I had a dream of the wide open prairie
I had a dream of the pale morning sky
I had a dream that we flew on golden wings
We were the same
Just the same
You and I
Follow your heart
Little child of the west wind
Follow the voice
That's calling you home
Follow your dreams
But always remember me
I am your brother
Under the sun
We are like birds of a feather
We are two hearts joined together
We will be forever as one
My brother
Under the sun
In a daring move, Doyle jumped his horse mid charge and tackled Saeryth off of his, leaving the animals rider-less, to gallop off towards the horizon of their choice without stopping less a stray weapon fire into their flesh with enough force for fatality. The combatants hit the ground and rolled to their feet simultaneously, in crouches, swords up. Saeryth's eyes were laughing, breath coming out in smiling gasps, cheerful, as if he'd run a marathon, had played touch football, had won a snowball fight.
Doyle, incensed at his opponent's enthusiasm, charged first, throwing everything into his offense against the man, the man who was the very symbol for every damn stupid thing in this war, the representative type characteristics responsible for everything bad and painful in Kaylorin: greed, ambition, pride, evil. **More importantly, fer Aur's death.** He added in thought, belatedly.
It seemed only right that Saeryth could feel the death he'd brought upon so many himself, feel the torment that Doyle did. A surge of vicious anger welled to riptide inside him at the thought. He brought down the sword with shocking force, intent on slicing his tormentor in half at the end of his charge. Saeryth, reflexes strong as always, brought his own weapon up to block in defense and the blades crossed each other in metal-quivering waves, arm's strength on either side pushing, straining to shove one or the other backwards and gain the advantage.
All the while, Saeryth looked as if he might burst out laughing at any moment.
Doyle clenched his teeth. **Stupid grinnin' bastard…**
"Your… strength… has… improved…" Saeryth gritted out, admiration and belittlement warring in his tone.
Doyle was prepared to bite back with a nasty comment, but was thrust backwards as a booted foot made intimate acquaintance with his stomach and he was launched several steps backwards. Saeryth in response stepped forward, amused smirk never leaving his face. "So, General…" he started conversationally, twirling his weapon in a rather impressive display of play. "…How would you like to die? Don't be shy now. We've known each other long enough that it's my duty to oblige you with the demise of your choice."
"You always did like to run yer mouth, Saer." Doyle imposed with a thrust, which was (expectedly) jovially deflected.
"I feel that conversation on occasion can lighten the atmosphere considerably," the human responded neatly, deflecting another thrust, spinning into it, and delivering his elbow hard and fast into Doyle's nose.
Doyle staggered backwards, but did not fall, nor drop his defense. Blood spilled out in torrent from his nose; he could taste it on his lips.
"Oh, and I also find that the chatting drives my opponents to distraction," Saeryth added as an amused afterthought.
"Thought you liked a fair fight," Doyle rejoined, wiping blood from his nose with one hand and blocking a swipe by his adversary with the other.
"All skills that are my own are fair enough, General," Saeryth laughed, "as dirty as they might seem to one of your apparent honor," he baited. "For example…" Saeryth blocked Doyle's attack, let himself give in to the pressure just enough to throw the other General forward, and then pushed off again, sending the Irishman's arm upward, and thus leaving him open. In a lightning fast draw, Saeryth pulled a small dagger from his boot, and threw it with a precision of which few could brag in sharing.
Doyle caught it a millimeter from his chest. Saeryth, unperturbed, looked undaunted. "You may fight dirty Saer, but my reflexes are still damn good," Doyle stated without pretense of arrogance. He tossed the projectile to the floor at his feet with a disgusted look.
Saeryth shrugged. "Always worth a try, friend."
This irritated Doyle more than anything Saeryth had done earlier. "I'm not your friend," he assured his opponent.
"No? What then?" Saeryth asked, as they both battled obligingly. He spun left of a thrust aimed at his gut and kept right on chattering. "Should I call you comrade? Confidant? Brother?"
"None, neither, never," Doyle grunted, locking blades with Saeryth once again, their faces separated by only the X their weapons formed and the six inches between that.
"We're not as dissimilar as you'd like to think, General." The statement was made softly, with all the cocky air of Saeryth's renown.
Doyle sneered and made to sweep the human's feet out from under him. "We aren't? Enlighten me."
Saeryth jumped back neatly. "We're both Generals in mighty armies…"
"An' the brilliance of yer deduction leaves me prostrate at yer feet," Doyle drawled, seeing a quick opening and getting in fast enough to just knick the human at the junction of his shoulder and neck. A shallow cut, but at least the bastard was bleeding now.
Saeryth chuckled and touched his free hand to the laceration. "Another similarity, we both do like the fight," he continued, as if the scratch was of no consequence, as if the sting were invigorating rather than debilitating. He lunged forward quickly, neatly nicking Doyle in his side before the other could move again, purely retaliatory for the earlier cut.
Doyle ignored the biting pain of the blade edge into the soft flesh of his side. "We like this, the fight, eh? Says you. I'd rather be back home watchin' the Lakers."
If he was puzzled by the allusion, the human didn't make a show of it. "We're both destined for greatness," he pushed on.
"If that's so, what's the point o' tryin' to skewer me?" Doyle questioned with a scoff, kicking aside Saeryth's blade, only to have his opponent pivot into the blow and recover with a back swing, which Doyle hastily blocked by throwing up the edge of his sword.
Saeryth laughed. "That, brother, is where we differ slightly. Your greatness is fated to be at the end of my sword, and subsequently, retold in history books that generations of humans will look back on one day when regarding the wars. My greatness lies in the possibility of making that happen."
"We also differ in that you're a pompous ass, Saer, an' that if anythin' I'll make it so your generations of 'umans don't have a chance in hell."
A triumphant light in the other man's countenance. "And another similarity there, fautor. We both want for the total annihilation of our opposition."
General Doyle felt a little sick as the accusation struck true and only narrowly dodged a swing that would have cut him in half from right shoulder to left hip. He bit back the guilt of his adversary's sharp words, swallowed it like food. "I want peace," he argued, softly, vehemently.
Saeryth looked (or faked in any case) affronted and did not follow through his swing. "As do I, General. I desire nothing more but peace. And what better way to achieve it than by eliminating everything that could possibly stand in its way?" He swung again, and Doyle blocked. Doyle threw their swords sideways but Saeryth circled his own in a counter clockwise motion that pushed his blade atop Doyle's, all the while managing to keep up his running commentary. "Peace is a noble experiment to be sure, but it can never be truly had until every one is in complete agreement, General Doyle."
The Protective Army leader laughed at that assumption, throwing a punch as he did, though his knuckles only barely grazed the flesh of his human nemesis. "You think that's the answer? Humans are even more unpredictable than the rest of us, Saer. No one else to fight, you know the poor slobs'd be cuttin' each other's throats within a week o' the end o' the war."
Saeryth, who had only slightly dodged the punch and made to kick Doyle with the toe of his boot in retaliation (Doyle blocked by raising his knee to prevent his moving), frowned at the other General's utter lack of visionary greatness. "With the right kind of leadership even the wildest, stupidest; most savage of animals can be made to behave, General."
"So you fancy yourself some sort o' revolutionary, then, Saer? That you can bring about the change o' the world, the change o' your kind? Forgive me while I laugh," Doyle punctuated as they clashed and locked against one another, this time he managing to throw the elbow of his sword arm up to clock Saeryth smartly in the nose.
Saeryth ignored his bleeding nose and pushed back with animated fervor. "Peace, like war, General, is a notion only controlled by an iron fist."
Doyle brought a knee between them, sending Saeryth falling onto his backside. "Your definitions o' peace an' slavery don't sound that different, Saer. That your big secret?" He followed the comment with a downward thrust, but the slippery eel rolled aside quickly, waited until the tip of Doyle's sword was embedded in the dirt and difficult to dislodge, before pulling himself to his feet and wiping away some of the blood dripping down his nose and into his mouth.
"My secrets are beyond your comprehension," Saeryth rejoined, propping himself up for a quick breather before descending on Doyle again, who struggled with sword edge stuck in the dirt, muddied by addition of so much blood. Saeryth's outline appeared over him, he could see the shadow length of the blade on the ground before him, rising so that it might descend, to kill. He realized his sword would not come up in time to block, and suddenly, he wondered if this was not his chance. **You were ready to die three years back, boyo, against yer will. Now you got the chance ta do it fer real this time, an' you're even more prepared than ye were before. Maybe ye should just take it an' be done…**
The thought thrummed something bitter inside of him, the death he had steeled himself for three years past doing nothing but to bring him here, to fight more, to sacrifice more, to die a little more every day. **Just let him do it, an' you'll be free o' this nonsense…**
The blade reached the pinnacle of its arc and without waiting any longer; Doyle took a breath and pushed up, charged into Saeryth's chest plate and consequently, out of striking range with his closeness, toppling them both to the ground, his hands going up to wrap around the human's wrists and holding firm so as to render the weapon immobile. They struggled on the ground for a while before Doyle remembered there was half of his birthright he'd failed to utilize the duration of his fight with Saeryth.
He morphed into his demon countenance, and felt as the spikes on his hands elongate, digging into Saeryth's hand flesh. He thrust forward in an unmerciful head butt for emphasis; the jagged horned protrusions in his forehead poking dagger thrusts like needles into the human skin of his enemy, leaving humming red punctures in the skin along Saeryth's temple. He heard the man's hiss of pain and took the chance to twist the blade above their heads while his opponent was recoiling. This dislodged the human General's grip on the weapon just enough for Doyle to yank it away, before rolling off and jumping to his feet, weapon reversed and firmly in hand, the point-tip of the sword edge hovering inches from the soft flesh quivering above Saeryth's jugular. Breathing heavily, he willed back the demon face so that his nemesis might be able to look at the face of tired victory before he died.
~~~~~~~~~
Saeryth believed in destiny. He believed that it was an entity at his mercy, designed only to bend as he willed it, to fold and do exactly as he wished it to do. Destiny was a tool he used, not something omnipotent and random, as others believed. He knew what it was. It was pliable to the strength of his desires, and there was nothing more he desired than to take his place in legend as the one who killed Doyle, who won the war. The war itself was stupid and incredible in its frivolity (really, the inhabitants of this sickly little dimension had been fighting for countless centuries and not a foot gained or lost on either side? He had to wonder as to the incompetence of his ancestors. It was his personal ambition to have the whole thing done and over with within the next six months). As a whole, this war's sole purpose was to bring to him his destiny. He could care less for enslavement of the creatures, procuring their technology, taking their land; all the successes former leaders had prophesized during their reigns. All of that rubbish would simply be the tail end of his legacy. His own personal gift to himself (and not to those stupid animals he called brethren) was to be able to know that he was the most formidable, that he was the most proficient in mind and body when faced with the worthiest of opponents. That was what he yearned to make for himself. Or die trying.
It seemed that for all his will, and all his desire, he was to do exactly that-die trying- rather than emerge triumphant. He was not as bothered by that as he assumed he might have been, considering the fact that if he was to die, he'd rather have it done on the battlefield against someone as estimable as General Doyle, and in the prime of his youth rather than anything else, rather than suffer death by the ravages of time and over-indulgence. But still, it grated on him somewhat, that destiny might have betrayed him, and instead of being hammered straight upon the anvil of his good faith, yield impurities. The sword point lay quivering at his throat as a breathless, bloody, but successful Doyle readied to sate his bloodlust (yes, he knew Doyle had it, an immense quantity of it in fact, but as far as he was concerned, everyone else was simply in denial) by beheading him.
As he had told Breia, the thrill of the fight where the outcome was not predetermined had its price, the possibility of defeat, and thus he supposed he was to pay it. He closed his eyes.
~~~~~~~~~~
Doyle withdrew the blade from the immediate vicinity of Saeryth's throat skin and readied it for a fast, efficient descent to separate head from body. He would have (personally) liked to let the bastard live within the halls of the army complex, subject to torture and experiments of the worst kind by the scientists (for research) and the soldiers (for kicks) but the better part of him knew that that was the act of monsters, and not warriors for the Powers. Tempted, but not swayed (he was the good guy after all, as he had to constantly remind himself), he took a triumphant breath and made to say his goodbye once and for all, to his arch foe.
"General!!!"
The sound of Maj's voice startled him and he turned his head before his good sense could prevail upon him not to. "Maj?" He saw Maj at a full gallop towards him, obviously unawares of the significange of what Doyle was about to do, looking too harried to pay attention to detail as he batted through humans intent on attacking him like horseflies so that he would be able to reach his General's side.
Remembering himself a split second later, Doyle turned to finish the task at hand.
"Damn."
Saeryth was gone.
**Sneaky bastard.**
I had a dream of the wide open prairie
I had a dream of the pale morning sky
I had a dream that we flew on golden wings
We were the same
Just the same
You and I
Follow your heart
Little child of the west wind
Follow the voice
That's calling you home
Follow your dreams
But always remember me
I am your brother
Under the sun
We are like birds of a feather
We are two hearts joined together
We will be forever as one
My brother
Under the sun