Post by Lantlas on Jun 11, 2006 3:45:41 GMT -5
“My son…”
Galathan’s voice echoed throughout Eldarin’s head for the first time in ages. Eldarin left most of his kin behind in the old world, and through his new life in Cathdesalantis, had almost forgotten the crisp, tender tone of the voice of paternal instinct and wisdom. Eldarin was clenching the crystal emblem Kieran Evenstar had given him, almost prepared to attempt to alter fate.
“Eldarin, my son…” Galathan’s voice echoed once again.
“What is it, Father?” Eldarin wasn’t by any means resentful of his father, but with the current circumstances, he was a bit anxious to save his wife and make things right.
“Do not make hasty decisions out of the emotions you’re feeling.”
“I just lost my wife, the one with whom I was going to spend eternity, Father. I’m not going to lose her, not like this… not to humans.”
“The pain which you’re feeling will delude you from making the right decision, my son. Give it time to subside before you make a decision before considering the consequences.”
“There are no consequences to consider, Father! I’ve lost Narenwyn, and nothing in the world is more important than saving her life!” Eldarin clenched the emblem and the skies began to darken. The lightning storm of the previous nightfall returned in reverse, and the knights engaged in their massacre reappeared in their hedonistic acts. Eldarin quickly sprinted towards where his wife regularly convened during the nights when the warriors were not around to protect the village, and saw the flurry of orange curls running from a long, beastly sword.
Several knights were chasing her down. Narenwyn was quite physically gifted, and could out-sprint most of the warriors in Eldarin’s legion. Another knight jumped out from the darkness, and they had Narenwyn cornered, and each of them moved closer slowly. Eldarin hesitated no longer, and pulled from his vest a huge, black flail. Charging towards the men who were closing in, Eldarin swung the spiked ball upright and it crashed under one of the knight’s helmets, shattering it into six pieces that quickly were stained with the knight’s blood. The other three turned towards Eldarin, and Eldarin drew his sword. Swinging outwards with both arms, Eldarin took two of them out at once, completely crushing the face of the knight on his right with a flail shot, and dismembering the other with a perfect slice from a razor-sharp blade. The final knight turned and began to run. Eldarin hauled back and tossed his flail. The spiked ball sailed through the torrential rain and caught the running knight in the calf, and he tripped to the ground with a piercing scream.
Eldarin slowly stepped towards the fallen knight, who at that point was begging for his life. Eldarin used his sword to push the knight’s shoulder armor, bringing the wounded knight to face Eldarin. The fearful eyes of the knight were wide open in horror. Eldarin noticed his reflection in the trembling eyes of his enemy right before he shoved his sword into the knight’s trachea. Eldarin twisted the blade in the knight’s throat until his feet quit moving, and he tore his blade away and threw it into a tree. Eldarin dropped to his knees and screamed towards the heavens as the rain soaked his long hair in the wind. Eldarin’s vision began to fade, as several screams of the other women and children faded into the darkness with his thoughts.
…
This week’s task wasn’t even worth a laugh. The fact that Ace Anderson was scheduled on the card in the main event with me was no surprise, but that we were teaming together was indeed! What measures could the team of the two most dominant superstars in Pure Class Wrestling achieve? It was unquestionably a PCW Dream Team if they’d ever seen one, and surely with a monstrous one-night alliance like that, the competition would be fierce, right?
Right?
No… Instead, Ace Anderson and Lantlas are scheduled against the two biggest insults to the word “professional” since Blade and Tony Brass. 2Guys was the team, and they were already on their knees this week… but I doubt it was for praying. I almost felt bad for the two, considering that they hadn’t even won a match in their PCW careers, and now they were making their main event debut in what would surely be a small annihilation, and probably also the shortest PCW main event on record. The match itself wasn’t concerning me in the slightest, but I knew there was someone who was quite anxious to meet my tag team partner, and this week was as good as any. I guess we might as well get it out of her system before we collide at Return to Glory.
Devon Drake returning to the locker room distracted me for a few minutes. She’d just spent the last few days with Seth Sinn, and God knows what was going on there. Instead of the usual sarcastic smug grin, Devon instead appeared downtrodden. “The nerve of some people,” she muttered.
“What’s going on?”
“Seems our little Miss Sinn is a bit manipulative.”
“How so?”
Devon gritted her teeth and her cheeks turned a bit red. “My understanding is that Christine has some problem with you, although I haven’t quite figured out what it is yet. Because of this problem, she expects Seth to jump like a pet doggy and defend her for whatever this reason is. Of course, since there is no reason Christine should have anything against you, Seth refused, and Christine has resorted to… um…”
“What?”
“Well, let’s just say she’s been having interesting phone conversations with some of her old flings,” Devon growled. “And the conversations aren’t exactly about patios and gardening, if you know what I mean. One in particular is saying things like that he sees a future with them together, and instead of doing what any decent human being and wife would do, she plays along with it and gets upset when Seth takes offense to it.”
“Does Christine have a sister by any chance?”
Devon’s face turned in a strange, confused look. “What does that have to do with it?”
“She just sounds like Terry at the end of our relationship, so I thought they might’ve been long lost sisters or something.”
Devon smacked me over the back of the head. “Remember, she is my friend.”
“Remember, she tore my heart out, so I have no remorse about saying anything bad about her.”
“Fair enough, just don’t do it around me. Anyway, we’re off topic. Christine has implanted this restraining order to both damage your reputation and to try to press Seth to stay away from you. Seth is obviously torn. I mean, what can he do in this situation?”
“Stand up for himself?”
“You’re one to talk about that,” Devon snickered.
“So what can we do about this?”
“Well, I’m guessing Seth’s going to take things into consideration. His performance has slipped considerably in the past few weeks because of this, and I can only hope the best for him.”
“I just hope he doesn’t start acting like her,” I replied. Strange, I guess this really wasn’t the way things were meant to end up. To think that I had visions of the future where we had children together. Lane, what a silly idea.
“Sounds like you’ve got it pretty easy this week, eh?”
My thoughts returned to PCW, as they were doing less and less anymore. “That’s right… Teaming with Ace… 2Guys… Riveting competition.”
“I’m sure you were more concerned with your teammate than you were with the opposition,” Devon responded.
“I’m not so worried about teaming with Ace,” I explained. “The man has changed for the better, and I know he’s not going to pull some kind of cheap trick. Besides, the only thing that worries me about him is…”
“What?”
“That Emerald is absolutely nuts about him.”
“Oh,” Devon’s face returned to a serious expression. “I’ve noticed that too.”
“Action figures, posters, he’s all she talks about. The other night, she tried to hit me with the Exemplifier!”
“Kids?”
“I know it’s natural for a kid to rebel against their parents, but she’s not my daughter.”
“All the same,” Devon replied, “I don’t think she means it in a sense of not loving you or wanting to hurt you. Plus, after everything she heard about you, she sees a man who can almost defeat her Vati, and she can’t help but admire him. I can understand your concern though. I bet you’re worried about who she’ll be cheering for at Return to Glory.”
I buried my head in my hands. How awkward would that be? Emerald runs down to ringside and stands in Ace’s corner? I’m sure a small part of Ace’s past would return in a bit of arrogance if that happened, thinking he had some psychological edge or something. After all, his luck hadn’t been too good as of late, so he’d probably be searching for anything he could. He’d dropped two to Mr. Showtime in the past couple weeks, and that in and of itself was embarrassing enough. He probably sees the world title rematch as his saving grace, and if he doesn’t win it back this time, maybe he thinks he never will. He’ll be coming at me a lot harder than he did last time for different reasons.
“Lantlas?” Devon tried getting my attention back. There I went again, drifting off in my thoughts.
“Sorry,” I apologized. “Just thinking…”
“I know,” she giggled a bit. “Stop it. It gets you into trouble.”
I shot her a slightly flirtatious look. “All trouble isn’t always bad,” I slyly whispered.
Devon’s eyes opened wide and she moved back a bit. “That’s not… exactly what I was expecting.” She took a deep breath and turned red in the cheeks a bit. “I’m just gonna get something to drink now,” she nervously stated as she headed for the door. She looked back quickly, and to my surprise, straightened out her skirt as she was walking out the door. It was strange. I almost felt like a different wave of confidence was coming over me. And I kinda liked it.
…
Eldarin suddenly regained control of his own body as he was marching towards the village once again. The altering of fate had obviously delivered him back to the morning when they found their village slaughtered, and Eldarin was the only one aware of the catastrophe about to unfold before his warriors.
He lowered his head and tried to block out the sounds of the panicked cries of his warriors as they each found their loved ones so brutally murdered. As he tried to tune his ears away from the horrific nature of his warriors’ screams, a voice began to repeat through his mind.
“Eldarin, you have failed your people.”
Eldarin shook his head, and kept walking down the path towards his shelter.
“This is your fault, Eldarin!”
He covered his ears as his father’s words plagued his conscience. He cried out as he almost tripped over a fallen body, and he started running.
“Many lie dead, Eldarin, and it’s your fault it happened!”
“No!” Eldarin screamed.
“You had the chance to save them all, but in your emotional rage, the only one of whom you could think was your wife! You could’ve saved them all, Eldarin! No one had to die here, but now the loss of life will be equal, for your decision to alter fate will cost an innocent life!”
Eldarin stopped, and all the blood in his veins went cold. For some reason, the blood on the ground before his eyes was grabbing his mind and his curiosity. He looked to his right, and saw Narenwyn pulling herself to her feet. Eldarin saw her eyes open in horror and a flurry of white dress engulfed his face as she dropped in front of him in a fury of tears. Eldarin’s thinking was so clouded from the voices in his head that nothing was computing. Narenwyn’s cries were really beginning to worry him, and Eldarin dropped to his knees to comfort his wife. As he held his wife and stroked her hair, he caught a sight of a few strands of blonde hair below the corners of her dress.
“No,” Eldarin whispered as he moved his wife’s dress. A bloody, battered little face was being revealed, and Eldarin realized it was his little Ellie. An explosion went off in his chest, and he fell to the ground in spasms, but all he could see was the scarred, lifeless face of his little girl. By going back in time to save his wife, Fate had balanced itself out by taking his daughter. “It’s my fault!” Eldarin convulsed on the ground, and yelled it out once more… “It’s my fault!”
Narenwyn pulled Eldarin to his feet. “Get a hold of yourself, Eldarin!”
“I can’t,” Eldarin screamed. “It’s my fault that Ellie’s dead!”
Narenwyn stopped dead in her tracks and stood upright. Eldarin looked at his wife from the ground, and saw the wrath of scorn in her eyes. She shook her head, and walked quietly off into the wilderness, the blood drying on her white dress. Eldarin grabbed the body of his daughter and held it close, trying to once again block out the voices of guilt repeating through his head. “No, Ellie, no…” were the only words he could press through his throat.
“No, Ellie, no…”[/i]