A/N: Flashback central, the stuff in italics are scenes from the past, non-illalics is events that are occuring at the present moment. The reason why I used this format... well it will be explained in the context of the next chapter.
Defiance: Birth of the Renegades
Chapter 36
Judgement: A seraph's crown
A strange parcel that has been noted to seep holy water and is observed to have been bound by ropes imbeded with white quartz, has been sent to Derris Kharlan. It's contents are unknown, and the parcel is under Lord Vor'esse's name. If any dare to enquire of the package and its purpose in merely being stored in the Misculanious Goods Department of Welgaia, they are instructed to see him.
Computer entry found in the data base of Derris Kharlan.
X
Gritting his teeth, the Armsmaster looked around at the faces of those whom he had laid his life down to defend. He had been betrayed by them, by those whom he'd trained to defend themselves, each other. Hate seethed in his dark eyes, tinted his checks a shade of crimson, and added to the potent conflagration of his madness. Clenching his fists, the half elf let his gaze scan the crowd, and some of his hate was exchanged for fear, as his hate was met by their hate.
Pale as sleet, the Seraph's daughter stood before him. Her customary white garb exchanged for that of darkest black. Black robes hung over her form, but she forsook the Tethe'allan white cap with its raven feather accent that should have been perched on her head. Green locks were let loose, flowed behind her in an emerald wave as she slowly paced back and forth, her once spring hued eyes were lost in a glazing of icy rage.
"Gag him!" Snarled a voice from the crowd of assembled false Desian's. Rene turned then, looked from her scrutiny of the criminals before her and set her most withering glare upon the heckler.
"He has his rights."
"He's killed our children!" Roared another.
Z'eh flinched at the accusation, then growled deep in his throat.
"I don't know what the fucking hell you're all talking about but I didn't kill…"
The profane laced riposte was cut short when the nearest guard smashed him in the back with the butt of his spear.
"Enough!" Rene roared. "There will be silence for this proceeding! The charges that have been laid upon the feet of these two individuals are; calculated murder, careless murder, reckless endangerment, torture, conspiracy to destroy this new founded organization, thievery…"
As the list droned on and on, Z'eh shifted a bit. The chains that bound his hands and feet rattled as he turned. He spared a cruel grin at his fellow prisoner. Stripped of his finery, a number of black onyx tipped bows pressed against various vital points, the Seraph looked pathetic. Yuan jerked from time to time as the pain of his confinement became too much. His lips parted to let out an ocasional moan, and those once gleaming blue fire eyes were changed. Their luminesence dimmed, as the reason within that mind was pressed to breaking by pain.
Z'eh ignored the proceedings to further study his enemy. Yuan's hair had been forced out of his face -for once- by way of a tiara of sorts, a crude thing crafted of black silver that –by the smell- was enchanted with enough black mana to make the man's hair and skin smolder.
Blood dripped around the crown, dribbled into the Seraph's eyes, and one guard occasionally reached down to swipe at the crimson rain.
"Like you're helping him." Z'eh spat. "He's not in there, if you haven't failed to notice."
Ignoring him, Bryan shifted his grip on the spear he'd been ordered to plung into his Lord's back and whiped away at one of the drops that would have dripped into the Seraph's eyes.
"You know, you'd spare the world a hell of a lot of trouble if you actually did the right thing." Z'eh hissed.
Now Bryan looked up from his self appointed duty, looked at the armsmaster who had been his tormentor. His violet hued gaze grew sharp, intent, as he considered Rene's wisdom in having him watch over Yuan rather than Z'eh. She was right, he would have put his blade in the man's back, despite his promises to the contrary. Young face twisting in disgust, for both himself and the armsmaster, Bryan folded the bloody piece of fabric and slipped it into his pocket.
"If I did the right thing, bastard, I'd be runnning my spear in your guts."
The disgraced half elf jolted in shock at the boy's vehamence, and Bryan smiled a predator's smile.
"I've nothing to lose for killing you, so I will if I think it'll get me ahead." The boy's words weren't a threat, but a promise. "So you might want to follow the Second's advice, and remian silent. Because they,-" the boy tilted his head to indicate the assembled half elves that filled the mess hall turned impomptu justace hall "-won't have a chance to gag you, I'll cut your tongue out myself."
X
"Law can not be absolute, there are exceptions to every rule. Because this organization deals almost consistantly with the exception, with the outcaste, our writ should reflect this."
Those assembled around him looked at thier leader in confusion. Even the armsmaster shook off his customary hatred to be startled like the rest of them. Yuan placed both elbows upon the long table that served as the center piece for the general's meeting hall. His fingers twined together, the gesture could be seen as reverant or thoughtful. Holding no reverance for anything save the long dead past, the gesture was the later, but only a select few knew that.
"Through my long life, I've find that human laws are... generally centered around the self. Those who have written them think that those who read them are on thier own calabre, status..."
"So, they're self centered?" Feruon hedged.
"No, not completely. They are written in ignorance. Incomprehension of a state beyond the self isn't selfishness, it's only when one's view is widened but the viewer picks and chooses what they like that I'd call it selfcenteredness."
If nothing else the gazes of confusion had increased, and even Rene looked a bit lost.
"Look around." Yuan waved a hand. "At this table, a small fraction of supposidly higher intellegence gathered from the dross. Our organization is based upon those whom are different. Such difference can be most readily seen in appearence. If it weren't for the slant of Mer Z'eh's eyes and ears I could readily mistake him for a human born to Ozette. Only the points of his ears reveal Clavk to have a scratch of elven blood in him. Where, Yashin, looks so elven I thought him to be a true full blood until I checked his signature. Consider our ages, I'm over a thousand, Yashin is in the middle of his hundredth year, Clavk is fourty, yet we all look to be the same age. Clavk will in all probability die before his hundredth year, Yashin will probably endure to his "full half elven potential", a millenia."
Clavk grunted. "You had to bring that up, didn't you?"
"I did not mean to insult, I was making a fact. However, if it's any comfort I know from personal experiance that longevity is more a curse than a blessing. One year is much the same as another, and without the weariness of time's passing to mark the years life can become very boring."
"Immortality, that's what they offered you, isn't it?"
"No." Yuan looked to Z'eh, surprise breaking the icy facade of control that the Seraph kept locked over his features. "Immortality was inflicted upon me. It was put upon me against my will. If our efforts were to have failed within the span of our natural lives, then I would have considered the cause a good try and let it stand. Accepted it as the course of nature, bowed to the inevitable, and in death been allowed to let go. Undead, undying, yet posessed of a supressed vitality... my current state is something like suspention. My body does not age, time does not physically effect me." The Seraph frowned. "In that, amongst all of you who must struggle with the idea that you are all wildly different from each other only I must truely contend with the fact that my life... or existance rather, is wholy unnatural."
"And being, an unnatural entity..." Rene nearly choked on the words 'unnatural entity'. "You don't want to write these laws, do you?"
The Seraph was silent for a long moment, then he lifted one hand to the warm light that shone from the magi-tech system above. "I don't understand, so many elementy things. I can preceive them, when I am close to another I can see and sympathize with the individual, but I can not comprehend the needs of the whole. I am like a foreigner, my language is not your own your language is only close enough to mine that I can grasp the general concepts of what you say. Though I see you speaking, living, comprehension forever alludes me."
"You speak well enough, to my hearing at least." Clavk protested.
"That's because we are now using something we can both understand. Words. I'm not so far gone as to have forgotten the importance of comunication. Yet language is such a hollow thing because the universal comunicator, that which trancends barrirers of blood, race, status... that is forever denied me."
"And that would be?" Yashin quiered, tilting his head to the side, his eyes bright with inquiry.
"Life." Yuan lowered his hand, looked upon the golden light that highlighted the edge of his gloved hand with a dull wonder. "I should have died two thousand years ago, in that hell that was Luna's Blessing. In the throes of the most painfull dying imaginable, I should have died. My heart ceased to beat, my lungs colapsed and blood seeped into my colapsing chest cavity, I was a shrivled thing. Burning in that heavenly radience, for the suns light is as fatal as the smoothering darkness. Yet, impossible is made possible by the will of the Eternal, and the holder of Eternity's Edge willed me back. Even when death would have been prefered."
Shivering, the half elves around Yuan cringed back in horror. Even Rene, his adopted daughter, looked disgusted.
"Death is final, life can not be returned to the fallen. It's taken me two thousand years to accept that. This existance, is a pseduo life at best. Real yet false, an illusion of such teriffying complexity that it may pass for reality."
Silence hung in the chamber, thick as smoke, it seemed to smother those around him. Not needing to breath, the Seraph would have found no problems with it, save for the fact he held on to the remains of his mortality with bloody barked hands.
"The dead can not write laws for the living, or rather, they should not." The Seraph corrected himself with a rueful smile. All knew, by the sad glint in his eyes he was considering Mithos, or perhaps Cruxis. "So I will not, save laws concerning myself. However, I will not be useless for this proceeding, I will offer my observations and extensive knowledge of the background on the laws passed during my long life. At least," the seraph chuckeld, "I can be some use. Though how much use you'll find in a walking talking library-"
"With an extreamly sarcastic streak?" Rene teased.
"Ignoring that," Yuan said cooly. "As I said before, how much use you'll find in my services-"
"It's not just sarcasm, dear, it's also the potential visual pleasure compasity."
"What!" Yuan roared, whirling on his sub-commander, eyes blazing.
The various lords and ladies of the ranch began to snicker, and the Seraph's somber words were bansihed for a time. Chuckles turned to howls as Feruon gave Rene a somewhat pitying look, then began to explain in detail what she ment. Yuan went crimson as the medic launched into very detailed descriptions of the various parts of his anatomy, and what parts you got to best appreciate when he paced, loomed forward in his chair, or struck whatever habital pose his mood dictated him to.
X
"The actions of Mer. Vor'esse are understandable. Being the primary defender of this base for a long time, it seems natural for him to assume that it is his task to defend all within it. However, his original plans to "defend" it are apparently the cause of this current tragedy. Isn't that right Mr. Vor'esse?"
Shuddering, Yuan lifed his head, glared at the man who was defending Z'eh and therefore had full rights to question his authority. He grinned, blood seemed out from the corners of his mouth, and he moved his lips as if to speak A spasm took him then, and the Seraph nearly fell out of his chair. The guard posted to him set aside his weapon and supported the Seraph until the fit had passed.
"Remove it." Rene ordered, pointing to the crown.
"That device is the only thing keeping him from..." Z'eh's defender began to protest.
"He's not hostile, and he isn't going to kill everyone here." Rene hissed. "What you're doing is tantamount to torture, would you like to be tried for torture next?" The Second snapped. "Because if that thing isn't removed, instantly, I'll arange it."
"Your sentamentalism, Ms. Vor'esse, is showing."
Glaring at the black robed guardsman that had been nominally under Z'eh's control during the time of the attacks, Rene growled. The primal sound made an outre contrast to her elegent almost elven beauty. But then the blending of primal and elegent, was if nothing else the most physical representation of the conflict that was the core of her very being. Eyes razor sharp, Rene turned to the man preceeding over the hearing.
"Judgement Yashin, I do not request, I demand. Yuan can not be expected to testify as he strugles against the very force that is his anti-thesis."
"Sentamentalism, Judgement." Z'eh's defender growled. "Through and through. This... girl is blinded by her misplaced affection."
Silence riegned, a silence that Yashin could not break by the laws of the organizations binding. Long slender fingers stroked a black stone, he set it down so that it's sharpened edge faced Z'eh's defender.
"Remove it." Rene snapped. "That is the judgement rendered."
Hearing no arguement from the gathered half elves in the back of the room Yashin nodded, and Yuan's guard reached down and wrenched the exotice torture device off. Blood smoked from the creveces, the grooves, in the twined steel and stone, it came down in a torrent down the Seraph's face, obscured his features in a rain of blood.
"Gods... forgive me for this." Rene breathed, shoving her shaking hands into the pockets of her robe.
Not feeling her remorse, the half elf who had bought all of Z'eh's lies grunted. "He'll heal."
"No." Rene said with a sick certainty, remembering the agony that Yuan had willingly inflicted upon himself so that Yashin could have the informatoin to build the horrid Seraph's binding crown. "He wont."
X
"Yuan," Bryan yalped, "behind-!"
Yuan turned, lighting snapping between his fingers, his foe was strong enough to take the concentrated bolts, or rather his sword of choice was strong enough to absorb the hits. Sword guarded swordsman, and swordsman was the swords pawn. Fitting in a sick way.
After all, Z'eh had only been meant to be a pawn. Too weak willed to make his own destiny he'd contentedly followed a man he hated for years upon years. How much the same they were, yet how different. Not even bothering to look over his shoulder -not daring truth be told- he snapped his wings in front of him. The gust of wind he summoned pushed the two combantants apart for just a second.
Long enough for him to see movement, identify it as hostile, then throw the bolt of mana.
She hadn't screamed, merely crumpled, and he'd charged forward, engaging the posessed swordsman once more. Three eyes, not two, peered out from him in the dark. The only identifyers in the hellish gloom woven by the Soul Eaters enchantments. Two eyes, small, yet widened in madness to near breaking. The third was a gapping portal, a scar of darkness within the dark, the pupil a pit holding a drop of hell fire.
Teeth rasped against swallow every time the weapons met. As the sentiant sword seeked to devower the blade, it sought farther. It's most base need was to to shove it's jutting fang blade into his body and sink it's vile poison into his soul.
X
"Are you capable of speaking, Mr. Vor'esse?"
Hands, he wanted to reach up and swat them aside, he couldn't even lift hsi hand, lift his face to look upon the source of his agony. The dull trobing touch, that was pain, no pleasure... He croaked something and his tormentor released him, he fell onto the small table that had been set before him.
"I'll take that as a no. Since he can not speak, let me tell you what this supposid savior, this hero, of our people has done. He was one of the best, one of the greatest hero's of his time. His time, allow me to clarify as I imagine most of you are uneducated upon our Lord's true state. Our enemy, the Cruxis, he's one of them. A seraphim. One of Yggdrasil's pet lap dogs."
Murmurs of shock rose from those assembled to pass judgment, and Rene winced. Having kept his state a secret was Yuan's idea, one he'd insisted upon. Only his most trusted were to have known, and now everyone did. And now, the price of his secrecy was as it always would be.
Distrust.
Sympathetic looks were turning into those of disgust, hate. Bitting her lip, forbidden to speak, she could only wring her hands together and listen in a mix of anger and frusteration as Z'eh champion, a man gathered from one of those who backed the ex-bandit, proceeded to rip Yuan's reputation to shreds.
X
"A man..." Came a soft sigh. "Is not allowed to defend himself, what crap is that?"
Z'eh's champion shuddered at the voice, little more then a whisper, it somehow carried over the bellow of his rage. It's calm compsure rose over his rage, even as it's accompany hiss of pain sliced into the validity of his arguments.
"You are awake, then, Lord Yuan."
Shuddering, lifting his head, the Seraph dared not nod in fear he'd colapse. His sapphire eyes glimmered in the magi tech lights, thier customary crystaline edge dulled by pain and grief.
"I never sleep." The Seraph gasped. "Someone, so knowledgable about my 'true' state should know this. Sleep is impossible, paralization however, is not. I have only one protest to make, you deliver the truth at a slant, to best portray yourself and your client. Normally such things can be bypassed, and would have been from the outset had I been alowed a say."
"By your own writ, Lord Yuan." The half elf spat the title. "All dangerous crimenals should be properly restrained."
"What the hell happened to innocent before guilty?" The Seraph grunted. "Although, I've little complaint on how Z'eh's decked out."
Eyes still dreadfully empty, he scanned the room, then saw Rene in her robes of black and sighed.
"So, Rene is my champion." He rasped, blinking as fresh blood dribbled into his eyes. "Well don't just stand there, get over here and help me stand. I must make a request of the head magi present."
"That would be you." Z'eh's defender snapped.
"I'm incapitated, more to the point..." Yuan hissed. His eyes closed to mere slits, his body spasmed, and only when the fit passed did he dare talk again. "I'm on trial, un-contaminated evidence, widened vision, eh?"
A dry rasping laugh slid past the Serpah's lips. The sound was as empty of mirth as those eyes were gutted of thier intencity. Imperiously Yuan lifted a hand, and Rene went to him. To help him stand before the Judgment, because the Seraph could not stand on his own.
X
Thier first meeting had deteriated into a poker game held on the floor of the Seraph's office. Of course Z'eh knew how to play, and Yuan had been taught by Kratos long ago during the Kharlan war. Ignorant of the rules Rene had watched, then joined after the fifth game. Having lost it all to one bad bet, Z'eh sulked and whined, while Yuan and Rene played on.
"Call?"
Yuan turned statement into inquirey by raising an aquar hued eyebrow. The subject of his question nodded, reafirmed nod by echoing his words. She smiled, set the cards before him and he cursed and threw his measily hand aside. Smirking, Rene scooted her boodle, a pile of freash made cookies, to her. She helped herself to a particular warm and gooie "counter piece" while Z'eh looked on and licked his lips.
"I'm hungry."
"I've noticed." The Seraph grumbled. "I've been having to hear you and your stomach whine, and I've tired of it."
"Stomachs don't whine, they rumble." Rene corrected, her tone so braty it stole some of the sixteen years of her life in both men's eyes.
Yuan sighed, told himself the revert wasn't pernament, and rubbed a temple. "Imp, I have a headache from listening to Z'eh and his stomach whine and rumble-."
"No, it echos." Rene's emerald eyes glinted with mirth. "When you bonk him on the head during sparring, the sound that it makes is an echo. You need to get your Z'eh sounds straight, Yuan."
"When, did you turn onto his side?" Z'eh whined, then reealizing what he was doing, he flushed. "You know life was a hell of a lot easier when you didn't always back him, Second." Z'eh snarled, surging to his feet.
"Maybe if you used your head, and thought, or at least tired to think instead of following Yuan around like a lost little sheep," Rene snapped, absently taking up another "counter", "I wouldn't take his "side" all the time."
Amusement flashed in Yuan's normally ice shroud eyes. The Seraph watched Z'eh storm off, then turned to his newly appointed Second.
"That wasn't handled very well." His protest was both late and weak.
"It was handled." Rene grumbled, then bit into her cookie wih more fierocity then was wholy nessicary. "I'll get better as I get older I guess."
The Seraph extended a gloved hand, and Rene looked up in confusion. Understanding came, she smiled, then ofered him a cookie from her loot pile. They ate -or rather Rene ate and Yuan nibbled- in comfortable silence.
"How's it taste?" The Second dared.
"Like dust." The Seraph admited. "The texture, however, is pleasent enough to let me remember a taste."
"A taste? Not the taste?"
"Mmm..." The Seraph shook his head. His azura locks for once were set loose and flowed behind him like a banner. He swallowed his tiblit, then set the treat aside. "My wife was fond of brownies, not cookies, and since I was cooking to please her more than myself..."
"How sad." Rene sighed. "You never did much for yourself when you were.. um normal, didn't you?"
"Oh, I did a few things, just not with the cooking." The Seraph's eyes glittered and his lips curled into a smile. "Do you remember that spell I showed you? The blade shock trick?"
Rene remembered that spell, and it's effects. The unwilling recipient's hair would stand up on end starlest of violet hue snapping form the ends, harmless sparks flying from the fingers if they dared touch anything metal. It was like being shocked with static electricity for the whole day. Rene knew, because the Seraph had cast it on her once. While it hadn't been funny on the outset, she'd found a way to make it funny by days end. Poor Yuan, shocked to death by a surprise hug, or as shocked to death as a Seraph could get.
"Oh yes." Rene grinned, and the Seraph chuckled. Proudly he placed a hand upon his vest, the pose could have been considered noble or gallent, save for the glimmer in those eternal eyes. Knowledge dawned, and Rene started to laguh. "You... you made it?"
"Yes, it was my pet project during the first part of the Kharlan war." The Seraph chuckled. "My primary test subject, Mer. Aurion."
She nearly choked on the potent mix of cookie and laugh. The Second finally was able to swallow and breath again, and when she was, she was aware that something in Yuan's eyes had changed.
"Promise me something, Rene." He said, and while his tone was somber it wasn't enough to kill the mirth in his adopted daughter.
"Hmm?" She reached for a glass of milk, disapointed to find it empty she was ready to push off of the carpeted floor of Yuan's office to fetch the pitcher.
"Don't forget how to laugh."
"Only if you promise to learn how." Rene countered.
"I already know how, I am mearly prudent on when I laugh. Death by cookie, it's not the way I'd want to go."
Rene was silent as she brought the pitcher from the table and poured herself a glass. After a moments thought she poured the rest on the unsuspecting Seraph, who yelped in shock and accideently fried cards and cookies with a instinctual lightning spell.
X
"What does he have to prove? What good can this spell..."
"It would offer the truth, unvarnished, unmodified, totally without slant. There would be no evasions, no half truths, the good and evil that complies of Yuan Vor'esse's character would be set up for judgement. And legal crap aside, this is what it's about. When a Lord of this Ranch is called to take absolute authority we must question his judgement, to fully question his judgement we must know what he is made of. I would suspect that the painless nature of the spell is what raises the protest from you, Mer Collens."
Z'eh's defender hissed, his purple eyes glinted with hate.
"He deserves..."
"Torture, without proven cause?" Rene snarled, shifting her grip on the dazed Seraph so he wouldn't fall. "By whose authority, yours? If you agree to that you make Cruxis' mistake, and the sole purpose of this orginization is to remedy the damages made by Cru-"
"It is law. A law that the half elves of this organization signed into being. I had no hand in it's shaping, in most of the laws that you've made I've little influence. The only thing I've demanded is to put in the requirement that our writ be overlooked every time a catastrophy strikes or there is someone who uses a loophole in the letter of the law to evade justice." Yuan croaked. Each step to the Judgement's chair had been a trial. He'd made a path in blood, and his face was distorted both by present and remembered agony. "And I assure you, Sire of Bryan Collens, there wil be pain on my behalf, lots of it. Does that satisfy you? Does that satisfy the people present?"
Bloodless looking hands carressed the black stone. Then with a soft click, it was set in place, and Rene smiled.
"Judgement has been rendered, and this court is ajourned until the proper materials for the spell have been either gathered or made." Yashin said, he stood, his robes of white rustled aobut him. "Yuan and Z'eh will be placed in confinment until that has come to pass, in seperate cells, far far away from each other... I take it that the blade has been properly, dispatched?"
"Unable to destroy it at the peak of my power I have placed it in storage in a place where it may sway no one. The matter has been handled." Yuan whispered, his icy eyes burning. "And neither my life or death will effect the fact that the weapon has been put aside for safe keeping in a place far away form mortal ears to hear it's siren call."
"Good." Yashin stood, snapped his fingers, and both Yuan and Z'eh were gathered up by thier proper guards. "As acting Lord, these are my commands, what has been said will be dwelt upon, both parties, wheather guilty or innocent, are dangerous." Ignoring Rene's cry of protest the half elf continued. "They will be treated as such until matters are settled one way or another." A spasm of guilt crossed the half elf's face, a moment's softening and hesitation settled into the man's icy voice. "The crown... must be replaced. I'm sorry, my hands are tied."
Yuan nodded.
"I bow to the judgment, rendered. I will not protest, nor seek compensation against he who has called this Judgment. Let the agonies set upon me for the saftey of this organization be blameless."
Shaken, Yashin swollowed, the inhuman facade of Judgment slid from his features like an ill kept mask. Reveiling, for all to see, the morass of guilt and shame undernieth. "I do not ask forgiveness, nor can I accept it... until I have forgiven myself."
"A wise woman once told me; 'accept or not, that is your choice, it is however wholy my chocie upon what I give.'" Yuan knelt, and the second he did so his hands were bound. One of his guards griped the bloody crown, and the Seraph tilted his head back so that crimson wound where it had rested was highlighted in the colorless light of the magi-tech illumination system above them. Red blood gleamed more brightly, the black of the burned skin and muscle seemed somehow darker in the light that was not true light.
Then blood and burns were gone, overlapped by black silver and onix. The Seraph's crown, tinted red, ran red, and the horrible burning that was not true burning was upon him again.
With an animal sream of pain, Yuan toppled forward, his eyes rolled back, his face twisted into agony.
The crown of Cruxis' bane once again rested upon his brow, and it's power, it's burdne, were his to bare alone once again.