Chapter Text
In the end, it was more or less chance that They chose Marcus Kane.
There were dozens of candidates just as suitable, of course. Individuals always wanted to believe they had more power than they actually did, but in reality, events were rarely shaped by one person alone. But Clarke Griffin had been the one to come to Them as humanity’s supplicant, and in the hurricane of sorrow that was Clarke’s mind they had seen Kane; a man who had worked so hard for so long, who had cared so much and achieved so little but a lifetime of suffering and a death that barely made a ripple.
But he had been one of humanity’s leaders, and had been in all the right places at the right times, and more importantly he had the qualities They required. He was respected by his people, intelligent enough to be useful, and he had the will to do what needed to be done. He had a knack for convincing others to his way of thinking, and there was very little he wasn’t willing to do if he thought it was in service to the greater good. These were qualities They respected, that They too had in common. An unusual capacity for adaptability and an instinct for self-sacrifice on Kane’s part was also beneficial.
Humanity just needed more time, that was the thing, having come knocking at a door they weren’t yet ready to open, begging admittance to a realm they were not worthy of. Yet. The fatal flaw of humanity was that – like most other sentient species – they had such a limited concept of time. They were slaves to it, experiencing events in a childishly linear fashion that meant they were always too slow to learn from experience, doomed to live forever with the consequences of their worst mistakes. And Marcus Kane at least knew all about living with the consequences of his mistakes.
So the man would do. Humanity would get their second chance, and he would be the linchpin.
Any distress caused to him would be only temporary. And it was a small price to pay, with the salvation of his very species on the line.