V A R A T H
We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.

Was a legend. Paladin had that thought correct. In Varath’s eyes his father would go down in history as the ultimate fall from grace, the epitome of a fallen Morning Star. Seated atop greatness, his hoof poised to crush the throat of the world below, the unicorn had instead chosen to break his own spine, and let the anemic infection of mercy bring his form prostrate before the gods of power and might. His slow and laborious descent into the pit of Sheol so far that even sounding the depths of his abasement floundered had begun far before others might mark it on Paladin’s timeline.

The moment he’d even had the thought in his feeble, infirm mind that anything less than a pureblood was acceptable was when he’d slaughtered whatever strength he might have had. This pathetic excuse for a corpse had been dead for years. It was time he let the worms take him in the earth – but even they might choke and die on such bitter, worthless ordure. No love had left his sire’s side since his unholy spawning and Varath had not cultivated a single drop of pity in that vacuous void’s place: only the black, thick tar pit of hatred that he would drown Paladin in now.

As he charged with the penultimate desire to feel the old bastard’s hot, traitorous blood flow in glorious rivulets down his horn and bathe his crown, he vaguely heard the insult spat back his way. A fool. A fool begat by a disgrace, barreling towards a murky absolution. A roar of rage snarled past the gray’s lips when Paladin didn’t crumple in a lifeless heap of fetid flesh before him but all was not lost. He’d felt the tip of his horn find purchase on the black’s form and smelled the starburst of blood with sick pleasure.

Not a quick death then; no. Varath would bleed him out through a thousand wounds and make his sire watch as his own diluted lifestream ebbed out from his unworthy coffin of meat. Solid hooves failed to halt his progress as swiftly as cloven ones might even as the son tucked his haunches under himself, throwing up clods of dirt and grass as he ripped up the earth just as Paladin’s horn ripped up his skin. A white hot fault-line of pain erupted from sensitive girth to loin and Varath grunted as the ache set in, his nerves chorusing their protest without reservation.

Pain meant little to him. It was the only way to truly feel alive, so he relished the heat and the pressure that came with his father’s attempt to end him. No time was given to consider the depth of his injury now, not when a clear opportunity for dealing a crushing blow was so beautifully open. His skid to a halt had, he hoped, put him in a perfect position to cripple Paladin’s front half, and Varath lashed out with his hind legs swiftly. Raising his back hooves off the ground, he pistoned them backwards in a vicious kick, aiming to utterly destroy the crimson-and-black’s closest shoulder or foreleg - if the broken-down old man was still within reach.

A hot breath hissed from his teeth at the agony such a stretching movement demanded from his rent flesh, and as he landed, the gray swung to face his opponent. “Something of the man you used to be left inside of you, it seems,” he spat with a sick grin broken by the grimace that was forced on his expression from the wound he’d been dealt. It would remain open the rest of the battle, long and spanning most of his side as it was. “Too little, too late, father.”


"talk."


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WC: (621) | (2/3) | Summary: Varath tries to skid to a halt after hitting Paladin, and gets caught by his father's horn from girth to loin. Hoping Paladin is still close enough behind him, he kicks backwards with his hind legs, aiming to smash his hooves into Paladin's foreleg/shoulder.

@[Paladin]