Disclaimer: Sorry to disappoint you, but I don't own anything that has to do with LOM.
Author's Note: I'm not really big on angst when it came to actual stories, so you can imagine how surprised I was when I found this in my computer while digging around in old files. I actually remember typing this one up; it was right after I completed Irwin/Escad's quest, which, according to the file, was about a year ago. It left me feeling…sad. But the main character, as usual, said nothing and did nothing that made him looked like he even cared. So, I decided to give him a little feeling. And this fic was born. It's short and to the point, and quite angsty. Please review and tell me what you think! Enjoy.
Blood Stained Blade
If only there were two roads.
If only one long road would divide…and split into two. One good, one evil. Only two paths to walk on, only two choices, so easy…so clear. Without thinking, one could decide which path was the right one, or which one would suit you better and make things turn out right in the end. Why…couldn't it be like that?
"Why…?" wondered a young man, clutching in his fist a cloth splattered with red, while in his other hand, he held onto the handle of his sword as if it was his life. In a strange sense of irony, it did feel like his life. Battling…fighting. It was all he ever did. Stains of blood would blemish his existence forever, just like the stains of blood that stubbornly refused to stop smothering the boy's fine blade.
He had spent an hour on the heavy, two-handed sword, trying his best to rid the essence of the demon's blood. The now tattered cloth had been recklessly split in a harsh move to sweep the crimson off in one attempt, and he ended up spilling his own. It had been accidental; a slip on the hand's part, but stirred together with his disturbing thoughts, it felt like hell had ripped through his body. Blood leaked out slowly onto the wet cloth, smeared itself against the massive sword, and dripped solemnly onto his clothes. He didn't try to stop it. He watched the tiny red river flow on, his face suddenly without any expression at all. Memories flooded back to him. They were memories with cold emotions as their foundation, ignorance as their walls, and torn friendship as the roof that blinded him from the truth, only to be revealed to him after it was all too late.
He had made the rift between two friends grow even further apart, and in the end it destroyed what both of them wanted to protect and kill for in the first place. It was all in vain. All the destruction, all the chaos…in the end, it was all for nothing.
Irwin was a half demon. That much was apparent. Yet it wasn't the demon part of him that ran rampant through his essence and tore into his soul. The demon controlled his strength, his body. The human controlled his heart. In the end, it would be the human part of Irwin that would bring about his end. For it was only the heart that told him to take action and "rid the world of humans".
Demons kill to survive. Humans kill for power. That is the difference, thought the young hero to himself.
Was it the same for Escad? Why was Escad so bent on killing Irwin, to destroy him in battle? For power? No…he was blinded.
Escad simply thought that demons, half or otherwise, were born evil and so therefore only had musings of treachery and baneful behavior. Why couldn't he see that it was really the human half of Irwin that which was he saw as "evil"?
Blind to his own shallow points of view, he could do nothing but do what he thought was right. To destroy the demon and therefore ridding the evil that took away Matilda's spirit of youth and magic. To seek revenge.
He got his wish, thought he bitterly as his looked as his shadowed reflection in his sword. A small river of crimson continued to languidly flow across it.
It had already gone too far when he first came to knowledge about it. Escad was bent on murdering Irwin, and Irwin was bent on murdering mankind. Matilda simply wanted to stop the fighting and be with the ones she loved. To be free.
What is it to be free? How would I know?
He was caught in a downward spiral that ended in darkness. Certainly that was not the definition of a free spirit. He was forced to choose, and ended up being forced to fight. Everyone else was there by their own will, their conflicting causes bringing them all together in a disordered battle that would end unhappily. Escad was free. Irwin was free. Weren't they? Daena…was…
Daena was the chain the bound him to their destiny.
"What? After all you've been through, after all you've seen! How can you say you have no part in this?!" He remembered her forceful words clearly as they echoed in his mind relentlessly. He fought her because of those words. Those words…they seemed to control him at the moment. They contradicted what he believed was to be true, yet he was the one who was wrong.
He had no freedom.
He remembered as he headed up the cracked stone stairs of the temple, leaving Daena's silent body behind and following Escad. He hands were shaking and blood was dripping from his sword, still unsheathed and still carrying the fresh aura of battle. His body moved by itself, because his mind was nowhere near enough to take control. He was aware of only one thing at the time, one sound, one vision. His footsteps softly were heard as he sauntered up the steps rhythmically, watching the silver hair of Escad flowing along as he rushed ahead of him. It was impossible to tell what was right and what was wrong. He couldn't think. His mind wasn't his own.
Ah, yes, to kill a demon. To save the world from a demon's wrath. Or at least, someone demon enough to take the elemental essence away of a dear childhood friend. Escad had tossed that concept into his conflicting mind also. Just another chain that bound him.
Deep down, he knew otherwise. Things are never that simple when it comes to real life. In tales that elders narrate to young children, it would be a simple story of good versus evil. Yet no one is pure good or pure evil. Not even a demon.
Yes, it would be easier if there were only two roads, but there are too many. Not even a hero can always walk the right road.
Demon's blood dribbled down his blade when he had delivered the final blow. The transformed Irwin delivered a cry that could make one doubt that he even had a drop of human blood in him. It was a horrible sound, not because of its intensity or its crude tone, but because of its anguish and its shattered hope. It felt as if his soul had become hollow inside.
The world then started to swirl in dark color as the demon made its way into the underworld. Its body had died, but its spirit would always live on…yet it was so silent. Perhaps it really had given up hope.
Feathers were the only things in his sight in the next few minutes, flourished in much brighter colors than its unholy demon's death counterpart. Luceria fell from the sky and shattered to dust, finally seeming dead like it was meant to be.
There was false joy in his heart when he rode back to the Gatto Grottoes. The emotion of triumph had been thrown into his heart and somehow became confused as happiness. Had he been happy?
No.
One without freedom doesn't know happiness.
He soon learned this when he landed high above the Grottoes. The wind swept away at his hair, carrying Matilda's gentle soul along with it. He had felt it then; he didn't want to believe it. But the shattering news would not give up in showing him the harsh truth, and it came to him in the form of a nun.
"…Matilda has passed away…"
He stood there, in shock. Words were foreign to him at that exact moment. He wanted to cry, he wanted to yell, he wanted laugh, he wanted to live, he wanted to die…He wanted so much. He wanted anything but the truth that was hurled cruelly at him.
It had hit him then. It hit him hard. Growing up, he was always sure of what was right and what was wrong. One was black, the other white. The very defined line between the two always there. Then, everything seemed to blur and become disordered. He didn't know what to believe anymore. He needed someone to tell him what to do. He needed someone else to handle his emotions.
He had no freedom.
Freedom…it was a bitter thing. There when you ignored it, and gone when you needed it. Lessons like these were never taught; only seen. Sometimes, never seen, only felt. And when felt, it flowed throughout his body endlessly through a river of blood.
Never taught nor seen, and felt when it was too late.
The young warrior stared at his blade for the rest of the cold night, lost in his thoughts.
Searching for his lost freedom.