An End Has a Start (Sun Quan)

[Sun Quan]

Okay, will do I am excited.

[Sun Quan]

The wind howled through the open shutter, causing the boards to rattle against the dry wood of the small mansion. He laid in the room with the open window, grey hair left down to frame a face that was withered, wrinkles like the many small rivers that extended from the Yangtze.

His Yangtze.

The wind had come from a sky that saw the land that he ruled. He had won, it could be said, in that his kingdom still stood; it was nowhere near the prestige it had once had, but indeed it still lived. He had made many sacrifices, and many more that were made for him, and ultimately the butchers bill had totaled higher than he was willing to pay. Able to pay, really, but he tried to retain the foolish sense of pride that he had when he was younger.

He had been so rash then. He knew he had made mistakes, had sacrificed those who were close to him. It had started early. He had killed his brother, just to rise to the throne because he thought he was a better leader, someone more centered.

Who was he to make that decision?

Then came his brother's son. Killed by a member of his own family. Killed by two members of his family, really; Quan for issuing the order, Tzao for carrying out the assassination. The man's blood was on both of their hands, and it had been splashed on so many other during that as well. Lu Xun, Dailai Zhangba, Guan Shao, Zhu Ran. And yes, even that last one again, his death come in a moment of tenderness that Sun Quan thought about every single day since then.

For the entirety of his life. He had never made a graver mistake.

It hadn't ended there. He continued to betray and kill those who grew close to him, using their deaths to further his own cause. Sun Shang Xiang was traded away to Shu again on a near whim, solidifying an allegiance that finally allowed Quan to gain ground into Wei. It was short lived.

Shu betrayed us soon thereafter, and we lost Jing entirely. He overstepped himself there. It had been an obvious mistake. It caused him to falter, and he lost the territory he had gained from Wei as well. It had all been for naught, in the end. Even now, both Kingdom pressed in around him, though his men held them. Thankfully, his men were doing well without him to lead. He had a son, finally, a concubine's child that he adopted as Heir.

Sun Ran walked into the room, a man of 20. He had held off the forces for another 20 years after Zhu Ran's death, having sought to solidify his lineage soon after his murder. He hadn't killed with own hands again since then, even the sight of blood causing him some nausea.

He was strong, but that moment had broken something that had been stretched too tight. He had managed, but in his old age he had begun to regress. He had begun seeing hallucinations, and by now he was experiencing another world entirely, a world where he cried out for release from the torments from time to time. He spoke with dead men and his doctor's did not imagine he had much time left.

But for some reason, he lived on. But could you call being stuck in a world of your living nightmares a life worth living? Unfortunately for all of them, Ren refused to let them poison his father; he was too filial. He naively believed he could save him.

Nothing could save Sun Quan, Emperor Da of Wu