Revenge will not give wings back to the dead. It will not reflesh the flowers from which the petals have all fallen.
In every age and in every land, there are those who take and those who are taken. Yet, there are always the few who have the power to take, and choose not to.
I suppose no man can forget what he once was when he speaks of what he now is. He cannot help but remember what were for many of us softer times, sweeter days, when moments without hardness were like leaves on the trees.
Time does not stop. And even a thousand years seem ephemeral when they
are over.
Although I don't do it as much anymore, a major source of amusement for me over the past six years or so has been to role play at various chat sites on the web, such as "The Gathering" or "Shards" (see my links for the addys). The two major "characters" I've played over that time have been Kainja and Revel. A description of these two characters is given below. I might note that I also wrote a series of stories about a very "different" Kainja for an anthology series called Prisoners of the Night. The chat Kainja is not the same character.
KAINJA (Axe Warrior): As I see Kainja, he's about 6'4" and weighs about 275. He's heavily muscled, heavily scarred, and has a rather brutal face. He's a fully mortal human. The only odd thing about him is his eyes, which are yellow and often seem to glow, especially when he is angry or excited. His skin is tanned and he has long brown hair that hangs to his shoulders.
Kainja has a fondness for ale and lovely ladies, and can be quite charming when he wishes to be. He tends to lose that charm when he gets angry. And in any fight he has the potential to become a "berserker," which means he essentially goes insane in the midst of combat and does not respond to pain, only to an inner urge to destroy whatever enemy stands in front of him. Kainja is thought by some to be arrogant, but it's probably more the fact that he is very confident in his own abilities. He is very loyal to his friends, and is, for the most part, honorable.
Kainja carries a huge double-bitted black axe with a spike on top. The haft is of black wood reinforced with bone and horn. The pommel is a silver skull with a leather strap attached that he wraps around his wrist. He also carries a black shield with no insignia on it, and usually wears armor. Either mail or plate.
He rides a black stallion named Skaal.
REVEL: Revel is Kainja's twin brother (fraternal) and was born dead a few minutes after Kainja arrived. In fact, he was strangled by Kainja's umbilical cord. Revel was buried in unhallowed ground and a necromancer took the body that night and reanimated it. Revel was trained as a sorcerer and has great magical powers, which he seldom uses. Revel thinks of himself as evil, but is mostly self-serving and is sometimes conflicted about what he wants or needs.
In appearance, Revel is a little over 6 feet tall and is much thinner than Kainja, but still well-muscled. His skin is pale and his hair is silver and hangs all the way down his back past his waist. His eyes are also silver, but they change color with his moods. The most common other colors that are seen are red, violet, and black. He has long white fingernails, which can lengthen or shorten on command.
On Revel's chest are three rows of animated skull tattoos, which are black and often whistle, or babble, or stick their tongues out. Revel will sometimes unfurl his own tongue, which is also very long and prehensile.
Revel dresses flamboyantly and will occasionally seem a bit effeminate, in a vicious way. He likes to call everyone "dear." He can be charming, in a nasty way. And rather delights in being mysterious.
