in the spot he had waited so long to stand in, he found that he was still uncertain of the answer himself.
“I don’t know,” he began. “I guess I wanted to make sure my pack made it to you safely and away from you alive.”
“Ah… just the noble kind of answer I had expected,” Lucius replied. “But tell me… what bothers you the most about your own life, about your own turning… about this new existence that you’ve found yourself living?”
Dominic considered the question carefully so that he could give both the master and himself a truthful answer.
“I worry that because of my immortality, I will I never know my true purpose.”
“And you believe that your human life would have answered this for you?”
Shaking his head back and forth to signify his ambivalence, Dominic answered the best he could.
“Maybe? Yes? I don’t know….”
“Well,” Lucius pushed gently. “Did you know your purpose when you were a human?”
Dominic envisioned himself on stage, looking out at the excited crowd as they screamed his own lyrics at him.
“I thought I did,” he answered.
“Yet upon your turning, you did not abandon what was in your heart, did you? You found a way to bring it with you. You allowed it to breathe life into you and to simulate the soul you had lost. This is very rare, Dominic,” he commended before switching back to the interrogation again. “What have you found to be your greatest loss because of your turning?”
“Knowing that no answer will be provided at the end,” Dominic answered. “The humans are gifted with all of the answers upon their death. As much as they fear an end to the only life they know, they are still rewarded with that place and that time when their purpose is disclosed to them.”
“Do you know that for certain?” Lucius asked, somewhat amused.
“We both know He’s there,” Dominic said, gesturing his eyes upward. “They get their own Supreme Being who will take them under His wing when they’re finished here… all that clarity and all that comfort, denied to us simply for the sin of our existence. Maybe I feel cheated that I will never have that for myself now.”
Lucius laughed softly.
“Are you sure that’s how it happens? That He doesn’t simply toss them back onto the earth in a new body to start all over again?” he asked. “Repeatedly perhaps, until they come to determine their own purpose?”
Dominic answered honestly.
“I’m not sure of anything anymore.”
“Your immortality gives you the chance to determine the purpose of your life while you’re still living it, while