{ A/N: hello, dear readers!
... do any of you even remember me? PROBABLY NOT. well, i am katana. sup. and now that we are (re)acquainted: does anyone remember that story i started and subsequently abandoned like two years ago called THE AFTERMATH? because this is a re-write of it that, uh. does not resemble it very much, as you will hopefully notice. which is good, i think! as this version will have an actual plot and will actually be well written, if all goes well. isn't that excellent? yes, it is.
also, for those who are not familiar with pretentious latin phrases: the title of this fic is ADSUM, meaning something like "i'm here/present." i decided to CAPSLOCK it up because it just seems very... geldoblamey. it's like he's saying "HERE'S WHAT'S UP: I AM THE MAIN CHARACTER. ME. ADSUM, YOU SMELLY PEASANTS." so obviously his presence is kind of a huge aspect of this fic, hurrr. (sorry, bros that hate geldoblame!) i'm sorry in advance if the latin capslock makes me look like a douche, though. :(
so, in terms of this chapter, i as a writer am much more concerned with the fact that i have basically retconned quite a bit of the interior decoration of the imperial palace rather than with the fact that the beginning of this whole thing... well. let us just say that it is really not the most awesome situation for xelha. uhhhhh. please do not hate me, dear readers i promise i will be nicer to her soon ;_;
well, i think that is enough tl;dr for now! i promise i won't be so wordy next time. please enjoy the chapter! }
ADSUM
prologue
. . .
A little stealing is a dangerous part,
But stealing largely is a noble art.
. . .
She crept slowly through the heavy machina doors as they parted, hoping the noise wouldn't wake the room's occupant. The maids had told her that he was a notoriously light sleeper, and she was desperately trying to avoid any confrontations.
Peering into the darkened quarters of the emperor, Xelha managed to discern his sleeping form from behind the sheer curtains pulled in front of the bed in the back of the room. She tiptoed further in, stopping in front of the cosmetic-littered table beside the bed. Her heart thundered in her throat as she pulled one drawer open, then another, and another.
... nothing. Nothing but makeup and garbage.
She was acutely aware of her proximity to the sleeping, easily enraged man about three times her size who she was currently attempting to steal from. She shuddered and slowly inched the last drawer open. Yet again, nothing. She was beginning to really regret this excursion.
And then the squeal of mattress springs were echoing in her ears, and she froze. Before she knew it, he was looming over her from behind.
"And what, pray tell," he whispered, his voice raspy from lack of use, "do you think you are doing, girl?"
Xelha tried to keep herself from shaking as she, as aloofly as she possibly could, plucked a small pot from the table and placed it in the gaping drawer. "I am tidying the dwellings of His Magnificence," she managed to croak, though she realized that she had not in fact brought any cleaning supplies with her. She hoped desperately that this would go unnoticed as her fingers closed uncertainly around a stick of kohl. She could feel his hot breath on her neck as he bent and gripped her hand in his, pinching her fingers lightly. She dropped it. He took her other hand and guided the drawers closed with it, his every breath ghosting over her skin. His bulky chest rose and fell against her back. She wanted to scream.
After everything was suitably replaced to his liking, he pulled away from her and took a step back. She turned slowly around to face him, trying to compose herself. He sneered down at her as she flushed and tried to avert her eyes from the space where his sleeping robe gaped, but the glinting of a piece of jewelry at the base of his throat drew her eyes again, and she nearly gasped. She wondered to herself if she would be able to rip it off and run before one of his soldiers caught her. She wondered if she would even be able to reach for it without him instinctively crushing her hand.
"Dear me," he murmured monotonically, looking boredly down at himself and quirking a brow. "My modest soul is aching with embarrassment, I assure you." He pulled his robe closed. "But even if you do happen to find something about my form quite appealing - which I have inferred from your incessant gawking - I am not in the slightest inclined to indulge you."
Xelha sputtered, trying to think of a respectful response, but he cut her off.
"Get out of my sight," he said, scowling deeply, no longer simply teasing her. "You are not to come into this room and senselessly paw through my belongings without express permission from me, and I will see that you - as well as all of your idiotic maid consorts - receive proper punishment for your wanton disregard of even the most basic of guidelines."
She continued to stutter and mumble, attempting to cobble together an apology as, in the corner of her eye, the pendant still glittered ever so slightly from beneath his robe.
"Did you not understand me? Do I need to forcibly escort you out?" He growled, lunging toward her like a cat about to pounce, and Xelha felt herself spring back and stumble out of the room instinctively, remembering the feeling of his body pressed against hers. She felt ill.
As the doors closed sharply behind her and the sound of his laughter echoed in the hall, she doubled over and tried not to cry.
. . .
"Damnable servants!" he growled as he slammed a hand down on his dressing table, sending various cosmetics flying. "This behavior is unacceptable." He turned to the startled guards that he had called into his chambers. "Have more guards posted at my quarters, and see that the maids are punished."
"They're just women, my lord," one man protested feebly, "I don't think-"
"They are scheming harlots, my dear boy," Geldoblame corrected gently, taking a calculated few steps toward the young guard. "Now, you." He grinned. "You are loyal to your Emperor, are you not?"
The guard's eyes widened rather considerably as he nodded.
"And," he murmured, reaching out gripping the boy's jaw gently, "Did I ever give you permission to question my workings?"
"N-no," the guard managed to squeak. "Never, Your Magnificence!"
Geldoblame's eyes narrowed and he gave the boy's jaw a hard, painful squeeze before shoving him away. "Then do close your pretty mouth, or I'm afraid I will have to find a ... better use for it. Goodness knows your blubbering won't get you anywhere in my empire."
The guard nodded mutely as he stumbled backward, and Geldoblame was quite satisfied with his servant-abuse quota for the day. He chuckled to himself, then scanned over the room. He glowered at the motley arrangement of soldiers. "Well?"
They scattered.
. . .
I failed ... how will I ever recover the pendant now?
Xelha wished she could bury her head in her hands and just cry for a minute, but she was too busy dusting to properly feel sorry for herself. Obviously no one could know of her plans, and even if she had the terrible sense to tell anyone, the other maids would likely have no sympathy for her plight - she'd gotten them all punished with her actions, and she truly did feel bad.
But the pendant was what was important, not the forging of friendships that would be impossible to keep. Despite the fact that she did not quite know the significance of the pendant, she was completely certain that Geldoblame was the last man in the world who should have it around his neck.
"I want those Magnus," she had heard him say one evening; he stood with a bizarre-looking, blue-skinned young man in the doorway of his quarters, looking severe yet delighted, "and you may think it an unattainable goal, but look - " he gestured to the lavalliere around his neck " - this, this little jewel here is a boon to my cause, and it will prove invaluable to me soon enough."
The young man nodded. "So you'll have 'em soon, then?"
"Yes," Geldoblame breathed, his eyes alight. "I will have the End Magnus."
She laid her feather duster down momentarily and rubbed her eyes. She needed to get that pendant. She just did. Who knew how Geldoblame could lay waste to the world if he carried out his plans? Xelha shuddered very slightly at the ideas of all the feverish apocalypses he could potentially be capable of before she heard one of the older maids click her tongue disapprovingly at her laziness. Xelha shook her head as if to dispel her morbid thoughts, picked up her feather duster, and tried to concentrate on her dusting.
. . .
Geldoblame mused about how lovely hot baths were as he dutifully polished off a bottle or so of wine. They were such a relief on the joints... but perhaps that was also the doing of the alcohol. It didn't truly matter much to him, though - either way, he felt actually rather relaxed, which was a welcome sensation. Seldom did he ever truly relax, though he did like to keep up the appearance of always being at ease. As the emperor, it would never do to show weakness. Laughing softly to himself, he wished he had someone to share such a liberating experience with ...
His rather tantalizing thoughts were interrupted by what sounded suspiciously like a crash in the distant hallway leading to his chambers. He listened intently for a moment, but sensing no imminent disaster despite the sounds of squabbling from the guards, he allowed himself to sink back into the comfort of the hot water.
This, as it turned out, proved to be a rather unwise decision with regard to his various diabolical, End Magnus-related plans.
. . .
Xelha was dusting again. It had been nearly three weeks, and she was still dusting. She had been knighted the official duster of the imperial palace, it seemed - probably because it was the least enjoyable task for the maids and they had deemed that she certainly deserved to have to do it all after the fiasco she had caused earlier that month.
Midway through her job, dusting the various decorative whatnots in the hallway between Geldoblame's chambers and the elevators, she noticed that the guards at his doors were beginning to slack off a bit - which was probably why she was even allowed anywhere near the area in the first place, she realized. One leaned to the side of the doors, clearly uninterested in whatever he was supposed to be doing, and the other was actually sitting on the floor, seemingly catching a few z's on the job. Xelha contemplated on the matter for a moment, then decided to do something very honorable for the emperor: she decided to keep his silly guards on their toes. For a long while she pretended to be working fastidiously, waiting for a patrolling guard to saunter disinterestedly by.
And then she tripped him.
He went careening into a collection of terribly fragile - and sinfully ugly - vases, dashing them all to the floor and shattering every last one. While the others stumbled over to him, the one that had been leaning on the doorframe accidentally triggering the doors to Geldoblame's chambers, Xelha snuck in as inconspicuously as she could.
As the doors closed sinisterly behind her for the third time in a month, Xelha felt her stomach flipflop violently. Her heart was beating fast. She scoured the darkened room for the familiar glint of the pendant. Once again, she could not find it. Then she noticed a strip of light coming from the ajar door of an adjacent room - he must have been bathing. Xelha sighed as loudly as she dared before slinking over to the door and peeping in.
She was met with an eyeful of barely-clothed, towel-clad emperor, which she absolutely could have lived without ever seeing. She hurled herself away from the door and crouched behind the oversized dressing table along the wall. Her clever disguise was foiled, however, when Geldoblame flicked on the lights and lumbered out into the middle of the room, staring directly at her.
"Ah, I thought I heard a little mouse scampering around in here. I should have guessed it would be you." He sneered. "'Cleaning' again, hmm?"
Xelha squeaked.
"Well now, you truly are a mouse! Perhaps I should set up a trap." He leaned down, glaring at her maliciously as he offered a hand, presumably with which to help her up. He had slipped the pendant back on - or had perhaps never taken it off - when he came out, and now it was dangling inches from Xelha's face. She froze, knowing he was about to strangle her or slap her or tear her hair out with the proffered hand if she so much as lifted one of her own.
And then she took a deep breath, reached up anyway, and ripped the pendant from around Geldoblame's throat.
He let out a scream of rage and confusion and struck out at her with a meaty fist, but she was already up, already running, slamming her shoulder into the button on the wall that would open the doors and praying that the guards hadn't sealed it. She glanced back at Geldoblame and tumbled through the doors as he lunged for her throat.
She dashed to the elevators, throwing their doors open as well and mashing the button for the ground floor as Geldoblame screamed at his incompetent guards to catch her get her kill her! and when the elevator dropped she felt like she was going to faint.
As the doors opened again, she launched herself from the little enclosure and started off running again, down the narrow halls and finally into the entrance hall and then the guards were back on her, shouting and readying their guns.
Xelha threw herself through the doors and spread her wings, leaping away and out of sight - and then she landed hard, and kept running as fast as she could.
. . .
Her legs and lungs burned as she clutched the innocent-looking little pendant to her chest, searching desperately for a place to hide. She really hadn't wanted to have to run like this - she had never been very good at it in the first place and her lungs were not the most spacious in the world to begin with, either. But what had she expected? She should have known it would have come to something like this - something dangerous and painful - but it would be even worse if she were to give up and collapse right there in the street.
Forcing her legs to keep moving, her lungs to keep wheezing, she fled down a narrow alley between a few buildings and dove beneath a broken down pod, stowing the pendant hastily in her undershirt. Knowing it was there, safe and sound, feeling its coolness against her sweaty skin, was somehow comforting. Panting, Xelha tried to regain her breath as the heavy, plodding footsteps of the guards somehow passed her by.
Slowly, she inched her way out from behind the pod and began her retreat again.
. . .
When she finally managed to find a liner out of Alfard, she was almost refused by its skipper.
"There's a fugitive on the loose, missy!" he hissed, trying to shove her back into the port. "I can't be takin' you outta here so easy if it might get me thrown in the slammer, y'know!"
Xelha blinked back the furious tears in her eyes and rooted around in her sash for a moment, struggling against the skipper's grasp on her shoulders. "Wait!" she cried pleadingly, wrenching herself out of his grip and whirling around. "I have money!" She thrust a bag of at least a thousand gold into his hands and watched his beady eyes widen.
"Well..." he muttered, greedily plucking the bag open and examining the coins, "I suppose money is money... an this looks like it'd be enough to bail me out if y'did get me locked up, so..."
Xelha repressed the urge to stop her foot impatiently as she waited for the sleazy skipper's decision.
Finally, he nodded, grinning lewdly. "Welcome aboard, missy!"
Xelha breathed a sigh of relief, running her hands through her sweaty hair.
"Next stop, Pherkad!"