A/N: Chapter 2 in which our newborn monster has a newborn crybaby moment.
Marco walked for hours until those hours turned into days and nights. The sun rose and set around him but he did not stop moving East, eyes flickering left and right as he looked for something interesting to fulfill the last command placed on him. He knew not the how, but he did know in his bones that if he could just find something interesting, he would be free of those final words that had passed through his ears. Free of that piercing gaze that had dug past his eyes and clung to his very soul.
It felt like an eternity, but finally something happened. As Marco came to the bottom of a hill, a group of horse riders crested it and came down towards him. They looked Mongolian and even as Marco thought to himself that this was certainly something interesting, his body suddenly obeyed his commands again. The rider at the head of the group was shouting at him, and so he did the only thing he could, raising his hands and shouting in what broken Mongolian he'd learned during the trip.
"Please! No threat! No threat!"
Encircled by horses in moments, Marco could do nothing but keep his hands high in the air with fingers spread. All the while, the heart beats of the men and beasts around him sang loudly in his ears. It took all he had to keep his teeth from elongating as he kept his lips pressed tightly together. He could only hope his eyes would stay normal as well. As the horsemen came to a stop around him, their leader looked him up and down before barking out an order.
Luckily they did not reach for swords or bows. Unluckily, they did reach for rope, and Marco was forced to submit to restraints around his wrists in short order. He did not struggle or resist. While the memory of the monster telling him to avoid imprisonment flickered through his mind, he still believed it worse than the assured death if he tried to flee from Mongolians on horseback. So the party of riders went and Marco followed, believing he had no choice but to do so.
-x-X-x-
They interrogated him of course, on the way to wherever the riding party was taking him. He was actually grateful for it, if only because the language barrier allowed him to perfect and refine his story. Having had plenty of time to think about just what he was going to say concerning the monster, he knew for a fact that he wasn't going to tell the entire truth. That would be stupid. At the very least, it would more than likely get him either locked up or experimented on until they found a way to kill him.
Instead, Marco changed the narrative, describing the monster in human skin as an actual beast. He was more than happy to tell his story as well, which meant his current captors did not see fit to harm him too much. That was very good, because he was already having a hard time controlling his urges as it was. He had the feeling that losing more of his own blood would only hasten the need to feed once more as he'd done on his father already.
Arriving at what could only be the Imperial City that Marco's father had described to him as their final destination; Marco could not help extending his heightened senses as he followed the riders through the gates. There were so many sensations, so many voices and smells and so many bodies. After years of traveling the Silk Road with only a small caravan, and days of walking the last bit of the trek solely on his own, being in a city again was a phenomenal experience.
One only interrupted by his captors reminding him of his more immediate situation with their yelling and their pushing, as they got him through the crowds of people inquisitive about his European look. He was hustled along towards a palace that dominated a large part of the city. Marco couldn't help but assess himself as he was led deep into the Palace.
If he had to describe himself in one word, it would be dirty. The blood that had coated his front had mostly dried and much of it had flaked off. At this point it was just another aspect of his dirty traveled appearance thankfully. Of course, he could still smell it due to his heightened senses, and that certainly wasn't doing wonders for his restraint either. But all in all, he was as presentable as anyone would be given his circumstances.
The next moment he could spend no more time contemplating how he looked as the large doors to the throne room were pushed open before him and he was led in by the rope still restraining his wrists. Of course Marco took in the room, he was if nothing else, a creature driven by curiosity. He wouldn't have been here if he wasn't.
Robed and turbaned men stared at him from both sides as he walked the long hall. It seemed the Great Kublai Khan's court was in full attendance for his audience. As he reached the halfway point, the people staring at him changed. Instead of men who may have been merchants, there were warriors and beautiful women. The women were to Marco's right and the warriors were to the left.
But the dais was where the real power was. On the left, three men sat who Marco pegged as advisors to the Great Khan. They looked at him with varying levels of disgust and interest. Behind them stood a younger man, who was more than likely more important than any of them to Kublai, given his place at the Khan's right hand. He seemed faintly disturbed by Marco's appearance, leading the Latin to wonder if he'd ever seen a European before.
Seated on the right side of the dais at the Khan's left hand was a beautiful mature woman who could only be the Khan's wife or lover given her age and her location in the court. Finally, in the center sat Kublai himself, on a golden throne with perched growling dragons for armrests. Shadows covered the Khan's face and the effect was certainly ominous, as Marco was brought to a stop and forced to kneel.
That was when he finally lowered his eyes, acting as if he'd not known the protocol until that moment. To be fair, he hadn't technically; he'd just easily guessed at it and then ignored it in favor of information gathering. Now, he would be giving information, instead of taking it.
"This is the survivor from the Silk Road? A Latin lives where warriors and farmers do not? Tell me why you have come to my lands Latin. And then you will tell me in detail what you survived."
Marco was thankful that Kublai spoke Latin, if a bit surprised. He returned the favor with pleasure, happy not to insult anyone here with his broken Mongolian. "I traveled with a caravan of merchants along your Silk Road for the last three years Great Khan. My father and uncle, they had come this way before and when they returned to their homeland they found me grown and waiting. My name is Marco Polo and my father was Niccolo Polo. You ordered him to bring Christian Priests when he returned to you, but they could not handle the journey. And my father did not survive the end of it."
The Emperor, described to Marco by his father as the greatest king in the known world, pondered this for a moment. "I know who you speak of. Your men of god retreated, yet you did not. Your father faltered and fell, yet here you are alive and well before me. How do you survive where he did not? Tell me Latin, of the beast that preys upon my Silk Road and just how you survived it when no one else has."
Swallowing thickly, Marco feels a lump in his throat as he prepares to lie to a room full of men older and much more wise and experienced in the ways of the world than he. "It was indeed a beast, Great Khan. Nothing I had ever seen before, not in my home of Venice or in the journey along your Silk Road. It was a large creature, with paws that could remove a head from a body in a single swipe. But the teeth are what I remember most clearly."
Marco shudders visibly, and it's not faked even a bit, as he simply places the smiling inhuman face in his mind's eye and remembers his uncle's torn open body lying next to it. "The teeth were long and sharp, and it had two that were longer still, fangs that reached down from its maw. I believe these were specifically for drawing blood more easily. From what I personally witnessed, the monster preferred blood over flesh or bone."
Here, the woman Marco had pegged as the Khan's wife spoke up. She had a nice voice, one that caused something to stir in Marco. It was a different type of hunger, and not one he should really be feeling for the Mongolian Empress. Is his curse going to make him as randy as it does make him hungry for blood? Christ.
"And if you personally witnessed the beast's preferences, how did you survive? Do you expect us to believe it simply let you go?"
He blinked at that, caught off guard a bit by the interjection from a source he wasn't expecting. Trying to rally quickly, he nods in response. "Yes. Well, I believe so anyways. I did manage to strike it with a knife, but the wound was nothing to the beast, I'm sure. When it slinked away, it did not feel like I'd fought it off, more like I'd been spared for some reason."
"The boy is lying, obviously."
Marco's eyes flash to one of the men sitting on the left side of the Khan's dais. An older Arabic man wearing a turban and walking with a limp as he stood up at Kublai's prompting. Turning an accusatory glare onto Marco, the man spoke to all those assembled. "The Latin has no skill at it, but it's clear he is withholding information. Great Khan, I advise he be removed from your court so that we may find the truth of things in a more private setting."
Eyes widening at that, Marco had no trouble reading between the lines. Torture was not something he wanted on the table and as the Great Khan nodded at the Arab's suggestion and gestured for Marco to be removed, he panicked just a little, getting to his feet unprompted. "Wait! No!"
They weren't listening to him though, the Mongolian holding the rope that was coiled around his wrists already trying to pull him towards the door. Marco shook his head and planted his feet, hands grabbing onto his end of the rope and pulling in response. "No, please!"
Everyone in the room froze in shock, Marco included, when his captor was flung through the air by Marco pulling on the rope between them. The man hit a pillar and slid down it, letting go of the rope and leaving Marco restrained but also free. Staring down at his hands, he pulled hard and found the rope snapped easily, leaving him entirely free.
He didn't have much of a chance to marvel at his new strength however, as he was brought back down to earth by the number of royal guards coming at him with long halberds, yelling loudly in Mongolian Marco didn't quite understand. Immediately, Marco brought up his hands and opened them wide in a warding gesture.
"Please, wait! Stop! Great Khan I apologize! I did lie, I admit it, but I was afraid! I will tell you the truth, I swear it!"
The royal guards still surrounded him, but it seemed they were hesitant to approach despite his weaponless status. It seemed his little public display of strength had provoked a bit of caution in the guards surrounding him. Most of those in the room were in varying states of shock. Kublai himself was half out of his seat now, letting Marco finally see the Emperor's actual features, no longer hidden by shadow.
After a moment, the glaring Khan nodded. "Speak fast Latin."
At that, the halberds around Marco dipped and the guards backed up to give him room. Letting out a breathe he didn't even know he'd been holding, Marco kept his hands in the open and spread apart even as he went with Plan B to try and explain himself. "I did not lie, but I did withhold information. The beast did not just let me go as I said. It did not slink away. It spoke to me."
There's disbelief across the throne room at that, but Marco plowed forward anyways. "I-it said that with my father's death it had laid a curse upon me. The monster told me that for the sins of my father I would suffer for eternity. It told me that I was cursed to wander forever more. Only then did it let me go. I do not know where it went after that."
There's murmuring throughout the throne room, but Marco's eyes are locked with the Great Khan even as the Emperor seems to study him in silence for several long moments.
One of the advisors who had not yet interjected opened his mouth to finally do so but Marco interrupted him, afraid he would speak against him like the other, Marco pulled the shiv that he'd been forced to cut into his father with from the folds of his clothes. It hadn't been hard to hide; his captors hadn't spent much time searching him. Not as much time as they should have. The throne room reacted to the glint of metal with predictable vehemence, but Marco shouted over them to make sure Kublai heard him.
"I will prove it Great Khan." And then without further fanfare, Marco took the shiv and stabbed it deep into his neck. As blood spurts from the wound, Marco grimaces at the pain and falls to his knees. The entire throne room is silent, once again staring at him in shock, though this time it's more at his stupidity Marco can't help but think. He only has a moment to wonder if he made a mistake as he pulls the shiv out, a steady stream of fresh blood following it and staining his clothes even further.
After that moment passes however, he can feel the wound in his neck closing, and though they're shaky at first, he puts his legs under him and stands of his own power a moment later, standing tall and staring the Emperor of Mongolia and China in the eye. That's when one of the royal guards decides to stab the large blade of his halberd into Marco's gut and out his back, causing the poor boy to bend over at the waist and cough up blood.
Even still, Marco finds it easier to recover this time and he grabs onto the handle of the Halberd for balance. He finds out how strong his grip is a moment later when the handle splinters in his grasp and the beautifully made halberd is broken in two with the sharp half still in him. Stumbling back with a large blade piercing through his body, Marco grabs the handle with both hands and pulls, hard.
With another cough full of blood, the blade of the halberd comes free and Marco lets it fall to the ground as he feels his insides closing up again. Even as this is happening however, he sees more of the royal guard moving forward to skewer him or stab at him or cut at him. He searches for escape but sees none. The doors behind him are closed and the blades close in on him from all sides. He looks beyond the royal guard to see a grim looking Kublai looking on.
Marco finds himself thinking that if he could just convince the Khan he meant no harm, he could end this. He finds himself taking an involuntary step forward towards the dais, only to suddenly appear ten feet forward, past the guards aiming for him and in an open area of the throne room between the dais and the guards at his back. Even as too slow mortal eyes try to turn to track his movement, he does it again, flashing forward to the dais.
The Great Kublai Khan falls back on his golden throne in surprise as Marco jumps to right in his face, but Marco has no ill intentions. Instead, he falls to the Emperor's feet and grabs onto the hem of Kublai's ceremonial robe. "Please Great Khan. I beg of you, please believe me. I mean no harm to you or your people. I beg you, let me prove it. Let me serve you."
The words are from the heart. Each time Marco has taken what should be a life threatening blow in the past five minutes, those last words from the monster echoed through his head.
'When you die, your soul goes to God and I don't think I need to tell you that despite everything you've ever been taught, that is not a good thing. Even endlessly wandering the world is a better fate Marco Polo. Unless you want to become like me.'
Marco found that the one thing he feared more than anything was becoming like the monster that had destroyed his family, or even just finding himself at the tender mercies of a God who would make such a creature in the first place. He was ready to sacrifice much to avoid such a fate.
A hand came down to rest on his head and Marco dared a peek up at the Great Khan he was currently bleeding on. The man was smiling down at him. "You wish to serve in the court of the Khan of Khans, do you? What greater tribute can a man offer than his own flesh, his own blood? I accept your pledge Latin."
Marco could hear the guards behind him backing away, but he held back the sigh of relief wanting to escape past his lips, because the look on the Khan's face had changed, the smile had disappeared, and the hand he rested on Marco's hair became a gripping fist as the Emperor of Mongolia pulled his head up to look him over.
"Yes, I can certainly find a use for you, Marco Polo."
A/N: GIB FEEDBACK PLZ *makes grabby hands*
Would love to know what you think of this. Obviously Marco acted very differently from how any of my SIs have ever acted, but then he's not a metagaming godmodding bitch like I am, and in point of fact he's not me at all so I'm trying to stay true to what I can grasp of his character on the show. He's not gonna be a scared pansy forever though. Especially not with how Kublai intends to use him.
