Thread: To thunder against the heavens (Alexander and Crvenqueenie)

His heart was beating like a hammer against his chest, but his body was entirely still, not even taking a single breath for... he didn't even know how long. It was probably for the best, as he would have found himself on the floor after choking upon the smoke if he opened his nose or his mouth to it. What was just the tip of the torch, had found its way leaping throughout the entire room, and as he backed away, it filled the entire structure. He found his fist clenched impossibly tightly against the torch, to the point that his bottom fingers had dug into the flesh of his palm. A trickle from it had already painted lines of red along his arm until his elbow, but when he found himself recovering from his paralyzed state and began to inspect his hand, he found no marking on it to have produced that blood. It was just as well, as the sky began to loose sprays worth of a fountain upon them, and he had barely made it to his companions before the stain was washed away from the downpour. He was more concerned about the thoughts that had overcome him, and wondered why he could not separate his mind from them until this moment. He ran the scene once more through his head. The family had not expected him, why would they have? He struck at the mother with his hand, and his companions swept the three children away, covering their mouths and stifling their cries. He did not take pride in himself, but there was plenty that he found himself able to put aside after the loss that was inflicted upon him. It was a step into a darker self for him, but he still understood himself at that point. Once they were alone, there was no need for words. He had pulled out his spear and thrust it against her, just as he had done a thousand times during his practice and training, treating her no differently than he would a soldier. That moment was the most familiar of all of this to him. The blow with the knife was similarly practiced, a weapon intimate to him, though no more effective, and that too he understood of himself. He skipped his mind forward to the point where it broke down. He was a soldier, not a torturer, and not an executioner. Swinging the blazing light around, spreading it to any cloth he could find, slamming the door to the room shut and barring it, those were not the actions of a warrior. He thought to himself as he returned to her the second time, that he might not find himself able to use something other than the tools of a warrior that he had already tried, that his pride elevated him above smoking a living person as if they were a pig on a spit. When the frenzy overcame him, was that courage? Was that the fighting spirit that was needed to overcome a god, by tossing his humanity aside? He found himself caught up to his men, one at each shoulder of his. They looked at him, but even when they no longer had a country to fight for, they were professionals, soldiers, and they did not judge him. Would either of them have done the same? Did only he hate Ailis that much? He did not feel himself able to talk to them about it, just dwell upon his thoughts in solitude. The rain still did not subside, and as his gaze lowered, the five streams running across his face converged to one upon his chin, then falling upon the torch, extinguishing its fatal flame. The bright light behind them, the burning heat, faded away as well as the downpour drenched the building. The one to his left, not so sullen with pain, lifted a cloak above the final light that they had, and led the others forth to return to their ship. Cyncus spoke up, his voice barely penetrating the heavy splashing of the rain against their bodies. The children? Tell me they did not see any of this. It was ten paces before the front man replied. They see nothing now. Each overcome with grief and fainted. He did not elaborate, that each fell over in unison, in a haunting deportation from this world. Cyncus trudged along, but the man in front seemed to have an incredible pace, that he could not keep up with. To his side he looked for his other compatriot, but found that one too to be halfway between the torchbearer and himself. In a few more moment, they vanished, and he stumbled, only rising to his hands and knees and raising his head once his scalp felt so soaked that he could not feel the rain against it anymore. Indeed, there was no rain once he glanced up once more, but he did find a personage in the distance. The gaze that the woman shot through him was alone enough to identify who she was, that rich green glow of hers known throughout all lands. There were a thousand songs that sang of beauty, but none of them suitably described the woman he saw, giving him a second hint. The unearthly motions she used to weave her way towards him sealed it, as she stood above him. A shock went through him when he realized that, in this position of his, he was prostrated before her. He quickly rolled back upon his heels in a crouch, still too heavy from the rain to lift himself up, and stared upwards at her. The almost intimate garb of hers surprised him, as from this position the very first thing he found upon his eyes was that bright tuft of hers. This was not the time to be transfixed, however, and he tried to meet her penetrating gaze, but found his next obstacle, the chest of hers perfectly jutted out to block his view, and he was met with a pair of peaks instead of a pair of eyes. He took a breath, and finally rose. Their heights were not so massively different, but as he struggled to lift his gaze above her breasts, he felt like an insignificant dwarf against a mammoth. Are you near deaf, to have never heard my previous roars, or are you merely tardy in sorting your affairs? He tried to hold his ground in both words and position, but failed when she leaned closer in to him. He could not describe it, but his legs gave way, as if he were a babe just learning to stand, feeling her mere presence knock him over. Indeed, he had not had this sensation since perhaps twenty-five years ago, as he felt himself shaking as if he were about to be scolded by his mother for his rotten behavior.