It felt so much like Macbeth. Once upon a time, Lando had been a great war hero, noble and wise, if a bit ruthless. It was the ruthlessness that seemed to forecast his fall.

After the strange death of the king, his two sons ran away and left the crown in Lando’s hands. He was crowned king of Athaelrad.

However, Lando unwittingly became more and more ruthless, ordering the murders of many people and even doing the murders himself sometimes. Every night, he would be tormented by terrible nightmares, or ‘scorpions of the mind’ as Macbeth himself would have put it. Often the dreams would predict that he would be killed by a man he once loved.

In the end, it was true. After fighting off many attempted assassinations on the king, Athaelrad was plunged into war within itself. Many people rebelled against the king, and after the deaths of most people that went to the castle to eliminate said king, in the end there was only one more person was really brave enough to go up and face him and fight him.

Despite being able to fight off some other attackers, Lando had been injured. His hands were coated in both his own blood and the blood of others, metaphorically and literally. Not even all of Neptune’s waters would wash them clean. As the door to his chamber opened and the brave person stepped in, they were immediately identified.

Lando, who had fallen against the wall and holding the wounds made in his arms and chest, knew exactly who had come after him to kill him. This person, the person he had once been close to and even loved once upon a time, had fought battles with, had come.

“Oscar…?” he gasped out, squinting up at who used to be his closest friend.