Bloodthirst

Bloodthirst didn’t come from the city. He came from the edges of it, from a clan that has always existed just outside the boundaries of civilized things, where the only structure that matters is who is still standing. His people don’t climb the Trophaeum out of ambition or desperation. They climb because standing still was never an option and the Trophaeum is simply the worthiest thing within reach. He was raised in violence the way other children are raised in language. It was the first thing he understood and the only thing he has ever needed.

He arrived at the Trophaeum the way his clan arrives at everything. Without announcement, without strategy, without particular interest in the rules of the place. The bracket, the rankings, the careful architecture of competition, none of it registers as anything other than obstacles between him and the next moment of total destruction. He doesn’t distinguish between enemy and ally. He never learned to. Whatever is closest is the answer to the need and the need is always there.

This is not rage in the way that most people understand rage. Rage implies a before, a moment of calm that got interrupted. Bloodthirst has no before. He is simply always already in the middle of it, and the Trophaeum, for all its structure and spectacle, has never produced anything capable of making him stop.

Paragons

Variants