<table class="bbc_table"><tbody><tr><td>(http://www.dfwd20.com/photopost/data/522/medium/Human_Fighter1.jpg)</td><td><strong><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: edwardian;"><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 2.65em;">Alfreic Slate, Soldier</span></span><br/><em>With M. Windower</em><br/></strong><hr/><br/>Though the stoic and noble soldier's ears were deafened by his thunderous pulse, and though his eyes were mired by the veil of flights of fancy, Alfreic <em>implicitly understood</em> Ms. Windower's intentions.  He sank his knees into the dirt and bowed his head forlornly as a myriad of memories, not borne in ages but now held aloft, dazzled him with flecks of regret and sadness.  He felt a twinge of pain in the pit of his stomach as he distantly recalled the sea breeze crossing the flaxen tendrils of his lady love as she stood as the height of propriety upon the verdant watch hill.  He recalled very vividly the black spots in her gray eyes as she watched him, smiling secretly, upon one summer day.  Finally, Alfreic admonished himself for forgetting how Ms. Windower truly laughed when she was alive--  merrily, happily, mischievously, seductively, deeply, but all the while appropriately.  But he remembered now, and the memory infuriated him.<br/><br/>For all the good that Ms. Windower brought with her into Mr. Slate's life, it was how her fragile life was ended that utterly ruined him.  But was that how Ms. Windower was terminated?  Alfreic could not be certain.  He remembered battling Falcovnian soldiers during a winter in times immemorial, and he remembered fighting for something that seemed to him to be important.  But he could not recall how it was that he, and only he, should find himself against so many soldiers!  He could not remember the score, as it were.  But he was intimately familiar with the tallies, for he bore them upon the flesh.  He recalled his body slowing, tiring beyond his will, and becoming subjugated to watch as the many bore into his beloved.<br/><br/>But this, he utterly forgot.  The only thing he remembered was how he was held, with his arms being held aloft and his eyes being forced to watch-- and the interminable hatred he felt to the Falcovnians.<br/><br/>In the present, he was in a daze, his arms extended upwards just as that particular day that the Falcovnians had destroyed his life.  His gaze wavered as he exited his stupor, and watched as his hand was anointed in the moisture of Ms. Windower.  Alfreic wiped his fingers across his cheeks and stood.  He crushed his pipe with his boot.  The soldier then unclasped his shirt, and off it went.<br/><br/> "...  Hold enow, thou ghastly cravens," he said in a beastly growl, looking now like a savage.  "For the reaper comes to take the note that your whores of mothers signed the day of your births!"  And with that, Alfreic ignored the pain in his hip and began running through the forest, darting between trees, his countenance looking cruel, unhinged and utterly evil.   "Alfreic Slate comes, and wherever he goes, fate cannot abide you Falcovnians!"<br/><br/></td></tr></tbody></table>