Post by Daniel MacNamara on Apr 25, 2021 20:58:14 GMT -5
“Fate has a funny way of bringing things together.”
Quiet, simple, his voice not daring to go above an octave higher than it needed to. Gravelly, smoked by Japanese Seven Stars and cured by Irish single malt whisky until it reached the dull roar of an estranged baritone that didn’t always quite seem human, always hitched to a growl that thundered from his chest like a wolf’s might; an actual wolf’s, not some pale imitation that tried to pretend it was the predator that it wasn’t, and if Daniel MacNamara had done nothing else, he’d paid the price to show exactly what a real predator looked like.
Apparently, it looked like it was missing fucking pieces of itself.
Still, that’s what sat there on the rooftop of the home that he shared with Karen and Mina. Sitting there, soaking in the gossamer beams of the moon that danced in through the darkness, disrupted by the lights of man that polluted the night air. It was something that Daniel hated, which was another moment of dark humor in and of itself, wasn’t it? The poor little rich boy that opted to forsake family and wealth to evade the strings that came with it, only to wind up exactly as his father wanted, just to try and destroy him.
If Daniel wasn’t a walking parable of the prodigal son, then what the fuck was he?
Still, he sat there on the roof of his home, smoking his cigarette, still clearly recovering from the mess he was made into after running headlong into the Hooligunnz’s House Party Kumite, a name that was ridiculous, even if the competition had been anything but. A competition that he still wasn’t fully healed before he entered. He still bore the beating that Miles Lucky had tossed him, the closed eye, the mutilated hand, things that he had lost in the pursuit of something more, things that he couldn’t get back, that he’d never be able to get back. Things, in short, that most people would recoil or give up from losing, but things that he could live without, things that he could without.
And so, The Wayward Prince became the sad little king, of a sad little hill, but it was still his fucking hill, was it not?
And so, that flame haired boy held a crown in his hands, balanced delicately on the tips of seven fingers and two thumbs while one eye instead of two beheld its shape in his hands. How much had he bled for this, how much flesh had he given and exacted to reach this far, to walk a rocky path beset on all sides by his enemies, walking on bloodied limbs to the point of exhaustion each time he’d tried to climb it? Too many to count for his liking. He’d done it nonetheless though, and he’d done it without stipulation or chance that he didn’t pay for without blood.
“I’ll eat you up, I love you so.” The words were barely a whisper on his lips, so much softer than the ones he’d uttered before as he stared at the crown in his hands. “I told him that. I told him that, and then I ate what fight he had left in him. I ate it until it choked me, until his blood and fluids were rolling down my chin and staining my teeth. I ate the monster that made Union his killing fields, and in doing so, I destroyed the last vestiges of the fight in the man I love, and I freed him of his obligation. He was a wild thing, wild things shouldn’t be held down by gold and leather, and told what they are. He knew what he was. He knows what he is. To try and tell him that was silly, and that’s what they did. They tried to cage and quantify what cannot be reasoned with or spoken to, and he nearly destroyed all of you for trying. He certainly destroyed what you sent after him, didn’t he? You sent one of 4CW’s best and brightest and he leveled them without your consent, he beat them uncontested, and he did it because he’s Miles Lucky.”
Pause. Beat. He looked up from the crown he held, that one eye that remained open all seeing as it ever was, even when it had a twin.
“And Union Battlegrounds, is the house that Miles Lucky built. The world seems to have forgotten that, as if it’s all the blood that he spilled and bodies he left in his wake to use as brick and mortar to craft the foundations of his legacy have all been conveniently washed away.”
Danny’s head tilted to the side, that eye focusing on the dark, as if it saw things no one else could.
“....But I haven’t forgotten what he did, what he put the state and body through to scrape together enough to put this little hill that we’re all privileged enough to sit down together on. I remember how you all made me hurt the man I love because you were all too cowardly to raise your knives when you had to look him in the eyes, when you had to guide the blade to his heart, not a single one of you had the nerve to do it yourselves.”
Sigh, Danny held the crown one handed now, using the other to pinch the bridge of his nose as that one all seeing eye closed to match its cloud filled twin. Just for a moment, just for long enough to regain his composure. The hand left, the eye opened, and both sets of fingers rejoined on the circlet of gold, holding it right where it needed to be. Of course, that crown wasn’t alone, was it? Each belt, each championship he held, was there. One across his right shoulder, one across his left, he beared them like a king wore the pauldrons and tapestry of his armor, except they were the only armor that he had, the only armor that he needed.
It was ironic, he supposed, that the things he wore to protect himself were the same things that made him a target, at least for now. “He avenged the Battlegrounds when he beat Karen, not that NVR cared, but NVR cared when they won, did they? He did everything right, he was the champion that the Battlegrounds deserved. With that said though, Miles still met his end, and it was me that brought it. This isn’t an insult, he almost took more out of me than I had to give, and in my moment of victory, I nearly tore myself asunder to claim it..”
The crown was lifted, and it was placed upon his own brow, askew.
“I beat Bryan Williams. I beat Indi Rhyder. I beat Miles Lucky. The last three champions of Union Battlegrounds fell to me. With that said, I feel like I need to remind you all of a simple fact that you keep neglecting to realize.”
Leaning forward, that one good of his staring out once more.
“Union Battlegrounds isn’t 4CW. Those that conquered there, came here, expecting similar results. They expected to be fawned over and feared, and instead they were beaten into bloody pulps because this isn’t the same regime that they left. They were hoping that the weapons they made of themselves would be enough, but instead they found that the war waged in the Battlegrounds was much different than the stagnated corners of the hell that they crawled out of. What worked there, would not work here, and almost as fast they tried to mount an offense, they found themselves being driven away. Bryan was 4CW, aye, but he represented the Battlegrounds and he cut away the sickness that came with Dakota’s invasion. They sent their monsters against our champions more than once. Ana found that out when she clashed with Miles and he showed her what a real monster is.”
He wet his lips with his tongue, only to wipe them clean with his fingers as if he couldn’t quite bear the moisture that he brought to them. Not wanting he gave himself, if there was a more Daniel MacNamara thing in this world, he didn’t know of it.
“..Now they send another. They sent Genie Carlson. They didn’t send a monster this time, they sent us their Gatekeeper. They sent the bitch that made or broke the people that wanted to be one of them. They sent their most loyal, and one of their most terrifying, all for little old me. I should be scared, she has every quality needed to be a champion, she’s certainly ended champions, hasn’t she? She’s the rocks that a lot of waves were dashed upon, a force of nature that any sane, rational, man should be afraid of.” A hand lifted and turned over, exposing his palm, as if weighing her on one side. “She could end me in this match and take the title. She could rob me of the title that’s on the line, and no one would bat an eye because it’s what they expect. They’ve failed time and time again, but this is what they expect because she’s from 4CW, and I’m not. Because that’s the way things should be, despite never being. Is that why she’s here though? It doesn’t matter, it’s how it’ll be framed in the end, because that’s how they need it to be framed.”
Then, just like that, his other hand rose, upturning to show another empty palm.
“Then there’s my old, dear, friend. There’s the disciple of Dakota Smith that betrayed him and pretends that he consumed the Butcher, because he’s the farmer, and all of the chaos and destruction he rains down, he claims as his crop: Jacob Kuntz. He’s been in Union for quite some time, but in the end, he isn’t Union. He’s Yamashi. Another soldier of GHB, another part of a destroyed butcher’s war machine. As much as I despise him, I’d be an absolute fool to ignore what he’s done, what he’s capable of, and what he’s survived. If there exists a living man with more wyrm stench clinging to his flesh than Jacob Kuntz, then I absolutely haven’t met him, and I certainly haven’t caught scent of the gehenna wind that would follow him. He’s a walking plague, spreading his sickness wherever he breathes in.”
Both hands met then, steepling his fingers together as he leaned back in his chain, elbows resting on the arms. He watched from over the union of his fingers with that singular eye of his.
“Both of them want what’s mine: The Trench Warfare title. What I won through blood and sacrifice. What I took from the man that made Union seem unbeatable. One comes from Yamashi, one comes from 4CW. One’s been shamed and beaten so thoroughly that he’s shown us the limits of what one man can go through, one’s trying to reclaim her lost glory by beating up pups before throwing her head back, howling as if she’s the real predator here, she’s earned nothing here, but here she is, a title shot that she’s not yet come close to earning.”
Pause. Beat.
“You’ve both been chosen to kill a king, I hope you know what kind of responsibility that is, because if you’re not careful? The burden alone is going to crush you beneath it. Just as I told Miles that I’ll eat him up, because I love him so? I’ll leave you all with a bit of stolen literature as a warning like I have so many others, regurgitating the words of better spoken men than me to lay out my point.”
Sigh. He really was tired of his own bullshit, and still he started to recite the words that he remembered as a boy, his words on the wind as the screen faded to black, unseen things being given weight by the gravitas of the voice that spoke them alone.
“And in the visitation of the winds,
Who take the ruffian billows by the top,
Curling their monstrous heads and hanging them
With deafening clamour in the slippery clouds,
That, with the hurly, death itself awakes?
Canst thou, O partial sleep, give thy repose
To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude,
And in the calmest and most stillest night,
With all appliances and means to boot,
Deny it to a king? Then happy low, lie down!
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.”
Quiet, simple, his voice not daring to go above an octave higher than it needed to. Gravelly, smoked by Japanese Seven Stars and cured by Irish single malt whisky until it reached the dull roar of an estranged baritone that didn’t always quite seem human, always hitched to a growl that thundered from his chest like a wolf’s might; an actual wolf’s, not some pale imitation that tried to pretend it was the predator that it wasn’t, and if Daniel MacNamara had done nothing else, he’d paid the price to show exactly what a real predator looked like.
Apparently, it looked like it was missing fucking pieces of itself.
Still, that’s what sat there on the rooftop of the home that he shared with Karen and Mina. Sitting there, soaking in the gossamer beams of the moon that danced in through the darkness, disrupted by the lights of man that polluted the night air. It was something that Daniel hated, which was another moment of dark humor in and of itself, wasn’t it? The poor little rich boy that opted to forsake family and wealth to evade the strings that came with it, only to wind up exactly as his father wanted, just to try and destroy him.
If Daniel wasn’t a walking parable of the prodigal son, then what the fuck was he?
Still, he sat there on the roof of his home, smoking his cigarette, still clearly recovering from the mess he was made into after running headlong into the Hooligunnz’s House Party Kumite, a name that was ridiculous, even if the competition had been anything but. A competition that he still wasn’t fully healed before he entered. He still bore the beating that Miles Lucky had tossed him, the closed eye, the mutilated hand, things that he had lost in the pursuit of something more, things that he couldn’t get back, that he’d never be able to get back. Things, in short, that most people would recoil or give up from losing, but things that he could live without, things that he could without.
And so, The Wayward Prince became the sad little king, of a sad little hill, but it was still his fucking hill, was it not?
And so, that flame haired boy held a crown in his hands, balanced delicately on the tips of seven fingers and two thumbs while one eye instead of two beheld its shape in his hands. How much had he bled for this, how much flesh had he given and exacted to reach this far, to walk a rocky path beset on all sides by his enemies, walking on bloodied limbs to the point of exhaustion each time he’d tried to climb it? Too many to count for his liking. He’d done it nonetheless though, and he’d done it without stipulation or chance that he didn’t pay for without blood.
“I’ll eat you up, I love you so.” The words were barely a whisper on his lips, so much softer than the ones he’d uttered before as he stared at the crown in his hands. “I told him that. I told him that, and then I ate what fight he had left in him. I ate it until it choked me, until his blood and fluids were rolling down my chin and staining my teeth. I ate the monster that made Union his killing fields, and in doing so, I destroyed the last vestiges of the fight in the man I love, and I freed him of his obligation. He was a wild thing, wild things shouldn’t be held down by gold and leather, and told what they are. He knew what he was. He knows what he is. To try and tell him that was silly, and that’s what they did. They tried to cage and quantify what cannot be reasoned with or spoken to, and he nearly destroyed all of you for trying. He certainly destroyed what you sent after him, didn’t he? You sent one of 4CW’s best and brightest and he leveled them without your consent, he beat them uncontested, and he did it because he’s Miles Lucky.”
Pause. Beat. He looked up from the crown he held, that one eye that remained open all seeing as it ever was, even when it had a twin.
“And Union Battlegrounds, is the house that Miles Lucky built. The world seems to have forgotten that, as if it’s all the blood that he spilled and bodies he left in his wake to use as brick and mortar to craft the foundations of his legacy have all been conveniently washed away.”
Danny’s head tilted to the side, that eye focusing on the dark, as if it saw things no one else could.
“....But I haven’t forgotten what he did, what he put the state and body through to scrape together enough to put this little hill that we’re all privileged enough to sit down together on. I remember how you all made me hurt the man I love because you were all too cowardly to raise your knives when you had to look him in the eyes, when you had to guide the blade to his heart, not a single one of you had the nerve to do it yourselves.”
Sigh, Danny held the crown one handed now, using the other to pinch the bridge of his nose as that one all seeing eye closed to match its cloud filled twin. Just for a moment, just for long enough to regain his composure. The hand left, the eye opened, and both sets of fingers rejoined on the circlet of gold, holding it right where it needed to be. Of course, that crown wasn’t alone, was it? Each belt, each championship he held, was there. One across his right shoulder, one across his left, he beared them like a king wore the pauldrons and tapestry of his armor, except they were the only armor that he had, the only armor that he needed.
It was ironic, he supposed, that the things he wore to protect himself were the same things that made him a target, at least for now. “He avenged the Battlegrounds when he beat Karen, not that NVR cared, but NVR cared when they won, did they? He did everything right, he was the champion that the Battlegrounds deserved. With that said though, Miles still met his end, and it was me that brought it. This isn’t an insult, he almost took more out of me than I had to give, and in my moment of victory, I nearly tore myself asunder to claim it..”
The crown was lifted, and it was placed upon his own brow, askew.
“I beat Bryan Williams. I beat Indi Rhyder. I beat Miles Lucky. The last three champions of Union Battlegrounds fell to me. With that said, I feel like I need to remind you all of a simple fact that you keep neglecting to realize.”
Leaning forward, that one good of his staring out once more.
“Union Battlegrounds isn’t 4CW. Those that conquered there, came here, expecting similar results. They expected to be fawned over and feared, and instead they were beaten into bloody pulps because this isn’t the same regime that they left. They were hoping that the weapons they made of themselves would be enough, but instead they found that the war waged in the Battlegrounds was much different than the stagnated corners of the hell that they crawled out of. What worked there, would not work here, and almost as fast they tried to mount an offense, they found themselves being driven away. Bryan was 4CW, aye, but he represented the Battlegrounds and he cut away the sickness that came with Dakota’s invasion. They sent their monsters against our champions more than once. Ana found that out when she clashed with Miles and he showed her what a real monster is.”
He wet his lips with his tongue, only to wipe them clean with his fingers as if he couldn’t quite bear the moisture that he brought to them. Not wanting he gave himself, if there was a more Daniel MacNamara thing in this world, he didn’t know of it.
“..Now they send another. They sent Genie Carlson. They didn’t send a monster this time, they sent us their Gatekeeper. They sent the bitch that made or broke the people that wanted to be one of them. They sent their most loyal, and one of their most terrifying, all for little old me. I should be scared, she has every quality needed to be a champion, she’s certainly ended champions, hasn’t she? She’s the rocks that a lot of waves were dashed upon, a force of nature that any sane, rational, man should be afraid of.” A hand lifted and turned over, exposing his palm, as if weighing her on one side. “She could end me in this match and take the title. She could rob me of the title that’s on the line, and no one would bat an eye because it’s what they expect. They’ve failed time and time again, but this is what they expect because she’s from 4CW, and I’m not. Because that’s the way things should be, despite never being. Is that why she’s here though? It doesn’t matter, it’s how it’ll be framed in the end, because that’s how they need it to be framed.”
Then, just like that, his other hand rose, upturning to show another empty palm.
“Then there’s my old, dear, friend. There’s the disciple of Dakota Smith that betrayed him and pretends that he consumed the Butcher, because he’s the farmer, and all of the chaos and destruction he rains down, he claims as his crop: Jacob Kuntz. He’s been in Union for quite some time, but in the end, he isn’t Union. He’s Yamashi. Another soldier of GHB, another part of a destroyed butcher’s war machine. As much as I despise him, I’d be an absolute fool to ignore what he’s done, what he’s capable of, and what he’s survived. If there exists a living man with more wyrm stench clinging to his flesh than Jacob Kuntz, then I absolutely haven’t met him, and I certainly haven’t caught scent of the gehenna wind that would follow him. He’s a walking plague, spreading his sickness wherever he breathes in.”
Both hands met then, steepling his fingers together as he leaned back in his chain, elbows resting on the arms. He watched from over the union of his fingers with that singular eye of his.
“Both of them want what’s mine: The Trench Warfare title. What I won through blood and sacrifice. What I took from the man that made Union seem unbeatable. One comes from Yamashi, one comes from 4CW. One’s been shamed and beaten so thoroughly that he’s shown us the limits of what one man can go through, one’s trying to reclaim her lost glory by beating up pups before throwing her head back, howling as if she’s the real predator here, she’s earned nothing here, but here she is, a title shot that she’s not yet come close to earning.”
Pause. Beat.
“You’ve both been chosen to kill a king, I hope you know what kind of responsibility that is, because if you’re not careful? The burden alone is going to crush you beneath it. Just as I told Miles that I’ll eat him up, because I love him so? I’ll leave you all with a bit of stolen literature as a warning like I have so many others, regurgitating the words of better spoken men than me to lay out my point.”
Sigh. He really was tired of his own bullshit, and still he started to recite the words that he remembered as a boy, his words on the wind as the screen faded to black, unseen things being given weight by the gravitas of the voice that spoke them alone.
“And in the visitation of the winds,
Who take the ruffian billows by the top,
Curling their monstrous heads and hanging them
With deafening clamour in the slippery clouds,
That, with the hurly, death itself awakes?
Canst thou, O partial sleep, give thy repose
To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude,
And in the calmest and most stillest night,
With all appliances and means to boot,
Deny it to a king? Then happy low, lie down!
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.”