Alkor

He lifted himself off the bridge and turned to look out over the water as she spoke. Lessa answered his question as honestly as she could, and she came up with a better answer than he had despite claiming to know just as little. With his arms folded and his expression set in stone, he let her continue. She said that she'd spent so much time chasing people, she talked about pretending to be something she wasn't or doing something her heart wasn't in just to make others happy. It occurred to him, she understood his pain. Where he chose to cleave from expectation, Lessa had slaved herself to it.

This marked as quiet as Lessa had ever been around him. She was always filled with questions, she always wanted to know more. She sought to understand things. The woman was filled with so much passion and warmth and she had gone looking for something she thought was hidden, only to find that it was never there to begin with. When Lessa apologized, Alkor had felt no need to accept or even acknowledge the apology- because for Alkor, there was nothing to apologize for. She, like so many others had acted in the same way. They expected- even at times demanded of him- something he did not have the p

He understood all too well what it meant. There was a time when he thought killing killers might make a difference. When he believed that his own lack of humanity made him perfect for the task- yet when faced with his own mortality, he couldn't reconcile the idea of dying. He had so many things left undone, so much potential for good, for evil, for everything in between. He had potential to live a life, unlike the empty husk that he was in the world outside of Aincrad. Limp, unenthused, and going through the motions, he had all but given up. Too afraid to life, too afraid to die... and t

There was no end to them. Alkor had neutralized or thrown over more than a score of peons and gained nearly no ground at all. He felt his energy stores waning and his body screaming at him. This was a team effort, and he rushed headlong into it alone- and the system was forcing him to pay for that. There was no turning back now- only forward, ever forward. His blade screamed out again as he parried a wild blade for the nth time, every motion fluid, lost in the last. His body spun, his arm reached out, and he lifted the offender over his shoulders in a quick motion. They did not seem to l

Fatigue sank into his body as they walked. He felt lightheaded, physically drained. The path they trudged led away from the group, and the heavy gazes that only made him even more uneasy. When the sunlight hit them and they were away from prying eyes, he finally felt some stability. What came next was unscripted- it had to be. He knew that because of how many times they had this conversation, or some iteration of it, where Lessa spoke with utmost certainty that she knew a better way. Her way. Alkor had admired her way- but it had never been his way. He was ready to hear it again, but it never

It was like a deep, rich wine, Vengeance. Once you took a sip, it either soured on your tongue and you never wanted it again, or it was intoxicating. Setsuna had not lost her thirst for it with a single kill. Her words, her actions were like a woman possessed. He could see the intensity of her need. It replaced other, baser urges. "Who will have mercy on you?" he asked, his voice much quieter. "You, who have tasted blood again and again, who decries the actions of killers while becoming a killer yourself. How much deeper will you sink before you drown in it?" he questioned her. She was ob

After the Battle... He stood there for a long moment, quietly. The light that filtered in through the windows and the fixtures above burned his eyes as he stared straight upward, gaze fixed on the ceiling. What had he come to this place to do, if not to challenge himself? Why, in the face of defeat, did he not just quietly accept? He had run from the beast that hunted him, that anxiety, so many times before. He managed to wear a mask over it, to push others away, and in the loneliness that followed he manage to convince himself that he had disconnected from the pain. The pain never left h

Before Round Two match... Impetuous. That was his impression of the woman, after he everything else stripped away. She came to her conclusion based on nothing other than wanting to know people better, and the fact that he was among what few she did not know. What Koga said gave Alkor the impression that he had warned the woman against this course of action, and she had seen fit to ignore those warnings. There was no better word for it than impulsive. But there was something wrong about the way she spoke, the exuberance that felt almost contrived. Did she want to talk to him,

Finally, in that moment, she didn't ask questions. She didn't look for the "answer." It was so simple, yet they were so different. They heard things, experienced things, and at times even understood things differently. For a species so homogenous, the diversity that separated a single human from every one of their counterparts baffled the mind. Alkor, as a boy, had been forced to try to find a place in the paradigm. Like paper, they folded him, trying to shape him into the "right" fit. Everyone, everything around him called out for conformity. The world called on him to accept his differences

His breathing was ragged when she rounded on him, his body shuddering as adrenaline fought on two fronts inside it. He felt like he was coming apart. "No," the word tore from between his teeth as he grit them, his knuckles white as he tightened his grip on the bokken. "I'm not losing to this," he said, shaking his head. I'm not going to live in that shadow anymore. For as long as Alkor could remember, his battles had always been clear cut. The victory was all that mattered, and defeat meant he wasn't worthy. But this sensation, the fraying of his nerves, the utter lack of concentratio

The instant he saw her name opposed to his, Alkor paused. Around him, the world was silent, frozen, a glassy replica. The myriad sounds of excitement and anticipation drowned as the air thickened around him and his heartbeat became prominent in his ears. There were emotions in the abstract that he still did not understand, and perhaps he might never understand them. He felt like he was choking again, the familiar tugging inside his throat that threatened to close it when he looked at the expectations thrust on him by his parents. What was this? They aren't here. He took a breath, hi

Alkor continued to watch the Treat passively, still in a crouched position as Freyd ruminated over the scene. "You hadn't noticed?" he asked quietly. "They come here only to mourn." He reiterated the sentiment, only it had been rephrased into something less cryptic. "Ellesmera is the domain of the Elves, but they don't claim anything else. Life is their domain. Their culture keeps death separate. Sacrosanct." The blonde gestured idly toward the Treant, twisting his wrist slowly to indicate the space around them. "This place doesn't belong to just the Elves." He watched the blind guardian free

Alkor nodded. The way the event was engineered did not allow either man to fully gauge his own strength, let alone the skills of another. It was a simple metric, points based on hits, to examine the aggregate abilities of each player based on their efforts in a vacuum. He would not consider the loss representative of Koga's potential. He would not consider his victory a statement of any kind about his own. Instead, he saw victory and defeat in this setting as a litmus for how much or how little training he needed. Had he been too relaxed, or- His gaze slowly moved toward @Nari-Lanrethf

Ladonian and Galtean clashed in destined conflict. The shrill sounds of metal clashing screamed through the bowels of the airship as Alkor hurried forward, squeezing past tight quarters swordplay toward the corridor that led to the upper deck. Another solider whipped through the door and thrust at top speed. Alkor batted the attack deftly aside and hurriedly shuffled to one side, which sent the soldier sprawling behind him. They had no time to engage in a melee, let alone try to hold the breached lower deck of an airship against an indeterminate number of enemies. If they wanted to put an

Her voice cut into his thoughts before he had a chance to put them to words. She arrived more quickly than he anticipated, and that meant they could get away from there before he was buried alive. She might have noticed the nervous tick, the way he clicked his teeth- or that his eyes darted around, distrustful, while his hand rested near his sword belt. He was the same as them in some ways: uncertain, cautious, though perhaps his mania was an exaggeration born of innate anxiety. Up to this point, he stuck to the higher floors and honed his skills as a swordsman. Once he was able to confidently

His return to the tournament area was met with announcements. Baldur began to read through the winners, and Alkor winced as he heard the commentary attached to his name. It seemed there were still people who remembered, or at least, people who cared enough to remember. He much preferred the idea that his name would return to insignificance, and that his survival would be a painful memory to as few players as possible. Nonetheless, he continued to walk on the outskirts of the group, sizing up the group. His preliminary assessment was as useful as the updated one. He still did not know anymore.

Alkor was almost asleep, almost to the point where his dreams eclipsed reality. When his eyes snapped open again, he wondered if this was a dream. He stumbled forward onto his haunches as the tree- treant? - yes, it was clearly alive, and in a very foul mood as it raised out of the ground and lurched toward... someone. Alkor had no recognized the voice, nor had he seen anyone else or he wouldn't have tried to nap. His body moved forward on instinct, driven by the system and dragged along by the sudden manhandling that the other man gave his cloak. He rolled head over heels and up

The ship rocked, creaked, and jilted as they made impact. He hardly imagined it would go as smoothly as it had. Razwell's loyalists proved to be complacent and untested, which spoke of the Empire's decline. They enjoyed a period of peace for an indeterminate amount of time, without the need to take to the skies for war. Their pilots failed even to take evasive maneuvers. He would have pitied them if it had not been such a victory for the cause. The initial damage assessment was unnecessary, and he did not bother to take stock on his own. They traded their ship for the chance to seize

Dawn came in silence. He might have missed the sunrise if he hadn't glanced up for a moment. The willow trees dwarfed the small lichyard, and unlike the trees that swelled in the expanses of the floor all around them, these let nothing through. It was like eternal night, almost prodigiously so. He thought to ask one of the elves or a treant, or anyone else who might have been involved with the construction of the site, but there was no one. It was the untimely loss of the strange flora that bloomed around the monuments that drew him hear, on the winged words of an information broker, but

Lambent light nestled within the elegant structures of Ellesmera, glistening off the raindrops that seeped through the canopy of leaves. The architecture served as beacons in the absence of moonlight or the stars to guide him as he trekked through the sepulchral city. Whether it was the absence of daylight or the annoyance of rain that hurried them off the streets, there were no elves to be seen. The only sounds came from precipitation as it struck and reverberated, splotchy and dank in contrast to the surreal beauty. The shuttering of windows and soft shutting of doors broke caught his attent

Some time had elapsed since Jomei parted ways with him before Alkor returned to the group. They were abuzz with talk of the final fights of the first round. He caught bits and pieces of the conversation as he happened close enough, but voices and words bled together. Alkor was bad at large group activities, in no small part because they overloaded his senses. The inability to get his footing in the room put him on edge, and he looked for a spot along the wall to set his roots in. He heard his name, several times in fact. It wasn't a familiar voice, and in crowded areas he didn't trust his

The world was red. Heat unimaginable emanated from the belly of the beast Ifrit in earnest homage to its namesake. The resultant concussion force stretched our through the air like tendrils, wildly whipping and thrashing. He watched expressionless as it mindlessly devoured brick and mortar, tearing asunder the very realm that the man at its controls sought to lord over. Alkor was not impressed. The perspiration that beaded on his neck and brow now were born of the magnitude of this heat and the intensity of his thoughts, bewildered at how to oppose the might of this unexpected, woefu

"If you want them, the only path leads through me," he said, as their weapons careened away from each other and the force of her strikes made him slide backward through snow. "They've watched you kill their friends, they are wounded, they are terrified. Now that they have seen their weaknesses, they are malleable." Alkor took up his blade in a defensive stance, pensive as he fixed the woman with his stern, stoic's gaze. "Death is not a lesson to the dead," he called hoarsely, his voice at odds with the storm. "The dead learn nothing, and will never grow again. They can never feel the pain

"...date?" Alkor blinked as the comment processed. Jomei had already turned to leave, but he'd struck the proverbial final blow as the idea slowly spread and realization sank in. "Wait, what the heck did he mean by date?" It was clear there was fine print that Alkor hadn't bothered to read, and something sinister was afoot in all of this. If he won the tournament, would he be forced to sit through an agonizing night with some randomly chosen bachelorette? "Jesus Christ I hope not," he muttered as anxiety blossomed anew. Devoid of another human to pretend around he let his guard fall and h

"Easier...?" he repeated the sentiment, his thoughts out of focus for a moment. "I wonder about that." Alkor considered the man's final comment, though his eyes fled from Jomei again. He hated looking people in the eyes whenever it could be helped. Eye contact felt so unnerving, like someone could see past any number of layers of defense to his exposed heart. He could feel the other man's gaze on him, even if it weren't as intense as many that had come before. He just wanted to escape attention altogether. To see who you are, Jomei had said. His fingers traced the wooden rail of the