No Such Thing as Good and Evil

The door from the kitchen to the living room creaked open and Faylen popped out. She was fastening her belt around her waist, now once again wearing the leather armor. She found that everyone in the room was stuffing their faces with slices of ciabatta bread. Shade had taken the loaf he had bought in Ysyl that morning out and gave it to the family.

I guess he does have at least half an ounce of kindness in him. Lilah said internally.

Faylen smiled as she looked out at the starving family eating their fill, but as per usual, the moment Shade turned and faced her, opening his mouth to speak, the fleeting moment of respect she had for him vanished.

“I see sexy archer has made another appearance, though I’m still waiting for sexy mage to come out and play.” He then turned and looked at Chris who while stuffing his face with plain pieces of bread, was staring at Faylen himself. “Sorry about my partner here, she’s a bit of an exhibitionist. Though you probably already know that from the other times she came here before.”

“Excuse me?” Faylen replied. “I am not some depraved pervert like you are.” But when she looked at Chris herself, she found him sheepishly looking between the two of them. “You don’t believe him, do you?” She pleaded. Chris though slowly and silently looked down to the ground and continued eating his slice of bread. She gasped at his reaction and looked toward to the wife, who was also refusing to look at her, while trying to cover her children’s eyes with her hands. “Ok, that’s a bit much, it’s not like I’m walking around here naked.” Faylen said, annoyance now building within her.

“Might as well be.” The wife softly scoffed back.

“I like it.” Shade said. “It covers the important bits, but virtually nothing else. While it doesn’t leave a lot to the imagination, it leaves just enough.” Faylens annoyance turned to anger as she turned to him and found he was taking a swig from a flask while checking her out yet again. “Though I must admit even I think you dressing like that in front of children is a bit much. Do you have no shame? Always thinking about sex this one is.” He said shaking his head.

She chose to ignore his clear provocations and instead focused on what was truly making her mad. She walked up to him, then pointed at the flask. “Are you drinking?” She said in an irritated tone.

“It’s just water.” He shrugged at her.

“Oh really.” She replied. She grabbed the flask from him and sniffed. “Then why does it smell like alcohol?”

“It’s fermented water.” He replied with a straight face.

“Oh!” she replied sarcastically. “Fermented water, of course! I forgot about fermented water, please do explain, what exactly is the process for fermenting water?”

“Well, first you get water.”

“Then?”

“Then you ferment it.”

“Of course, of course. But could you go into more details? I’m a bit of a novice, how exactly does one ferment water.”

He paused before answering, putting on his best poker face. “Sorry, it’s a trade secret.”

“That’s what I thought.” She said, slamming the flask back into his chest and stomping past him out the front door, mumbling to herself as she went.

Shade turned back to the family, who were awkwardly eating their bread while the fermentation discussion was going on. “Me and the floozy will be back in a bit, hopefully with a bunch of dead griffons.”

“And maybe with a dead dragon as well!” Faylen yelled from the outside.

“Dragon?” Chris said with wide eyes.

Shade kept his poker face on and shrugged at him, before making a motion towards the door with one hand, and a motion with his other suggesting Faylen was crazy. He then turned and walked out the door himself, with the last thing he heard before the door closed being the little girl. “Mommy, why was she dressed like that?” He began to laugh hysterically.

The two of them silently walked out of town, heading east. The dirt road they traveled on was surrounded on all sides by tall wheat fields. Though the further they walked, they found the fields began to look like a war took place on them. Some parts were trampled, some completely torn up and other parts looked like they had been set on fire.

As he looked around their surroundings, his eyes fell on the silent Faylen who instead of the angry and annoyed face he was expecting, was walking with a smile, chin up, like she was proud of some large accomplishment. “What is it?” he said breaking the silence, half not wanting to even ask.

“What is what?” She said back while doing a terrible impression of him.

“What are you so happy about?”

“Oh, nothing.” She said with a whimsical smile.

Hi sighed before trying what turned out to be a just a terrible impression of her. “If you have something to say, just spit it out already.”

“Well, if you insist. You see, I was wearing this armor to the town to be safe, but you said I should change as it was unnecessary. Turns out we may have run into a flock of griffons in town, so I was right.”

“That’s a bit of revisionist history.” Shade replied. “You were wearing the armor because you hadn’t changed since you committed a mini genocide the night before.”

She though didn’t budge, and continued to walk confidently down the torn-up road. “You’re just mad that I won, and you lost.”

“Won what?” He said confused. “What game were we playing?” She didn’t respond though, and just hummed to herself as she walked down the path. Maybe she is actually crazy. He thought to himself.

Really what had happened was Faylen and Lilah had been discussing internally the best way to deal with Shades provocations. Lilah told her the best way to deal with them was to pretend they didn’t affect her, even if they did. This was Faylens odd attempt at following her advice.

After a few more minutes of walking, they found the damage to the wheat fields was becoming more and more intense. They both figured they must be getting closer to where the griffons were coming from.

“If it’s a monster tamer, does that mean if we kill the tamer, we don’t have to kill the griffons?” She asked.

He rolled his eyes. “Greg was one thing, but don’t tell me now you’re afraid of killing some griffons too?”

“Not afraid.” She replied. “But if they are docile creatures, if we can save them, I want to.”

“You can’t save everyone and everything Faylen.” He replied sternly. “You will get yourself killed if you try to.”

“I know.” She said. “Can you just answer the question?”

He sighed. “Yes, if you kill the tamer, the monsters should return back to normal, though there’s no guarantee that’ll happen. But how exactly do you plan on finding this tamer?”

“Can’t you sense people’s souls?” She said. “If taming involves manipulating the souls of the monsters, couldn’t you sense where the tamer is?”

“Sort of. When the connection is active, I could sense them. The only time its active though is when orders are being given by the tamer. But there’s also one other larger problem here though.”

Faylen waited for him to continue, but he didn’t. “Are you really going to make me ask?” He smiled. “Fine, what’s the other big problem.” She replied with irritated sarcasm.

“You’re acting like I’m going to help.”

“Are you not?”

“Nope.”

“Why not?” Faylen asked.

Lilah interjected, and as per usual, was less then pleased with Shade. “You really expect her, after yesterday, to take on a flock of griffons? At this point I think you’re trying to get her killed.”

“Sort of.” He shrugged.

“You’re sort of trying to get her killed? What does that mean exactly?” Lilah asked.

“She needs to learn her limits.” He replied back. “When she goes to knight academy, I won’t be there. If she becomes a knight, I certainly won’t be there. She needs to learn how to fight on her own, how to survive on her own. Think about last night, it took me stabbing myself in the leg just to get her out of that hotel because she had completely lost it. If I wasn’t there, those knights would have found her next to scores of dead nobles and slaves, what do you think would have happened after? Faylen might have more pure power than most, but she still has the mind of a child. If I wasn’t here, do you think she would be doing anything differently? I don’t. If she heard those people needed help, she would have tried to help them. Noble maybe, but rather stupid if you have no idea what your limits are, or how you compare to your enemies. But it’s what she wants to do, so let’s see it.”

“You’re talking like I’m not here.” Faylen said.

“Because if you keep acting like you have been the past two days, you won’t be. You’ll be six feet under.”

“I would rather die knowing I tried to save people, then live knowing I could’ve saved them but chose not to.”

“That’s easy to say while you’re still alive.”

“Maybe, but at least I’m not telling myself excuses to make myself feel better about not trying to save people. About sitting around watching scores of people die, when I have the power to change that.” She replied pointedly, but felt bad as soon as she said it, and she could see his face distort for a moment, but then his head shot to the right.

“Well then, time for the show.” He said as he sat down on the dirt road cross legged with his flask of ‘fermented water’, staring over the tattered wheat fields and off into the horizon.

Faylen turned to where he was looking, and in the horizon, above the torn-up wheat fields, 10 griffons were flying right towards them. Shade was right, they were double the size of a horse, with white eagle like heads, brown feathered horse like bodies and four legs with feet that ended in talons which would make a velociraptor weep.

“Fine.” Faylen said in a growl as she removed the bow from around her back. “You don’t think I have what it takes. You don’t think I can handle it. I’ll show you then. You want me to kill all these griffons? Fine, I’ll kill every last one of them.”

“Can’t wait.” He replied.

She lined up a shot, aiming at the griffon in the front of the flock. She formed a light arrow, released it and the arrow flew true, until the griffon opened its beak, revealing rows and rows of jagged shark like teeth. A torrent of wind came out along with a deafening screech, and the arrow flew off course. Shade shook his head and began to look around himself in frustration. Faylen out of the corner of her eye saw his reaction and growled again. She created hundreds of arrows around herself and launched all of them at the griffons at the same time. The griffons all in unison this time opened their mouths, and a torrent of air came out each one of them. Once again, all the arrows were blown completely off course, which caused Shade to begin laughing.

As the griffons closed in on their position, Faylen launched herself into the air to meet them head on, which caused Shade to sigh. “Unbelievable.”

At the sight of Faylen in the air, the 10 griffons began to fan out. Faylen floated completely still and watched as in an instant she was surrounded, with griffons on all sides of her. She smiled maniacally though, not showing an ounce of fear. “You think you have me, do you.” A globe of light arrows formed around her and she released all of them at once. Thousands of arrows flew out at the griffons, who didn’t have enough time to dodge, block or counter. The arrows plunged themselves into the griffons, making them look like carriage sized pin cushions, but none of them budged or showed any reaction at all. The smile quickly left her face. “What?” she said shocked.

The griffon below her turned its head upward, opened its mouth and let out a torrent of air. Faylen put her arms in an X to block it, but the air stream was stronger than anything she had ever trained against and sent her and the bow flying upward, right into the open beak of the griffon above her. The griffon chomped down on her the instant she blew into its beak, and she screamed out in pain, dropping the bow from her grasp.

“Well at least the griffons know what they’re doing.” Shade said from his position on the ground.

The griffon clenched its jaw harder and harder, shattering Faylens ribs, its jagged teeth puncturing through her armor and penetrated her skin. She yelled out in pain, and used all her might to try and push back, but her arms were stuck in its bite as well, causing her to have no leverage.

The griffon’s own chest began to bleed profusely, and also had broken ribs of its own from the kick back of her armor. Yet, it showed no sign of distress or letting up. Due to it being under the control of the tamer, it was going to fight until its death, as it had no other choice.

The bow, Lilah, fell to ground a few dozen feet from Shade. She immediately began to float on her own and turned to him. “She’s actually going to die if you don’t help.” She pleaded in a panic.

“Maybe.” He shrugged.

Realizing he actually wasn’t going to help, Lilah panicked as she thought of what to do. She watched in horror as the griffon bit down harder and harder on Faylen, threatening to break her in half while she cried in pain, unable to move.

Lilah began to glow brighter and brighter gold, like a miniature sun. She began to shake and scream herself, then, thousands of golden beams of light exploded out of her in every direction, piercing right through everything it came into contact with. This included Shade, who had tried to protect himself with a basic stone wall, but the light went right through it like it was paper. He looked down at the various holes in his body along with the gushing blood, then over to the bow, which had fallen silently to the ground. He then looked back up to the griffons. 3 of the griffons were pierced through the head and crashed to the ground. Two more had their wings blown away by the rays and fell to the ground as well, but survived the crash landing. The other five, including the one chomping on Faylen, had various holes throughout their bodies, like griffons cosplaying as Swiss cheese, but managed to remain in the air.

The one with Faylen opened its mouth back up to chomp down on her again, but in the brief moment she had, Faylen acted. She grabbed the dagger from its sheathe and threw it in the air, teleporting to it almost immediately. While she did appear in the air outside of the griffons mouth, where she appeared though was right next to another Griffon, which immediately grabbed her in its talons, and threw her at the ground with all its force.

She crashed into the ground so hard, she created a mini crated where she landed. She rolled over onto her belly and began coughing up blood while wheezing for air. She found her vision was rather blurry and was struggling to remain conscious. She forced herself to her knees, but when she tried to stand back up, she couldn’t. She looked down at her own body, and saw the complete wreck she had become. The entire left side of her body was broken to bits from the crash landing on the ground. All of her ribs were broken from the griffon biting down on her, and her body was covered in blood. She couldn’t feel either of her legs and wondered if part of her back broke from the fall as well. While she was taking stock of her morbid condition, one of the griffons flew down and grabbed her in its talons again. The Griffon then used its four legs to pin Faylen face down on the ground with her four limbs pinned spread eagle, with her being completely unable to move again.

Vision blurry, body in pain, she still managed to look up and found where Shade was sat. “Please…” She whispered. “Please help me.” What she found when she looked at him, wasn’t disappointment, it was pure disgust. Pure anger. He was looking at her like she had just murdered his children.

The rest of the flying griffons landed as well, and they, along with the two that crashed to the ground earlier, came over and surrounded her again.

“Good, good, very good.” A crazed male voice came from the wheat. Shade turned to the wheat field to the right of him, and out of one of the few non-destroyed patches of wheat, a 7-foot-tall red dragon walked out. Its wings were cut off, tail cut off, horns cut off, missing its right eye and was completely naked outside of the slave device around its chest. “Yes, if I give this girl to the master, he will be pleased.” He said as he walked over to the pinned and broken Faylen, before kneeling down in front of her. “Rainbow wings, the master will reward me quite well for you.” He said as he began to stroke her bloodied hair.

Shade calmy put his flask on the ground and got up.

The dragon noticed the movement, and turned its head to look at him. “The master has no use for you filthy human.” He said as he pointed his right index finger at Shade and a ball of fire formed in front of it, then flew out. It slammed into Shade and exploded, burning all the clothes he was wearing right off, leaving him completely naked, but not damaging him beyond that. “What?” The dragon said as it got up from its position in front of Faylen and turned to face Shade. “A human that can take a fire ball to the chest, maybe my master would be interested in you.” He pointed his finger at Shade again and two of the griffons flew over top of him. He watched as the griffons flew at the human, then explode into a million pieces. A bright black blast so large it sent everyone, and everything tumbling back almost a hundred feet.

The dragon coughed a few times from the dust the explosion kicked up, before pushing itself off the ground, getting back to its feet. “What in the world?” The dragon said confused, only to find Shade was now standing right in front of him in his true form, except his normally red eyes were now an abyss of black, with hells fire pouring out from the sockets. “A lucifer?” he said shocked.

“A fire dragon, huh?” Shade said with disgust. While almost all dragons could blow fire, fire dragons could manipulate and create fire hotter than any other, outside of lucifer dragons. “Makes sense now, I was wondering who was controlling the griffons, and what was setting fire to these fields.”

The dragon in a panic opened its mouth wide, and white-hot fire poured out engulfing Shade. He kept the stream of fire up for over 30 seconds before relenting, but when he stopped, Shade once again didn’t have a single mark on him. “Impossible…. even for a Lucifer…impossible!” he said as his eyes went wide with fear.

“You’re a disgrace to dragons. It’s one thing to be caught, another to let yourself be used as a slave. But to work for them, fight for them, kill for them.” Shade said with bloodlust filling his voice.

The dragon began to take a few steps back and pointed at Shade again. “Get him already!” he yelled. But nothing happened. “Why aren’t you…” he didn’t finish, as when he turned around to look for his griffons, all he found were bloodied corpses. All of them had their heads perfectly sliced off their bodies. “When…. how?”

Shade followed the dragon step for step, maintaining the distance between the two as the dragon was backing up.

The dragon, realizing the monster in front of it was completely out of its league, began to beg. It fell to its knees, breathing heavily as it pleaded with Shade. “Please, you don’t know what they did to us. The torture, what these devices can do your mind, your body. Please, I had no choice.”

Shade got to the dragon, and towered over him, letting his aura pour out. It felt like death itself was staring into the eyes of the dragon. “Theres always a choice. And you chose wrong.”

The dragon began breathing harder and harder as he stared into the cold eyes of Shade. Fear coursed through his veins as he desperately tried to think of a way out, a way to live. But nothing came to mind. Everything he thought of led to the same conclusion of how this encounter was going to end, he was going to die. But this conclusion didn’t lead him to beg more, or lose his head in fear of death. It actually led him to lose that fear he was feeling. That fear turned into acceptance, and that acceptance turned into anger.

“Choices?” The dragon yelled up at Shade. “Wrong choices? What was the wrong choice I made! How dare a fucking lucifer tell me about wrong choices! It’s been years since anyone has heard or seen from any of your kind. You know how I was caught, how I got into this situation that your looking down at me for? I fought! I’m not one of the cowards that ran to Normuc, that ran to Alessandria or Lyari. I fought, and I lost. Do you think I’m proud of doing any of this? I can only take so much torture, I don’t need a disgusting lucifer telling me of how disgraceful I am. I know more than anyone how disgraceful this makes me. But while maybe living as their slave is disgraceful, I can die right here, by your hands, knowing I did everything I could to not let this happen. When the laws were introduced, and fighting broke out again, I fought side by side with my fellow dragons. Where. Were. You.”

Those were the last words of the fire dragon, as Shade sliced his head clean off with his dagger. The head plopping and rolling to the ground, the lifeless head staring right up at Shade with an eternal face of anger. His torso then keeled to the ground and Shade lifted his foot up, and slammed it into the slave device around his chest, bursting both it and the torso like a ripe tomato.

He looked around at the scene in front of him. The dead corpse of the dragon, the now unconscious body of Faylen, the dead bodies of all the Griffons and the silent bow. The destruction, the carnage, the death that’s always followed him, no matter how fast or how far he’s run away. He took one more look down at the dragons head, before turning and looking down the road. He saw his flask now hundreds of yards away, having been blown away along with everything else when he blew up the griffons. With the final words of the dragon ringing through his mind on repeat, he growled and let out a primordial scream as a fireball made out of hells fire formed in his hand. He shot it at the flask and it exploded in a massive plume of fire and smoke. A mushroom cloud soared hundreds of feet into the air while a crater the size of a large building now forever scarred the wheat fields of Fleetwood.