It was nine. Dinner time for Baron Orson, consummate bachelor. On his lonely table was piled with trays of meats the likes of which even the Baron was lacking in the knowledge of the names of. To him it only mattered how they tasted, and they tasted heavenly divine as they always did. He sipped on spirits from lands as distant as Covra in glass made of pure crystal, in his large multistory mansion. The servants left the house and retired to their quarters in the small shack in the yard next to the stable where he kept his prized horse.
It was eight. Dinner time for Connor Castillo, recent widower. On his lonely little table was a few meager pieces of bread, slathered with animal fats and crushed fruit which he had stolen off the vines of a neighbor early in the day. To him the taste did not matter, only that something was placed into his stomach, and the disgusting taste he choked down help subside the gnawing hunger he felt like always. He took long gulps of water of a very disconcerting color and a very disconcerting taste from a ceramic cup that was stained and chipped from years of use. His meager apartment, two rooms that in most places would be one single room, lay barely lit, the hiss of the gas lamps struggling to keep their meager orange glow.
It was nine forty. Connor moved across the stones, head down, wrapped in the darkest clothing he could find in his drawers. He watched as the guards paced back and forth, eyes darting across the small yard and to the cobblestone street ahead of them. Connor waited until they both turned towards each other and in vaulted over the fencing grabbing it to stop himself from thudding to the ground. He slid off and got onto his stomach, crawling across the grassy yard. He made his way around to the back and stood up, staying against the wall.
The back door beckoned as he slowly approached it, pulling out a small flat piece of iron and sticking it between the lock and the door. He jiggled the handle and jostled the iron until he heard a noise and then slowly and cautiously pulled open the door.
He made his way across the oak wood floors, slowly creaking the boards with each heavy step. The house was brightly lit, the hiss of the lights filling the air.
Connor slid into a room and began to grab any valuables and stuff it in a sack. He did this room after room, filling up his bag with shiny objects that he was certain would fetch a price. Soon, every room was emptied of what he could carry, and Connor reached the dining room. On the table sat piles of food, being devoured by flies already. Connor moved towards it and began to cautiously eat, filling up his stomach with tastes like he had never experienced in his life. Tastes and smells that seemed like they were gods compared to what meager offerings he could find to eat. He ate and ate, savoring the decadent leftovers of the Baron.
He finished and made his way the staircase. He stood and stared up, trying to hear if the master of the house was home or awake.
It was nine fifty-five, and the Baron was in his pajamas, lying in his large and fluffy bed reading a book of poetry bound in leather. His stomach was full, and the food left over was rotting on the table until the morning when his servants would toss it out. His wispy head of hair was tousled and frizzled, only adding to how sad his attempts at hiding his increasing baldness were becoming. It was a peaceful evening, and he was planning to have the morrow be of a similar sort. Perhaps take a ride upon his stallion, if the weather were so permitting. He closed his eyes and lazily tossed the expensive volume of poetry to the side where it hit with a thump and quickly relaxed into his dreams.
It was ten fourteen and the door to the Baron's room opened and above his sleeping form a stranger did stand. Connor stared, fingers grasping and un-grasping a small statuette of the Baron's great grandfather Baron Ross. It weighed heavy in his palms as he stared at the man, his silk pajamas, silk sheets and bed the size of three fourths of Connor's home.
Connor stared and began to shake.
This man had more than he needed, more than any man needed. He gouged himself on food and left it to rot when he did not finish it, while Connor had barely enough to feed himself now even after the death of his wife. His wife, dead and gone from diseases that money like the kind the Baron had could have paid the cure for or at least traveled to Septurn to cure her there. This fucker before him, rich off the luck of being born to a family that had long ago been giving land and nobility, who now did nothing but squander his fortune away on himself, was making him sick to his very core.
He could leave. He should leave, take the valuables and run away to a neighboring country to sell the wares, start a new life, avoid the trouble thievery would cause. But the sleeping face made him stay, made him raise that arm up and bring down the head of the Baron Ross onto the head of Baron Orson. Again. Again. Again. Smashing it until the skull gave way and his face became an unrecognizable mush.
He would die. There was no other verdict a court would hand down when he was caught. So, he had nothing left to lose.
He grabbed the leg of the baron and drug him out of the bedroom and down the stairs, blood and brains trailing as he thudded against each step. Slowly he dragged the body across the yard to the stables, not caring if he was seen. He grabbed the reigns of the tall black stallion and lead it outside. He then tied a rope to the horse's underside and one to the neck of the baron's corpse and slammed his fist into the underside of the horse. It reared and began to run towards the front of the house. He soon heard the guards scream as they chased after it. He slowly made his own way back into the mansion and back into the dining room, where he began to eat some more- as soon he would be wishing for even the meager scraps he had at home.
It was one fourteen, and the knights stormed the mansion, and in the struggle killed one Connor Castillo, thief and murder of Baron Orson. There was no struggle, just an execution by the knights since the sentence was obvious. To them it was merely giving mercy, to save him the agony of awaiting death in a damp cell. To him it was murder for murder, eye for an eye. He only wished that he had chosen a house with more scum to bash into brain mash.
