Strength of character(Perri)

[DoS Archive]

From: genperri@aol.com (Gen Perri)
Date: 27 Aug 1998 09:08:55 EDT

The meat-locker cool of the gym faded with each sound strike of hand against wooden peg. His thick shock of black hair bunched back by headband, stark, hardly-blinking and entirely-unwavering indigo eyes focused on the targets his hands lashed out furiously upon; the wooden pegs protruding from a spinning, man-size cyclinder. The pegs extended quickly and struck out randomly; requiring a swift strike to retract them before they dealt a
painful blow to wherever they met the unfortunate user's body. The machine was set to attack with two random pegs a second at chest and head levels, a steady pace the user wished to maintain with less exertion that he was feeling currently.
Throughout the years, the training rooms of Perrinis Alabaster's residences have seen the brunt of his anger. This was a private release, a temporary release of rage and pain as enemies and obstacles are beaten and dominated in effigy.
Life without obstacle allowed Perrinis to spend his hours outside the gym, with family instead of the neccessary physical regimen needed to combat the malevolent souls that have haunted his life: Ares, Dagroth and his brood, Randak Shaner and his brothers among handfuls of others.
Now, the challenge by Kalamere has brought him back into that needed training; he wished to show, despite a recent slump that he was fit to wear the Seventh Ring.. however, the poisonous words of a man he did not even know, have brought that notiorious rage back in with him.
With clenched teeth and a driven glare, his chops and strikes flew down upon the pegs with vengeful intensity. Each blow fired like a piston, square upon its target with force enough to crack and splinter the hard wood, and a furious onslaught continued as his mind raced with destructive anger... and a sheer desire to eliminate this Ringo, this scum, who would dare try and harm his daughter..
..he had lost a daughter already, and the painful shadow created when he lit that funeral pyre has never left his heels, though the bold light of love and honest life reduced it to a distant memory. Yet, when a man turns his face away from that light, even in a moment's fear and anger, that shadow reappears, just as large and consuming as it was on that cursed day--
-- The General's thoughts and feelings of that moment, for good or ill, were cut short by an overlooked peg which slipped under the range of hands to crash against Perrinis' ribs(The unseen sword is the one that kills), and the young Baron spirals to the floor, arms weakly breaking the fall as he lands with a sharp gasp.
A long moment slips past before Perrinis can rise to sit, an arm tucked around his stomach, hand cradling his bruised side..
The blindness of the rage knocked from him, his eyes slowly lower in realization.
I thought I was past that.. this? Has Ares returned somehow?

I thought I was finally in control of my life... will I ever be free of my pain and hate?
As the training machine's whirring slowed to silence, the General was along to contemplate the presense of the anger he thought he had conquered, and the pain he desperately wanted to escape..