Closer and closer, never slowing its pace, the Peco and its Knight approached the town gate, and closed in on the lone swordsman walking upon the path ahead of them. Grimacing, the hand upon his weapon clenching tightly, the knight urged his mount to greater speeds. The raptor, with no signs of fatique anywhere upon its body, almost flew along the highway with a strained screech, right towards the leatherclad man who now turned, brilliant blue eyes assessing the missile streaking towards him, then its burden atop its aurulent plumage, stopping to watch as the Peco Peco continued to race closer and closer...
...and then past him, the air dragged through the vaccuum the two had created in the air grasping at the swordman, trying to pull him with the reawakening spirits of the tempest that chased the being to disturb their slumber. Clasping a hand to his scabbard and another to his face, he stood his ground on the side of the road until the last of the vengeful gale had given up on him. Blinking, the young swordsman shook his head, the gold of his fine, if dirty, hair flying up and whipping at his head with each motion, then looked after the animal and rider quickly disappearing into the city of Izlude before him. A small grin crept onto his cherubic face, and he began to laugh, remarking softly to himself, "Was that the third time that guy's passed me?"
He shook his head again, not hard enough for his hair to be disturbed even more, and he pushed his hand through the dirty blonde strands, pushing some out of his face and freeing his field of view of obstruction. "I wonder how that can be possible?" He shrugged slightly, pushing against the leather mantle that protected his neck and shoulders, and then readjusted the cracked, filthy leather gloves he wore on his hands. They reeked of blood, but this did not bother him much. The entirety of his leather armor was red-tinged, though not from the usual dye. It was what happens when one has to learn for oneself the arts of war.
He looked down. At his leather-clad feet was a burlap sack which carried all of his treasures that he did not wear at his belt or on his body. It had opened and spilled its contents upon the cobbles; assorted clubs, meats, apples and carrots, bottles of blood, raw ores and cards of assorted colors and types, tufts of hair and feathers, and several other items that might be of value to merchants. After a silent moment of looking for everything that had spilled, he knelt down and began to slowly and carefully replace what had almost been lost.
He picked up a dirty scrap of violet, and cocked his head to the side. He had never noticed this item before. Pulling from a pouch at his belt a small magnifying glass, he held the sorry excuse for cloth up for further inspection. That was when he noticed the bland, circular clasp with a rectangular indent upon it. A hair ribbon. Dropping the glass back into his pouch, he stood and regarded the item with a vague look of confusion, as his mind rolled in his head, looking for when he might have possibly picked up such a rag. What man, in their right mind, would have this, a woman's article of clothing? The swordsman contemplated dropping the ribbon right then and there. His train of thought did not progress much farther then that, when his eyes were buried by an avalanche of dandelion strands. Without thinking, he flipped his head back, the offensive hair flying to rest upon his scalp, and he reached to the errant strands, wrapping the cloth about a clump securely and tying it tightly. His eyes blinked once in minor confusion, and his hands fell to his side.
The day was bright, full of sun and natural glee. Sol's rays revealed everything in the open, bringing their full colors and natures to light. The horizon in one direction grand emerald seas of wavy, flowing grass, punctuated every now and then by solitary islands or small archaepaleagos of trees, pushing their ways up from the wind-blown vegetation and eventually uniting with each other to form masses of forest, finally ending the grass's hold upon the landscape. The sky was clear and cloudless, a flawless fabric of blue stretching across the expanse of the horizon, contrasting with the carpet of green upon the earth.
The swordsman, however, wasn't looking at the serenity of the simple canvas of nature; his azure eyes were fixed upon the city instead. It was still here, still a bright opal encrusted among the emerald and sapphire upon the earthly ring. It was the First and the Greatest City, to him; Izlude, his home anf refuge. He'd been gone, travelling Rune Midgar for his entire adolescent life, but he knew in his heart that it was still the same, friendly, and peaceful city he had once known. Smiling, his things gathered in his pack, he walked calmly through the grand arches of white, stony brick.
His smile soon faded to a frown of puzzlement as more confusion overtook his face. The streets, once bustling with merchants, children, women, and men of all sizes and classes, were now deserted... and... bloodstreaked. The stone was marred, the buildings were scorched and battered. Where was everyone? What had happened to this fair city? Was it attacked? What had attacked it? He blinked, as if to clear his vision, as he stopped walking to simply look around him.
Suddenly a blast of frigid blood swirled about his head, and his body was wracked with the pain of a thousand shards of ice ravaging the flesh. Head snapping back to utter a savage cry of bewildered rage, his throat was stopped up with the frost, as his whole body, contorted and pushed into the air, froze solid in the middle of the ruined streets. His entire form had grown numb, unfeeling, paralyzed and suspended, with only his eyes and ears functional.
From the immobile swordsman ran a trail of ice shards, scattered and ranging in size, shape, and shades of frosty blue-white. This trail had served the rivet into the ruts of the cobblestone even deeper grouts, which had only the single, unintended purpose of revealing the location of a grimy, sour-faced and crooked-bodied wizard. Clad in a brown cloak, with white and green trim all along his clothing and accouterment, and a black wizard's cap perched upon his greying skull, the short, gnomeish sorcerer squinted at the young man with an expression of pure contempt. He ventured a foot forward. Instantly, he could recognized what he had trapped in his icy bewitchment, and the air about his hands began to crackle with growing electrical charges. The swordsman could only watch in horror, to match the wizard's uncontrolled glee and sadistic smile, as a ball of white-hot, harnessed lightning surrounded the caster's clasped hands.
The twang of an arrow was barely audible over the cacophany of the stillborn devastation, as the wizard's head, then body, was jerked to the side, his expression changing to one of mortal shock. The very tip of an arrow portruded from his temple, as blood splattered the cobbles and the dead grass under his feet. His body fell to the ground with a sickening thud, his mouth opened to release one failed breath, before the shroud of Death glazed his dark eyes and stopped his ears and throat. The electricity dispersed harmlessly from his hands into the stones, and his form lay limp as another man walked to the corpse.
Ignoring the still-ensnared warrior, the black-clad man, who carried a bow on his shoulder, an arrow quiver, and a glove and thimble, knelt down by the wizard's torso and pushed him to his back. His long, green hair hid his face as a hand reached to his back, pulling from his belt a long, wicked knife of jagged steel and deadly points. He was finished within the next minute, and he stood, the head of the wizard hanging by his hair from the belt of the renegade, the blood dripping and drying on the hunter's pants. Kicking the body away, the green-haired man's face finally acknowledged the presence of another person in the town. His eye was grey, the eye of a sharpshooter; the other was covered by a grey eyepatch. His face was angular, sunken, and gaunt, decorated by the scars of a hundred battles. His hair fell about his face, framing the ghastly features in a sea of scraggly weed, and he appeared most sinister and evil, as a demon in human form. Tilting his head, the frightening ghast of a human began to step toward the swordsman, then stopped, looking his frozen form up and down.
There was no smile like that last murderer had.
Pulling out his bow, and two arrows from his quiver, the rogue archer only grunted hollowly as he brought the tips of his arrows to bear upon the frozen victim. He was completely emotionless; when the young man's eyes closed and whimpers began to flail and struggle through the ice of his throat, there was neither grin nor flinch from the bowman. His eye did leave his target for an instant, however, in a moment of absolute and unquestionable fear, and he let the arrows fly as a man clad in the armor of a crusader roared, his barbaric yaulp echoing meatily through the expanses of the dead city and reverberating from the ancient stone, causing the minds of the hunter and the swordsman to waver from the sheer force of his spirit upon his mighty breath. The ice about the swordmaster cracked, and, as an arrow pierced him through the shoulder and a withering torment shot from his shoulder and fanned through his entire being, he fell backward and downward, eyes screwed shut and mouth finally uttering the screams he had been forced the choke back in his frigid prison.
He heard only one sentence before passing out. He had uttered only one reply. With the sickening sounds of steel passing through flesh, and the splatterings of blood upon stone and screams upon the sky, his eyes opened to see he had landed in the arms and the lap of an angel. Her golden halo framing her rounded face lit up her amazingly blue eyes, and her lips, thin but lovely as all angels' are, mouthed at first... but soon, soft, soothing, ethereal sounds wafted to his ears and took the forms of the saintly being's first words to him, caressing his shattered mind with tender aural embraces and a cleansing purity found only in the beings of God.
"...what is your name?" was all he heard from her.
And all he could manage to choke from his pain-wracked, shivering form, was one silent reply, "Uriel Zarium..."
Then all was dark.