on_holy_ground | TM ~ And the moral of the story is...

The man standing before the gate hadn’t seemed all that impressive. He had looked to be in his early thirties, but the presence that gave Darius warning of another immortal also told him that appearances were very deceiving in this case. However, the fact that the man carried nothing more than a staff also told Darius that he wasn’t someone that was a cause for concern.

So when the man had refused to move from the gates of the city, asking Darius instead to put down his sword and take up the way of peace, Darius had only laughed. Then he had used that same sword to cut the man’s head from his neck and end his pitiful existence one and for all. He had been the last thing standing in the way of Darius’ claims on the city, and with him gone, the general could take what he wanted with little in the way of resistance.

Or so Darius had thought, until the quickening had ripped through him and drowned out his entire being in a light so bright that it had been impossible for him to overcome. And in so doing, that one death had brought about the end of a dynasty that had never even had the chance to really get started.