<div class="floatleft">(http://blog.turbosquid.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/3DFantasyKnight.jpg)</div><br/><strong>Name:</strong>Kale<br/><strong>Role</strong>: Knight Commander<br/><strong>Location</strong>:  Tower<br/><strong>Tagged</strong>:  No one<br/>As the Knight Commander strode through the labyrinth, he could not help but reflect upon what had occurred that day.  The Choosing was a day of renewal, a day when the Order of the Lion sheds its old skin and regrows, re-surges and becomes whole again.  It was, perhaps, the best occasion to plummet to his own death, on his own terms, without ever experiencing the horror of a peace treaty.  It was also, perhaps, the best way to ensure that a peace treaty could be made.  Kale Thieri would always oppose it, but he could not deny it.  The world demanded it, and he did not think himself able to deny the world.  He was not that selfish.  And indeed, he was not very selfish at all.  He had devoted almost his entire life to battle.  To leading men to their deaths.  To suffering.  To dying.  And now he was expected to not do that.  Kale found that he couldn't.<br/><br/>He was a man who responded to conflict with conflict, though he never believed that might made right.  He was happy in his own conduct that day.  He was happy that he had acted the way that he had acted, the way that made him loathsome to the Aserits.  He was happy that he had been seen as being arrogant, when he was being impertinent.  He was happy that he had been seen as insulting, when he had resolved to protect his people at the expense of his honor.  He still could see beautiful Kariani wielding her sharp blade, approaching that peasant.  Kale gloried in the fact that he had stayed her blade with an insult, and not through threat or force.  Kale gloried in the fact that a challenge to a duel was rejected with an insult, too.  In short, Kale felt sympathy for that younger, dangerous man -- he too was driven from his home and trained in all manner of war.  Kale was brought up with reason, but Auron was not.  Auron could not see that he was attempting to divert a disaster-- Auron and the Aserit assembly simply conceived him to be a man who was always ready to give insult.<br/><br/>Kale had led, in his short lifetime, a group of very brave and very intrepid men.  They were a cavalry that thrived in the forest -- and that didn't actually make sense.  But it made sense to Kale.  The troop seized opportunities.  They took initiative.  They acted boldly.  It was composed of a group of very ambitious men ready and willing to do anything and everything to end this conflict once and for all.  And upon the day of the Choosing, when their ranks were strongest, the Aserit royal family wandered into their den.  Kale smiled.  He was humored by what the Aserits might have thought about his speech to his men.  He knew that they hadn't truly understood what he was doing.  That he was saving them from his own men.  Kale found strange things humorous.  But he was a man of his word, and that's all that really matters anyways.<br/><br/>He had now clambered up the stairs of the tower that he had chosen to leap from should the treaty truly develop.  Though he hadn't spent much time in the castle, he had always enjoyed this particular remnant from an edifice constructed long ago.  One could feel the wind careening into the tower's side, thrumming it like a taut string.  It rocked, and it swayed, and one could fall asleep here, and sleep the sleep of the just.  It was the only place that could permit him some surcease from the agony of being away from the battlefield, from being away from his men.  He wasn't the sort of person that could prosper when others suffered.<br/><br/>He produced the key to the room at the very top, and inserted it into the latch and turned it to open the door.  He then entered the room that would be the last one he would ever see.  He sat down upon a chair, and first undid his chestplate.  It had served him well, but it wasn't his any more.  It belonged to the new Knight Commander of the Order of the Lion.  Not to the corpse of a fallen soldier.  He then unfastened his pauldrons and his gorget, and continued to methodically undo his suit, until it was neatly arrayed at the foot of a straw bed.  His men would understand what it meant.<br/><br/>He then stood up, and dressed himself in a nobleman's clothes.  He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, and then rejected the notion that his body should be discovered like this.  He had been born a prince.  But he hadn't been brought up like a prince.  So he unclothed himself, and put on a burlap shirt with a rope belt.  He was now prepared.<br/><br/>He approached the tall window that overlooked all of beautiful Thieri, and he was humbled with its enchanting appearance.  He glanced up at the blue sky, and he smiled.  He had admired it very many times as he lay bleeding on the ground.  But each time, he had hoped to see another day with a blue sky.  He had wanted to live.  He had wanted to thrive.  He had wanted to escape death.  But not today.  Death was here.<br/><br/>But what would his mother think?  He hoped she knew that he had loved her.  He wished that he had held her one last time and told her that he loved her.  Perhaps that was his only regret as he looked down at certain doom.  That his mother would not know how much he admired and respected her and loved her.<br/><br/>He thought about his sister.  He thought about his father.  He thought about Sir Ralph and Sir Pontius and all of his men.  He knew his men would understand.  He knew his father would not.  He was certain that his sister wouldn't understand anything, either.<br/><br/>He then thought about Kariani.  He loved her too much to not at least leave her something.  He stepped away from the ledge, and sat at a table, and wrote upon a note:<br/><br/>I, KALE THIERI, ADMIRED PRINCESS KARIANI.  SHE WAS BEAUTY ITSELF, IN ALL ITS TEMPESTUOUS RAGE, AND MY HEART HAD BEEN CONSUMED BY THE THOUGHT OF HER FOR MANY DAYS AND NIGHTS.  I OFFER MY SYMPATHIES TO HER FOR NOT GIVING HER THE RIGHT TO SHEATHE HER BLADE INTO MY CHEST.<br/><br/>He liked that.  It would have made Kariani very happy.  Perhaps in another world, in another lifetime, Kale would make her happy in a more constructive way.  But, as he leaped to his death from that window, he knew that it was an unrequited love.<br/><br/>He did not cry out.  He hit the ground hard.  His body lay contorted at the very bottom.  But he did not die upon impact.  He could not will himself to stop breathing.  He was forced to attempt to breathe, though his lungs were now flooded.  And that is how the Prince perished.  Drowned by what was in his organs.  And he had not regretted it.