Soliloquy
The endless desert stretched as far as the eye could see, an unadorned silky fabric reflecting the pale glow of the full moon. The cloudless night sky, typical of the desert, mirrored the great sand sea beneath it, both blending seamlessly in the distant horizon.
A silhouette could be seen sitting precariously on the parapet of the one of the few guard towers that made up the Balterossan skyline, staring rather aimlessly into the barren vista, twirling a small goblet of fine Royotian wine with his fingers.
There was something about the desert that had always intrigued him, the vastness and emptiness of it. Over the thousands of years that would come, there will be many who will thread across the desert for countless reasons. Some in search of profit, some in search of a better livelihood, some for enlightenment… the desert would have seen it all. Whole cities and kingdoms would arise around it, only to fall prey to the relentless march of time. Yet the desert, as it had been for millennia, would remain impervious to the changes around it, would remain as forlorn and forbidding, a spectator to history.
Very much like how we Sovanis are. Hiding his mild amusement, he brought the goblet to his lips and took another sip, savoring the thick, full-bodied aroma of well-aged wine.
Whilst setting the goblet down by his side, his brow twitched visibly in reflex to an all too familiar pain in his arm. His body had been through the most rigorous of battles he would ever have, all in these few short months, and some wounds have not completely healed.
It wasn't only his body that felt the strain of battle. In the last few weeks, he had never been more skeptical about the core principles which he had held on to so dearly, the doctrines that formed the foundation of the vigilante organization he led that was the Silver Falcons.
He had sworn that his blade protect those who cannot protect themselves. He thought he had learnt the value of life.
In the past he had led the Falcons against hordes of Jhana, swarms of monsters, bands of marauders. He brought cold-blooded murders and unrepentant criminals to justice when the law did not act. He killed. He slaughtered. He massacred.
Bemused, he asked himself how it was different this time, and found no answer. Another sip of wine ensued.
His sharp hearing picked out approaching footsteps. One whose rhythm and weight he had learnt to recognize.
"Hello, Rush," he called out, paused and raised his goblet before intoning, "Would you care to lend me a hand with this?"
"Nah, I'm under-aged, aren't I?" the young boy nested himself beside the Sovani, "at least here in Balterossa."
"I suppose…"
"Yanno, I'm surprised you didn't tell me to buzz off," he replied, snickering cheerfully, "the last time I found you in a mood like this you told me you'd appreciate it if I had left you alone."
Caedmon sighed and turned his gaze towards the desert, finding some measure of solace.
"Rush, what do you fight for, and what do you fight against?"
"Woah, that's a deep question!" Rush exclaimed in genuine surprise, then looked to be in deep contemplation, "Me? I fight for my sister, I fight to protect this world for Irina, and to do that I kick the Conqueror's ass, and those who get in the way!"
A brief moment of silence ensued. Caedmon looked down and studied his hand, one that was invisibly stained with the blood of many. Certainly the answer was no different than what he had expected of this young lad, but what had he been meant to ask in the first place? It did not seem that his beliefs were that different from Rush's.
The Sovani heaved a sigh. A light breeze was picking up, howling as it filtered through the weathered cornices of stone buildings, whistling as it sieved between the arrow-slits lining the fortified walls, carrying with it the stale tang of the desert.
"Decades ago," Caedmon said, breaking the awkward silence, "we captured one of the most brutal murderers Balterossa has ever bear witness to. The Shadow of the Wind."
He took a deep breath, recalling unpleasant memories. Remaining pensive, he continued. "He appeared deceptively demure, seemingly incapable, if not devoid of malice. His victims, never in their wildest dreams, could have imagined what was to happen to them."
"When we tried to question him, to wring out the motive of the killings, he never once showed any signs of being the psychopathic criminal we thought he was. Some of my subordinates had even started to doubt if we had the criminal, if this was all just a Balterossan conspiracy?"
"We did find out not long after however, on a breezy night no different from tonight, when he suddenly became deranged and attacked the warders. It took four of my subordinates to pin him down and drag him into the more secure cells."
Caedmon turned to look at Rush.
"It turned out the poor Mitra had had a traumatic event in the past. On a night around this time of the year, his parents were brutally murdered in front of his very eyes. It was something that had gotten into his head, messed with his mind, addled his conscience. Sure enough, every time the desert wind howled, he would uncontrollably act in aggression." Turning away, he took another sip to drown out the welling emotions inside. "In the end he was still executed. For crimes he could not stop himself from committing."
"Crap… Ya gotta feel sorry for the folks, the victims and that guy tho."
"I do. But I can't help but feel he had been hard done by injustice. The young man had no more than misfortune, his actions compelled by events beyond his control rather than by his conscious will. How did he deserve, or rather, how are we to levy punishment onto him?"
There was a pause as both of them looked at each other, searching for words that did not exist. The ephemeral desert wind had already died down.
"In our battles," Caedmon spoke, "Koenigsdorf and the Holy Plains, we fought and killed a great number of the Conqueror's soldiers."
"They were mostly born and raised in backwater Veyriel, indoctrinated at a young age of our misplaced trust over the control of Remnants, never once sharing our beliefs, believing instead in the sanctity of Remnants. Surely you must have encountered them in the past, preaching to others of their beliefs in ruins of castles or other elusive places."
"They look like the ones who are in need of protection. Protection against myself, against you, against how they were raised, against the Conqueror's beliefs. In their story we are the antagonists, just as they are in ours. They are innocent bystanders unknowingly caught up in the storm of events. We have no more reason to blame them for the war than the fact that they had been born, or the fact that Veyriel existed, or the Conqueror was created. It is their misfortune that these circumstances came to be, of which they had no control over."
There were hints of exasperation in Caedmon's tone when he uttered the last few words.
"Ahhh! I dunno. They chose to follow that arrogant snob, didn't they? Their funeral!" Rush replied with a nonchalant shrug.
"There were reasons for the choice they made. And those reasons were imbibed in them during their upbringing. That they had the chance to make a decision was an illusion, they could not have reasoned nor chosen otherwise. It is the fault of their predicament, not their own, no different the poor lad we had caught. "
"It's their fault they can't think clearly! They can't see we're right and they're wrong."
Seeing the Sovani had been caught out, Rush continued, "They gotta take responsibility for what they did. If they wanna fight us, they already know we'll beat the crap out of them. Their moms and dads may have pushed them a little, but in the end they still used their dumb brains before following the Conqueror. It's not like that bastard had some big mind-controlling Remnant! They're grown people, they know how to think, they know they are responsible. Geez, they had it coming."
Caedmon chortled. He had to. That much was obvious, yet that much he did not think about. Those people were endowed with a rational mind. They had made a conscious decision. And that alone warranted their responsibility. Should there have been a different set of reasons prior to a decision, they would have chosen otherwise. No other influence, unless it could change the way they could think, would have absolved them from this responsibility. Why need he be so apprehensive?
As he had bear witness to so many times, it was remarkable how someone who appeared so misleadingly simple and naïve could allay the most complicated of worries, rally the most uncooperative, inspire in the darkest of hours.
"Heh, intriguing… You are a strange one." Caedmon replied, turning to meet Rush's cheerful, smiling face. He extended a hand to give the boy a pat in the back, but found nothing of substance, nothing but thin air.
The dawn was breaking. The Spirale Market, a shadow of its former glory, was bathed in a wreath of gold. The soothing rays of the morning sun dissolved just as they entered the void which once held the Tao Tie. It was a depressing sight to all who had known the Balterossa of the past.
"Hmph…" Heaving, the Sovani allowed himself a rare smile, one borne of bittersweet memories. "Rush, you will be missed."
Beyond his gaze the desert stretched as far as the eye could see.
This is my first fanfic… hopefully it isn't too bad. Reviews would be appreciated.
Big thanks to Nadira who was a great help in beta-ing the story and providing the dialogues for Rush.
Thanks for reading!