The Secondary Saga

[Thaal Sinestro]

What fear and anger had taken from him, kept from him his entire life, sadness had returned. Life had given to him what could never be stolen.

The greenskin’s dim sight of the future had only carried with it the promise of struggle, the eternal attempt to escape from the suffering of the moment. Living one moment to the next, scrambling to free yourself from the oppression of pain; it devoured his consciousness. Fear and anger were the keystones of survival, both important tools to motivate his every action and they had served him well. However, the price they demanded was a steep one. There had been no time for sorrow, no time to feel anything but the crushing, desperate desire to escape.

And yet, the pain of sadness had cleansed him of that fear, and shifted the focus of his anger. Sorrow had driven a stake into him, every joyful memory yet another hammer blow pushing it further into his chest until it was so deep within him that it could never be removed. Sadness had been a mirror; a looking glass in which he saw reflected the things that now strangled his affections with even more fervor than the hope of survival. This was because his misery, inflicted only by the lamentations of the heart, was a product of his love for those he had thought he had lost forever.

When before he would have run, now the goblin’s tiny heart urged him onward, pushing him to take arms despite the certainty of failure.

Stepping forward, the golden goblin placed himself between his friends and Clayton, a gruesome sneer carving deep grooves into his features. His clawed fingers curled as he steeled himself, wide eyes locked upon the hunter.

“Wot ya tink you doin, eh?” he spat, “You ain’t da Boss ‘ere, and ya ain’t got noffin’ good to say or do fer nobody ‘ere!”

“Excuse me?” Clayton’s expression grew manic as his sweat-soaked hair tumbled in front of his face. “You? Of all people here, you dare tell me that I’m hurting the group? You, the one who attacked us?! What madness has taken ahold of you, you savage little imp? Have you gone fully mad?”

Snarling, Grobdum hissed between his snaggletooth fangs, “I don’ beat ya before, and I’z kin beat ya again! I told ya once a’fore: You ain’t noffin.”

Rage swelled in the hunter’s bosom and he took a step forward, his disheveled appearance only magnifying the look of insanity that pulsed around him as he frantically cocked his blunderbuss. Grobdum’s nimble fingers subtly withdrew the rusty dagger from his sleeve, only the faintest of glints in his eyes to reveal his intentions. The protests of the group seemed little to them now that a confrontation was assured, their voices falling flat as each moved in for the kill.

A gunshot split the air, a flock of birds squawking frantically as they flew in every direction from the peak of the canopy. A pall of silence fell over the squabbling company of freaks and desperados as the rippling sound of the bullet echoed in the distance.

Christa stood at the edge of the clearing, a line of smoke trailing from her pistol. “Shut the fuck up,” she said, her voice nearly dead with exasperation. Grobdum and Clayton stood staring at the woman for a moment, her expression hard and unmoving. “I’m going to tell you what we’re going to do. We’re going to put away our knives and guns and swords, and we’re all going to shut the hell up for one goddamn minute.”

Clayton’s lips parted to protest, but Christa firmly snapped, “We didn’t come this far to start digging each other’s graves over petty crap, you got me?” When it became clear that the hunter had no more words for her, she continued, “We are so close. We are SO. CLOSE. So stuff it. Pack it down your throats and save it for after Omni. Got any questions?” she asked snidely, looking over the ever-shrinking crowd of secondaries. When none spoke, she finally lowered her weapon and took a deep breath, “Good.”