to be alive....

[Eiceblade]

Eice sits atop a desolated hillside. The ruins of a farmhouse rest near by, the burned fences and the two headstones. They are newer than the ruins, but only by days.
He looks out at the valley of free roaming cattle and horses that were the long descendants of the herds he once held in the fences. They were still beautiful to him. He remembered buying the first lines of stock and could see their features imprinted on those that roamed.
He had five thousand years under his belt, a full three thousand spent in a realm of constant warfare known to those that planeswalk, Novarhaba...or the Great Death. Yet he remembers hardly anything between the first few centuries and the last. The rest are a blur of experience and pain.
His memory started with a war orphaned girl named Kuroi Du'Vey who was the daughter of his own second in command at the time. It was before the great peace his adopted native realm of Arcania slipped into...and she was so devastated that she wouldn't eat or speak.
Eice came back with her father's shield...her mother had a heartstorm from grief. Kuroi latched onto Eice and refused to let go until he held her close so she felt safe again. He started to remember things again.
He spent eight years in peace with Kuroi at this farm...in this valley. He taught her to read and write. She was growing up to be strong young leader in the community of Lanshire to the east but three hours ride.
He hung up his sword and never fought in any of that time with anything but words. She had tamed his baser instincts and desires of violence and death. She had called him Father, and wanted him to lead more than in battle, to be more with growth than he ever was with destruction.
Then it all fell apart. He had negotiated a trade deal with the regional crime network in order to make it possible for free trade with outside, as well as a legal means of employ for raiders and thieves. The Severed Tongue, went along enough to attack.
Eice was in Lanshire when it happened. He responded quickly, but he was the only one. He had let his guard down and it takes precious minutes to regenerate his power if he chooses not to store it. Within moments it was all over. Before his power fully restored....they had all fled.
He flew straight home to find Kuroi mindless...used, bloody, and beaten. He couldn't heal her mind...just her body. He desperately used his abilities long dormant to strip the vile memories from her...but she was gone. A living husk of the girl he called daughter...that called him father. She had called for him so many desperate times...he could hear her in his mind ..but he couldn't get there in time...

Eice says a silent prayer to Kuroi's god for her continued peace as he stands. Tears none has seen him shed moisten his cheeks as they rain from his eyes. He missed her dearly each day...he won't let his guard down again...he knew better...she asked him to let it go and he had.
He lays flowers down at her grave stone...another at the stone of her beloved horse that had been slain from under her as she tried to escape. She had wanted the horse buried as a valued friend...he had seen to her wishes.
"Goodbye dear heart...my love to you....see you next year baby girl," he said softly before turning away.

"Father....why do you have so many scars?" She asked softly as she lay in bed, sick with fever.
"Because dear heart....I have lived a way that brought danger to me so you could sleep safe at night. I fought nightmares so you could sleep sweet, and I accept that these scars are a reminder of what you'll never have to see.....I love you this much baby girl...I would do it all again for eternity just so you can smile free of pain" he replied, "sweet dreams...."- Eice and Kuroi a year to the day he took her home with him.

[Eiceblade]

   An officer has duties and responsibilities to his country and to his men. He or she shields his or her troops from danger whenever they can. They make sure they do not send their soldiers into harms way unnecessarily.
    In return, they together build a mutual trust and respect. The troops protect the officer so they can deal with the enemy, and the officer makes those plans to make sure they are cost effective and worth the loss.
    Why does Eiceblade insist on a half married/half single count in his army? Those with families will fight hard in order to protect those they have left behind. The single soldiers fight no less as hard, but sadly will not leave behind trauma if they fall.
    Eice trained hard under the most brutal conditions Emperor Stiletto could conceive in order to become what his emperor called 'The Ultimate Weapon'. He developed a magical weapon known as the Godshatter in order to make sure if his forces fell, the enemy died with them. Why though?
    Eice understood from his earliest memories that he would suffer, strive, and fight his way through his existance. On the whole, he has spent only a handful of his many years being content or happy.  He chose his course early for a very specific reason.

   His brother, Iceheart was a doe eyed, gentle, affectionate boy from birth. Eice had been around long enough at the time to recognize the rarity of such traits in his violent people. He demanded to recieve his brother's training at the hands of his people as well as his own so that Iceheart could be free to be who he really was.
    Eice fights still, so that others need not have the nightmares that come with war. He lives through things, shields as many as he can, and undergoes tortured experiences so that those he does care about may not suffer the soul bending and mind tearing that accompanies the reality of true warfare.
    He strips memories of trauma and violence from children and gives up the few he does have of real happy childhood...shaping them to fit the lives of those he wishes to change. He pulls the memories of those of his men who fall in battle from their soul's record so he can give peace to the families of the fallen. He pays from his own pocket the academic costs of sending their children through schools so make sure they never end up as a soldier.

   Someone once said "Your a glutton for punishment" regarding an incident when Eice called for help to reset a dislocated knee. In a way it is an accurate statement as he willingly experiences pain so others may be saved from it, or so that a mission could be completed. He and pain are close personal friends.
   But his attitude as an officer does not restrict him to the realm of military campaign or warfare. His whole mindset was forged long ago to be the creature he is today. He is not just a general of armies, but the father of nations worth of children.
  
   He built his first orphanage by hand shortly after the beginning of his first campaign to expand the boundries of Arcania. His mentor, Stiletto, demanded he learn to plan, build, and complete the project before they moved on. He added magics to protect those inside from harm and to heal the sick. He added magics to keep dreams sweet and remove nightmares and night terrors.
   He spent time with the children as he was forced to remain there and plan the war for a total of six months. He found his heart in the love of innocence. It became his goal to build a hospital of the same magics as the orphanage to help the wounded of war...the innocents of war.
   All children who were housed in his orphanages received the best tutoring money could buy, as well as full access to a savings fund opened for them during admittance to the orphanage, upon graduation or adoption. Those who graduated, the term he used for those who stayed until age 16, received money enough to have a home built and food for a year while they found employ.
    His children were snatched for their brilliance as soon as they were ready for work. Many are political figures around Arcania or master craftspersons who's renown is far known. Children who were adopted were only able to after Eice or another officer of trained caliber interviewed the family with a dire warning, "If this child is abused....or neglected...we will know...we will destroy everything you know and love as you will have done to us by doing this to our child,". In the thousands of years of the program, only three incidents have happened. The children were rehomed and grew up happily.

    Though he loves the innocence of children and wishes to do nothing but good for them...it remains still the fact that he is a monster.
    He is not the boogie man by any means. The statement of his being a monster may not sit along side so well the image of Eice's heart and intent thus far portrayed. But it is no less true that ultimately he is a specialized tool for a purpose.
     Arcania has held a firm grip on peace for a very long time and has maintained it's strength and integrity for one reason. Cleanser. During the beginnings of the campaign to expand Arcania and bring forth freedom and security to all within it's borders, war was a way of life.
    Eice loved the brotherhood of steel, and comradery of combat. He wanted nothing more than to prove his squad, then platoon, then battallion, and finally his army was the best. He fought his battles so they would never be fought again. Relentless, brutal, and effective, but also demonistic in methods and action.
    Cleanser was a title dubbed by the enemies of his armies. Many times they were out numbered but held true. Eice would lead every charge and if necessary deploy the Godshatter...he would be the only one to walk away while everything was turned to ash and glass, as most shields but his broke down during the assault.
     Whole cities, if not surrendered, would be erased from the land as if they never existed. The purge lasted for ten years, three nations around Arcania were decimated. One refused to quit slavery and oppression...it was too ingrained in the citizenry... it is now an inland sea from the complete destruction the siege engine the Arcanian military became. Six months of magical assault and a dam built to cover the remains as a testament to the rest. The ruins of three castles still stand in the middle half buried in the water.
Killing doesn't bother him. He can commit murder as quick as breathing. Rape though is something he will not tolerate.
    He loves psychologically torturing his enemies. He loves to tear them apart slowly and watch as everything falls apart around them. He loves violence in all forms.
    He has had most of the compassion burned from him. He has great empathy, so he knows how to hurt his enemies the most with the least effort. No tactic is below him save sexual deviance.
   It was said "You know there's no escape now that he's set his eyes on you..." as he is legendary in Arcania for tenacious action and relentless pursuit. The peace has held so long because all of Arcania's neighboring nations know to engage in war, is to invite a Cleansing. Eice doesn't go looking for combat, but he will end whatever comes his way.
    He has since out grown his usefulness as a weapon and was sent by imperial order to "Go and live as you would". His earliest recollections before he started his long march of ultraviolence and bloodlust was of the lands now called Myrken Wood. His only goal was to find 'home'....whatever it may be.
     Under it all and through the fetid hell you could call his life...he is still a man. Of a long lived race, he has watched the world change around him and knows a private despair few could know. He is still governed by a heart, what part still remains.
    He has watched his brother age while his own cursed carcass remains unchanged but the scars. He has watched his brother have a few children and feels regret and jealousy stab at his heart. He is happy his brother has found a life he himself feels should be denied as punishment for his life....but still he yearns.
    Here is a monster....a tutor...scholar and savior. Here is a weapon...a library...a tool....a man. Here is the truth to be alive as Cleanser. A nightmare that lives...a broken dream of what may have been...a heart aching to beat for something more than to be used for murder...here is Eiceblade.

" I was that which others did not want to be. 
I went where others feared to go, and did what others failed to do. 
I asked nothing from those who gave nothing, and reluctantly accepted the thought of eternal loneliness ... should I fail. 
I have seen the face of terror; felt the stinging cold of fear; and enjoyed the sweet taste of a moment's love. 
I have cried, pained, and hoped ... but most of all, I have lived times others would say were best forgotten. 
At least someday I will be able to say that I was proud of what I was ... a soldier." - George Skypeck.