Desecrate

Author:  Seth

"I was raised to be brave, I will not use death to shy away from my deeds."

He hadn't meant to do it. It wasn't his fault, he'd just… reacted.

All the logic, all the justification in the world, it didn't mean a thing.

Gryff fell to his knees, all strength fleeing from his body. Numbly he tries to pry his fingers from the spear in his hands, but he can't. He can't, just the same way he can't pry his eyes from the small, faintly gurgling figure impaled on the end of his bloodstained polearm.

This wasn't supposed to happen. He knew that the world could be a cruel place, knew that there existed places where children were forced to fight, but not here. Not here.

"Do you have a death wish? Get up!" Ravage growled as he stepped by Gryffin, slamming his battleaxe into a swordsman intent on taking the kneeling boy's life.

The young gryphane remained on the ground.

Turning to his subordinate once he'd confirmed that there were no longer any hostiles in the immediate vicinity (At least for the moment, they were in a battle after all), Ravage was confronted with a pair of lost, almost soulless eyes, wracked with grief.

"You need to get up." The Commander repeated, his voice neither kind nor cold. An order from a commanding officer to his soldier. He didn't trust himself enough to put any emotion into his words.

"I-" Gryff turned his eyes back to the dead girl, little more than a child, impaled on the end of his weapon. The shell-shocked blonde started to shake. "I-I-…"

"You can mourn after the battle is over." Ravage cut the boy off. "Right now you need to fight. Stay alive." He turned around and backed up to the kneeling figure as he made out figures charging towards them. "The dead can't atone for their actions."

Gryffin detachedly watched the girl's small dagger slip from her dead hand.

How many rules, how many codes, how many basic morals had he violated in killing her?

Slowly the words of his commander sank into him. Atonement. Taking responsibility for his actions. Hadn't his father always told him that they must face, and live with the choices they made?

Far in the recesses of his mind Gryff wondered how Ravage had known exactly what to say to him.

Standing to face the oncoming enemy, the blue eyed teen let the tiny body slip from his spear. A single, solitary tear traced its way down his face but his resolve remained strong. He would fight, fight and live with the weight of what he had done here.