(Groveling) I'm not worthy!
I'm sooooooooooooo sorry I've taken so long to update this fic, you guys have been absolutely wonderful to me. - I didn't update mainly because of life and (cough) I'm ah, lazy, but also because I was thinking about discontinuing this story cycle. Samurai Jack is a children's genre so I questioned the appropriateness of having this here where there may be a majority of young readers who would be offended, then again my story isn't the first of this nature, nor have I gotten any complaints. I'm still wavering on this point, so if you guys have a better grip on this fandom, please tell me what you think.
Anyway, I've lots more after this chapter so updates should be much more frequent and polished. No worries. ;)
Disclaimer: I don't own Samurai Jack and this is not for profit so if you sue me…….well that would suck. :(
There are no warnings for this chapter as it is rather clean, however there are subtle insinuations that have been here throughout the whole story, so just be aware of that. But there are lots of historical references, so beware! Run away if you fear smartness! I mainly created this chapter as a) an interlude, b) a test on how Dagaz's character would develop, and c) just to further test how Jack and Aku's interactions would mature (or not, lol!)
Again sorry for the wait but I hope you enjoy this!
Wild.
If there was one word Jack could use to describe the Celtic people in all their strange rituals, mirthful dances, and unruly ways of life, it would have to wild. They seemed just borderline human, preferring to isolate themselves in little huts scattered throughout the mountainous countryside filled with jagged teeth of monstrous peaks that formed the formidable spine of the Gale Mountains, each step north of Devil's Pass a little closer to the sky as the land rose and dipped in sync with the mountains. This did not bother the Celts, in fact, they seemed to enjoy it and lived a life similar to the fearsome beasts which they shared the land with. Each hunter, for every Celt hunted--all trivialities of gender and rank cast aside--was isolated within their own miniature realm of snow valleys or on the craggy face of a mountainside. The only sign that there was in fact any cohesion between the entire clan was the large hut crafted from local stones and timbre in the heights of the highest mountain within hunting distance. This was only utilized on festive occasions, which sounded rare if ever, if Jack's impression of the warriors were right. They seemed easy going and casual together, but like the travellers in Brii there was very little intimate conversation normally trademark for habitations so small.
Dagaz allowed himself to heave a smoky "ahh" as he stretched his arms, hammer in hand, before swinging it over his shoulder with fond familiarity. Jack cast a wary glance at the large man, his frame and muscle both formidable even in comparison with the other mighty hunters in the group, as he led the way back to their settlement, or what equated as such. The samurai would have dismissed the numerous huts dotted sparsely along the steep slopes and nestled in the valleys as mere random settlements, but to the Celts, this appeared to be the norm for a town.
Abruptly, the big Celtic man stopped upon the crest of the next hill, his towering silhouette casting Jack into shadow even as he remained a fair distance away, dark eyes wide with bewilderment. This was only their second day travelling, Dagaz had informed them both that it would take the rest of the day or more to reach their destination deep within the range of the Gale Mountains. "Why have we stopped? Did you not say your village was on the other side of Miodóg Droim?" The samurai questioned in his gentle brogue.
Dagaz made a rumbling growl, his shoulders abruptly tensed before he turned around to face Jack, his masked face unreadable but his eyes were hard shards of ice. "I ne'er like this place we must pass now, but with our catch hidden on the other side, we can't go around it now," he gestured to the forbidding embrace of the mountain slopes that ringed the valley in a circle and prevented any detour unless one was willing to circumvent the entire range, which could take weeks given the monstrous, ongoing wall of stone. It formed a natural fortress, every mountain jutting defiantly out of the ground like a massive tower. It was then the samurai realized why the Celts lived so far apart, for despite their small numbers, they were easily sheltered by the formidable barrier of the Gale Mountains, which had grown larger, sharper, and wilder as they went north parallel to the Blue Ice coast. No game could escape the valley unless certain paths were taken, which the Celts no doubt monitored.
"What makes you so ill at ease?" Jack questioned, though with a healthy amount of respect. The Celtic and the Scottish were alike in many ways, and the one thing to infuriate a Scotsman beyond all else was to insult their pride. There was little doubt in his mind the Celts would be the same.
Dagaz snorted at the wording but answered regardless, his hammer suddenly swinging in front of Jack's nose to point over the rolling hill's crest down into the valley below. The samurai knew it was as much a test of his discipline as it was a mild reproach. "We call it Cuirarnasolas. Place of Light in the common tongue. It is a relic of an ancient empire which had inhabited this land. They were named the Romans."
The name struck a bell even as Jack looked backwards at Aku, who had sauntered behind him the entire time, unnaturally quiet for the duration of their journey. The demon's face was twisted into a subtle expression of surprise before it morphed into a protective expression of bland apathy as he noted his face was under scrutiny. Hard shards of jade glared back at Jack in refusal to reveal any knowledge, no doubt because of their earlier argument. Gods, it was nearly like he had to contend with the antics of a spoiled little child rather than a demon which had lived for thousands of years! Even for a personality as obstinate and unruly as Aku's, surely a few centuries could afford such a creature at least some maturity?
The Roma Empire, as his people termed the ancient culture, was a surprisingly similar people to the Spartans he had met, with the same helmets crested with horsehair, the same basic uniforms, the same system of society. However, the one thing that set Romans apart from the Spartans was their contradictory nature. The Roman Empire had been the first people, to Jack's knowledge, who had formed a workable machine of democratic government, the Senatus PopulesQue Romanus. Despite this unheard of liberty, they had also been a people infamous for their cruelty, in both their rule over foreign inhabitants and in their everyday lives; the Coliseum a symbol of entertainment, patriotism, power, and ruthlessness. It was a trait deemed so desirable in society it was nurtured in every child. Obviously their empire had possessed a long hand to reach from the warm lands of Itaria all the way to the icy peaks of Ivaer.
Their exchange had not been lost upon Dagaz and the big man gave Jack a questioning glance as the samurai approached him, his mind eager to see what ruins had been left from the Roma people. The Spartans of Greece had filled his head with many tales of ancient, long-forgotten battles with leather-armoured warriors from across the land and sea, whose culture nearly mirrored their own. Their legacy, while it seemed to be great and influential, was merely eluded to in sparing amounts. Therefore it was a surprise to Jack that they stumble upon a city belonging to their culture so far from their motherland.
The air was brittle and frozen as the winter sun managed to crawl over the jagged horizon of mountains in what the Celts referred to as a Second Light or False Dawn when the sun reached a height great enough to banish the shadows from the Gale's numerous valleys where many Celts lived. They had been travelling since an hour before sunrise and as Jack managed to reach the authoritative point of the hill to look down upon the valley's curve, the golden light of morning hesitantly began to appear. Trace amounts of snow drifted lazily in the stillness, ghostly flickers in the lifeless hush that muted the surreal dunes of snow. Shy smudges of light timidly stretched across the haggard vale, a beacon of hope yet to come over a land still entrapped in the motionless silence of night. It was a magical time for Jack as he gazed appreciatively over the panorama. A period of transition where the warmthless glare of the sun was promised by whispers of colour; light heralded by a breathless quiet filled with anticipation. A land awaiting resurrection.
Amid the primeval landscape--the ancient trees and mountains--lay mammoth husks of lumber and stone that strained to remain tall and proud under the oppressive weight of centuries. Shambled structures stood as feeble testaments to a civilization. The stiff architecture, a complete misfit amidst Nature's easy grace, stubbornly jutted out of the snow in rugged spikes of defiance. Ruins that still contained the echoes of greatness were robbed of their true eminence only appreciated by those who built it. Even in the snow-riddled dawn, Jack could see the slow crumbling of the structure, shadows skirting deviously about the ancient crevices mimicked the grinning features like a ghastly skull.
Despite Nature's mockery, the ruins of the fortress, nestled upon the elevated ledge of the largest hill on the valley's side, managed to retain shards of its regal dignity. Though arches lay in silence with their backs broken, though stairs lay shattered and without symmetry, though towers slumped crippled and weary on the cliff's edge, a fearsome presence still lingered. A distant history of past glories and power still remained though the fortress' inhabitants had long since gone. Like an old warrior, the ruins exuded an aura that demanded both respect and sympathy. That evoked both awe and fear. In truth, the ancient workings of stone, wood, and iron commanded the valley it sat above, its back to the peaks. The mountains, though mighty giants of primordial rock who tickled the sky's underbelly, were magnificent but ultimately retracted. The ruins were drenched in history. Had felt the blows of sieges and had witnessed the passions of human victories and defeats. Whispers of battles, peoples, and lives lived and lost echoed within the stone. The fortress had a touch of humanity in contrast to the mountain's inhuman detachment. The husk was broken and tragic. That's what made it beautiful.
Jack felt bewilderment as he gazed down upon the old Roma fortress in all its forlorn and dilapidated majesty, its stories undocumented by myth, legend, song, or pen. The ruins were of another age, their commanding architecture and design beyond the understanding of the modern Celts. It lay neglected, abandoned, and unloved amidst the embrace of another culture. However, the fortress reclining upon its deathbed of snow, its last breaths of existence short, held an aura of respect as it lay undiscovered by common societies. No meandering sightseers sauntered across its fearsome battlements. No passers by threw trash at it or wrote graffiti upon its walls. It remained untainted within its wintery tone of snow and silence.
Aware of Dagaz's instinctual dislike of the ruins, Jack detected a wisp of foreboding from its walls. A whisper of magic. A taint of blood. Beneath the broken perfection and faded glory lurked an elusive tendril of...something. Jack didn't know what it was, but the aura of it just hung in the air, cloying and evasive, but still there. Only one honed to the nature of magic would have sensed the truth, whereas Dagaz and his band merely experienced an instinctual knowledge of dislike. The samurai was aware of the aura of Necromancy, of demons. Something dark had been preformed in the fortress, something that even thousands of years later, could not be concealed by the structure's noble appearance or its glorious history. Jack could understand the Celt's revulsion of the place for it stank of sorcery. Every creature could sense the magic, even those without the Gift could see the ruins were the child of some great Evil and every living thing could sense a wrongness about it. The hush of death.
"I understand." Jack murmured. "Though this place earns its name by reflecting the sun, I see now why you avoid it." The samurai cast a sharp glare towards the shape-shifter, who had stood placidly by the other Celts on the other side of the hill, however, Jack cast him a glance that left no doubt he knew the root of the aura's evil!
This taint in the fortress was the work of Aku.
The demon was aware of Jack's wordless reprimand and sent his nemesis a brief glance of arrogant amusement, completely untouched by the samurai's disapproval. Such taints were a common legacy throughout the wizard's empire and the feeling crawling up the warrior's spine was hardly new to him. During his travels, he had long since grown accustomed to the feel of Aku's magic.
Noting another exchange taking place, Dagaz's shrewd eyes pivoted slyly from side to side within the ghostly sockets of his helmet to watch the character of the strangers' companionship. There was an odd tension he didn't like, especially with that odd-coloured one following the warrior; that nefarious looking man with the strange eyes. The big Celt sensed a hidden darkness lurking within the apparently prone and weak exterior, but it was the eyes that gave the man's cover away. Those were wolf's eyes, cruel, pale, and primal. Dagaz had seen many things, but such a man, he had never before met a comparison. Something was wrong, he could feel it in his bones, and this time it wasn't just Cuirarnasolas.
"C'mon then," the big Celt waved his band over the ridge, hammer in hand, as the sun slowly cast him in a molten gold profile, the sky behind him set aflame by the emerging dawn. "Let's get this over with."
With great reluctance, the Celts began the great trek over the hill's lolling crest to descend the craggy slopes of the valley and traverse the ancient city of Cuirarnasolas. Its outer walls sprawled like the giant spines of a dragon, jutting out of the land in a crumbling barrier that was easily overcome out of sheer dilapidation. Weary stone and marble was worn smooth by the elements, though as Jack got closer to the wall, he discovered some of the rocks had been fused together, and holes in the structure he had previously associated with disrepair were actually blast marks. Stripped a tiger's pelt of black and grey alternatively, the closer the samurai studied the city, the more evidence he saw of an attack.
Jack examined Cuirarnosolas from a distance as they skirted about its borders, the yawning gates to its innards hung open in a feeble greeting only to be scornfully discarded. The great Roma citylay half-submerged in snow and shadow and vegetation, but that did not hide the more subtle but equally mystical elements lurking within its gates. A heavy sense of unease gripped Jack as he gazed at the forlorn but glorious walls of the old city-fortress, a premonition of some unseen threat made his hairs stand on end with alarm. Immediately all curiosity to explore the taboo ruins left Jack as the crushing sense of doom washed over him. This was unlike any other aura he had ever experienced and it made the samurai edgy and quiet, even after discovering the root to the dark shadow that forever lurked over Cuirarnosolas. He looked around him to watch the Celts' reaction, and their faces showed an equal amount of tension; Jack could see the way they gripped their weapons with white knuckles. Their disquiet was contagious.
The sun rose higher in the sky, casting its pale gaze upon the vale so that the walked the faint path worn into the snow in alternative patches of light and shadow cast by the craggy mountains on both sides. Their colossal faces looked down upon them from their craggy purchase on the earth, their snow capped brows drawn into solemn frowns as they watched the band negotiate the hostile terrain. The eerie presence of Cuirarnosolas was merely compounded by the utter silence that permeated the valley. Little game lingered in the higher regions, preferring to stay in the milder pastures to the north and east where the land dipped and plunged towards sea level once more. Up here Jack noticed the air was dry and biting cold with a strange lacking to it, which he knew was derived from the height where less oxygen dwelt. Even now Jack could feel his body tire, unaccustomed to such thin atmosphere.
"I must confess, Dagaz." Jack murmured softly as he walked a little faster to keep pace with Dagaz, who strode ahead of the band, steel eyes alert for danger. "I cannot say I like this city of light, nor this valley."
The big Celt turned his eerie skull helmet to stare at Jack through the ghostly sockets, his gaze unfathomable for a moment. "Aye," he finally replied, though his voice was soft, everyone was loathed to break the ominous hush that hovered in the valley like a poisonous vapour. "A great battle occurred here years ago, that is why the land is so uneven. These rise and dips aren't natural, lil'e warrior, these are craters." The Celtic man pointed his muscled arm for emphasis at the broken land, which had simply appeared a little rockier and uneven than the last. "We don't know much about it, but we think the city fought against Aku." There was a snort before Dagaz finished with, "you can see who won."
"Yes." The word was a jaded sigh.
The Celt turned at Jack's tone, his expression searching, before he spoke next. "I noticed your friend there has no qualms about this place."
It was a casual observation, and when the samurai looked back, he saw Dagaz was absolutely right. Aku sauntered leisurely through the ruined valley without a bother in him, his face merely scanned the old weary structures of Cuirarnosolas with detached interest and a hint of...pride? Jack grimaced with anxiety and frustration, the wizard stuck out with such a casual demeanour while the rest of the hunting party skirted warily about the valley with distrust and unease. Aku could have been meandering about on a tropical beach he was so relaxed, it was obvious such disinterest was not lost upon Dagaz.
"He is a sorcerer." Jack remedied hastily, telling half the truth at least. He saw no need to agitate the Celts by informing them the creator of this eerie wasteland of ruined civilization was lazily picking his way through the numerous rocky formations with them.
This received an impassive response from Dagaz, who gazed at Jack for a long moment, his eyes glinting coldly in the sunlight like the blade of a sword. For a moment, the samurai thought his omission would be called upon and their cover completely shattered, but after a few minutes of tense silence where they sized the other up, the big Celt turned away.
"I don't like sorcerers," was all he muttered with an ominous growl that signalled he knew Jack wasn't telling him everything. The older warrior sighed with both relief and anxiety, knowing he had just escaped a terrible situation but also knowing the subject would resurface some other time and it would not be as easy to extricate himself without telling the whole truth.
"Cé téigh ansin?" A loud bray echoed sharply over the valley and the band looked up abruptly to see figures dotting the horizon of the opposite incline of the vale, what the Celts called Miodóg Droim or Knife Ridge for the sharp formations surely earned their name. Polished slabs of a shale-like stone cut cleanly through the snow and soil to form polished towers of rock all the way up the one side of the valley, a forbidding fortress all its own. Little wonder why the Celts pushed to hide behind such a thing in stormy weather.
The two solitary figures were soon joined by others as more of the new interlopers started whooping and making strange noises, showing no restraint the other hunters behind him demonstrated given their vicinity to the old Roma fortress town.
Dagaz's body language changed dramatically as he caught sight of the figures bouncing energetically from one side of the rocky pass to the other with childlike excitement. "Ah! The rest of our hunting party!"
"They waited for you?" Jack squinted and raised his arm to shield his eyes from the sun's blistering light and saw little shadowy devils dancing about against the blinding backdrop of the morning's brilliance.
"Aye," Dagaz nodded as he signalled for the others to hurry up the slopes. "We discovered we had some intruders into our lands and we split into two parties. These prancing eejits you see up there are the lazy buggars who stayed behind to watch the game we got while hunting." There was an exasperated sigh. "They probably didn't even take it back to the village knowing Owen and his lot!"
The big Celt promptly let out a sequence of harsh barking words in their alien dialect and a few of their companions let out rude strings of, bah ha ha! at something Dagaz bellowed, an insult no doubt. The skittish silhouettes on the ridge howled something back that made the band roar with laughter, clearly glad to see the rest of their company as they eagerly clambered up the smooth valley wall, keen to be away from the Roma fortress. Jack sighed and followed the rush upwards, his eyes honing in on Aku's form who proved surprisingly agile and negotiated the hazardous climb more adeptly than the Celts, despite they being a mountain people themselves. This was also not lost upon Dagaz, who watched the wizard scuttle with a spectral grace up the rock, his posture tense and calculating. Very few sorcerers were known to possess such physical prowess.
Jack stifled a groan and simply kept his head down to avoid revealing the guilty expression he knew he wore on his face. Demons were strange in the way they needed no muscles, no exercise, and no practise to achieve such feats. Aku may not have been the most energetic creature in that respect, but like all his kin, his natural reservoir of magic afforded him a certain superiority in the corporeal world, and what he lacked in physical strength he made up for in his agility. Jack knew if he had been trying to catch the shape-shifter, the demon would have easily eluded his grasp, sword or no. Biting his lip, the samurai simply kept climbing, knowing Dagaz's penetrating glare burned into his face with primal intensity. Even without looking up, Jack was aware they were in trouble.
Dagaz knew.
As Silver Knight pointed out (hope that is correct), the main reason why Jack/Aku is so hard to find is because a) they epitomize ideals adversarial to the other and b) their personalities are so incompatible. I thought it was a good thing to address in this story, to cover all bases so to speak, because you simply have to deal with this if there is to be any logical in character interaction at all. If there are any questions at all about this story feel free to leave your email in the review page and I will try to answer everything as best I can.
I hope this was a good tidbit to get you back on track. I tried to rectify as many spelling and grammatical errors as I could but if you spot any lemme know, ok?
Thanks, R+R is always appreciated:D