[Fic] All of this rage and all of this pain, I'll burn it all down as my anger reigns...
Fic request for
draegonhawke for the prompt Xerxes.
It all burned.
Anger was uncharacteristic of him- the sort of anger it took to burn something down and then watch the fire rise and spread, turning structures into so many piles of insignificant ash to be tossed carelessly aside and forgotten when the Chicago winds swept through (was that how easy he'd be forgotten when he was dead?), was even less so. At the moment, that didn't matter. Nothing mattered- his sense of self had been twisted so many different ways that who he was and what was uncharacteristic for him was no longer applicable and less important than what he was capable of doing given the right incentive. He didn't care anymore, because caring had put him in this position to begin with.
He was eerily comfortable in that dark and twisted apathy that his rage had settled into when all was said and done, and while everything burned around him, he just watched without mercy and without remorse, standing as still as a statue with eyes as hard as cut glass and as cold as glacial ice, a sharp contrast to the heat of the raging fires that rose up to meet the sky and twisted and shifted horrifically like dancing dragons, a mirror reflection of the smoldering ruins of what little humanity he'd somehow gained since coming here, the last pieces of which burned down to cinders when April's life slipped away in his arms.
The hows and whys and wheres no longer held any consequence. The end result was that his entire existence in this world had amounted to nothing and one of the few things that made living this world worthwhile was gone now and for what? This time he hadn't been the one to screw that up, but that didn't make it any less bearable. Rather than torture himself with guilt over what he couldn't save and was probably never capable of saving to begin with, he let the rage and pain take over and did the only thing he knew how to do to make it better. The only thing he was ever really, really good at.
Legend has it, even Xerxes burnt Athens to the ground.
And he loved every second of it.
draegonhawke for the prompt Xerxes.
It all burned.
Anger was uncharacteristic of him- the sort of anger it took to burn something down and then watch the fire rise and spread, turning structures into so many piles of insignificant ash to be tossed carelessly aside and forgotten when the Chicago winds swept through (was that how easy he'd be forgotten when he was dead?), was even less so. At the moment, that didn't matter. Nothing mattered- his sense of self had been twisted so many different ways that who he was and what was uncharacteristic for him was no longer applicable and less important than what he was capable of doing given the right incentive. He didn't care anymore, because caring had put him in this position to begin with.
He was eerily comfortable in that dark and twisted apathy that his rage had settled into when all was said and done, and while everything burned around him, he just watched without mercy and without remorse, standing as still as a statue with eyes as hard as cut glass and as cold as glacial ice, a sharp contrast to the heat of the raging fires that rose up to meet the sky and twisted and shifted horrifically like dancing dragons, a mirror reflection of the smoldering ruins of what little humanity he'd somehow gained since coming here, the last pieces of which burned down to cinders when April's life slipped away in his arms.
The hows and whys and wheres no longer held any consequence. The end result was that his entire existence in this world had amounted to nothing and one of the few things that made living this world worthwhile was gone now and for what? This time he hadn't been the one to screw that up, but that didn't make it any less bearable. Rather than torture himself with guilt over what he couldn't save and was probably never capable of saving to begin with, he let the rage and pain take over and did the only thing he knew how to do to make it better. The only thing he was ever really, really good at.
Legend has it, even Xerxes burnt Athens to the ground.
And he loved every second of it.