Chains of Pride

This feeling in my chest burns like a frostbite before all feeling is lost. It spreads from my chest to my lungs so that every breath fuels the cold fire until my heart beats like an angry drum. It is a stiff and powerful concert of rage that finds its way to my arms and my legs. It turns them to glaciers threatening to destroy everything in its path.
This feeling made manifest is my true enemy. It demands tribute and I deny it, starving the winter wolf. But the wolf never tires and waits patiently. It always finds the right time to strike me and feast proudly. These chains of mine are made of ice and pride; I refuse to be beholden to them any longer. I will break free and walk my own path. One where society does not demand me feed this wolf, expect me to do so without question. I am not their tool, nor my father's. I will crash my soul upon these chains until they break.
I could barely hear the words of the promoter when she spoke to me. They sounded distant like a spectator chanting in the crowds. "...ster ...part ...event." She repeated them as I stared from behind my disguise of common cloth. "Are you here to register for a particular event?"
The hood was high over my head and a mask around my face. I looked the part of a commoner and it made the winter wolf inside me seethe. It was patient, but so am I. I did not speak in response. My very voice could be enough to feed the wolf its pride.
"Fresh off of the boat, huh," the woman replied, "or a first timer, perhaps?" At first I thought these things are false claims. The idea of being new or vulnerable wounds pride so I lean into the idea. I give it the soil of thought and let it grow. Today is the first day of my freedom that I shall win for myself. So in that, she is correct. It is all new because this is what I chose for myself.
She continued on as the silent war of semantics raged on within me. "I'd like to say you are a unique one, but you're not. I need you to..." I couldn't hear her any further as the words 'I need you to' rake against my neck. How many times have I heard that phrase? How many times have I felt that demand for a debt I was born into?
A separate voice chimes in. Warm. Colorful. "Hey hey," he says to the promoter, "this one might not be able to understand you and certainly can't expect someone who can't speak to write, you know?" Hearth. Ideology of charity so grave that they disempower the weak further all while feeling better than themselves as superiors. You see that, wolf? You could dine for days on their hubris. Yet you keep me company in these chains.
"We can just do a little surface thought," the man says. I've trained for this enough to keep my surface thoughts clear. You'll not get what you want.
The woman raises an eyebrow, "Doesn't seem worth the effort. The only fight suitable for this 'person' would be the evening match. The swamp monster and the maiden's curse." She sighs wistfully, "I always love a classic," as she twirls her hair around a finger. Its a classic match up. A girl is cursed by a hag. Heroes rise to end the curse. They fight the hag's champion to break the curse. It inspires hope. I knew it was going on today. I knew it was the only fight I was suitable for. For this, too, shall break my curse.
"The monster always loses that one," the man of Hearth says, looking to me. "You could die." I won't.
The promoter looks irritated at the concerned academic, "The monster only dies if the show is boring. The crowd needs entertainment and plenty of monsters are trying to get themselves killed anyway." That's right. The true battle is not with them. It is with myself. In doing so, I shall meet the minimum of entertainment when I fall. Fall. How does that sound to you, wolf? To lose. Your precious tool. Lose. Because I want to and you can't stop me. I can see it makes you tremble with anger and that feeds me even when your hunger rose to deafening ranks these past days.
"All the same, the money for the 'entertainer' goes to a next of kin," the man from Hearth says. The House is known for civics. Orphanages. Agriculture. Liberties. Medicine. These things have their own dark side. "And without a next of kin, it goes to..." I can't hear the rest. This man is no different. He, too, wants something from me. He wants to benefit from my death. In the event of a true mortal wound, it turns to the healers to keep me alive. Here, however, the truth is that letting me die would benefit Hearth financially. Would they let me die? Yes, they would and make a show of trying to not let it happen. That's what they want from me. Someone always wants something from me.
No one asked what I wanted.
No one listened when I said what I wanted.
But can you hear me, wolf? I will make you listen. I will repeat it like the striking of the hammer upon these chains. I will repeat it until we bleed. Then I will be free of you and no one will ever demand anything from me. Ever. Again.
I took the pen as the two argued about my fate and signed the form with a big, scrawling 'X'. The feather was dropped on the parchment, ink not even drying as I walked away. Let them figure out what to do with the money. I don't care. That is not why I am here.
I am here to fight for a future I can call my own.
The storm inside me whirled in winter so white that it looked blue. Stepping onto the arena in my rags the conflict within me never felt so dire. Combat always made my soul stir. I was born for this and it comes as natural as a bird to flight. It made the wolf stir with those arrogant eyes and that sharp, hungry maw. The true fight begins now, but not with these half dozen men and women as they start off a fairy tale narrative about heroes and maidens. The fight begins with my winter wolf as our chains begin to rattle in the maelstrom within.
I did not miscalculate my reactions. I gripped with weapons of logic and dispassionate armor as my body was struck by weapons. I reacted to some by evasion, others deflection or retaliation. Most I forced to land on my body. The hardest thing to do is to fall forward with eyes open knowing full well what the fall brings. It matters how you fall. The dance mattered to me. Every muscle in my body cried out to destroy them and I denied this instinct. I am not my instincts. I am not these chains. I am no slave to you, wolf. Can you see me now as blood drips down my arms and paints the sandy grounds with my labor? Can you HEAR as the crowd that cheers for your defeat?
Its over now, wolf. You have ever been the dragon of my soul for so long. There for my father, my father's father, and on and on since time itself. You have brought nothing but pain to achieve your agenda. And me? I have defeated you. I have broken your chains. I...
"Is that?" says the leading man as he sees me. It only took a moment of... what was it?
Pride.
My eyes widened as my disguise finally began to fail. After all those attacks, how could it not be revealing? "Yeah," another says as they stand around me. "Shit. We just attacked a royal. Oh shit oh shit oh shit." I couldn't have said it better myself. Its almost over. This is the final scene. The final act. All that is left is to declare victory over the monster. I'm right at the end. I am so close.
"We have to throw the match," the leading man says, "there is just no way."
No.
"Fuck!" a third says in frustration "I needed this money! Will they even pay us for messing up the show?"
No.
"They won't," a fourth says, "but I bet his family will pay us if we put on a show of it. There is an opportunity here, gentlemen."
No. Even after this...
"Maybe even positions up top?" the leading man says as I can feel the wolf's breath on my neck. That patient wolf. That arrogant wolf.
"Fight me," I say out, but they don't hear me. "Fight me," I say again. They don't. They turn to the audience. They spin a tale about how that even monsters deserve a second change. The hypocrisy of it all. The insult.
The red.
Red merges with the blue of ice and snow as the wolf finds my neck once again as he always has. The rage of a merciless winter storm so pure in its assault. The cold of death around me. Red and Blue. A violent violet like my eyes. Its all I could see as the world began to fade to a force as primal as winter itself.
I didn't count how many people I killed. I made my wolf very hungry. A hungry wolf isn't evil, you see. It is simply hungry and so it fed. I made it hungry. So who is the real monster? The frostbite was still pumping in my veins as I ran thick blood over the silver scales of my face. No one was speaking. The crowd didn't even dare to breathe. As still as a field of snow. Red and Blue. A violent violet.
I walked back home covered in the blood of the people I destroyed. The actors. The guards that tried to stop me.
"Did you hear?" "What?" "He butchered them all!" "What, no way!" "My friend saw it all." "It was just a show of strength. The House has been going through a rough patch." "I don't think so. I think he lost it. Guards had to stop in. They died too." "No way." "..." "What a monster." "Right?"
Monster. Its back to being a monster for a while. Some inhuman entity that you can send off to kill and be killed like pieces on a chess board.
"What do we do?" my mother said. Her concern sounded so insincere to me. Like a broken toy that needed a new part. "We go north. My uncle may have the key to bring our son back to us," my father confirmed. "What about Alberta? And Iolanthe?" It struck me like the past itself wrapped itself around my neck and tightened. For a moment I could not breathe.
Its not true, is it? What I thought earlier. "No one listened when I said what I wanted." Someone did, but she was so small at the time. Could she even hear me. Do I even want to know the answer to that? In this darkness its that small light in the distance pushing it back. A star twinkling against it. Perhaps I was fortunate she didn't witness any of this.
I don't know what would happen if that light...
... went out.