I've done it, I've done it at last!
The thoughts raced through the young curalli's mind as swiftly as the rays of the sunrise which he had at last taught himself to face.
Maruss Freewind raised a hand to shade his violet eyes, blinking for the barest moment as he stared directly at Uunul. The sun, of course, showed no awareness of his scrutiny, rising with a single-minded dedication that resembled his own. Slowly, the young shadowed Elwen dropped his hand, nerved himself, and stepped out of the shadow cast by Gythmala Peak.
--Hero's Ascent.
Maruss Freewind is considered by many the greatest Elwen hero in history. He was instrumental in the War of the Falling, which toppled the Empire of the silverini that had ruled Arcadia for five hundred Elwen generations. This war took only two years, and Maruss was only forty-eight when he began. He was fifty when the war ended, and with it the Empire, and the life of the Emperor Destria- and his own life. He is often said to have been consumed by the fire he set burning.
Maruss's tale cannot be told without sorrow interwoven with it, largely the sorrow of life ended prematurely by the unicorns. There are also signs that Maruss himself, no warrior, was troubled by those who died at his order, and that he never particularly hated the unicorns.
Again he saw the face of the first silver unicorn he had ever killed, the wide and staring eyes, the hopeless, horrified denial as the creature gazed on the blood spurting from its chest. The trapped death rattle in the silverini's throat was more real to him than the song now rising from the slope below. He could smell the redness that had slicked his arms more clearly than the fresh air of the night around him.
After that there came another procession of faces, all the silverini he had ever fought, staring at him in fear or hatred or anger or- hardest to bear- puzzlement. Maruss closed his eyes completely and leaned back against the trunk, fighting to control his breathing, which was coming in thick, terrified pants. He dug his fingers into the softness of the grass, trying to remind himself of the real world, trying to tell himself he wasn't sitting in a void being judged- and condemned- by the parade of eyes.
It was no use. The world fell away, until he could scarcely feel the grass anymore. Every face that passed now wore a haunted and sorrowful expression, like a parent gazing on a guilty child. Voices whispered to him out of the remembered screams: If you hadn't started this war, we would still be alive. Even one life is too high a price to pay. Will you let your hunger for freedom destroy still more innocents?
--Fighting Shadows.
