The Gentlemen of War

An Interlude: Davis' Funeral

"My dear Damned Davis..."

Rain drizzles on the quiet funeral. Tonight is the night of the new moon. Joseph had made Serus swear not to kill anyone until the new moon. That was seven days ago.

"I..."

Serus had spread out candles out around the rugged grave of his passed brother. For a long time, the candles burned in silence. He didn't dare say a thing. And then he spoke, and the rain began to fall lightly.

"I've... failed you."

The candles flicker for a moment. Thunder strikes a tree nearby. Serus cringes as the tree burns and turns black, and falls down with a great thud. The rain is falling heavily now, and the candles go out completely. Serus stands in the dark for a moment. He weeps. There is a pause.

"I... will avenge you. I'll show them not to mess with our family."

Now a lone figure stands upright in the black night sky. From a distance, you could trace his form barely in the dark night. He's not looking down at the grave anymore. When Serus is sober, he has the softest silver tongue, shined with a gleam of explosive anger. His temper short, and his fury as hot as fresh gunpowder, he's a dangerous man.

In birth, Serus and Davis were joined. They were twins. They shared the same fate, the same blood, same appearance, same mind. But Serus was the luckier of the two. He wasn't the one who died. Davis was a damned man, from the very start. But Serus had a choice in life, of which fate he wanted.

Now a note about how Serus thought of Fate. Fate is like a friend. At some crucial point in life there is a dilemma between two Fates. But otherwise, Fate is often limited to a one way trail. Davis had no choice in Fate. From birth, he was destined for a grueling death in the cold black Bottomless. Of course, some think of Fate as an arbitrary force that puts sensible folk in all sorts of insensible situations; others say it doesn't exist at all. I will leave you to make up your own minds.

"This isn't over. Brother."

The moon hides behind a sea of clouds like his brother's soul in the sea. The rain is pouring. The rain is like Fate. It's arbitrary and random, and meaningless, and like the wind that blows one way and then another with no rhyme or reason behind it. The quiet, lonely funeral comes to an end. Serus rises from his brother's grave, with the candles extinguished by the pouring rain. He hesitates for a moment, reluctant to leave his brother here, all alone. He bows his head in the pouring rain, and let's the pulse of the droplets tap on his head. The way down is a muddy slope. But he knows that without taking any steps, he can't make any progress.