Post by mattknox on Aug 3, 2023 18:15:39 GMT
Life is funny.
One second you’re having drinks with a charming companion, the next your skull is getting pulverized and you’re inviting each shot that follows the last…
And then that charming companion is challenging you to a match for your title.
Of course, there’s a lot of content left out but those are the bullet points. We knew each other for, what, a few days? And it left you embittered and wanting to carve out something from me. If you couldn’t be seen at my side…you’d settle for being seen with my corpse, eh?
Admirable, if a bit redundant.
I get it though. Big game hunting, needing to live up to the long shadow that's cast over your career. It’s quite an Undertaking…but I digress.
I wish things had been different between us. Not in the pining for a love not realized sort of way, no. I wish that I had been more of an adult about things. You were always a…pit stop, Alexandra. The first bit of proof that I was still alive in that way after my divorce. I do thank you for that, for showing me a tenderness I didn’t deserve and a kindness I can only repay with cruelty.
But the truth is? You were never obligated to help me the way you did. You were never obligated to dedicate a Football game to me. You were never asked nor obligated to ‘fight for the Raven’. For whatever reason, you had constructed an image of me and what I could mean for you far before I was ever invested into realizing it.
…and so, as Heroes often do, I disappointed.
At least as far as that…I know for a fact that –
Okay, we’re getting off track….
See…like I was saying. This whole thing? Is all about what you can get off of me..
And baby, you’ve gotten it all already.
Corvid Combat Films Presents…
In Association with Bongwater Productions…
COLD SNAP: IMPERIUM
WEBISODE 001
What Was Owed
In Coalition, he wore a badge.
In Imperium, he wore their skin.
The skin of the well-to-do. The high society. All the bounties he’d taken ,all the grunt work? The cash flowed here, into his real work. Into infiltrating the high society dominated by old money like the Dochertys and new, stupid money like the Terrellas. His eyes, the color of the ocean set into alabaster white flesh, eyed the bald brute in his ill-fitted suit from the dance floor, scarcely aware of the partner in his arms.
They all came and went near as frequently as he did, after all.
Which led him to not question when the partners were once again cycled on the floor, a spirited piece giving way to a more mournful waltz. Without looking, he took the warm body that walked up to meet his own into his arms. The pair fair into a slow box step of a waltz, his eyes remaining in a holding pattern between those who had caught his attention. The soots, and stems and…
….Barrel of a gun in his ribs.
He looked down to the shock of red hair before him. His heart stilled….had she turned on him? What was she even doing here, hadn’t he warned her of the danger?
A cautious finger lifted the hidden face, before his own flattened in recognition. The assailant hid their face again, never breaking step in their dance. To anyone staring the two would seem to be quite familiar.
They wouldn’t be far off.
“Well…at least I deserve this one…” he mumbled to her, taking a breath around the cold iron pressed into the silk of his waistcoat. His hand drifted slowly back to its perch on her hip guiding her along with the waltz. Silence reigned and for a moment, he awaited a final thunder and a burn that would roar ever louder.
Perchance he was a coward, perchance he was honest…perchance both. Still, he was compelled to make a request of his executioner.
“Let the song finish…” he mumbled “I did Owe you this dance, after all..”
A wordless chuckle and the lack of a bullet in his guts was enough of an answer for him. As they moved, he let his mind wander to the night he shared with this stranger now set to his demise. A cursory glance at the dress she wore revealed a familiar logo, one he saw all over Terrella’s tavern.
Oh, you poor thing…
The two moved across the floor in a quiet, unassuming unison. Most would say, ignorantly, that they were the most comely couple on the floor that night. They’d speak of the way his eyes never left her, how her face never left his chest. They’d talk of the way she seemed to melt into his arms.
They’d never speak a word of the knife he’d slipped in between her ribs as the song crescendoed. They’d applaud his chivalry, but not notice the off-coloured red stain upon his red satin waistcoat after he helped her to the couch from the dance floor.
Oh, the poor thing…she must have drank too much good Tennessee Whiskey…
Not a soul would notice him slip out the back, melting into the night like a spectre that had come just to haunt their city.
And no one asked questions that involved him as the party thinned out, and it was discovered that she was not simply a sleeping maiden lost to her cups. The man who’d sent her after the Black Bird of Imperium would make sure he’d never have to answer for this soul just like he’d never had to answer for a thing he didn’t care for.
He’d sent the poor girl to do what he wanted…
The poor girl had gone for what was owed…
…and the Black Bird would tell anyone who asked, not that they ever would…
That she got just that.
I know you’ll be like to approach with a certain sense of bravado and gravitas. The narrative is, on a personal level, on your side. For all the good I've been trying to do? I’m not a good man. And you will find so few in the back who would call me much more than a coworker than friend, and you’ll find far far more with a venomous distaste for my continued existence.
Foolish of me, to toss aside friendship and camaraderie so freely given.
Of course, it wasn’t so free was it Alexandra? We meet, we chat, you come to sign with a company I'm running roughshod through. I get injured the same show you sign on. Then in the media frenzy that followed said attack and injury…You did all you could to capitalize. Make yourself the costar of the tragedy. A friend with vaguely romantic implications watching dutifully over the comatose loudmouth.
Maybe that’s cruel. Maybe it’s even untrue.
What isn’t though? Is that the second it was clear that you weren’t going to advance with, or from me? You crossed the line to the other side, the side that initially sparked your days long vigil at my bedside.
If you can’t join ‘em, kill ‘em eh?
Brilliant move, on paper. In execution? As short sighted as the rest of your machinations. You’ve chosen now, to throw in your lot with people dead set on destroying me but having no idea how. A mother siding with those who would terrorize children, and take their inheritance.
What would your parents think?
What would your daughter think?
Do you know what I think?
I think that you’ve reached too far. I think that this could be the learning experience you’ve been needing. This is the humbling that I never got, given to you so that you may take stock of your blessings and maybe have that long, difficult conversation about how maybe where you go from here…is home.
You’ve still got one of them.
For me? This is one more path….funny I always thought it’d end up with a hangman. And here he’s come, just as a pit stop along my journey. A journey that finds me beaten, bruised, bent but unbroken. Facing down enemies at all sides, enemies who have long since abandoned traditional rules of engagement.
And still…
Here I stand.
And what are you going to do about it?
Not a fucking thing.
I am Raze. I am Ruin. I am The Raven.
I am Invictus Totalus.
I am the fire they tried to set to me, and a fire that will now immolate you with them.
You made your choice.
Now you’ll get what’s Owed to you.
“Don’t think that was a bit harsh?”
Shooting had just wrapped up for the Webisode. An easy affair. One set, couple dozen extras most of whom worked for lunch and ‘exposure’ because artists never knew their worth, some stock footage of him riding the stunt horse to play over the closing narration.
He briefly eyed the redhead who had co starred in the short story as he unbuttoned the waistcoat, glad to be free of the pungent ketchup smell of the ‘bloodstain’.
“We’ve had this conversation more times than we ever should have.”
“Because you keep being a dick to people who maybe don’t deserve it, yo..” Robert McAlroy wheeled around from the laptop in his…did he call it a ‘gaming char’? The internal monologue brought an arched eyebrow to Knox’s face as he listened “Like…you didn’t see how she was when you were in that bed.”
“Positively bereaved, from what I heard.” Matthew responded while setting to unbutton the dress shirt, soon replacing it with a simple IWF T as he strode to the couch beside Robert’s production station. He plucked a bottle of water he’d left there before shooting, taking a drink of the room temperature liquid while eyeing his friend who’s face was etched in equal parts concern and exasperation.
“Yeah, she was.”
“And she had no call to be. I hardly knew that woman…I hardly KNOW that woman.”
“Knew her enough to stick your d–”
“Shut it.” Matthew cut him off, eyes shooting back to his frined from the spot on the wall they’d wandered to “That has nothing to do with any of this.”
“You don’t think that you fucking her, and then ditching her for someone else the second you wake up from a coma she kept vigilance over has anything to do with her literally wanting to hang you for your title?” Bert wheeled a bit closer, leaning in to give his friend that incredulous ‘really, motherfucker?’ look fine crafted over the years by the likes of Samuel L Jackson “You don’t think that’s got a thing to do with her taking up arms with the side trying to fucking ruin you?”
“If it does, it shows a woeful lack of maturity on her side.”
“Sticking your dick in everything that moves shows a w-”
“Robert, I will gladly discuss my wars with you…god knows I trust your opinions on most things.” he sat up, meeting the incredulous stare with a far more venomous one, one that clearly stated what he’d still use words to “But i’m not going to be lectured about the habits of my love life. By you, or anyone else..”
He flopped back down, bringing his fingers to intertwine over his abdomen as he stared at the ceiling.
“Besides…God knows everyone else will talk about it enough.”
“Right…look, man..all i’m sayin’ is. There’s more than one side to all of this bullshit. Not just hers, all of it…”
“You’re absolutely right..” Matthew turned his gaze to rest on the younger man for a final time, his tone as even and emotionless as he felt it needed to be but dripping with a weighty, venomous seriousness.
“There’s their side….and the right side.”
Well howdy there pardner.