Double Edged Sword
Handing the illegibly signed receipt pad back to the International Express man, War smiled like a knife.
At last! The day had come.
Tearing into the plainly wrapped package, she felt a wave of what could only be described as nostalgia. Seeing the battered ancient sword, she couldn't help but remember.
War was not the eldest horseperson.
He was the eldest - DEATH - created by the Almighty to oversee all of creation.
War came into being sometime after - even after Famine and Pestilence waited for Mankind outside the Gates of Eden, eager to dog their tired footsteps until the inevitable day came when the Eldest would relieve them of their burden of mortality.
It was sometime later when War began, and she began as an itching prickle. An as-of-yet unnamed feeling harboured by Cain, as he jealously watched Abel find favour with God. It was a feeling that rose into an all-consuming fury, the day Cain slew his brother.
It was from that pool of innocent blood - bright and vital against the dusty earth that she finally sprang into being. A savage untamed thing, she was - almost bestial.
War had a form now though it wasn't much. Later, when humanity worshiped her as an art form, she would appear much more refined, but as it was, the world was young and War was a relatively new concept so she appeared feral and barbaric. Her hair - as rusty as the dried blood on the ground- was long and fell down her back in matted tangles. Animal skins clothed her lithe but powerful body and her blood-stained hands itched, eager to find a rock, a wooden club or a primitive spear -- anything that could be turned to her purpose. Her eyes, set in a face that was twisted with the primal lust for destruction, glittered with malice.
She watched as Cain fell to the ground - a red mark burning on his forehead.
She watched as he sacked his parents house - desperate to find anything to take with him on his self-imposed exile.
She watched as he found the sword his parents guarded, and saw the realization dawn in his eyes as he saw its true purpose.
It was a weapon.
It was more than protection. It was meant to separate the living and the dead at nothing more that the whim of its wielder.
Sickened, Cain grabbed it. As he found the long and dusty road that led to the Land of Nod, he threw it, end over end, into the river - its fire extinguished the moment it hit the waves. Cain then left, hoping it would never be found again.
Once he had passed from sight, War approached the shoreline. Finding the sword wasn't difficult. It answered her call and came to her hand - its flames re-igniting with a blaze of fury. They called to each other, she knew, admiring smooth metal and killing edge. Their natures were one and the same.
A flaming sword of righteousness. A gift to Mankind from a well-meaning angel, meant to stand between them and the dark. to defend them from the cold, the fear and the terror of the unknown.
Certainly the angel had good intentions, but good intentions pave the road that leads to hell.
A sword has two edges, and just as demons were angels before the Fall and Mankind was sinless before His Exile, this sword - meant to protect and defend - could be altered from its original design.
It could be made to suit her purpose.
If truth be told, it would suit her purpose very well.
Idly War noticed that the river water had washed most of the blood from her hands.
There was more where that came from, she thought to herself as hefted the sword and started down the road Cain followed in his exile.
Plenty more indeed.
Characters copyright Pratchett and Gaiman Used with good intentions but without permission.