>SELECTED: “No…leave me… I command it! …God help me, I will stand… on my own two feet…” Did Cain not stand alone, bloody and unbowed, even as his enemies cast him upon the cross and the world condemned the futility of his defiance? Cain on the Cross, Cain on Crusade, Cain to the Ends of the World.<span class="mu-r">+1 Step on the Path of Cain [19 Steps]</span>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrBihZya6s4&ab_channel=Ghost-007 – Cain Stands. <span class="mu-i">“No…leave me…” </span> You brush aside Brother Rousseau’s strong grip, shrugging off Mikail’s shoulder of support. At first they ignore your weak protest, determined to lend aid to their leader. Injecting your next words with the steel of unquestionable authority takes a mustering of strength that you did not think you left in. <span class="mu-i">“I command it!”</span>
Your companions retreat at your words, you can imagine the hurt in their expressions. How rare it must for a sworn man to risk disobedience to their liege out of love for them. But they must understand, this is all part of Cain’s test. Not just the suffering, not alone, but also the will to endure and push past it.
<span class="mu-i">“…God help me, I will stand…”</span> The effort of shifting from your knees, one leg after another, is a shrieking demand of body and mind near as much of the whipping itself. Your eyes are drawn to the pulpit where the Cross once stood, a morbid crest greeting each ship bearing slaves and masters inspecting fresh product on the docks. After Cain was thoroughly scourged, flesh ripped to the muscle and bone, they hung him up there and left him to die. <span class="mu-i">“…on my own two feet…”</span>
It took you an effort of will just to speak after undergoing a taste of the harshness of the scourging of Cain. How any man could muster the strength to not only speak but shout, to scream his anger at the wrongs of the world when any other would surely have long perished. For a day and a night Cain called upon the Dragon in every mocking title and base slur under the Almighty’s creation. He named him Beast. Despot. Tyrant. He called him by his secret name, that which even the scholars of the time were too fearful to record. And on the second day, the Dragon came.
[1/2]
