Alone among the large bookshelves of the study stood an elderly man. He seemed disturbed as he frantically searched through the shelves. After grabbing a few large tomes he walked towards a wooden desk, set down his books, then took a seat on the creaky wooden chair. The desk was cluttered with all types of pages, with fresh and old ink spots here or there. As the man organized his work space he looked at his left hand, his fingertips were stained black with ink and his skin possessed many scars, burns, and other disfigurements. The man just stared for a while at his left hand. This was a hand that had done many things since his right arm was cut off during the skirmish 20 years ago. This hand knew only work, it never held the softness of a woman's comfort, nor the ruffle of his hypothetical child's hair. He then raised his geriatric hand and touched his lips, these lips that knew not the feel of another. These lips only knew the blood of his kingdom's enemies, his own, and the cold hard ground.
The man was alone yet felt the need to speak, "What was the point? I killed, survived...and yet I don't feel alive." His voice was dry and coarse yet held a power to them. The man seated was skilled and yet he wasn't the best. The man was one of the few Expert Swordsman in the Kingdom and yet he felt listless. He put his face in his hand and sighed before doing some self reflecting. After a few seconds he began muttering to himself, "What's the point of this power when I'm in my 60's? My heart is weak, my kidneys don't work, I can't move around for more than 5 minutes without getting winded...I'm just falling apart..." He then took a deep breath and sat straight. A type of resolve filled him as he started to look at his papers. He then sighed before pulling out a strange quill from his breast pocket. The quill itself had strange intricate runes inscribed on its body that took up all the space. The feather part was a strange color, to the naked eye it looked colorless but to an Expert Swordsman's trained senses it was a brilliant color that didn't exist. It wasn't purple yet its hues felt royal, it wasn't red yet it exudes power, it felt like the essence of what color was: Its meaning.
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The old man looked at the pen solemnly before grabbing a large blank tome and gently placing it in front of him, he then stabbed his tongue with the quill and began to write. There he sat and wrote for days as blood filled his mouth. He could not be stopped by anyone including the Viscountess; his master. As he wrote he mumbled things, esoteric things. He evoked words that should have died, words whose meanings were lost for a reason. As he wrote and spoke he physically grew weaker, after a week's worth of time he looked as though death had taken a day off to be in the mortal world. The breast of his shirt was a deep red from the blood dribbling from his mouth. His work area looked like a messy battlefield with all but his book being stained with splotches of red blood and black ink. His book was finished, his autobiography, but the man himself was gone. He looked hollow. Whatever he had left, whatever had kept him going...he put into that autobiography. As he laid there passing, quiet words left his throat, "Too late for glory. Too late to love. Too late to live. Maybe this time our life will matter...I leave this to you...Young Bruno." With those final words the book disappeared from the desk. All that laid there was a dead old man holding a normal pen surrounded by his own blood.
A man who survived every battle he's participated in except the one against himself.
He died not as a man...but as a soldier. A title he could never escape no matter how much he tried.