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

Rage choked his gaze as Paladin, the absent father, the distant shadow of paternal security, deigned now to offer advice. And the dam broke under the weight of those uttered words.

"You failed," Varath exploded, spittle flying from his dusky lips, "because you never tried! You failed because you never thought to focus on your family rather than every other fucking pathetic soul that crossed your path!" And such was the pain and anguish of a little boy, scorned by his father, abandoned, unloved. "Where were you when I needed you, father? Where were you when Ophelia or Ktulu needed you? You were gone, putting others before your own flesh and blood," he hissed, no forgiveness in his wounded soul for his patriarch's admission of his shortcoming.

If only the son would have known his father's thoughts, the neglected little boy inside might have welcomed braving the depths of hell with Paladin, if only to know what a true father might have been. As it stood, the angry, blackened young man would never gain such experiential knowledge, forever bereft of a real, true family.

Varath watched his sire charge, chose his counter, and felt the breath knocked from his lungs when warm, heavy flesh slammed right into his horn. The blood slid down his spiraled weapon, slick, wet and hot on his forehead...and everything went deathly quiet. His attacker stepped back and Varath scrambled to his feet, hooves feeling unsteady all of a sudden. The tight punch of a wound in Paladin's chest confirmed the blood that crowned him now.

What had he done?

The horror in Paldin's face was reflected in Varath's glassy eyes, his mouth hanging slightly agape. It...he had gone over it so many times in his head but now...it was real...and...

Was it what he wanted?

He couldn't go back no; there was no undoing this - and the sickening nausea in his gut was undermining every hour spent mulling over ending his sire's pathetic life. Paladin collapsed to his knees and Varath flinched, eyes blinking wildly.

"F...father...?" a scared little boy asked, seeking the comfort of what should have been there but was not and could never be. The tears slipped silently down his muzzle, darkening in imperfectly straight lines, and breathing was the hardest thing in the world. Finally, the silence was shattered by his sire's single, pleading request and fear rooted him to the spot.

What was mercy?

What would it look like in this moment?

All he knew was violence. Yanking his limbs from their attachment to the earth, Varath, son of Paladin, grandson of the Crimson King, offered the only mercy he knew: a quickened end. Pressing a trembling hoof to his father's throat, he sought to steal whatever consciousness was left from the warrior's frail body and take from him whatever pain remained along with it.

It was a heavy moment unlike any other when he felt the life leave Paladin's old, battered form. So many others had died before him like this, meaning nothing to him. Their lives were inconsequential; he knew not of their wants or desires, their loves or losses, their pains or triumphs. But this man...this man was the reason he was alive...

To take his life was to show contempt for his own, and such wisdom belatedly settled itself deeply and immovably on his shoulders now. It was done. Paladin was finished.

And he felt nothing but a gaping chasm in his chest for it, his own life reflecting his father's even now.



@[Paladin]


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WC: 594 + all the tears I just cried | Closing defense | Varath tries to end his father quickly by pushing his hoof into his throat in an attempt to make him lose consciousness before he dies.


"talk."