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Many strive to attain glory within the world and it is in such way that men and hybrid alike try to match each other with their heroic deeds and dangerous conquests. To be sung praises by the people as they stroll into a town bearing the fruits of their dangerous labor and to be renowned through the lands with every victory they’ve had was a desire every one of them wanted.
To be immortalized within the pages of history books, the songs of bards, and the sonnets of the poets.
To have the riches and the fame, the thrill and the action.
But to achieve it one must have honour as it cannot exist without the other. For glory without honour is shameful says the people. It is vile says the scholars.
And yet how did he get to where he was now?
Over a millennia of silence, wandering around the frost and snow of his domain and yet his hand still urges for the hilt of a weapon. To shed the blood of anyone foolish enough to be an obstacle in his war path and retain the glory he so craved ever since he was but a small piglet. But what battle is there to fight when there’s no living soul left alive to challenge him? When the very people he vowed to lead and protect were no more, killed at his command. Their cries for mercy and outrage he ignored for the sake of pleasing the voices in his head who cheered praises with every person he killed, with every faction he conquers, and with every droplet of blood he sheds.
Empires were always doomed to fall.
Without a second thought, he ordered for the destruction of every faction no matter the consequences. For men and hybrid alike to be killed in the streets, for their monuments and houses to be burned to the ground, and for their lands to become nothing but a charred plain from which their civilizations once stood. For the sick promises the voices whisper in his mind of twisted happiness and grander glory that would last for ages to come.
It was honestly amusing how a few years prior to the destruction of his empire, there was joy within the streets of his snow-covered land, when allies would ban together and fight enemies in good-natured wars which held no deaths nor ill will, when life within the Earth Smp was thriving and prosperous for all factions within it, from the Corvarian Empire led by Empress Kara Corvus to the Transatlanatic led by ArlusFinch. The golden ages as they’ve all dubbed as a joke on one of the days they came together.
It was almost like a dream at first how newly-formed factions would stand together, building structures and cities to leave their marks in history. To be immortalized by the feats they’ve achieved on the very land they’ve discovered.
And all that’s left of all those great factions were age-old ruins never to be recognized again.
Time had weighed down on him and he didn’t want to continue running an empire that was bound to be destroyed from the beginning. Now he sits there on a meaningless throne of ice within a stronghold filled with ghosts of the past. Nothing but an old tale that mothers would tell their children as they go off onto the land of dreams.
More years pass and suddenly the centuries turn into millennia and still he sits upon his throne waiting for more to pass.
Immortality is not as desirable in the long run as all the poets and bards alike preach to the masses, everything becomes too repetitive and everyone you know and love passes away into the other side. In the end, you’re left there trying to piece back the stories they’ve passed on to you; but they didn’t pass it onto him, he forcefully took it from them and destroyed the last vestiges of what would have immortalized them in history.
The price he paid for eternal glory was the blood of his friends and family and the cruel conclusion of the Earth Smp. He was ruthless in his immortal reign, disregarding anyone who dared defy him and his rule but now in this lonely stronghold of his with no life aside from his own, it became lonesome.
Over time the voices became quiet with the occasional whisper here and there, with no one left to slaughter and no ambition to worsen, they’ve gotten silent. He could finally speak for himself for once without the influence of the corruption within him and there’s no one there to converse to. He misses building structures for the empire with Phil, helping Pete complete his mansion, listening to Wisp’s new strategies on taking down Business Bay, and sparring with Calvin on one of those long winter nights.
The loneliness within these walls continues to seep in as the screams of the innocent continue to haunt him. Sometimes he could hear the faint laughter coming from Pete or even the fluttering of Phil’s win- with a shake of his head he sighed, someone would’ve thought that he was starting to go mad with the silence of it all but he already knew he went passed that line when the voices started to speak in his head and the shadows around him bending into horrifying shapes of all sizes during the night.
He has a sea filled with regrets and there wasn’t anything he could do to fix them. To think that the moment when he finally gets to think for himself was at the end of the book. When all chapters have been written and every character marked, no hero appeared to kill him in his crazed state nor was there any point in time where anyone was able to stop him from his path to destruction. All he is left with are the memories of the golden ages and the endless regret and misery at the thought that he destroyed it all with one command from his lips. All because he lost himself to the sweet words of the voices and the promises of greater glory at the expense of everyone’s lives
The pen is mightier than the sword and yet how did he get there. An ancient relic forgotten by all as time moved forward leaving him and his fallen empire to fade away in the blizzard of his own creation.
He doesn’t know of the happenings in the world outside the tundra of his empire. For all he knew there might’ve been survivors from his massacre, ages ago and started building up civilizations the moment his empire fell.
He wonders if he should revisit the ruins of the Port Aux Francais-
His mind spiked up and the voices suddenly started to speak amongst each other for the first time in years. His red eyes rose to look at the doors to the throne room.
There was someone traversing within his lands.
The voices wanted him to kill the intruder, to cut him open and string his entrails all over the throne room. It was so long since they’ve seen death caused by his hands and the promise of catching a glimpse of it once more delighted them to no end. He could feel their thoughts start to mesh with his as they got louder and more gleeful at the opportunity.
“Silence. I wish to know the intruder’s purpose.” He spoke quietly and the sound reverberated around the walls of the throne room. They weren’t pleased with his answer yet he could feel their curiosity amidst the darkness from the back of his mind.
The massive doors creaked open and in came a shivering boy who looked no older than 18 winters. He wore odd garbs that look as if they belonged to that of a soldier; but he looked too young to be a one much less enlist.
The boy looked around the massive throne room before his shadowed eyes settled on him as he sat on his grand throne made of ice.
He swallowed audibly before taking a shaky step forward. He was scared but determined; he held his head up high and kept eye contact with him as he continued to walk forward. A child wearing garbs befitting that of a soldier, with a mind seeking glory, and eyes burning with never ending passion.
He knew many like him from the past, but the fate that awaits those like him is an early death.
Children were always naïve in their thinking and reckless in their actions as they adorn their young necks with a necklaces of rope without even knowing. He wonders who the boy’s guardians were and what were going through their minds when they allowed a child to become a soldier.
With each step the child soldier takes the louder the voices and the wilder the shadows around them get. The urge to take the sword- justice- leaning on the side of his throne increases.
But he suppresses them and waits.
The child takes off his hat and kneels to the ground before him and immediately the voices were silent. His eyes slightly widened slightly as he gazed upon the familiar boy kneeling before him.
“Can I call you blade?”
And suddenly he was transported back in time. When all was peaceful, when the wars weren’t serious, when allies and enemies alike were still his friends, and when he was satisfied with the glory and honour he and his empire once had. He looks at him and does not see the odd garbs of a soldier but the pristine black suit that belonged to someone from the past.
An unfamiliar feeling rose from his chest as he sees not the soldier but the faction leader that his fallen empire had the most trouble with. The boy with bright blue eyes who tried so hard to ally with him from the beginning, who was filled to the brim with scams, and never failed to bring a laugh from his lips and a tired groan from Phil as they tried to stop Wisp from committing a war crime against his former leader.
The same boy who he hanged for treason a long time ago.
He blinked and he was back in the ice-cold throne room with the boy who wore the face of someone he once knew, one of the people he wronged in the past.
“What is your purpose for venturing this far into my lands, child?” He asked and the boy immediately bristled.
“I am not a child! I’m a big man!” The boy yelled impulsively. He froze and his hands went to his mouth. His last words echoed within the cold expanse of the throne room. The boy sounded so much like the one from the past.
Amusing…
He raised a brow and the child soldier began to tremble, the poor kid must’ve thought that he would kill him. But the familiarity that those blue eyes of his unknowingly holds stops him.
Kill him if he proves to be useless. The voices whisper
“I-I apologize your highness. It was wrong of me to talk back.” The boy stuttered, “the travel was so long and its soo fucking cold out here! Why the hell didn’t Tubbo warn me that this tundra is a fucking tundra like what th-“
With a single wave of a hand the child ceased his rambling. He even talks like him too.
“State your purpose or I shall sever one of your limbs for trespassing into my land.”
The boy nodded repeatedly and took a deep breath before looking back at him, his previous demeanor gone now replaced with one of seriousness.
“I-I need your help.” The boy said, “I have heard tales of your feats during the early days of the Earth Smp lands and I desire your assistance.”
“So you have heard of me, child? Then you may know what I am as well?” With a nod from the child he continued, “If that is so then do you really think it is prudent to reach out to something as dangerous as I? Should you prove unworthy of my audience…”He trailed off tapping the hilt of his sword suggestively.
“No it isn’t, your excellency. But I really need your assistance and you are the only one fit to do it successfully, so I want to make a deal with you.”
“Making deals with the blood god is not wise.”
“I don’t care.” Ah the wonders of youth. He would’ve done the same thing if given the chance.
“What is it that you can offer me in exchange?”
He averted his eyes and shut his mouth. The reluctance seeping of from the boy was prominent and he could understand, many had come to him before in the place of the child and only few managed to win his favour. The corpses of the rest had long been buried in the snow outside the stronghold. He almost felt bad for him; especially with the way his brows furrow and how he scrunches his nose a bit that looked too familiar.
The voices were getting restless that it was starting to strain him.
“I offer ;;;;;;; in exchange for your assistance in helping my rebellion fight against the current seat of power within my small faction.” He tilted his head at this, “How bold of you to offer such price. You must truly want this new leader of yours dead.”
The voices got excited. Telling him to accept. To ruin that faction. To become what he once was in the past.
“For the sake of my home I will do whatever it takes.”
He contemplates on his words and wonders what harm it would give if he accepts. After a few thousand years of idleness and walking amongst the shores of his forgotten land, there wasn’t much to do anymore other than sit on his throne and be haunted by the events he caused in the past. This was a chance to go out into the new world and witness all that changed after he shut himself away from the world he burned to the ground.
And as he gazes upon the child in front of him and compares him to that of the past. Could he really even deny the child as he looked at him with those bright eyes that were once dulled ages ago? He knew that his past actions were unforgiveable and there was no possible way of acquiring forgiveness from the dead. But he looked so painfully familiar, that he could pretend to do him right.
He thinks maybe, just maybe- he can walk amongst the generation of the present. To experience what the sun feels like in grassy fields while the laughter of people waft through the air. To feel alive once more after a long time of loneliness, regret, and misery. And spend time with the child soldier as if he was the faction leader and give him the glory his young soul wants.
The voices call him a fool.
He smiles, the same twisted one that his enemies and allies alike feared as he cleaved through armies in the battlefield. And takes the sword he treasured beside his throne and looks at the child.
“So you wanna start a war?”