It didn't take too long for Saber and Assassin to close in on their prey. Through the forest they ran in heat of the chase, slowing down as the sound of the ravens up ahead became closer and closer. A trail of black birds gleam on the ground, leading to a man in a mass of beating black wings. Lancer's iridescent confidence is diminished as the two close in, his loyal Gae Dearg striking down the last of the ravens. Once a man of glorious composure, Diarmuid Ua Duibhne's royal uniform reeks of innocent blood.
Blood that, to his eye, was akin to that of his beloved daughter's.
He stands atop a lone hill in a meadow. The grass is long, not unlike that of his home country; long and wild, like the spirit of the long-departed.
He turns, body heaving with each breathe, violence burning in his orange eyes. He stands straddling his burden, a small body trying to heave itself up. "Stay down!" Lancer hisses, turning his full body to the on-comers. He swings his lance too and fro, another one appearing in the thicket of the darkness. He uses the one in his right hand, one red as rivers stained from devastation, to point at his challengers. "Leave here, now!" He roars, chin stubbornly sticking up, velvet black hair gloriously tossed to the side. "Leave, and don't you dare follow us!"
But there are no words.
Saber's foot crunches the fallen leaves as it prepares to spring forward. And it does.
In a flash, the silver body is across the meadow and flying up the hill. The heavy sword swings, slicing the space before Lancer's eye clean in half.
But he is not low in energy - oh, no, this man is far from exhausted; and with the adrenaline of the need to protect driving him forward, he is roaring to kill.
The two embark on a journey few mortals can parallel. The naked eye cannot bear witness to the glory of their battle, and its serenade into eternity.
For, in truth, this is the battle of life itself. The noble at wit's end, fending off the disgusting. The honorary, Arthurian sword in hand, fending off the barbaric. Race against race. Religion against religion. Good against bad, great against undeniably unbeatable.
And yet their ideals mirror one another, which is the reason why this war will never end: at the end of the day, it is ideals that wars are fought over. The ideals here are no less alike than they are different from one another, and the ambition to control tomorrow drives the sword against the lance.
The need to spill blood is what drives humans forward.
It is off the drive to destroy that tomorrow emerges.
It is off the need to domesticate the unconquered that these respectable warriors were beckoned into the darkness of killing.
And thus they slay one another; or rather, they try to. Speed and agility of the Gods course through their feet and hands, slamming tool against tool in violent confrontation.
Yet, it ultimately takes too long.
Lancer, the noble Lancer, the light of Ireland, cannot react in time to the shadow that materializes beside him. A husk deprived of humanity, a shadow of deprivation itself, is what ultimately drive a knife into his side.
Saber steps back as Assassin twists her wretched handle. The blade shoots fire through the man's body, forcing a scream of inhumane measures to erupt from his mouth. Like a boar, a boar screeching as it drives a fatal blow into a corrupt world.
She yanks the blade out and drops it to her side.
He collapses, weapons still in hand. He twitches on the ground, curling in agony as his honorable heart bleeds from within. The woman sits on her heels and leans over the man's beautiful body, tracing her index finger along the many groves of his body. He reaches – oh, how far he reaches! – for the body to his right. The woman's unseeable eyes trace his efforts. Assassin laughs, despite herself, as she repositions herself between Lancer and the still breathing mortal he fought so hard to protect.
"I am sorry, this is rather rude of me," her sing-song voice breaks the atmosphere like a diamond scratching glass, her hand still tracing the man's ravishing back. "I know the manliest of knights dignify themselves with a burial before their beloved, but alas you fight alone and thus will die alone." Her free hand shoots up to the moon, fingers spread just to grasp the reddening light in her small fist. "The moon shall be the only witness to this."
.
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