The Executioner (Putting on a Show)

I remembered two nights as I was trying to fall asleep myself from long ago, but with leather straps wrapped around my hands/lower arms and feet/calves. I wondered why. I know I didn't do battle this way.

I figured it out earlier yesterday. In a way similar to how the Romans held battles to the death between gladiators in a colliseum, I remember a similar "pasttime" amongst the Gods and the Shadow, and it lasted for a least a fairly short while: if a Shadow was found guilty of a crime that ended with him sentenced to death, chances are that he or she would be given a choice: they could either accept their death without question... or could be... given a "chance" in an arena similar to the Roman Colliseum. He would fight an opponent known as the Executioner until one of them was incapacitated. No weapons; fists only—wrappings optional. Then the victor would wait for instructions from the god residing over the fight as to whether or not mercy should be given; mercy was never given. Ever. After all, the point of publicizing this was for entertainment.

An audience—mainly of Shadow—plus one of the gods would witness the fight. Now, there had been several Executioners. And THAT was the problem. Sometimes, the prisoner would actually manage to kill the Executioner, and thus be granted amnesty of their crime or crimes.

... So eventually, I was hired as an Executioner, and I did my job well. VERY well. I remember two specific times in which I fought as an Executioner, actually. The first memory involves a prisoner who had a lot of moxy. He actually made the first connecting blow... but only because I gave him a free shot. And it was a HUGE mistake on his part. I immediately began throwing punches and kicks his way, and he just didn't see the onslaught coming. He tried to block, but I broke one of his arms that way, and soon enough, he was on the ground. I walked over to him and stepped with one foot firmly on the side of his head and the other on the ground. I looked to the god presiding over the match, his arms raised. Then he swept them each to the side, signaling for no mercy to be given. I raised my foot, and then crushed the prisoner's skull beneath my foot.

The other memory involves another prisoner put to death. This one was scared out of his wits when he saw his "challenger" He KNEW he had no chance, so he literally ran screaming for the gates and yanked harshly and desperately at the bars, breaking some of his fingers while doing so. I just followed him slowly, at the pace of a leisurely walk, and when I reached him, I told him that it didn't matter whether my prey fought back or if it ran; it made my blood rush through my veins either way. Then I... well, let's just say that by the time I was done with HIM, the god presiding over the match didn't even have a CHANCE to call for "mercy" or "no mercy"

As you probably expect from such an activity, gambling was involved. And I know the goddesses were very unhappy and dissatisfied with the activity's existence. At some point, fairly early on, the fights were stopped and executions were done in a much less publicized manner. I will also admit that I am not particularly very proud of what I did. I had fun at first; in the beginning, it was a sport. But over time, I regreted killing the Shadow that I did, not that there had been an execution every day or anything like that, but most of them, in fact, didn't seem to deserve their sentences in hindsight.

In fact, pretty much the reason the whole thing stopped was because I wanted out, and they had no one better than me (I apologize if that sounded... braggy) to continue to role of the Executioner anyway. Don't get me wrong; it wasn't that I no longer reveled in the "pursuit of prey" as I liked to refer to battle/warfare. I still did, and honestly, I think I always will. It's just that... there was no HONOR in what I was doing, not like THAT. Anyway, there was supposedly going to be another match after I had quit, but it never happened, and the rest is history, I suppose.

~Melari

Interesting!

I can imagine we weren't too happy about something like that - my hackles went up just reading about that, as if I were already a little peeved that it happened

seems like dark times.... i'm not sure if i remember those, not entirely sure i would want to...

Unfortunately Shadow have had many dark times in their history..... just like many Races, we often succumbed to power, politics and greed.

Razi'el wrote:

seems like dark times.... i'm not sure if i remember those, not entirely sure i would want to...

I don't remember this, though perhaps it was before/after my time.

~Capsha