Convictional descent

Convictional descent

Postby Dejicide » Fri May 08, 2015 6:59 am

He had come for some company, to hear voices that didn't originate from his mind. Of course there would be consequences, there always were. Sometimes they were worth it; however, it was doubtful this was one of those times. Pain was often sowed in his wake but he wasn't egotistical enough to think he was unique in this aspect: what he felt he was unique in was enjoying how it made him feel. It was different each time but when such a thing was introverted as it was now... it was sublime. It wasn't the nothing of solitude he would claim to love but a repetitive self-destruction he knew he deserved even even as he both fought against and embraced it.

Stubbornness and conviction left his hands bloodied again, something he would never apologize for. Many times he had considered if these values were specifically tied to him so that the routine might be played over and over: an excellent excuse for violence and drama in a life that went years knowing nothing but silence and the ease of survival. If finally recognized it as such, would he reject it or embrace it? This would depend on mood, most likely, and change the next season. He knew better yet knew so well he wouldn't stop it: there was a sickness that these people were the catalyst of except this time there was no joy included. Not even a moment before things seemed to crumble under him.

Perhaps it was getting worse. The thought both intrigued and frightened the half-dragon as he perched upon a low branch, jade eyes watching a man who had come out to collect some fungus, herbs, and scratchings of bark. Why was he allowed out here and why had those signs been removed? Hok had become used to being the outsider but for a short moment he felt there might had been the chance of sharing some values with others. Some peace may have come if his conviction was shared or embraced; however, it was scorned and barely tolerated. How long until this darker influence saturated him to the point that he would just put an arrow into the herbalist nearby or worse yet descended and covered himself in the man's blood? Not long. Not long at all if he kept doing this to himself.

Nightmares were promised to him now: did the madwoman really feel that would sway him? Most likely, since it seemed he was generalized with those other folk. In reality he would accept them like his own dreams of regret and blood; however, not in the same spirit of masochism and pseudo-redemption. He would challenge them as he's done all the perceived misunderstandings aimed at him. It had been two nights without sleep: he knew the limit well in which his own manifestations wouldn't wake him and it was time. When darkness fell, Hokwing would embrace sleep this night.
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Re: Convictional descent

Postby Dejicide » Sun May 10, 2015 2:02 am

Two nights. It had been two nights of these nightmares that were gifted to him. While they were nightmares at the core he was able to look back at them with introspection and have very little trouble remembering them in the ways that mattered.

In the first he was hunted: it was a simple enough concept to bestow upon a hunter but it was not a new concept to him. Literally, sure, but he believed the basic idea behind it had nothing to do with speeding through the woods in fear for his life. There was always something he could do for someone and before long they sought him out for his skills. Indeed, the first night he had stepped foot past the trees and into the tavern a man tried to convince him to kill. To kill for a just reason, it was insisted, but the questioned remained with Hok: how did the man know? What part of himself exuded such an aura that still clung to the lives he had taken in the past? There was no lingering regret or apologies regarding these things, only regret on being swayed be these requests. That's where the pain originated, to be used in such a manner by those he trusted. Perhaps that was what still bound him to this region, to this forest? He had met the Red Devil or Shepard while it asked for help he was already giving it insisted in avoiding violence. Now there was this just the giver of these nights, whom he didn't know whether to thank or not.

The second was hardly a nightmare: it was memory, plucked neatly from his brain to live again in lucid grimness. His order had tasked him to hunt a man who had cut his way through half a dozen villages, leaving a trail of corpses in his wake. Women, children, men... he was indiscriminate. He was certainly mad with violence. Finding this man was easy: Hok had come upon a city that was in full siege against this slayer who seemed gleeful in the carnage he brought and Hokwing knew this man. Oh, he knew his father well in spite of the human form he took to perform these acts of minor genocide. While the dragon was certainly prone to violence and wrought collateral damage often, this was not like him. Something was wrong; however, the son was enraged and knew that if he didn't act there would be countless more bodies strewn about the courtyard he overlooked. He felt that confronting the father with words could have incurred his wrath in this state and simply been the end of himself. What choice did the hunter have but to launch an unknown arrow designed to end such a powerful being and was the lesson of this nightmare that obvious? Was it to simply find another path, that violence wasn't always the answer? Or was the conclusion, overconfidence, it? Hokwing had been beaten within an inch from death that day for the attempt and while the warpath of slaughter ended on his father's own volition they would never see each other again. He had laid in his order's infirmary and compounds for months recovering, replaying the event over and over in his head often with tears blurring his vision.

What guided his hand that day: orders, rage, the need to protect those being slaughtered at wholesale? Would he have to make such a choice again or worse, succumb to that kind of rage one day? Decades later he felt it twinge in the back of his mind: even just days ago Scorch would have felt it's embrace. Weeks ago some girl had talked him down from putting an arrow into her, too. The half-dragon swore upon avoiding violence these days. He had always sworn that the lives he took were just but when he thought about it, and he hated having that kind of introspection, because he knew he was a liar. It was the only lie he was good at telling but perhaps that was because only he believed it and he was naïve. While violence wasn't supposed to be his answer he seemed to prefer it.

Hok had woken, physically sick, and would be the same after giving these things more thought. Did the madwoman choose these for him or was this his own mind at play? After what he had seen and done he was amused by the fact that she could produce a nightmare that might frighten him. In all honesty she deserved a great deal of credit. These were unavoidable and more painful then a blade through his heart, which he knew the feeling of well. He rested a hand over the scar there, the one that started the lie of not travelling down the same path: these people were not to be trusted. These people were bad for him because he was someone else in their company: they would see him broken and dead again.

Once more he was sickened when he thought where these nightmares might lead. What part the giver of these dreams had in choosing these things he didn't know. Could she tell what he even dreamed, and if so, did she have have sympathy for him? Would she?
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Re: Convictional descent

Postby Dejicide » Wed May 13, 2015 1:32 am

He had been given the status of paladin by his order through dozens of hunts and unerring trust. Enemies were felled with pristine, deliberate execution and just cause. In the beginning things were easy: the undead. Shadows, things that fed on people, and those that animated them. He didn't have to think if what he was doing was good and perhaps that was what lulled him into a false sense of security and conviction. Before Hok ever considered questioning his orders and actions they were given by what felt like the only family he had ever known. He had brothers, sisters, those who guided him, counciled him, and loved him.

Years had passed and many of his brothers had fallen beside him, each grieved for with sincerity. Those that remained had done the same, surely, as had the fresh blood into the order. This was their life, though, and every single one of them believed in it so that they would lay down their life. It was just how it was: they all hunted what was pointed at, they all killed or were slain themselved in the name of Good and the Light. There was no need to doubt things until he saw the name of his order flash past his eyes in the manuscripts of a man that most surely loved his family. Loved those that were huddled in the corner, sobbing in fear and grief over the old man that sat limp in his chair next to Hok.

The hunter was oblivious to them. A few words from a manuscript caught his eye and a nagging tug of his brain insisted he read further. Undeniable proof that not only was this man innocent of what he was convicted of but that he was an enemy of the order Hokwing called family. His clawed hands left blood upon the pages he turned quickly while absorbing years and years of detailed surveillance, records of those slain by their hands- his hands- that were linked together in thorough detail and cross-checked with other pages and facts that Hok knew to be true. There were descriptions of how his order indoctrinated recruits nearly exactly how he had been brought in. It was all evidence to be delivered to a neighboring kingdom in an outcry for help. It was irrefutable proof that his order were slaying their way into political power and nothing more.

He shouldn't have read it but whatever had urged him to do so also filled the paladin with an emptiness that crushed completely. No memory remained of how he had made it home to his order's keep afterward, only memories of his youthful naivety when he called his brothers together to show them these things he brought with him. No-one would believe him. No-one would listen, but he was heard. Calls from the top of the order filled the keep that described Hokwing as mad, as lost, as subjugated. He was to be put down? Why were those he cared about so much so inclined to do such a thing? Wouldn't he have been so just yesterday? There was no chance to fight here even if he so chose to and he didn't. Death would call and he would answer with quiet respect.

This third dream may have lasted only minutes but it seemed like he had lived through years again. This time there was no introspection, no analyzing, only tears through quiet sobs as he rested on the forest floor.
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