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Where Matador comes from, the sky is many colors, and time is of no import. There is no night, there is no day. Light and dark are spontaneous, changing without rhyme or reason.
For a time, Matador was unchanging, stagnant, sitting, watching the sky. He was like a bull with no red flag, a being without direction.
The sky was never red, not once in his memory, but then again the edges of his memory had blurred- the edge of his being had blurred into his surroundings, and he was just a part of them.
Then a fire came, and he stood from his spot, and he smiled. He felt a warmth, a heat, a burning he had not felt since long before his flesh was dust.
Matador began to speak, and his voice surprised him with its will to be apart. "The flames of the candelabrum beckon me to the battlefield!"
"I do not know who you are," (and who was he to know? He was not a part of them, a part of that world any longer.) "but... if you have a candelabrum, it is our destiny to fight."
And he smiled wider. ”Let us duel to the death" (what death? His heart had long stopped beating.) "within my realm, where no one can interrupt us!"
He knew that very well. Of course, it wasn't that nobody could. Nobody ever would. Nobody came. But perhaps he was just imagining a world where people knew the path.
"... Only one of us will escape this domain alive."
Ah. And he knew that well.
"The victor shall claim the loser's candelabrum, and return in triumph." He knew it would not be him. There is no return when you stand still.
Yet Matador knew he had to fight. He had no choice in the matter- he was a gatekeeper, he was an obstacle. But he did not want to be an easy one. "You hold a candelabrum.... Then, like me, you must be seeking supreme power."
He grinned with lips that would never show, and manifested in front of his opponent. "That I cannot allow." (without a test, his mind supplied, but he always had a flair for the dramatic.) "Only the greatest warrior is worthy of such power."
"It is meant for a master swordsman, one who, amidst blood and applause, has put an end to countless lives..."
You, he wants to say. You, who are not still, who are not trapped in a land without night.
But he hasn't yet introduced himself.
"That warrior is I, Matador."