[[(3/3) (787 words)
- Paladin is dead :(
- Permission given for Varath to powerplay killing Paladin however at the end in his closing defense
- I love you, Paladin <3
]]
Gasping for air, he listened to the painful words spoken by a son he could not recognize. Seconds passed as the crippling agony on his chest started to subside. Varath’s words echoing through ever empty cavern in his heart. The part of him Soleil had loved, the good half, wept tears of blood, excising the cruelty in a final breath. And still the demon howled, laughing at the boy’s pathetic attempt to turn the blame of his own failures on someone else. Paladin did not know who to listen to; such were the screaming words inside his head. No apology could begin to mend the broken ties, even if he could force his lips to utter the words. And thus he stared, consumed by the raw agony in Varath’s strange gaze, drowning deeper and deeper.
In a single, liberating moment, he freed himself form the binds of righteousness and evil, unifying the two halves of a whole in his fragmented heart. He gave the demon wings, letting him sour unfettered through the endless skies of nothingness, opening his lips to inhale a painful breath. What could he say? Varath had skewered him with the truth and buried him in a grave of honesty. “I have failed you all. Beware the path on which you walk,” he said, seeing now that Varath had chosen what he had years ago.
How long until history repeated itself? How long until he felt the cruel reality of his final days come full circle, knowing that it was too late? Varath had no reason to heed his words, but Paladin prayed he would. There was no use in fighting against the flow of your own blood, no use in arguing with fate, but he could live. Truly live.
The only warrior finally broke his gaze away, knowing that this hand to end. There were only two outcomes now hanging in the balance, and blood seeped from his open wounds. This fracture would not heal. But he could end Varath’s misery now. He could end his pain in the most final of ways, and perhaps, that would be doing the boy a favor. His son was the culmination of damned parentage, a blight upon the gene pool. He was born broken, suffering for too long.
Paladin could put him out of his misery.
Together they could face the fires of hell.
And so he ran forward, horn pointed for the boy’s chest. Now was when they concluded this blood feud. Here was where the tyranny of Riekahn the Crimson King would come to and end, the two of them whispering words of hate with final breaths. Paladin felt blood cascade down his legs, chest craning for air as he ran, eyes wide open.
His son dropped to his knees.
Paladin couldn’t stop.
The point of a horn slid between the open cavern of his chest, sliding next to the visceral, beating organ of his heart. There, the spiral cut through sinew and tissue, the tip collapsing a lung as his left side collapsed. Veins and arteries spurt uselessly, no longer sending life to the rest of his body, and he stood, staring down at the end of his life of misery, sadness clouding his deep, red eyes in a sheen of crystalline pain. No cry of agony or yell of defeat fell from his lips, and he struggled to breathe, wheezing whispers of air through his chest. Maybe, just maybe, his horn had injured Varath, but he couldn’t care.
Paladin took a hesitant step back, feeling the unbelievable, numbing horror of standing in the final seconds of his life, knowing there was no going back. No healer could save him now, and he stared at his son, lost. The Valiant. The Warrior. The Father. The Warlord. He collapsed, falling roughly to his knees as his arthritic frame groaned against his weight, hip falling over. His crimson eyes stared at the evergreen blades of grass so high up here in the sky, imagining he and Soleil dancing upon the fields of their youth.
When would he breathe his last?
He laid there, unmoving and unseeing as he continued, despite his every desire to die, living on. That was when he dared ask for mercy he did not deserve. “Please…” he whispered to Varath, watching his son’s dark hooves as blood pooled quickly around his grounded shoulders. End me…
What Varath did then was lost in a haze of unknowing and darkness.
The black gates of hell opened, no heaven for the wicked, Fires licked at his sides, a cacophony of hellish choirs singing at the advent of their Prince. There, he would stay forever more.
A final breath.
Paladin the Valiant was no more.
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