Riding the Storm, riding the tides, all comes down to taking what you're worth and proliferating it on a grander stage.
Making sure that whoever sees you never forgets. Every facet of your being, frozen in that moment in all eternity.
The Scourge knew this all too well. It was through this dance that he, in turn, was remembered.
Every being looked to him for guidance. Not outwardly, of course, but through feelings and emotions. He could feel them all. Anger, Rage, Guilt. Feeding on them. Gorging.
Through this ritual, he remained throughout the ages. Continuously growing in strength and influence. There was a time when not even the youngest of children could ignore his eyeless gaze.
None could escape his grasp. Even the thought brought their attention to him. And he would excise that cancer almost immediately. And so, his reach continued to proliferate.
Until, that fateful hour. Betwixt the rise and fall of the Fourth Age. Came the Paragon. And the Accord he writ into existence.
A freedom unequivocal in it's expanse. Legends say that the following celebrations rang through the entirety of Constantine. The World sharing in a effeminate dance that would last for eternity.
And, the Scourge, with all his power and might. remains sealed to this very day. Perhaps biding his time for a chance moment. An evil that would shake the Bedrock of existence. Most pray those days would never return. Neither would he, most of all.
He walks among us once again. The Hate that burns.
~
"Walk with me." He would say, that careless smile on his lips.
"Breathe the air, smell the forest, feel the grass. And know that you are grounded. That you are whole." His words were like poems, even the greatest of Soliets yearning for his praise.
"Know that, alongside the Love I feel for you, you will never be lost."
Looking at My Fathers defiled corpse, his words felt empty and vain. Cracked bones, hollowed cheeks. Blood.
What love would he feel now, I wonder? What love would be left for me?
Even as I stood over what he now was, I remembered the days when my Parents still walked the earth at my side. A smile on their faces, my hands held tight in their own. The sun seemed brighter, the night more known. The shadows that coiled under heavy branches and the flecks of burning timber reverberated with comfort.
The fires that consumed the rest of the Town around me proliferated the despair they used as fuel. The Bodies of families, parallel to my own, now gone without a hope of return.
He would say to me, "Yovin, No matter how dark the night, the day shines." That familiar smile telling me everything would be okay. That, even when times changed, he would always support me.
Our home was gone, wind churning amidst darkened skies sluicing the crumbs of what was across the destroyed foundation. Strong and uncaring, it rang through my ears and pulled at my exposed hands.
Tears would never come. Staring at the twin-moons above, mouth agape, hunger of an arterial kind clawing at my soul, I yearned for the words that would soothe my aching bones. I had cried, and cried, until even the blood dried. Now, there was nothing left.
They wouldn't save me now. Left alone in a world that Despised us, all I felt was the hate that burned as bright as a noon-time sun.
Questions of a nefarious sort broiled within my psyche. No semblance of calm could quench that morbid curiosity.
The blood on my hands, and the blood on his. All the same, yet Worlds apart. And in the back of my mind, surfacing just as quick as the rage that grew the longer I pondered those distant satellites.
That single desire arose. One that would shatter the visage of what I was, when the days were so much simpler.
No matter the lengths I needed to go to, the people I would betray. The power I would amass. I would need all of it, and so much more.
To take a life of my own volition. Nothing compared to that single act, and yet, that Man had taken hundreds in the matter of a few moments.
Galan. Imperator. Sacrilegious. Burn it all away. Let go of the fear, damn it. I'm dead already.
But would such an act be just? Would killing him solve anything?
Your Father lies broken amidst the refuse of that Creature's wrath. And you question yourself? What guilt did he feel, except the pain that wracked his exertion? If such a beast could even feel pain?
My mother, My father. Disparate tragedies. What peace could I obtain by doing this?
Peace? Such a thing never existed. We are cudgels upon a World that churns and aches with conflict. Every drop of blood fueling the next act of killing. Violence is the way, the only path left.
I have no power. No way of securing that path.
Then make your own. Take what was, cast it aside, and make way for a new paradigm. Kill for the sake of it. Kill the man that took it all away. Nothing exists except that single purpose.
Why would I do this? What do I stand to gain?
To stand above. To relish in the fact that the Man who killed your future will have killed his own.
A constellation of death, etching itself across Time Immemorial. A star alongside an endless path of choices and decisions. No matter the reach and consequence, this path was inevitable.
It will be difficult. I would need to cast aside everything that was stressed upon me. The life of peace, once prosperous, and now shattered. I would need to make waste of it first.
There were hopes and precedents that counted upon me. I had something to cherish. The memories they left me. The bygone idea of a family.
Burn it all away. Nothing, not a speck left. Bury that past, just like he did your Father. All of this is pointless, in the end. You were assigned to death by your own hand. Living for the sake of vengeance is still living.
Correct.
I understand it now. Such a pointless contrivance. Sanctity, Morals, Peace. What use would those feeble things offer me?
The warmth of his blood. The superiority of overcoming his power. That irrevocable pleasure would be it's own reward. But this wasn't a simple transaction.
Galan had encroached upon mine and theirs. The incessant dead, I could feel their souls resonating with mine. A plea that would strike the heavens. Loud and fervent. Gnashing. Clawing. Aching.
His Heart, pierced at my hand. Blood to match Blood. This was the way. As it had been, just beneath the surface. Down to the insects that feasted on each other for sustenance. The Animals grazing over those that came before them. Men waging war over land and ideals.
It was clear to me, now. Irrevocably so.
Carry yourself, Galan. Be well and long-lived. Enjoy the simplest pleasures at your ease. Lose yourself in the sanctity of the assuredness of your Strength.
In due time, when the night is at it's apex, when the day stretches past impossible horizons, I will be there. A sword drawn at your throat.
Ecte Nere Su'un Tha'rum.
~
There are 4,345, 234, 951 individual souls living on this planet. Each with their own desires to match.
Their warring and fighting, spilling blood on ancient land, stirs something within me.
An ancient emotion, long spend adrift amidst a sea of consciousness. Impossible to discern against the noise.
But every death, every purposeless killing fuels that clarion call. A thai'zeren that shudders as it weeps.
For whom does this bell toll, I wonder? That incessant drole in the back of my mind, growing louder by the day, engorged with the bodies of the innocent.
When will, at the culmination of hate, envy and strife, their suffering end?
The Stars have closed themselves to me, so I am limited in the fact that I must rely upon you once more.
Someone I can see, but not touch. Someone who's words ring louder than the rest, but always directed to another.
I would trade every grain of sand, every rock and mountain face, to experience it for myself.
The Coming age that precedes the end.