Slow but insistent, rain drops tapped at steel. The sound of it off the stone all around, and pattering on his cloak was easy to tune out, but something about the tone of that one sound cut through his mind, just like the constant hiss of drops hitting the molten earth exposed below. At first it had been distracting, but now it just tugged at the corners, an enticing whisper to a drifting mind.
Roxsohard was uncharacteristically silent- maybe the rain tinging off his effective skull had put him to sleep. Hair wetted back against his head, Rayner stood in the classic armor, plain but well made, once shining, given way to age and abuse before he’d ever put the thing on. The dark green cloak, plain and unadorned, kept most of the rest of him dry, which was almost a shame- the rain dripping down his neck felt cool in front of the glowing pit.
Rayner Veli stared at the altar in front of him, once-ornate stone slab just barely large enough for an adult body to lay atop.Weather had worn away all but the smallest trace of chips where steel had met it, the faint brown stain near its center.
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> Low chanting, almost white noise, slowly quieted, the piercing ringing never leaving his ears. Before him, the circle- and in the center of it a solid altar of slicked stone, adorned with a small carcass. Blue eyes stared far and saw nothing, black hair splayed limply around while the body looked tight, as if the pain and struggle still had yet to fully release it chest splayed open to become part of the gore surrounding her. He looked at the blank, dead eyes of the girl, staring at nothing forever, and he felt the chill of the Forgotten tugging at him. He stared at her wracked form and instead saw auburn curls splayed and wetted by blood.
Reflexively, he tightened and loosed his fist, a phantom numbness, memory of the lasting tingle left by pounding skull into stone. That had been some time ago now- but in some ways it had been the beginning of all of this, where bitter anger felt the hollowness, need for something more than blood in recompense. Where he’d seen Anson again for for the first time in years, somehow still playing the hero, somehow still with that sense that he simply did it, no ego or personal motive behind it. And old altar to something now forgotten had been where today’s conversation had begun.
’Path of no half measures,’ huh.
Had the idea ever sounded tempting, exactly what he’d wanted to hear at the time, blood still hot, and that gnawing shock and sense of failure so ready to give way to a righteous flame, anything to drive them away. Wanting made it easy, even with him dangling it out there almost like a sales pitch. The next time they’d spoken though, he’d had long weeks cleaning up the rubble and looking at what was left in the wake, thinking about how he stopped the monsters that did it all- but the people were no richer for that blood. Of mulling about that hotel and seeing old faces slowly seep out of the woodwork, old nagging doubts and wounds. Of looking his children in the face and thinking about how he’d have done the deed over, and over, and over, and over again for them- but how it never felt like enough. To leave them nothing but ashes, however safe.
Damnedest thing was, he still wanted it to be that simple. Cut and dry. He'd started things out an idealist, but tracing things back, he wondered if they weren't the only reason he hadn't wound up in that same place. And if he had? No mercy, no second chances, just men or monsters? Athan had been called the Butcher of Romme before it all- and maybe none of them would have been here if he'd been put down for it. If instead it had all been black or white- well. It sounded a lot like those monsters who'd been lauded and feared as 'heroes' from back where he used to stand, the types who always won their fight, always took out the 'bad-man', never a mind to the costs and collateral for those whom were supposedly in their debt for it. How far did that go, before one really was the monster they hunted?
How close was I to being what I hated?
He wanted it to be that easy, but it wasn't. His hands weren't clean, and anyone this far into the game who thought theirs were was deluded. At the ball, Rayner had given the knight his answer, and he'd always had a way with words. Not always a good one.
Who knew what the man had been hoping for, but that hadn't been it.
He really wanted a smoke, but it was pointless in the shower. One finger tapped on the hilt of the sheathed sword leaned against him, feeling it echo back like a heartbeat with each strike.
