Nights in London

At night, the streets didn't quite look so bad.

In the dark, with only the occasional flare of headlights to disturb the gloom, details blurred around the edges, making them softer, making everything look peaceful and faded.

Like a distant memory.

People scuttled about, quickly darting from one building to another; from one pile of rubble to the other. From one dream to another nightmare.

Remaining media called it a catastrophy, others called it judgment and others, more devoted to obscure faiths called it retribution; the Coming.

Of what he wondered?

Nights in the streets of London reminded him of his days in Amsterdam with Collin. On his way back from work, he would have had to cross several districts that even the authorities avoided. They all looked the same to him. They all looked like this but for one crucial difference. At intersections, below the overpasses and in the deep dark alleys, it wasn't ruthless, cold-blooded thugs that would welcome you. Warming their hands over fire-lit dustbins, men, women and children would keep warm, their eyes filled with disillusions, lost hopes, dreams shattered. They didn't really see him whenever he would pass them. His build and his clothes had them avert their gazes, shrink deeper into shadows. Soldiers had become threats, vigilantes bent on scouring out Origins, the Plague they called them.

How ironic now he walked among them.

Ex-soldier, ex-member of the WG, wanted man, Major Origin, Leo Guild Master.

Quite a pedigree.

It never failed to bring a sardonic smile to his lips whenever he'd think of himself that way. He didn't hate being all these things. Some of them, he couldn't help and others had just come to him. But never had he felt more out of place. Sometimes, he felt like a stranger in his own skin. Some things he'd done were horrific. They were cold, calculated ploys and plots to gain and create certain things and scenarios.

Other things he had done were terrifying. They were terrible, powerful and amazing. They revealed a strength and a ruthlessness in him he wasn't sure he liked but he knew he needed now more than ever.

And that was why he scoured the streets at night, walking the lanes of memory, living a life with blurred edges, waltzing with a direct, tangible danger he could deal with with his own two hands if need be. His hands, his body, his weapons, they were all trained for direct combat and reacted at the slightest command in effective and economical ways. Disabling his opponents appeased his conscience but it takes a conscious effort to stop the hand from fatally breaking bone and twisting neck. To stop fingers from pulling the trigger.

To rein the blood thirst.

He knew those traits were part of his nature. They just had always been carefully controlled. Consciously released and always in measured amounts. Now, events unraveled that pushed the limits of these filters, that forced him to redefine them and the transition was unsettling, to say the least.

But walking helped.


Aaridys
Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth. Marcus Aurelius

Humeur: Cool and composed
Musique: 'Breathe In' Frou Frou