Defiance: Birth of the Renegades
Broken Mirror
"Not all is as it appears. With every truth there are a hundred thing left unsaid, forgotten, or distorted."
Temples throbing, arms aching, Rene mutely took the glass offered by the white robed doctor. Out of all the "Desians" in this base only the medical staff were premitted to wear any other color besides black. And only by beggin Yuan was she premitted to wear the white coat over her tan tunic and pants. She hated the color black, but then that might have been lingering trama from having her parents dragged away by the Desians. Shivering, she shelved that memory and swallowed the steeming cup of brown medicine. It took effort to order herself not to think of what it was, only to drink.
Feruon nodded, pleased with Rene's good behavior so far. While the mess of liquified red jells, willow bark, juices from a cacti coursed through the girl's system Feruon pealed off the bloody coat. She shook her head, tisked, and scolded even as she fetched bandages and the like. Ignoring the red aura that seemed to seep out from Rene's skin -an after effect from consuming the red gell- the medic ran down her customary list of questions. At the answeres she scowled, crossed her arms in front of her chest. The medic did the poorest Yuan impersonation that Rene had ever seen.
"How many times have I told you not to spar with Z'eh's lot?"
"You sound like Yuan." Rene teased.
"Bite your tongue young lady." Feruon growled. "I do not sound like Lord Yuan."
Ignoring the medics flush of pleasure Rene sighed, lay on the table and lifted her arm so that Feruon could better wrap it up.
"He's going to have a fit." Feruon growled.
"Good, it'll keep him on his toes." The Second lifted her other arm and Feruon went to work binding the mess of small nicks. "You could just leave it-" Rene protested, "-it just looks like a mess of cat scratches..."
Feruon lightly rapped her patient on the head and Rene winced. Her headache once bad became worse, and with Feruon's uncomforting matronly lecture ringing in her head the Second felt more like a foolish child than one of the leaders of an organization being honed to strike down Cruxis.
X
"Sleeves up."
Blinking Rene paused, frozen by Yuan's strange comand that had been uttered before the'd even gotten through the doorway. Still framed in the steel portal she hesitated, took a weary step back into the hall. The guard behind her turned his head, and catching his Lord's nod drew his spear and gently prodded the Second in the back before she could bolt. She was alll but nudged by spear point to her customary chair by the grinning, giggling, guard.
"Thank you, private Shay'awn. Now that you've hearded her as agreed could you close the gate behind you so she doesn't get away?"
"Yes, my Lord." The false Desian in question smirked at the disgruntled Second.
"Good lad." Yuan murmurred just loud enough for the young man to hear.
Rene's glare could have at best be described as unfriendly, the Seraph ignored it, set the Aero Voice Transmitter device on the table besides the two plates of food he'd had ordered up here. Spoting the ATV Rene's glare became venomous, and again Yuan ignored it.
"Arms on the table, both of them. I wasnt to look over the healing myself."
Sighing, Rene gave into the inevitable and put both arms on the table. Yuan's cool fingers picked at the three buttons that ran down her sleeve. He folded the fabric back, then rolled the sleeves back to analize the red seeped bandages.
"It's rare Feruon has disappointed me." He noted in an icy voice.
"We're running low on everything, gels, tonics, even mundane sources." Rene hissed as Yuan began to unwind the first of the bandages. "I requested that they didn't use more then the absolute minimum for the cuts."
Yuan nodded, the cries from supply were getting more shrill by the day. He'd already set a plan in motion to remidy that, a stupid, suicidal plan possilby, but it was better to offer a meanger hope than none at all.
"I have an idea for that, but that's not what I summoned you here for." Yuan's hand began to glow with a faint azura aura. Rene sighed, allowed the Seraph to waste his mana healing her. The cuts ceased thier crimson seepage, and Yuan absently patted her on the head when he was done. Only Yuan, she decided, had permission to do that. Seeing the steely glint in the girl's eyes the Seraph chuckled.
"Yes, I know you're an adult, allow an old man his indulgances from time to time however, Second."
"Old, you?" Rene smirked. "I'd say you don't look a day older than two thousand nine hundred."
Yuan laughed, smiled, and pulled himself to his feet, the food untouched.
"Eat, drink, then if you would please join me in my private quarters, I've soemthing to show you."
"Not another one of those gods aweful Kharlan War paintings I hope." Rene made a face and though the Seraph chuckled there was a strange note to the sound. She looked up, startled to see just for a seoncd a flash of pain in the man's expresion. But the emotion, like all others, was masked before she could even begin to discurn it's purpose.
Suddenly Rene wasn't hungry, but she had to eat. She wasn't like Yuan where she could go without eatting or drinking. As if to remind her, her stomach growled, and the Seraph gave her a long look that was part threat part concern.
"Alright already, I'm eatting, don't ram it down my throat."
So she ate, but didn't taste it or had she been asked later couldn't tell what she was eatting.
X
Light shone, in a room that had been dark for nearly half a decade candles were lit sending the thinist plumes of whispy smoke to the caves ceiling.
"My refuge, home away from home." The words were a whisper that echoed, distorted, and became a choir of hisses. "I keep little here, make no pretense about my state when I'm alone."
Stark, baren, there was no bed, no furnishing save a tattered chair. claw marks scored the thing's back side. Marks of an animal that had wandered it's way into the Seaph's sanctuary then promptly been dispatched. She wondeed, if in the darkest courners of this place it the small courpse was still there, rotting away. A few feathers, dusty red no longer gleaming with thier strange angelic lumiescence, were scattered about with abandon. Half concieled by the darkness was a chest, old, marked with runes of preservation. So that was where the Seraph kept his spare capes, she had wondered... She said as much, not daring to speak above a whisper, and the Seraph shook his head.
"That's not quite what it is." Yuan murmurred. "I've stored some items of sentimental value within, I do have a closet in my private quarters upstairs you know."
"Oh..." Rene blushed. "No I didn't."
Yuan smiled, his sky blue eyes sad.
"You could have asked."
"Sorry."
"I did not however bring you down here to talk of the storage of capes." The Seraph walked to the one wall that wasn't bare. On the wall was a blanket, crudly stitched with pink thread. Remembering that incident Rene smiled, the smile however left her face as Yuan cooly walked to the item obscured by the blanket and stroked it with a chilling devotion. "I came to show you this. Out of all the others only you have the right to see."
The seraph pulled the fabric, it shivered free... and Rene stared up at herself. There were small differences of course, the green eyes didn't contain the feral sharpness of her own, the short croped spring hued hair was a deliberate contrast to her own long locks. And most of all, the smile, a smile filled with open welcome, innocence...
"My wife, Martel Yggdrasil, your Goddess... Mithos' Goddess..."
Yuan's rambling monologue was little more than jibberish to her ears. Rene looked upon the mirror made of canvus and paint. The girl on the other side was a ghost clad in silver and white. Her pale complextion made almost angelic by the flowing gauzy fabrics that would around her.
"It was a gift." Yuan continued, his hand fell limply to his side, he stared at the unjudging earthen floor. "From a friend. Before Martel died we were planning our wedding. It was a con'kith salikal an anchinet custom, where the closest fried to the couple in question would make them a gift... This was his gift to me, Martel didn't live long eough to recieve the gift that Kratos had made for her..."
Startled by the hint of movement, he jerked his head up. Rene brushed past him, looked up into Martel's face, the emrald eyed child's face was almost as pale as his lovers had been. He said nothing, only watched as Rene reached up and mimed the gesture he had been making for the last few hundred years. With a shaking hand the girl traced the woman's face, caressed the painting almost as if willing it's subject to life.
"She was... pregnent, we were expecting a girl in six months time. She was murdered, assasined by humans who had a grudge against Kratos. It was her death that lead to all of this."
She looked at him, her eyes overflowing with a fear he did not understand.
"They wanted you to kill me."
"Yes, and I didn't."
"Why?"
Swallowing the Seraph indicated she should sit, but then belatedly rememberred that she had no place to sit. SHe looked at him, ignored the gesture, one hand still extended to touch the painting she looked at him. Tears gleamed in those eyes, and the Seraph forced himself to meet the girl's gaze head on.
"When I looked at you, I saw her."
"And when you look at me now," Rene croaked, "what do you see?"
"You." Yuan whispered, gently he cupped her chin and made her meet his gaze. "Only you."
With a whimper Rene crumpled, and he caught her as she cried like a broken hearted child.
X
Once they were both composed the Seraph stiffly offered his Second the dubious luxeries of his office. Rene happily took him up on it, and pointedly did not look at the painting as Yuan re-covered it. She'd never come down here again, Yuan wondered if he'd have the heart to ever come down here again while Rene was still alive. Sighing Yuan activated the mana disk, and with the barest flash of light they were gone, leaving the painting to it's lonely place in the darkness for hopefully many long decades to come.
X
"Destroying Cruxis means destroying Martel." Yuan told her with a chilling finality as they had taken thier accustomed seats. "Cruxis' goal, the true goal of the Regeneration, is to find a vessel to accept Martel's essence."
Rene tossed and turned on the bed as Yuan's words came back to haunt her like a nightmare.
"The only thing keeping her here is Mithos' will, and the power of the Eternal Sword. Kratos is the Seal, his life force is the power that binds Origin to Mithos' service."
Rene had nodded. "Well that seems simple enough, just kill one man to break a seal and Mithos looses everything."
"No, it's not that simple. One does not simply kill derris fa sith, my child. Even if I were to cast aside millenia's worth of brotherhood to the man, killing Kratos owuld take something of absolutely catoclysmic preportions. Do not forget, he is as I am, a Seraphim. I find myself balking, I don't want to do this."
"So, three people are more important then the millions of people that Mithos is going to kill, sacrifice, and torment?" Rene had flared.
The look in Yuan's eyes, even now that she was trying to sleep and hours had passed since he'd pinned it on her, made her writh.
"Would you so easily cast aside my life, the lives of your friends here, to save the world? Would you willingly go forward knowing that to pursue this path you will have to do so anyways? If we go all out in this war, even a war of stealth, it will mean that those we care for will die. No war fails to have casulities, and a war against Cruxis will have many. It will be a protracted, bitter, conflict that may very well consume us both. If we fail to conclude it in our lives then it will consume those who come after us."
"It already has, it's just that the victums don't know thier victums yet."
"Astute, as always Second." Yuan had murmurred. "It's late, try to get some sleep."
"You've made a decision?"
"Yes, and I've one more to make, alone."
Startled by the anger in Yuan's voice Rene had nodded.
"Rene mer d-"
"Please, Yuan. Don't call me that."
Silence, more damning than any angry, painfilled rejoinder could have ever been.
"I... it doesn't feel right. I'm not Martel's daughter, and you love her. Don't make me something I'm not to assuge your guilt."
"Fine." The man's voice became chilly. "Leave then Second, I have no more need of you."
Never, ever had Yuan been that cold to her, never that hateful. She shivered from the memory of it, wondered how the hells she was going to even hide the fact of what had happened between them from the other comanders. In the darkness she shivered from a cold that no mere blanket could banish.
