OOC//DREAM
Everything was red-the earth, the sky, the remains of the dead-and what was not red was black, rotten and filthy and crumbling to pieces. He had been here many centuries, of course, and right now only he knew that the dead and decayed was the splendor and pride of a thousand empires. He had been their destroyer, of course he knew that.
He took a step forwards and though he made no noise the step reverberated over the red-black-dead land, and before him arose the monsters, axe bearing and magic wielding, molded from the very substance of death around them, crawling and slithering and slicked with blood, every last one of them bowing to him. A grin snaked across his face as he surveyed his legions; he thrust out and brandished his sword and they at once cowered and roared.
But then, before he could savor it, something went wrong. The ground around them rumbled, and from the mass of monsters before him, in a splash of gore and filth, out burst another him.
No, not quite-but very close, the same black armor, the same ensanguinated king in his grasp, but with black hair where his was blond. The black knight sneered at the blood knight, and only moments later did their swords meet, armor grating on armor. It should have ended only moments later, for the blood knight’s army should have ripped the black knight asunder-but he had reinforcements. From his shadow sprang one hundred and eight knights, warriors, berserkers and soldiers, gleaming like the stars as they took arms against his monsters.
On and on the war went, and it was wonderful-dying men cried for their mothers, monsters howled to see empty space where once had been an arm or leg, iron clanged against steel, thunder roared from above and the soldiers of either side shrieked their pain and horror as indiscriminate flames and floods took them. And all the while the black knight hacked at the blood knight who ripped at the black knight, neither of them relenting for even a moment-for neither of them needed sleep nor food.
But eventually, the war became less engaging, less wonderful-the black knight had broken off pieces of the blood knight’s armor until only his black coat and pants were left to him, him and his sword-his sword swung up to block a last attack from the black knight and it split down the middle, leaving two thin pieces in either hand of the blood knight. It looked to be over. Indeed it was, with one well- aimed thrust of the slender, glass-sharp fragment…
The blood knight stepped forward again. His head turned to look left, then right, then down. He was alone again, in red-black-deadlands, without a sign that there had ever been a war here. Having danced his tandava, he bent over, picked up his hat, and walked out of the bleakness into the light.