The Dagger's Wrath (BOOK 1)

Chapter Twenty-Four

A/N: Sooooo close to figuring out who this Unknown is! :D

Unknown, the Bay of Gakinora

I'm motionless as I watch the boats gently come across the shimmering blue ocean. While I'm unaware of the official name for the ocean, I know some of the boats that sail their ways across the depth of the waters now. The Tale's Ending, The Bastard's King, The Still Ocean.

I had assumed—ever since I had taken my seat here against the blades of green grass that occasionally being shoved by harmless gusts of wind—that the latter had been a theoretical representation of me: the still ocean, the waters that never moved. I am an immobile god of such things, but I am also a knight with the history of so many years. And, alas, I had reached to this moment where I'm currently upon the hill near the Bay of Gakinora, reflecting on my painful existence. There are times when I wondered if all of this might be a lie, if my killing and murdering, if my ruling and suffering could not be the truth but might be just something I can't bear to surrender to.

I am as still as anything, or anyone, could be. My eyes setting their mark on victory, my heart troubled by defeat... but, although, I hadn't ever owned a life of suffering and mockery, perhaps I am just trying to understand it now.

Then the visions flash before my eyes.

An icy cold hand reaching for me, and a fiery figure dragging it away, consuming it beneath the pits of its hellish realm; a woman lending me a hand and giving her a basket of goods to give to a village owner before I had slaughtered that said owner; a gloomy dark night showing a lone figure climbing up a steep hill, which just happened to reach up to a glowing blue sensation of light that burst into life from the east to the west, the north to the south—

All of those visions keep me staring at the world in a different way. I always want to hold onto whatever sanity I have left, but I am always destined, and becoming one with the killing and slaughtering of innocent people. I don't know if it's because I assume that I'm a murderer, but I can definitely come to the official terms with the fact that I'm not like ordinary people.

I stand up, lifting my chin gracefully towards the clear blue sky, and turn away from the Bay of Gakinora. I'm not even quite certain why I was there, anyway. Beneath the hill was a whole village, a small one at that. The village's edifices—such as inns, forges, and the occasional brothel—had wooden logs making up the sides of the buildings, while the houses just had plain thatched roofs and coloured chimneys that drew out water vapour and smoke from the tops.

I walk along the hill, noticing my cloak jumping and scraggily moving against the green grass. I wanted to explore more of this land, more of the world that I would have sacrificed someone to live here. And now I do. But... still, something always seems unordinary when I walk around the edges of towns. Everybody stares at the cloaked, hooded man that seems out of place, not in his area. Not... I don't know... comfortable.

And I'm not.

I used to feel like a ruler, like a grand entity—

Now, I'm a murderous outsider.