The man sat down, contemplating how far he'd risen, and how much further he needed to rise still.
Should he consolidate, or advance? Presently, he could be content with his position. Any potential enemies were misdirected, his allies were being mollified, indulged and rewarded.
He drew his clothes tighter around him; this area was somewhat draughty. He had been prudent when necessary, and swift to act when the time was right. Accepted risk without tempering recklessness.
While there was many acceptable arguments to adopt a period of stability - he had to admit that it was not in his nature.
The urge, the need, the want was still there. The hungry, angry animal pacing in it's cage. The urge that drove him from his undignified beginnings to his present stature. And yet it was still wanting more.
His intelligence and his discipline hid the beast while that animal drove him ever forward. And still urged him to walk, climb, run further and faster than before.
Perhaps delegation; find the talented and motivated to excel in sinecures he alone would devise. He was always surprised by those who would strive for him for great rewards by their own standards but for him, were relatively little. Find others who would ensure a consolidated stability while he devised a way to rise further still.
A light made him look down at the darkness below him. Did someone light a fire ...?
The light flew towards him, and hovered in front of his face.
Not a light, a ring with a symbol ...
You Want It All.
It flew on his finger.
He crashed to the stone floor, gasping. He thought he'd suffered a pain before in his youth, but this other sensation was far more intense.
Not pain. Hunger.
A deep and dark gnawing that reached beyond his belly and turned his body, his heart and mind into an ever yawning pit screaming to be filled. The beast made flesh.
There was nothing in the world that would fill it.
Then the ring, the origin of his hunger, told him.
Of solar systems, of stars, of distances and means to circumvent them, of galaxies and superfillaments, and the universe, universes ...
And the power now he had to make them all his.
With deliberation, with discipline, he stood, and directed his hunger, his need.
He stood.
He levitated off the ground. Now he knew; this ring saw his hunger, and knew no other in this world that could match it's own need.
The man hovered in the air, ignoring how far he'd risen, finally knowing how far he needed to rise.
Lord Petyr Baelish, welcome to the Orange Lantern Corps.
