Shards :: a Realm Runners tale :: Closed/Private RP

Everything is different now. The thought echoed through Damian's mind as the man reached out his his left hand, fingertips gracing the rough wooden door of the Den of Clashing Swords. Broken glass littered the cobblestone streets, a few forsaken personal possessions were strewn haphazardly, forgotten in the chaos that once was. Beiza remembered a time when this place, these streets, had been alive with activity and passion. Remembered a time when this place was alive, and not the husk it now was. Carefully, the man pushed the door of the Den open, the door's only remaining hinge creaking in the silence. Cerulean hues glanced down into the main proper of the Den and the man was forced to repress a sigh of sorrow. The few remaining tables and chairs were strewn about the floor, more than one of them absent a leg or two. Shattered glass and dried blood covered the floorboards and a good portion of the walls were blackened by fire. Everywhere that Damian looked, the man saw signs of struggle. Everywhere Damian looked, the man saw death.

This place, where Damian had spent his youth, was now nothing more than a forlorn tomb. The man's jaw tightened and his fingers drew themselves into fists, the gauntlet that encased his right hand groaning softly against the pressure. Blue depths flashed towards that gauntlet now, the Fist of Storms. That was what this had all been about, that thing on his hand is what had dragged Damian into this madness in the first place. That thing and the blood that flowed through his veins. More than once, Damian had cursed the name of his true father -- the man that had had no presence in Damian's life, yet whose curse had brought about so much hurt and pain to his illegitimate son. It was that blood that had made Damian instrumental in the War of the Heavens. It was that blood that had cost Damian everything he had ever cared about. His wife. His child. His friends. Everything was gone now, turned to ash and dust...

The man's eyes glowed blue just as energy of the same colour crackled about the gauntlet. Damian looked down and, closing his eyes, attempted to calm himself. He was still learning to control the preternatural powers that flowed through him, still coming to terms with what he had become.

The Fist of Storms, as the legends named him and every other scion of the Romeus bloodline before him, turned his gaze towards the countertop of the Den's bar. Even now, after all these years, Damian could still see Alejandra dancing upon it, weaving about men's drinks as they hooted and hollared. Damian could still hear the loud, passionate music that echoed through these now dead rooms, the booming drums that gave the Den it's heartbeat now silent and still. Brightly coloured macaws had flown to and fro, loose wings raining down on the Den's patrons. Those had been happy times, those had been good times... These are the shards of my life, Damian thought, pieces of me, lost forever...

Damian ventured further into the Den, heading towards the staircase that led above. The stairs were scorched black with now-dead flames, so the man picked his steps carefully, slowly ascending to the second floor. There had been a time when these hallways were filled with running children, laughing and screaming in delight. Now, the absence of those sounds of merriment choked the man, squeezing his heart until he thought it would burst. The Den had been all manner of things -- it had been a tavern below in the main proper, but it had also been an orphanage for the forgotten children of Olympias. Damian could still remember the Den Master, Jean-Luc, an old and kindly man... He had been like a grandfather to Damian when he was a boy, just as he had been for every child that lived within these walls. As a boy, Damian had felt loved here. His mother had known happiness here as well, Damian knew, she had felt welcome with the men and women of the Clashing Swords. As Damian's thoughts turned to his mother, the man was forced to supress the Storm within him, the memory of holding her dying body in his arms threatening to overwhelm him.

The ghosts of the past washed over Damian as he continued his trek, arriving finally at what had once, so very long ago, been his room. He had shared the room with many other boys, orphans all. Beiza knew he had been blessed, still having his mother in his life. His childhood friends hadn't had that. Damian still remembered all of their names, every last one. He had raced through the streets causing mischief and mayhem with them as children and later on had been trained by the Den to be initiated into the Clashing Swords. Swordsmen, thieves and smugglers -- yet, unlike others in that line of work, Master Jean-Luc instilled a sense of honour and chivalry in each of his students. The Clashing Swordsmen stole only from the rich and undeserving, only the truly wicked knowing the deadly edge of a Clashing Swordsman's blade, and after everything was done, the bounty was used to aid the community -- the slums of Olympias.

The City of Olympias was a beautiful sight to behold, yet only if one looked to the top of the hill's crest, where the Lord of the province had dwelt. The upper echelons of power within Olympias had known every pleasure in their day, and they gained it all off the backs of those at the bottom of the city. Here, in the slums of Olympias, had been the desperate and the hardworking. The Den had battled them every day, striking out in secrecy and aiding their fellow man. But no longer. Damian did not know when the Den had been attacked, but he was sure that it had been during the height of the civil war now known as the War of the Heavens... the war in which was ignited by the assassination of King Heinrich Romeus VII. The noble class and the church combined had plotted for many years, Damian now knew, in order to seize control of the Valdorian empire for the Fist of Storms, and in that final hour, as Heinrich's blood ran warm over the marble floors of the Emperor's palace in Sky Reach, they betrayed one another. War engulfed the empire. Suffering was laid upon the common man. And Damian was called upon, the unknown bastard son of Romeus, to fight for the people and bring stability back to the empire.

Damian wandered into the room and found what had once been his old bunk. With a sigh, the man sat himself down and then rested his head in his hands, the cold metal of the gauntlet soothing his aching head. It had been then, when Damian returned to Valdoria after many years of adventure and journeying to foreign lands, that the man had realized the danger this war posed. After years of being away from his mother, the woman was murdered in front of his eyes, betrayed by one of the men she had grown to trust. Damian's secret was discovered by the noble class, and from that moment on Damian was a wanted man. Knowing the danger and the risk, Damian had sent his wife and newborn child away, praying to the gods that they would find a quiet corner of the world somewhere where they could live in peace. That had been the last time Damian had seen them. It seemed a lifetime ago, now, and in many ways it had been. The man that had once been dubbed the Swashbuckler Extraordinaire was now a man lost in the world, his life a shallow husk of what it had once been. He no longer knew what it felt like to be happy, no longer knew what it was to be loved.

He had fought the people's war, he had learned to control the earth-shattering force within him, and after what had seemed an eternity of fighting and bloodshed, had won the war. All along the way, his friends had died at his side. Even the Angel's Bliss, the airship Damian had once captained, was now destroyed. Damian had brought peace to the Valdorian empire, but at the price of his soul. Now, the man was nothing. He was broken, down trodden, a leaf upon the wind.

Damian remembered, even now, that day of victory. The Duke of Stormgaard has seized Sky Reach, the flying capital of the empire, in a last bid of dominance. Damian, the Fist of Storms, had led the People's forces through Stormgaard's bastion of ships. The night sky was ablaze with flame as the two armies fought, destruction raining down upon the waters below. The battle was nearly lost, but then, just as Damian's father before him, the Fist of Storms unleashed the destructive power within, and with the force of the gods themselves hammered through Stormgaard's forces. Beiza had battled up through the entire city of Sky Reach before reaching the palace, and in a battle between the altered champions of Duke von Drakken, Damian's mentor Marius Aeneas -- his father's best friend and chief advisor -- was slain. In rage, Damian destroyed them all, and then in the final act of the war, Damian slew the Duke himself. Damian's troops arrived in the throne room minutes later to find Damian seated on the throne, his body limp with fatigue, his face etched in sorrow. It was then that Damian looked to them, his eyes alight with heavenly fire.

Here's your throne and here's your crown. They belong to the people, not me. And with that, he stood and walked from the throne room. He had had enough of being a leader of man. It had cost him everything. In the days that followed, the People's army had either destroyed all who opposed them or their enemies had surrendered. Stability once more began to filter into the Valdorian empire, peace spreading across the land. A new form of government arose in the dying fires of war, a government where the people ruled themselves. They called it democracy.

As for Damian, he left Sky Reach and all the pain it held behind. He knew that out there, somewhere, his wife and child were without their husband and father. They were all he had left, and he hadn't a clue of where to find them. Damian didn't know how he was going to find them or even where to start looking, but he did know this... he would never stop looking for them. He loved them with all his heart, and knew that one day he would be reunited with them again. He had to. He had to think that, had to believe that... It was all he had left.

The morning brought with it the hope for a new dawn. Lids lifted from bright cerulean hues as the first rays of the day's light casting over the man's face, rousing him from his dreamless slumber. Damian could not express in words the relief he felt for being spared the nightmares that had plagued him throughout the war, the sights and sounds of battle all around him, of destruction raining down, of friends dying... For once, in the last three years, Damian had slept without waking in the night, bathed in sweat, screaming out a savage battle cry. A frail smile flittered over the man's lips as Beiza sat up, his blue-eyed gaze casting itself over the small room he found himself in. Where the night before had brought memories of all that Damian had lost, the morning reminded the man of just how happy his childhood had been. This room had been alive, once, with the energy of boys. Xandar Drake had slept in the bunk above Damian's own, his best friend... well, one of them, at the very least. Alejandra, Damian knew, had always been the closest to his heart. The man could still remember the fiery temper buried beneath a head full of wild red hair, her voice ringing out with a perfect spanish purr as she screamed in rage, no doubt due to Damian and Xandar's pranks. The man smiled at the thought.

With a groan, Beiza rose from the bed, cracking his neck as he stretched his stiff limbs. Scars, far too numerous to count, marred what had once been the physique of a golden god. It was hard to picture Damian now, as he had been back before the war had begun; ageless, immortal, untouchable. Now, Damian felt the weight of premature aging, felt the ache in his joints and the weariness that came from being a leader during war-time. No, Damian was no longer the boy that had slept in this room, that had thought he would never die... That boy was gone now and in his place, a man.

Damian reached down, grabbing hold of his white cotton shirt. The right sleeve was already unbuttoned, so the gauntlet slid through the opening without much difficulty. Damian had also learned to button up his shirt with only his left hand, the gauntlet's steel fingertips preventing the man from working with small tasks. It was the everyday things that showed just how much Damian had changed, the differing mannerisms he had adopted. Anytime he stepped out into the street or into a building he had not been before, those cerulean eyes were scanning every crevace and corner, sorting out escape routes and places where an enemy could be lying in wait, it was like second nature to him now, running on the subconscious level.

As the man left the room he finished rolling up his shirt sleeves, whilst leaving the shirt tails hanging loose and untucked and the shirt partway unbuttoned at the top and at the bottom. For the first time in what seemed an eternity, Damian knew that no one would be looking at him and be expecting to see the People's hero. No one would expect to see the immortal Fist of the Storms in all his preternatural glory, no one would expect to see the man in whose name they fought and died in. Damian was just a man now, just a man in a war-torn world...

He had done much thinking through the night, before finally falling asleep. Once finished with his reminicsing, the man's thoughts began to pore over just what he was to do with his life. He had no idea where to begin looking for Millicent, no idea where she could be three years after they had parted ways. While Damian hated the fact that he still held a shred of belief in the gods, the man couldn't help but hope that there was a measure of justice in this world, and that he would find his beloved again. He had to have faith in that, had to know that his love for her would somehow, in some way, point him in the right direction. As it stood, though, Damian hadn't any idea where to start looking, nor did he have the ability to travel. He had left Sky Reach with but the few coins in his pocket, enough to get him back here to Olympias, the city of his birth. Damian had simply given the crown to those whom would make good use of it, and with the warning that he would return should they abuse it, he left. He asked for no reward, for no special honor. He just left. He'd had enough of fighting, and the next battle would be amongst themselves in the form of politics. Better to leave such matters in their hands. Better to let other men lead... Damian didn't want to issue even a single order ever again. He was finished with sending men off to die.

And so, with his situation in mind as well as where he was, Damian came to a conclusion. The war had hurt a great many people, had wounded them far more than simply on a physical scale. There were so very many people that needed help out there, so many people that needed someone to give them aid, to feed them, to clothe them, to shelter them. This war had borne thousands of orphans, battle and sickness claiming a great many lives. Children needed homes, needed someone to care for them... Thus, Damian decided that he would fix the Den of Clashing Swords, renew it to it's former glory. These forgotten, forlorn halls would be alive with the laughter of children again. Beiza would open the kitchen and offer food to the starving. He would see that this place offered help to those who needed it. Just as it had done before. Just as it always would.

The work would be hard, Damian knew, and the man would need to earn money as well. The man had spent his entire life thieving, fighting and gambling -- he hadn't the slightest clue of how to live as an honest man. But, such was the way of soldiers, wasn't it? They could be heroes, selfless and courageous, capable of a great many impossible feats, yet here in the real world none of that mattered. It didn't put food on the table and it didn't stop the roof from leaking. On top of mending the Den and turning it into a suitable orphanage and soup kitchen, the man would also need a job to pay the bills -- bills that would rise up exponentially. Damian could only hope, perhaps even dare to pray, that someone out there, somewhere, would possess a heart akin to himself. He needed volunteers, he needed charity. As much as the thought wounded his pride, Damian was willing to beg for money to aid him in reestablishing the Den. He needed to. The suffering people of these slums needed him to.

Damian's first act was to fix the front door of the Den, ensuring that the door opened and closed smoothly without risk of it breaking off it's one remaining hinge. From there, a sign was posted on that door. A request for aid, both volunteer and financial, in restoring the Den of Clashing Swords. The community still possessed fond memories of the Den, and perhaps even a few would remember little Damian Beiza, all grown up. The next step was finding employment, and so he did. Down by the docks, a stones throw from the Den herself, where Damian gutted, carted and loaded fish onto and off of the incoming ships. Occasionally, when Damian looked up, the man would even see an airship soaring through the skies, reminding him of the 'Bliss. But those times were gone now, the Angel's Bliss blown from the sky and buried in the bottomless depths of the ocean. Now it was only the ordinary ships that Damian walked across, carrying crates of fish. No more of the air playing through Damian's platinum hair, no more of the weightless aerial acrobatics that Damian had once employed in those dizzying heights. Everything was mundane now, everything was simple. Real. The world was hard as cold steel and it wasn't about to let Damian forget that.

It only took three weeks before Damian had the doors of the Den open for business. The bar was no longer a bar, but rather a soup counter, manned by Damian and two other volunteers. Both were older women, trying their hardest to make a dark world a little brighter as their husbands toiled in their professions as well. The roof no longer leaked and the floors were devoid of broken glass. The walls were clean, the scorch marks gone, and the sounds of life began filtering back into the Den. It wasn't much, but soup was always hot and ready. A few skin-and-bone street waifs had even found there way to the Den and now called the place home. Slowly, everything was beginning to come together. Slowly, the Den of Clashing Swords was becoming home again. As for Damian, he wore bags under his eyes and his face was creased with exhaustion, but his breast was filled with zeal, his spirit refusing to allow room for defeat. He had spent so much time killing as he fought the damned war that now all he wanted to do was heal. And every moment that he was busy working was a moment that he could forget, even temporarily, everything that he had lost...