We Were Legends

[Saxon]

(Closed to Arsene)

Early dawn rose as night quietly sank back into the shadows, the glare of the sunlight glimmering off of the snowy peaks of the nearby Comb Mountains. Meadows of golden wheat on either side of a narrow dirt road danced as a gust of wind blew in from the west. The sky that was once a majestic meld of purple and orange faded into a deep, watery blue with streaks of white that hung lazily overhead.

For the first time in his life, all Pete Abram could hear were his footsteps. Not a creature stirred in the idyllic scene that seemed to be straight out of an artist's portrait. It was music to his ears. For twenty-seven long, loud uninterrupted years Pete had worked as a custodian to the Romonian History Museum between Fifth and Third inside the obnoxious, blaring city of Radasanth. Now cresting the age of his golden years and the fulfillment of a lucrative retirement only days ahead of him, the old man was returning home from a visit with his son to tell his wife the good news.

"Great news," He corrected under his breath. Standing at about five-six with his belly hanging over his belt and his graying, curly locks hanging over his head like a mess of unkempt weeds and a gray stubble at the end of his chin, some might say Pete looked rather young for a man who was almost in his late fifties. Dressed in the same loose traveling clothes of an unidentifiable cloth his wife, Darlene, had given him, Pete felt as if he could take the world on by the seat of his pants and the sun at his back.

In less than a few hours Pete would enter the city limits of Radasanth again and make his way home. He'd be able to tell his wife that he managed to convince his only son to help him and her find a house in a quiet hamlet towards the edge of the Concordian Woods where there was clean water, fresh food and plenty of people to talk to. In his mind, Pete knew that he'd live the rest of his days with his wife, and finally in the comfortable silence of a frontier home where he could take up his real passion of the accordion. For twenty more minutes he dwelled in the land of dreams of what ifs and how tos where for once there wasn't a book around that could tell him the amount of planning he'd have to make in order for it to happen. For once in his life, Pete Abram was about to experience a sure thing.

Then Pete died.

The old timer hadn't seen it coming and it was a rather quick death which is more than anybody could ask for given the circumstances. No, it wasn't a vagrant highwayman or a pack of vicious wolves that had been the end of Pete Abram. What had managed to kill old Pete had not been living per se and it had come so quickly upon him that the old man was still lost in thought when it crushed his head like a cantaloupe.

Out of the deep blue sky where clouds of white drifted by and an occasional bird flapped it's wings towards better lands, a book of over 1,573 pages came plummeting down, each second it came barreling towards the face of Althanas it gathered more and more speed until the tome opened and it's pages began to flap together with a sound that was not unlike that of a bird.

If anybody had been around to see it, they would've watched as Pete mumbled quietly to himself with a jolly smile on his face. When he heard the precarious flapping above him as it grew closer and closer his body stopped as his mind gently began to pull him from his train of thought to glance at the curious sight. Some might even say that it was happiness that killed Pete Abram for when he began to look up he was about three seconds too late and two decades too old to do anything about it.

The book came in contact with Pete's skull with about as much force as a sledgehammer to a grape. With a loud, wet thunk the old man's head bobbed into his brain stem and broke every bone on the way down, the sudden jerk was enough to kill him on impact. But with so much blood, one would have a hard time declaring whether or not the book had fallen from the sky or someone had beaten him to death with it. A worm of blood dribbled from his ears, nose, and mouth as the top of his head exploded from the impact and the old man's trusting brown eyes rolled up into the back of his head to inspect the damage.

On impact the book bounced off of Pete's skull and spun forward until it hit the ground, hopped over twice and landed face down with a soft smack onto the dirt road. Pete Abram's knees buckled as what was left of his brain relinquished control and he crumpled to the ground face first into the gray and red gore of his own unmaking.

It'd be a couple hours until somebody would arrive to survey the grisly scene, but as amazing as the tragic death might have been to have witnessed, there was something far more bizarre that would make the old man quickly forgotten. Picking up the book and flipping through its bloody pages until they got to the cover with its laminated sheen and scenes varying from a group of men with powdered wigs to a man with a mustache too small for his lips staring sternly up at the reader. In big, bold letters above it all, the book's title read as Our History from B.C. to the Present.

[Arsène]

It was a simple house of worship constructed from red brick and rising only one story from the barren patch of brown earth that surrounded it. As the newly born sun glistened off shattered stain glass, a rainbow of colors shimmered in eclectic patterns in every direction. Sunday mass was the only reason the building still stood. As a damaged relic of the past, it held only a brief glimmer of sentimental value before people realized what an eyesore it truly was. Though still usable, the numerous cracks had begun to wane the structural integrity of the building, and the slow creep of ivy vines ate away at aging concrete.

The bright, early morning sun brought with it the cruel realization that the outskirts of Radasanth needed a house of worship - no matter how decrepit - desperately. Despite the chipper light played upon the dirt paths leading to the chapel, they were still rough and jagged from numerous rocks, and nearly impassable when the rain began. Many small farmers and old cottage-owning grandparents took up the mentality of sloth, venturing a few minutes on rough terrain to the familiar sight, than daring to waste a few more precious minutes traveling to the city.

This was the reason the chapel still stood. The reason for an occupant inside was still unknown.

As the large wooden door frame trembled with a terrible sound, and rusted iron powder escaped into the air, a small man appeared with a dreadful look on his face. As the thin slivers of sunlight hit his eyes, he squinted a sour look before widening his eyes to take in the full scope around him.

He was well dressed in fine Victorian fashion; though disheveled and balding, he still managed to maintain some poise, however hunched and bitter. The strong smell of fresh gin and whiskey emanated off his small frame, overpowering the scent of stale incense that wafted from the church. As he stumbled out further into the light, he shook his head with a deep confusion. The humid air of the Southern United States was replaced by a dry heat, and the terrain was so foreign that the man hadn't come across such a scene in any of his travels.

He hugged at the small dueling pistol tucked inside his jacket. With training from his days in the military, it comforted him slightly to know he had some form of protection. However, he became alarmed at the slight twinge of paint in his right arm. Raising the pale limb to his eyes, he became aware at the subtle horror that had befallen.

There, on his wrist, were sentences and paragraphs tattooed on his very flesh. And, with wide-eyed terror, his saw very clearly his name in bold print: Edgar Allan Poe.

[Saxon]

A couple yards west of the trail that led into Radasanth a field of golden, rippling wheat that swayed like the ebbing tide every time a good breeze passed overhead continued onwards into infinity. It was approaching midday as the summer heat Corone was notorious for was coming to a peak, and it was enough to awaken the man who laid in the field as sweat dripped hesitantly from his brow and ran into his eyes. Returning slowly to consciousness, the man reflexively put a hand on the butt of his ivory-handled colt navy revolver even before his eyes had opened.

The man who had been dressed in black with a red sash was about six foot on a good day with a small waist, a long drooping mustache, and had a leonine face that was wreathed in unkempt, coacoa brown hair. He is thirty-eight years old.

Tipping his wide-brimmed boss of the plains hat back, the man slowly took in his surroundings into blurry and then grainy focus. After a couple of bewildering seconds later he carefully stood above the high stalks of wheat, and the confusion set in. Where was he? This didn't look like the rolling black hills of South Dakota much less anywhere else he had been in the past few weeks.

"Kansas?" He muttered under his breath in a drawl, quietly putting the thought in the dark corner of his mind for later. Slowly as his conscious mind began to take the reins again and settle back into the planes of reality, the pistoleer's confusion stopped a country mile short of blind panic. Of course for any man, waking up in a field of wheat where they were sure they had been resting in a comfortable mattress might have posed a problem.

But not for him.

Hickok had been in far stranger situations in his lifetime, but this of course would definitely make the top ten. Retracing his steps the day before as he strode towards the nearby dirt road, the gears in the gunfighter's mind quietly began to turn. An image of the boomtown he'd known was now long gone. The air and heat didn't even feel right for the climate he was used to up in the Dakotas. It was beginning to feel more and more like he was in one of those dime store novels he had read as a kid.

Could he have been shanghaied?

No, he remembered hearing tell of that farther west near the Pacific, but in South Dakota? The idea was laughable at its very best, and deeply unsettling at its very worst. Aside from the trouble his eyes were having to focus which had been happening even before he had awoken here and waking up in a wheat field, he was no worse for the wear.

Bleary-eyed and confused, the man who had once been called Wild Bill wandered onto the dirt road and trekked slowly towards the rising shadow of the city of Radasanth in search for answers. He wasn't a man of violence unless provoked, but he promised himself that when he learned who the yellow-bellied dog was that decided to put him through this he'd gut shoot him.

Or her.

[Arsène]

Stop posting so God damn fast and well. You're making me look bad.

The smell of sweat was heavy in the air, hanging low like the wilted gray branches all around. The ground was littered with the debris of dead trees, starved to death because the overgrown forest blocked out the sun for smaller plants. Hot rays had only begun to softly trickle in the dull light of a new day, painting a richly dreary picture as claw-like shadows slithered on the ground. It was the only movement in the copse. It seemed liked a lifeless wasteland filled with only memories of true color and vibrant action, and the scattered bits of sky one could see above were only a tease.

Unlike most days, however, life stirred on that morning. They were combatants; enemies by chance who had met each other only minutes before, deciding soon after that the other was a threat. The two had only stopped a brief moment to catch their breath and size the other up. Their weapons, a sword and gun, had been flung aside during the melee and were no where to see.

The first man to rise was old, but tall and strong with a full head of white hair and a beard to match. He resembled a mountain in those first few moments, standing proud between heavy breaths. The other man was shorter and seemed to be Asian, though it was hard to tell beneath his padding of strangely designed armor. He too had the trappings of a warrior, and quickly took the position of a tiger prepared to strike.

There was no warning, no alarm or sound that set the two to fighting again. Just a mutual look before they leapt into action. Battle cries came from both their mouths in every language they knew before they slammed into one and other, grappling like gladiators to an audience only they could see. The mountain managed to land punch straight on his opponent's cheek, although it was light enough for the tiger to shake off and quickly counter with a sweeping kick that left the mountain off balance and vulnerable to a devastating head butt to the stomach, his helmet only adding strength to a powerful attack.

As the mountain hit the ground, he had only seconds to react. His opponent, the tiger, had managed to stumble upon his sword and planned to use it to its fullest potential. Without thinking, he rolled out of the way just as his opponent slammed the blade deep within the earth, grunting a heavily distorted curse all the while. His back, use to the touch of dead wood, felt the long cold barrel of his shotgun. His rough hands reached around and grabbed the all too familiar weapon. With all the might he could muster, he swung the the firearm around like a club, smashing the into the tigers bright helmet and making a satisfying thud.

They both managed to recover quickly; the mountain jumping up and cocking his gun in one fluid motion, and the tiger prying his blade from the dirt and spinning his head. With one final scream they met face to face once more and starred each other dead in the eye. The tiger had managed to maneuver his blade in seconds to just a millimeter away from the mountains unprotected neck. The mountain had managed to stick the barrel right in the tigers gut, his shaking hand rubbing the trigger in anticipation. This moment seemed to last forever, frozen as if in a picture. Their bodies pumped blood furiously, and their eyes twitched, just waiting for the next move.

And then, the dance was done. Both men lowered their weapons with an air of caution and a slight suspicion. Neither had ever been best by another warrior in all their years, and it seemed like a waste to kill a perfect match.

For Ernest Hemingway and Miyamoto Musashi, this battle was over. And while they were far from friends, they had each earned the others respect.