He would die.
He would die because it was the right thing to do and he always said he'd give his life to do the right thing for once and he always meant every syllable that left his mouth, like all good soldiers did.
He was an excellent soldier.
Perhaps that was why the view from ground up, from bent knee, didn't look so bad, didn't feel so strange. He would die, yes, but the sky was beautiful in that moment and he'd love to die for him under a beautiful sky. If only that face wasn't there, in the middle of all of it, blocking his beautiful sky, no, marring it, making an inexcusable scar on the skin of the heavens. His heavens.
They would not meet there though, he was fairly sure of it, but they would meet soon, he was guiltily praying, soon enough anyways if he died here.
He would die.
He would bleed.
He would bite off his own tongue to keep from screaming aloud (because he was an excellent soldier) while being tortured, all for him and the thought did not scare him. It did break the pace of his slow, sleeping heart beat. It was right, somehow, to die here for him.
Then the beautiful sky- his beautiful sky- broke, shattered into fragments and the blasphemous face looking down at him was turning a sickly green. He did not bat an eye. He was ready to die the death of an excellent soldier, an excellent servant and nothing was going to stop the inevitable.
He would- "vile Sephiran's"- kill it. The reds of a beautiful sky seeped over and into the scar across it's middle, over everything and anything that had unwittingly committed the crime of letting those words come from those lips at that time. He would kill it, kill it, kill it for saying those words, for even thinking them- that name was not to be tossed around like ideas or weapons or bodies. That name was not for the earth or any creature on it, it was not for the living. He saw a red throat in a red hand along a red arm and spoke words for what he is (he was an excellent soldier) but does not say what he means. He would die to say that name, his name.
But some things cannot be said
--
and somewhere far away his hands shake unexpectedly and he looks down to his lap, trying to understand why he is suddenly scared, why his heart's slow, sleeping beat is increasing it's pace- why he feels that something is not quite right. And he drags a body that has never felt so heavy to the elevated square they call a window and does not notice that there is a truly beautiful sky because he is trying to see beyond it (as always).
His mouth moves without him telling it to, tries to call out his name, but finds itself frozen. His hands shake as he tries to say it again and again.
But some things cannot be said.
A very obscure piece, I know. :P In case this helps clear anything up, this is basically an account of what might have gone through, first, Zelgius's mind in that ever so memorable chapter in which he seizes Valtome by the throat and, second (after the --), the imprisoned Sephiran's feelings if (or in the story's case, when) he somehow felt that Zelgius was/had been in peril/struggle.
The thing that cannot be said by either is the other's name.
A thousand thank yous for reading. :)
-bows-