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Canen Darkflight
04-22-08, 09:29 AM
((OOC note: Closed to me. This was supposed to be set after Warning: Gorillas may cause homelessness, but due to nobody's particular fault, the thread winded up getting accidentally wiped before we completed it. Brief plot description below to "fill in the blanks"))

Plot:

Syrion Darkflight, a bodyguard from Radasanth and the unknowing son of Canen Darkflight the Nocturn (formerly Grand Commodore of the Grander's Order), had lived a perfectly normal life. With his lifelong love Louisa by his side, Syrion had built a house outside of Radasanth and set up shop as muscle for hire.

One day, a rare breed of giant ape mysteriously went beserk and smashed parts of Radasanth's housing estate to bits, Syrion's house included. Hired by the mayor to track the beast down and return it safely to a conservation society for a reward (which would fund a new residence for Syrion), the Khaian set out to complete the task. Upon further investigation, the giant ape appeared to be under some sort of mind control.

It was then that Syrion met a man named Sephrym, who had been controlling the gorilla as it cut a path of destruction in its wake. After the gorilla attacked Syrion, the Khaian began to bleed from his wounds, and Sephrym noticed that he bled black blood. Recognising this as a symbol of Khaian heritage, Sephrym, who himself was a Khaian (although Syrion himself did not know this), suddenly went beserk. He formed a scythe out of Dark Matter, executing both the gorilla he had enslaved and mortally wounding Louisa, who had tried to save it from harm, before vanashing into thin air with a blood curdling cackle.

His reward gone, and his love lost, Syrion vowed to carry on, albeit broken hearted. The image of Sephrym burned in his mind though...who was this man, and why did he suddenly lose the plot?

-

Hopeless.

One of the only words Syrion could think of to describe his dire situation. His house and entire sections of Radasanth's residential area had been destroyed by a giant beast, controlled by a dark cloaked man who had introduced himself as Sephrym. He had gone beserk, for reasons he couldn't understand. Louisa had been killed, mauled to death by the magical energies of the Dark Matter Scythe, trying to protect what mattered most to her, the reward, the money they would use to rebuild their lives together.

Syrion wiped a stray tear from his baggy eyes, shovelling the last of the loose earth atop an unmarked grave in a lonely place outside the remains of his home, the bitter chill of the wind barely even registering in his senses. He needed time to clear his head and take everything in, but there was no way Syrion could begin to understand everything that had happened to him in the past twenty four hours.

Kneeling down next to the side of the grave, nigh but a lump of loose earth covering his beloved, he pushed his mind to focus on anything else. The past, the future, anything but the present. He thought about his childhood, a happy one. But, that contained her memory. He thought instead about the future...a future he had planned to include Louisa in. Images of her swirled around his mind, and he couldn't shake himself free of their grasp. The only reason he had ever fought for other people was a reminder that whilst he may have been doing what he did as a job for himself, he was really fighting for her, for them. For the future.

"What future...?" He asked himself softly. "You put everything you had into this. These bare hands built everything you ever had, a career, strength, love. Where do you go from here?"

The images in his mind seemed to swathe him in guilt, even now their icy cold grip wrestling with his conscience. His hands remained idly on his knees as he considered the full length and bredth of just what had happened. Then, as he played over the fateful events of yesterday once again, his mind caught a frame of his lover's murderer.

"Sephrym." Uttered Syrion miserably. "...Who are you?"

Entering the realms of analysis at such an early stage of mourning was never a healthy thing to do, but Syrion's mind wandered. It needed to reconcile cause and effect, it needed to balance the equation. What caused this to happen? Why him?

"That power was unlike nothing else i've ever seen..." Syrion thought out loud as he turned his head to look at the dark sky. "The power he had...that dark scythe, just pulled it right out of thin air."

"But now, i'm caught in a transition." He spoke with a rough tone, fighting back the tears as his emotions started to overwhelm him again. "Granted, a transition brought on by events outside of my control, but anything that ever happened to me from the moment you were born was out of my control. It's called fate...isn't it? Was this the way it was supposed to be?" He asked the grave in front of him. "Is this..." gesturing an open palm towards the lump of earth, as if showing the gods "...what she deserved?"

"Is it!?" Syrion shouted, at no one, tears forking down his face in small streams. "Is this what she fucking deserved!?"

He collapsed to his knees, shaking, trembling with a mixture of fear, doubt and anxiety. Closing his eyes slowly, the last of the tears rolling off his cheeks, he slowly lay his head down on the soft earth next to Louisa's grave, trying to stop himself from hyperventilating, and descended into a miserable slumber.

Canen Darkflight
04-23-08, 03:58 AM
Where am I...?

He stood in a daze, gripping his Valiance tightly within the grasp of his pale, chalk white hands. The sword was much too big for him, being only a boy, a year or so shy of the coming of age of a man and weighed him down greatly. The swaying black hair and spirited shining emerald eyes looked somewhat out of place against the white porclain like face of the young Canen Darkflight, his black painted lips pounding back and forth heavily with every painful gasp of air. He bore the sword like a crucifix, wincing in pain every few seconds from the cramp he was suffering in every muscle in his young body as he struggled to follow Ardemis through the thick white fog of Nocturnis, whose aged, war painted face seeemed to dance before his eyes in slow motion, the man turning to hurriedly beckon to Canen. A thundering cry erupted from Ardemis' mouth as Canen was sucked back into real-time, the sounds of screaming and roaring fires suddenly jumping back to life, surrounding and smothering him like a blanket of fear.

"Do not face them, child. Your father would never forgive me! This way, we should make for the forests!"

What? What's going on?

All was a blur. He dodged the clumsy and lumbering black-garbed Haicheyanne who paced solemnly around the burning city, torching buildings and slaying its defenders with contemptuous malice. There were hundreds of them, perhaps even thousands crawling over the city's vast architecture like a swarm of locusts tearing apart a season's crop. What angered him most, even as powerless as he was with his inexperience, and despite being armed for battle, not a single Haicheyanne or demon spirit had raised a sword to him. They deemed him not worthy of battle, and to suffer the deliberation of tormentors as despicable and amoral as the Haicheyanne made him burn inside with a blinding fury.

This is crazy. Am I dreaming? It doesn't feel that way...

After what seemed like an age they reached the forest clearing in their living nightmare sprint, Canen clutching his sword with every spare drop of energy he had left inside, adamant that if he could do only one thing within his power, it would be to bear this great burden, almost as tall as he, and about as heavy, as far as he could. He would die at the hands of his demonic stalkers before he’d let go. Ardemis lunged with grace and ease through the thick foliage, and then ushered his young Nocturn apprentice in front of him. His eyes grew cold, a hint of sorrow scouring through, and he spoke with that inevitably dense tone of one saying a sad goodbye.

"You must go with young Gideon now; he will take you the rest of the way. Your father smiles down upon you in this time of great pain for our people, and I see his tears of joy in this dark sky. You are no fool, boy, and I do not lie to you. You know now where I must go. I must stay to the end. Goodbye, Canen."

...Canen? Gideon? Who are these people? Why am I seeing this?

Ardemis embraced Canen in a second, a gesture which the young Nocturn was too choked to appreciate or even enjoy, having had no affection from any living thing for so long. The aged warrior looked spiritedly into his eyes; the man scoured for sorrow, but Canen would honour him by showing none. He had to show strength, even as the lithe, gentle hand of his brethren Gideon Xerxes gripped his shoulder.

Ardemis drew his sword, and leapt back along the forest path. A final cry of hope denoted his departure.

"Do not cry, Canen! Even death can never steal our freedom, which these black-smitten murderous beasts so envy! Honour be thy blade, dignity thy shield, young Canen, and great Gideon, son of the liberator Gabriel!"

What the fuck is going on...I don't understand any of this...

Canen felt himself pulled away by the stern hand, the image of Ardemis growing smaller along the treelines, yet his voice boomed on and echoed around the boy's head. The forest wobbled before him as he walked backwards, defying Ardemis' wish as tears streamed down his face, and he sobbed openly.

The young Gideon Xerxes, with his white hair tangled and matted in blood, simply walked on, having the discretion and courtesy not to speak or attempt to console his younger 'brother'. Canen had the time to watch his home, his people, his identity, slip through his fingers.