Battle lost

Gooey, rotten carnage. Stark warrior clad with overlapping, barely useful plates, gory, dripping, stares down.

Bucolic, tender, fragile corpse, or soon to be, unfocused eyes unflinching, covered with debris.

Contrast evident, comparison unlikely, yet still, some parallel stirs the senses.

As heinous gobs fall unnoticed, the two juxtapose. Ragged wounds and armored joints seamlessly match. Neither follow rhyme or reason, carelessly thrown together jabberwocky with macabre grin. 

Time's corridors thrown open, halcyon days revealed...

Utility unheeded, a child's drawing of a knight superimposed upon unwilling victim. The well worn paths of weapons now repelled by solid iron, adorning gangly frame.

Steeled and impervious, at least to movement, the new juggernaut beams in relief while underbelly enjoys respite.

Staggers in place of skips, teetering for running, stumbles where youthful joy once leapt. New callouses, blistering and raw, tears, at first of sorrow but then resolve as darts no longer find their mark. Grim determination succeeds, innocence cowers.

Confident strides, unwavering steps...not yet. Bowed down and shuffling, wracked with new pain, undeterred. 

The skein continues to unravel, miles of time, seconds measured on unforgiven ground. 

Ungraceful, strength replacing spry, uncomfortable still, but accepted, forged mail contiguous with self. Chitinous exoskeleton in proud array. 

Ghostlike echoes faintly heard from deepest corners. Strangely familiar battle scene. Upon reflection, weathered warrior finds nothing new.

Eons and light years, instants and angstroms, all collide; progress, depth, perspective, meaningless.

There, the footprints so match my own. There, the body, familiar, haunting. I turn, jerk with reflexive memory, find nothing, and ache. Would only death finally succeed, these taught threads release me. Wandering away without movement. The ground resists my best effort.  Bound to this death scene.  

Perception enfolds the environs. Cries of anguish, my own or the wrecked mass entombed behind me I can not tell, as realization dawns.  The aggressor and the condemned share more than just this duel, the weapons leave in bloody script a perfect signature. 

Uniquely matched, wound to blade. Staring, uncomprehending, devastated. I see the blows and skillful work that dispatched yon unfortunate. The furious, deadly dance is easily traced to a single set of prints.  Anguish, pale and vapid, brushed aside by passionate gale.