the Rift


My final run

Paladin the Valiant Posts: 153
Deceased
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 16.3 hh :: 15 Years Buff: DANCE
Tamme
#1


PALADIN
The sound of iron shocks is stuck in my head


[[[[Location: THE SKY ISLAND, outside of the center and in the grasses
Time of day: midnight, birdsong
Time-limits: extensions only for absences]]]


The warrior. The father. The killer. The darkness. Paladin, a summation of all of these, walked through the deep forest, the hole of his despair. In these trees he retreated into darkness and into himself, losing sense of time and connection. What had he become? In the fated land of Isilme, he had lead a revolution that rang out into the present. His actions alone had set in motion change, but this change did not happen pleasantly. At the end of his life he looked back and saw only mistakes, some honest and some crooked. Here, there were no rose-tinted glasses, just pure, unadulterated honesty.

And the future? Even more bleak. A once, powerful body, rippling with lean muscle and attractive was no longer so. Arthritis spread like the disease it was, making joints creak and body thing, almost gaunt. White hairs sprouted around his hips where his hide had once been been gleaming black, and the tail, once thick and white, was sparse. Paladin had aged swiftly and poorly, his history of bloodshed and war catching up to him like Karma - that bitch.

He had raised thieves, mercenaries and spies, not a single one honorable in his attempt to blend species. Their mother. Where was she? Tragic memories haunted his nightmares, ones who could not dare to think aloud. Was she dead? By his hand? The thoughts were too much to bear, and she shoved them quickly away, for they would surely be his death. He had tried so hard, worked for nothing, toiled against fate that laughed in the face of his shortened lifespan. Paladin had caused so many ripples, but they all traveled down the same stream. He was a pawn in a larger game, controlled, not independent.

So why should he try any longer? He would speak his mind, and he had. Did Mirage think her intentions so pure? To cast out the unicorns for living with their own kind? So many, condemning the actions of Mauja and Psyche, but she had been trying to make the best of her own life. They had shared a past, and she had done well for herself after running. Even Phantom had left - how could he judge their life given their past? He had no right, not with the crimes in his past.

So he traveled south, out of his hole and seeking his family. Before whatever happened to them happened, he needed them to know. Words of this island traveled fast, and he swiftly found himself on a cloud and in the grasses, surrounded by life in the sky. No longer was he awed by this majesty. This was nothing more than a show of force. Calling out for his offspring was foolish, so he stood, an ancient relic in a world that he moved on, waiting for them to appear.

He had waited this long? What was a few more years...


[[(intro) (@[Varath])]]]

"This is me.,"



Varath Posts: 45
Hidden Account atk: 5 | def: 9 | dam: 6
Stallion :: Hybrid :: 17.0 hh :: 3 Years HP: 63.5 | Buff: ENDURE
redgod
#2
V A R A T H
We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.



An island in the sky.

Interesting. Intriguing enough for him to investigate.

Varath mostly kept to himself and his thoughts, even in the Basin. The recent power shift had left him highly suspicious of where anyone's loyalty actually lay - that's what happened when you put a mudblood on the throne. Ophelia's dragon was a shrieking testament to her filthy bloodline, a howling reminder of his and he couldn't fucking stand it. If they knew she was unworthy, they could put two and two together and discover so was he.

After all, Paladin's offspring weren't hard to spot.

His precious sister was co-lead of the Basin now, after having her fun causing mayhem and hell out and about in the world with her favorite Ktulu. And Vadim? Where the fuck was he? Run off somewhere. Varath's scarred muzzle wrinkled in disgust. Was he the only one proud of this vicious blade protruding from his head? The only one committed to ensuring those so blessed were not looked down upon by the common equids and the mutant pegasi? Paladin had been valiant, once, and lived up to his name. He'd been a strong, bold, unshakable warrior. Then he'd grown a conscience and gone soft, spitting out a brood of vipers and expecting them to be gentle as doves.

Fucking fool.

Ophelia had become a mockery of the innocent mare she portrayed; Ktulu was just as violent as her sire; Vadim was practically mute and without conviction and he? He was the only one of them (so far as his mind knew, at least, but pride would not let that thought dally long) that had gone back to his roots to find himself, braved Dorngarrow and their hellspawn grandsire and come out the better for it.

Let his white whore sister, the Time God's concubine, ensnare their Basin General. He would rue the day he fell so far as to find love in an empty vessel. Let Ktulu play war off somewhere else, no stranger to being a den of sin for a god herself. Vadim, for his failings, could at least still be rescued, the snow-blotched male mused. Perhaps. For all he knew, his twin could have gone as soft-minded as the rest of them. Such machinations ruminated inside his dark skull as he ascended on the cloud designed to ferry beasts to and from the island; beasts without fucking feathered horrors sprouting from their shoulders at least.

It was darker on the ground, but the moon loomed larger and larger in the sky as the island did the same, and by the time Varath had reached the top, the starlight and pale-faced disk offered a workable light by which to explore. Nighttime was like and old and well-worn coat to the young stallion, a cover he'd slipped over his shoulders many times in his waking hours. He felt comfortable here, like this, shrouded in half-lit moonbeams and hazy, opaque shadows.

But comfort was not to remain. As his solid hooves, a quietly trampled nod to his sullied genetics, stepped on to the grasses of this place, a figure so long-ago seen he was almost but a memory appeared in front of him.

Father.

No.

Paladin.

All the hate inside that constantly simmered below the surface, for others, for himself, for his filthy, wretched, diluted blood, frothed over like a rabid animal and his dual-toned eyes narrowed to slits. This bastard.

This weakling.

He was the reason for it all. Better Paladin had never sired him with that lesser woman, better the Valiant had died during one of his crusades -

because now?

Now he would pay in blood, by blood, for blood.

No love remained in his heart for his absent and frail paternal figure. "You look old, father! Old and weak" he spat, venom dripping from his words. If he had his way, those would be the last Paladin ever heard. The world was hazy as the rage inside fueled Varath forward, legs slamming like straining pistons into the grass and driving him in a straight path towards the elder, horn pointed straight for his sire's chest.

He would skewer Paladin's heart, destroy the thing that had made him weak and then maybe, just maybe he would be strong.


@[Paladin]

---------------------------------------------
WC: (712) | (1/3) | Summary: Varath, in a rage, charges headlong at his father and attempts to stab Paladin in the chest/heart with his horn.

OOC: I'll try to do this justice with all the feelings and I apologize now if it's not as good as you hoped. I'll do my best, and thank you for letting me be a part of this with you. <3


"talk."

exc.hu



Please tag me in all posts! Thank you!

Paladin the Valiant Posts: 153
Deceased
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 16.3 hh :: 15 Years Buff: DANCE
Tamme
#3


PALADIN
The sound of iron shocks is stuck in my head


[[(1/3) (737 words)
Putting this at the top because it disappears at the bottom of the table D:
HOLY BALLS RED. YOU MAKE ME CRY.
Summary: Paladin points his horn at Varath as he approaches but Varath still manages to cut his shoulder. He then turns to try to swipe his horn on Varath if he is still close]]


Hated, loved, loathed, admired, desired and dislodged, Paladin stood in wait, solid hooves resting on the darkened grass. The breath from his graying muzzle was soft, relaxed even as he waited for his children. He wished to impart on them the final slivers of wisdom, to apologize for his failings, and to wish them all the best in this land. Paladin had been great, once. From the inception of Isilme to its demise at the work of the shades, he had lead the Tides, a strong herd with faces of all species. He was legend. No challenge went unmet. His prowess in battle was unmatched. Toiling daily, he strove to right the wrongs of his bloodline, and he stood before the finality of his time a failure.

For there was no way to change fate.

He was a cog in a cruel machine.

No good deed goes unpunished. He should have known better than to try to change fight .Too much blood ran in rivers from his murderous sins, and too many ghosts haunted him in his wake. Not even an infinite lifetime could afford him the space in which to absolve himself of those he’d killed. The warrior was sunk before had had even started to swim, and the light at the surface faded into night. A priest had taken him to the river of his pride for baptism and left him there, drowning in his own blood. Gods turned their cheeks as the void embraced him like an old friend.

The demon inside writhed, clawing at his throat for release now that he was proven right. It screamed profanities and laughed, bitter that now he was released in this frail, old body. The thing looked through his crimson eyes at the horizon, landing on a familiar face, a body that looked like his before time had dragged him down into arthritis and aches. Something in his heart lurched, something pure and good, but as his gaze swept over the scars and empty eyes of his son, it died swiftly like a snuffed out match. He was a fool to expect anything different. He was a moron to believe his children had improved on the tragedy of their bloodline. And he had no right to be disappointed. This was all his doing.

The voice of his son, deep and masculine now, spat at him, calling him out for what he was: old and weak. Paladin smiled, the expression darkening the glare of his narrowed, crimson eyes. This was a smile that held no warmth and loved no one. This was the smile of a monster inside, finally released at the zenith of life. Varath,” he growled, the charismatic tones of his handsome voice fading to a snarl. “You look a fool.” Paladin had disowned this whelp from his side long ago, but here he was raise his ugly, scarred head again. Time to put him down. The warrior turned to rancher, prepared to cull the weakest of the bloodstock and ensure the best of the species. Maybe he should have done this a long time ago, but Soleil wouldn't have lived through watching her mate murder their children in cold blood.

But that is what he was, wasn’t he? A murderer of children not yet escaped from the womb. His past flared in his face, but he felt nothing. Paladin was at the height of his shame and buried deep within his transgressions as he watched the pinnacle of his failure race toward him on steel gray legs. The warrior braced, digging the toes of his solid hooves into the rich earth as he lowered his head, horn pointed to await his son’s impalement upon his sword. Weakness forced him to yield. The black protrusion of Varath worked past his defenses, slicing a cut on the point of his left shoulder, and Paladin turned on instinct, settling into the haze of black and red that welcomed him like an old friend.

Action and reaction. No emotion. No fears. He was not the Valiant. He was the Wicked. Swiftly, bones groaning as they ground together without cushion, Paladin turned, jerking his head from left to right to flay his son like a fish from the side. Perhaps he would run it along his ribs, or perhaps, dip through and release the child from this pathetic existence of life he had given. Night had fallen on them all.






Varath Posts: 45
Hidden Account atk: 5 | def: 9 | dam: 6
Stallion :: Hybrid :: 17.0 hh :: 3 Years HP: 63.5 | Buff: ENDURE
redgod
#4
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."


-----------------------------------------------------
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]

exc.hu



Please tag me in all posts! Thank you!

Paladin the Valiant Posts: 153
Deceased
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 16.3 hh :: 15 Years Buff: DANCE
Tamme
#5


PALADIN
The sound of iron shocks is stuck in my head


[[(660 words) (2/3)
-- Paladin takes the full kick to the chest and causes a hairline fracture on the keel of his sternum
-- Paladin uses his blood boiling back and aims to stab Varath in the heart
(again posting here because it disappears below, and GODDAMN this was so hard to write :( I want to cry)
]]


If only he knew how right he was. Mercy had poisoned his soul, turned him into an honorable monster of morality and emotion. The demon inside, a balm for his pain, had been shoved down and disallowed from partaking in his life from then on, and what had he accomplished? His legacy lay in ruins, murdered by his own hooves, and red leaked from his past more tangible than even the tint of his matted hair. Absolution was a tower more miles away than he could count, and he knew that he would die before he ever ascended those righteous steps. For his entire life, he had toiled, his singular goal to right the wrongs of his past, and like all truths, half lay in shadow, only revealed in the final chapter. The warrior had dreamed of meeting his final days worthy of heaven, but the dream was a fantasy. Hell was where he had been born and where he was doomed to return.

Varath even fought like the fire-haired demons of Dorngarrow, and blood seeped from the wound on his shoulder as he jumped forward, hearing the protests of old, arthritic bones. Weak, perhaps, and old, but Paladin had been fighting all his long years and his son’s elder by a long shot. The roar of egotistical cries fueled the old warrior’s muscles, and a black smirk curled his lips, yanking his head around and feeling the satisfying tug of wet flesh tearing beneath the point of his sword. The sound of the visceral crunch shuddered against his ears soothingly, and the sharp tang of metal filled his nose and palate. Delicious. A pleasured owl escaped the demon who shook his ribs like bars of a prison, grimy, oily fingers gripping and crying out for the fight, feeding on pain.

Blood jerked from the tainted tip of his horn, scattering across the midnight sky, and Paladin turned, preparing to attack again when a whirl wind of hooves hit him square in the chest. His tan hooves slid against the ground from the force, and he heard a sickening crunch as something snapped inside, and breath came sipped through narrow aperture, lungs screaming for air. Paladin tumbled backward, trying to get control of his forelegs despite the cramping cries of his chest, and the stallion, winced as arthritic hocks were forced to bear his weight. Not a student of anatomy, the warrior did not know what was broken, but he recognized the pain. Agony. The white, searing starbursts of pain exploded across his vision with every attempt to move forward, and he gasped, hating the pain that followed every inhale.

What was left inside of him anymore? Crimson eyes, washed with pain and wild hatred stared at his son, disgust and cruelty swelling in his heart at the thought that this whelp was of his blood. “What man?” he hissed, taking steady steps forward with corners of his eyes crinkled in effort. “All I feel for you is revulsion, and all I need is what remains: the will to bring you down.” Harsh words from father to son, signs of abuse long suffered along this line. Few escaped the wrath of Riekahn, and even those who tried eventually fell back into the same cycle of death, rage and destruction. Paladin was no saint. He was no champion for equality. In the final moments of living, every gilded façade of his life came crashing down, tumbling to the ocean of regrets.

The stallion narrowed his eyes, unleashing a torrent of his magic on his son, releasing pain and rage in a single burst of blood boiling agony. With a distraction hopefully caused by this swing of power, he stepped forward on a weakened chest, not going anywhere fast any time soon. Paladin jerked his neck around, crying out as the muscles from his chest clenched but trajectory of his horn still aimed to pierce the heart of his first born son.







@[Varath]

Varath Posts: 45
Hidden Account atk: 5 | def: 9 | dam: 6
Stallion :: Hybrid :: 17.0 hh :: 3 Years HP: 63.5 | Buff: ENDURE
redgod
#6
V A R A T H
We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.



The satisfying and visceral crack that followed the dull thump of his hooves meeting his sire's chest elicited a feeling akin to sexual pleasure in Varath's youthful form, a giddy thrill stampeding through his nervous system like a wild and frightened herd of wildabeasts. His attack had connected and it had caused pain.

Beautiful.

This bastard was hard to kill, like a venereal disease that could not be eradicated once caught. The black and crimson stallion clung to this world, a miasma that could not be purified, an infection that could not be cured.

Not for much longer.

"All I feel for you is revulsion."

If my father hates me, am I not worthy of being hated? If I am rejected, am I not worth being rejected? Varath desired, even now, no pity for such painful realizations as a youngling, but the agony and blinding abhorrence that had sprouted forth from such dastardly fertile soil had now come to harvest, and the reaping could not be undone. Hurt deeper than canyons carved by roaring waters gave bottomless depth to Varath's heterochromatic gaze, threatening to consume Paladin's decaying body in front of him.

"Not one day of my existence has brooked your love, father!" the son spat, his words so drenched in venom they might as well have been weapons of their own. "From the moment I was birthed, you have offered me nothing but the gagging bile I found suckling at Hate's teat! You gave me weak blood and then blamed me for it! You showed me exactly how much you resented every breath I took and then put it on me for hating you in return!" The wound on his side burned like fire and made inhaling so very painful. "Never once did I have the chance to make you proud, make you love me, be a worthy son!" the offspring snarled, a twisted, almost demented sneer marring his scarred face soon after. "But, in the end, your utter failure to be a father to any of your children has set every one of us free - most of all myself. I saw you early on for what you truly were: a pathetic, weak hypocrite who could not reconcile the two halves of himself and thus made his children suffer for it!"

Eyes narrowed now, the abyss of pain in his gaze welled over with pure loathing. "You are the reason your family is so twisted, so it should come as no surprise, father, that your penance for destroying your family is to have it destroy you," he growled, digging his hooves into the dirt in preparation for another attack. If the old man was too slow to mount one while he monologued, then he was a fucking fool. Muscles tensed and his inertia shifted but an utterly crippling pain knifed through his entire body. One moment his heart was pumping loudly, blood running hot from battle, the next, his insides were being roasted as though he had been flayed open and set on the surface of the sun. A howl of agony Varath hadn't any idea escaped his lips clawed its way out of his throat and he thought he was losing his mind. His brain was melting, eyeballs turning to hot ash - it felt as though he was descending with unmitigated swiftness into irrevocable madness.

For a miraculous moment the pain waned, broken by a cry that came from elsewhere, and Varath could see again, see the perpetrator of all the pain and brokeness in his life, and he blazed like a demon. The blackness of his pelt bubbled and oozed like molten tar; the crimson of his mane and tail dripped with hissing blood, steaming like the sanguine waters of the Pthlegethon; the embers of his eyes blazing like hot coals. The father before him was father no more, only the horrifying monster inside Varath had always seen, the figure responsible for the annhilation of all that was good in his own filthy bloodline.

The demon drew near and Varath met his conflagration of violence and blood with the adamantium will of hatred bred from his first breath. Even the pain of being drowned in molten magma could not prise from this son his consuming need to cleanse his soul with the heretical blood of his sire and in the singular moment his mind still formed rational thought, Varath dropped to his knees. Paladin's trajectory was straight for him and the stallion was wounded. The dappled grey knew he could not run; his father's magic was too consuming. All he could do was fall, and hope he took his father with him. Neck stiff, eyes closed, horn pointed straight at his oncoming attacker's chest, Varath prayed for the absolution he knew could never come.

"talk."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
WC: (799) | (3/3) | Summary: Varath monologues angstily, gets boiled from the inside out by Paladin's magic and therefore cannot run away from his father's charge attack. Instead, he drops to his knees when Paladin gets close and aims his horn for his father's heart, hoping to have Paladin impale himself.

@[Paladin]

exc.hu



Please tag me in all posts! Thank you!

Paladin the Valiant Posts: 153
Deceased
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 16.3 hh :: 15 Years Buff: DANCE
Tamme
#7


PALADIN
The sound of iron shocks is stuck in my head


[[(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.








@[Varath]

Varath Posts: 45
Hidden Account atk: 5 | def: 9 | dam: 6
Stallion :: Hybrid :: 17.0 hh :: 3 Years HP: 63.5 | Buff: ENDURE
redgod
#8
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]


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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."

exc.hu



Please tag me in all posts! Thank you!

Sevin the Sucky, I mean are you a # or vacuum? Posts: 161
OOC Account
Mare :: Other :: 5'5" :: 25
Sevin
#9
Paladin is dead, so no rubric is needed.

+1.5VP to Varath


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