The air swirled about him, dropping leaves and petals unceremoniously onto overgrown graves. The Aurelius name, once whispered fearfully from the tongues of tyrants and traitors, was no more. Those that did not die disappeared. Shadows passing shadows on a moonless night.
So only he remained. A single stalwart bulwark against the overreach of authority so common when men govern men. Or so he was destined to be. Fated to be.
Yet, as the world crumbled to dust around him, as power condensed into a finer and finer point, held in the hands of few, then one, he felt nothing but apathy. His was life too long. Kings and dictators rose and tumbled, shed blood borrowed and owed. Nothing changed for long. The same faces came and went, the same eyes, hungry for strength, gorged themselves upon it, until finally, fat with their supposed strength, they were slaughtered for it in turn.
It was all so futile. So repetitive. What point in deposing tyrants when in doing so he only raised another? There was none. And so he held no purpose either. Mankind was destined to place its faith in wolves, not sheep.
Marco stared down at the grave, at the vines withering around it, binding it in decay, dragging it into obscurity and defeat. Fury rose where there was melancholy, defiance where there was defeat.
He would not end like Dante. He would not surrender to despair and futility.
If this was a world to be ruled by wolves, he would be that wolf. He drew his blade, the silvered adamantium gleaming in the dappled light piercing through the trees. His silver fangs, so adept at splitting the throats of despots, would turn against the sheep that followed them. If destiny would deny the Aurelius a hand in deposing authority, if fate would crush all dreams of man ruling man with justice in his heart and mercy in his hand, then an Aurelius would take the sword in hand once again to cut the ties of fate, to sever destiny and carve that fate anew.
His eyes narrowed on the blade, his reflection caught in its white edge.
If man respected only the fangs of tyrants, then a tyrant he would be.
Log in to comment