Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars!--
It is the cause. Yet I'll not shed her blood;
Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow,
And smooth as monumental alabaster.
Yet she must die, else she'll betray more men."Othello
He looked at his hands, aghast, dropping the knives.
There was nothing he could remember between the shouting and the screaming. He knew he used both hands. The blood clung to his arms up to his elbows, red and green and blue and glowing. There were darker, messier fluids there, bits of scale, bone, and feather and the sickeningly slippery bits that would not drip to the black earth beneath them. In his head were their eyes, all looking at him, all bright and knowing. They were eyes that hated, eyes that feared, eyes that knew the cold darkness of death as his knives met their flesh.
So much wasted...he sank to the ground, burying his hands in dust. He dropped lower still, unsurprised to find his head resting against the rocks. He closed his eyes, wishing he could close his ears against the cries of victory as they were shouted by his men, and the keening of those who had lost. Being blind provided no surcease of pain, no comfort.
He heard the sound of his own breath, and wished it away. Every traitorous heartbeat meant he lived where others more worthy, more pure of heart had fallen. Every inhale was one step away from Death's comforting arms, one step back to the pain of living. It was not the pain of life, exactly, but the pain of ignorance. Was not Death the final knowledge, the final step to understanding?
Understanding could end these wars, yes. Understanding, the death of all?
He felt something trickle past his right eye. It was warm, where what was dripping down his arms was cold. He reached up and brought away fingers dirty with his own blood. Red, it was bright red, like the anger that had enveloped him, the rage... not like this cold, white feeling of loss.
He looked up, pulling himself onto his knees. The stars shone against the black. They burned.
"How do you make the stars bleed?" he asked aloud. None of the corpses around him answered.