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Zenos slowly blinked the spots from his eyes.
His ears rang, the din just as disorienting as the blinding light of the explosion. Even with his armor to protect him, it had burned, and even with all of his mass and strength, it had thrown him back, sending him skidding back through the dirt.
His katana had been broken: the blade snapped in half, the end sent cartwheeling somewhere into the stratosphere by the force of the blast.
Zenos considered this.
What does it mean to be alive?
A simple question: a heartbeat and pulse; air in the lungs; impulses firing in the brain.
And what does it feel like, to be alive?
An equally simple question, on its face—a beating heart, pumping blood through the veins; the bellows of the lungs expanding and contracting, delivering a steady flow of oxygen to the bloodstream; electrical currents traversing the network of nerves, climbing the length and breadth of the body.
But was that all? Was that really the sum of a life—a collection of organs, all working in tandem, just to move a construct of blood and meat and bone from one place to the next?
If that was all there was to life, then there was no reason to bother with it. If that was all, life could only be something that people clung to, simply because it was better than the alternative—better to endure the whole length of this empty, tedious existence than give oneself over to the unknown, and the end.
No; Zenos was certain there had to be more to it than that.
There had to be.
Zenos began to walk, closing again the distance between himself and the Miqo’te man in black—the eikon slayer, if accounts were to be believed. As Zenos drew closer, he watched him start to cast another spell—only for his injured leg to give out on him. His boots slid in the blood and dirt, and a grunt of pain escaped him. But he sucked in a breath and forced himself back onto his feet, his whole body trembling with the effort and blood loss.
But again—his leg crumpled, and he collapsed.
Zenos stopped, and looked at him. “Pathetic,” he intoned, as he stared down at the man lying bleeding in the dirt and dust at his feet.
What is the life of a prince?
A simple answer: a prince is groomed from birth for the possibility that he may someday find himself Emperor. The prince spends his life absorbing lessons upon lessons on history, politics, rhetoric; law, etiquette, riding; swordsmanship, marksmanship, tactics; and everything else under the sun.
And to what end?
Another simple answer: so that he can competently serve his country. First as an officer; then as a legatus; and someday, as Emperor.
At least, as long as he has absorbed all of his lessons thoroughly enough to claw his way to the top of the heap, clambering over the mauled and mangled corpses of his brothers and uncles and cousins to claim his seat on the throne.
And again— to what end?
Zenos watched as his body stiffened and his ears pricked. He whipped his head up to face Zenos, glaring up into the unmoving facade of his helmet.
His breaths came quick and heavy. Strands of his blond hair had come loose and dangled in his face, smudged with dirt and paper white and beaded with a thin sheen of sweat. His lips pulled back into a snarl, baring his clenched teeth—but whether with fury or pain, was unclear.
His eyes burned.
And he tried to force himself back to his feet, to challenge Zenos again.
His eyes pierced Zenos to his core.
Zenos had stared down into many faces, just like his. Common soldiers and great warriors alike, lying prone at his feet, staring up at him in bottomless terror or impotent hatred, as they awaited the moment of their death—resigned to their pitiful fates.
But were they really deaths, if they were not alive to begin with?
Ala Mhigo and Doma alike—full of nothing but corpses. Soulless, dead-eyed things, who preferred to cling onto their shallow facsimiles of life rather than embrace the unknown and claim their ends.
There was no struggle to be had with the dead: they could not lose what they did not have, nor could they take it.
Zenos himself was the exception.
Or at least, he wanted to be.
Zenos stared down at him.
What did it feel like to love life?
Zenos did not know.
But perhaps it was like this—like a man, fingers raking through the dirt and dust as he scrabbled to get his feet under him; panting for breath and drenched in his own blood as he willed himself to resist the pain and weakness of his body and rise again and fight.
So desperate to live that he would fight until his last breath, just for the chance to take one more.
After all—who could love his life more than the living?
Zenos tossed his broken katana aside. It clattered to the ground, rolling through the dirt and exiting Zenos’ line of sight. And as it vanished from his sight, so it vanished from his mind: he turned, and gave it no further thought as he walked away.
But from the corner of his eye, he took one last good look at him—at the eikon slayer. One last look, just to remember that expression on his face.
One last look at the face of a man who loved living so much that he refused to die.
Zenos wanted to remember that look.
The fury; the hatred; the ferocity—the wild determination to keep on living.
The product of the seeds Zenos had tried so earnestly to grow in himself.
He wanted it.
To claim the life of someone who loved his own so much. To swallow his passion, his fury, his determination; to subsume them into himself and call them his own.
To love his own life enough to give everything he had to protect it against someone who would take it from him.
To win, or to fail—the result would be the same.
If only for one brief, transcendent moment—
His life would finally be his.
Those seeds had never managed to germinate in Zenos; but he saw such beautiful blooms in him.
