"Kill me?" The rumbling intensified. A sordid beating of a manic heart, strumming tremors through the earth and filling the air with the tangy scent of fresh blood. Kaiser was angered. The Archmage who gave his heart now watched it being harmed in the hands of another. How could he restrain himself? The demon within him struggled to roam free. To slaughter.
"Anderson. You know the consequences of someone even touching my wife, let alone hurting her. Or were you deaf to my threats? Maybe I should rephrase it then."
Blood red eyes shined mercilessly in the wavering sunlight.
"Do. You. Want. To. Die. Old. Man?"
The Prime Minister barely raised a brow, inching the blade ever closer to Ishtar's fair neck.
"That, would be fairly counterproductive to my mission here, Kaiser. Plus, you wouldn't want your lovely wife to suffer more, yes? My arthritis might relapse and do something unthinkable here. . ."
The Archmage quieted down immediately, silently glaring at Anderson.
But the murderous rage only built higher and higher, until everyone felt like mountains were pressing onto their backs. An almost tangible, sickening stench foretelling death. Yet whose it foretold remained unclear.
"What do you want." Kaiser spat, closing the distance in a prowl.
"Your death, good sir." Anderson tightened his grip around Ishtar, held immobile with magic, ropes of coiling snakes wrapping her head to toe. The old man pressed the knife further, a clear warning for the maddened Archmage. He then inclined his white-haired head slightly, allowing a squadron of mages through to the light. Black robes upon blackened hands. An insignia emblazoned on their foreheads. A serpent laid down in a figure eight, biting its own tail.
The imperial emblem of Eternius.
"King holt decreed this. I should have known." Kaiser's fist clenched as he took in the details.
"Then you realize it is futile to try and bargain with me." Anderson grinned lazily.
"Indeed. Tell me your conditions for releasing my family." Kaiser frowned, accepting of death.
It mattered not if he died. He lived on the border between life and the underworld daily, but his son and wife did not. He'd sacrifice himself thousands of times before letting anyone even attempt it. A noble death for a demon, Kaiser thought. Ignoble as he was, this was the one thing he knew to do.
My family, before me. Always.
The Archmage's resolute look seemed to move the Prime Minister as he sighed.
"I really did not expect you to grow a heart, old friend. I'll treat this as a stain in my record. The King thought it sufficient to simply capture your wife. I thought differently, and am now proven wrong. It is a pity, but orders are orders."
His fury just darkened even more.
"Shut it. Tell me what I need to do."
Anderson smirked bitterly. Perhaps the Prime Minister thought it dishonorable, employing such a method, deplorable maybe. Kaiser had known him to be a man of justice and morals, after all. But the fact that Anderson was still here spoke volumes about Kaiser's lack of understanding. What a fool he was. No one in the light is pure. None.
The armed entourage heeded a soundless command and brought forth a box. Ornate. Intricate. A beautiful trinket carrying a sole teacup, its murky contents disturbingly dark in the bright sunlight. 'Poison.' Kaiser easily gave a guess. 'The deadliest kind.' Belladonna wine. Potent deadly nightshade in concentrations enough to kill anyone.
An irrefutable death sentence. More importantly, a blatant humiliation. How dare they.
"Ha. Hahaha." The Archmage laughed mirthlessly. "Killing me using poison, huh. The light has fallen to such depths. Unimaginable. I would rather be bested in combat than this cowardly horse-shit!"
A ruffle briefly flitted through stoic frames, revealing monstrous killing intent from the ones clad in black. Mere dogs riled up at a mention of their master. Pathetic. His rage grew unbearable.
"Fight me. Duel me. Execute me. Do whatever you want, but you dare humiliate me with this?" The flowers wilted black beneath Kaiser's feet. Raze clung ever closer, as if in an attempt to slow down his father. Cries of the son droned out by the thrumming of whirling words.
{Faira}
{Saira}
{Gaira}
The Archmage muttered power. Molten glyphs burning up the world. Fluttering, crimson embers covering the scene. Like a blossom bursting into fruition, an opening of spring. Beautiful festivals, a feast for lost and fallen. This realm for sick and old. Poor and starving. Fluttering hints of a paradise.
Those who kill. Those who are killed. Those who starve. Those who leech off the starving. Haven for those who suffer. Those who hurt. Those who are burning at the stake, staked by themselves. Haven to none other than himself, a microcosm of his life accessible to no one. A selfish, selfless heaven. A sky formed in pain and salvation.
And suddenly, the paradise fell. Hurtling not unlike a vile meteor. A fickle lie to whims and fancies.
It must be said that Magic is individualistic. It is personal. It is an experience. A culmination of life.
Taken the form of one's own Earth.
And now the 'world' of Kaiser Grayson bared its fangs at its enemies.
Raze found himself pushed away and bound with chains thicker than his arms twice over.
"Face me. Soldiers of Eternius." Fire struck from crackling palms, a vicious storm by heaving breath. A quagmire sinks from between two feet, as a torrent flows, held within his hands. The Archmage was finally unable to restrain himself. Intolerable. Uncontrollable.
The demon rushed at its opponents, triggering the imperial blackguards. Amassed sunlight sliced through trembling air towards Kaiser, but he phased past them all. A commander wearing slightly darker cloths whispered into Anderson's ear, to no avail. The Prime Minister didn't do anything but stay put while Kaiser tore the distance like a musket round.
The Archmage laughed, baring an arm at the defenseless Anderson, forcing his way by. Appendage clawed. Darkness wriggling on fingernails sharpened.
Hand raised, Kaiser swiped the cup Anderson now held out, and bottomed it in a single gulp.