Chapter 52: There And Back Again
...Hoburns...
"No... oh... no..." Queen Calca whispered, pressing her hand to her chest, her breathing became labored. "Human sacrifice indeed..." Down below among the others watching the verdict rendered, the capital erupted in horror and outrage as their national hero became a convicted war criminal.
...Crescent Lake...
Queen Zesshi's expression did not change when the messenger arrived and reported the guilty verdict. It didn't change, because she could hear the shouts of outrage in the streets as the founder of the cult that broke their chains, stood condemned under the law. Her eyes closed at the first cries of outrage, and listened with regret as the messenger told her what she already knew. "Damn it." The Queen whispered, "If she hangs, we reach out to her wife. They didn't abandon us, we won't abandon her."
A low rumbling of agreement and discontent swept the court as her proposal was accepted.
...E-Rantel...
"By god... they did it... they really did it... I asked for this, I pushed for this, I wasn't wrong. I wasn't." Enri told herself as she sat in the square beside Gagaran. She put her hands together as if in prayer, "It had to happen, it had to be done. So why?" She looked over to Gagaran who sat nearby. "Why do I feel so sick?"
Gagaran didn't answer, if she even heard the question, it wasn't evident, she was still just looking up at the illusory projection as the word 'guilty' rang over and over in her head.
Skana stood on her balcony, and stared open mouthed at the projection, CZ and Lakyus flanking her, prepared to catch the woman if she fell from sheer shock. Her fingers held tight to the rail, she didn't feel the touches on her shoulders, all she saw was the face of her wife, until that was clouded by the welling in her own.
...Kami Miyako...
When the word 'guilty' was read aloud, cheers ran through the streets, the taverns served free drinks, and operating hours were dismissed so that celebrations over her guilt could go on long into the night. However within the governing center, there were three who didn't cheer.
"Not going out to celebrate?" Heikeren asked from the other side of the desk.
"No, not really. Let them celebrate, I've got work to do." Boabdil replied wearily.
"Really, now?" Ira commented from beside Heikeren, "I mean... isn't this kind of a big deal? She killed so many of us... can't we savor the fact that we got some justice?"
"And what would we have done, if we'd won this war?" Boabdil asked rhetorically. "This doesn't make me feel better, this makes me feel worse." His haggard, careworn face looked older by the second. "If we'd won, Carne would have been butchered, most of the Holy Kingdom would have been put to the torch, and that's just for a start. I don't feel good about this, because..." He tapped the quill in his hand against the document he was working on, and snapped it in half when he gritted his teeth, and stared hard at both his former Vice Commanders.
"Because this just makes us worse, we'd have lauded men like Suchala as heroes, Remedios as a patron saint of humanity, and every vile thing done to our fellow humans, among others, would have been celebrated for centuries to come. Yet here we have our hated enemy, the undead, and what does he do? He puts his own daughter on trial in a neutral state, and they find her 'guilty'. They give us justice, and you know what makes it even worse?" Boabdil snapped and threw the broken quill against the wall and shot to his feet, staring down at the two young former officers.
They sat mute, watching the rare outburst of emotion from their former general. "What makes it worse is... that the demon of the west has been so serene about it. The only time she showed anything was when our own brutality was rubbed into her face again. That bastard she killed might have been the nail in her coffin, but I'm certain she believed, even in her rage, that killing him was justice. And after all that we've heard... do you disagree?"
They took that in with uncertain expressions, before Ira answered in a delicate voice, "I, well, I can't, not really. Having worked with some of the others of the Sorcerer Kingdom now I admit, it's not easy to see them as just animals to be used or monsters to be put down. But still... after what she did, I can't help but feel that justice is being done."
"Maybe, maybe not. There were worse than she in this world though, now be a dear and get an old man a new quill, my old one seems to have disappeared, and I'd like to get my memoirs finished soon." Boabdil smiled in a grandfatherly way, and the two young former officers could not move fast enough to help him.
...Menowa...
Neia stood unmoving as the verdict was read, a hand on each shoulder, her heartbeat didn't change, she only glanced over at the noose, and looked at it with a welling of sadness in her breast.
When the noise finally began to die down, the adjudicator went on. "However, it is the conclusion of this court, that the extraordinary duress under which you were placed was a causative factor beyond your own control, and therefore, mitigating circumstances exist. Too, the fact that the city itself had become an army, armed and equipped and prepared to resist, further exacerbated the casualties beyond what they might have been. Finally, the testimony of the late Cardinal pertaining to the guidance of Cardinal Dominic and General Suchala, as well as General Remedios Custodio, and the postwar plans, created an extraordinary situation from which there was no ideal solution. Therefore." He took a long, deep drink of water from a cup close at hand, then set it down and continued.
"We sentence you to life imprisonment, to be served at your home, with one parole per year to perform your duties to your god, within the limits of your homeland, but nevermore to venture beyond it. You will spend almost every day for the rest of your natural life, confined to your own grounds, until death takes you. Do you have anything to say for yourself?" He asked with more courage in his voice than he truly felt.
Neia looked up at the adjudicator and the panel through her sky blue eyes, the towering mountain of a woman that seemed so often projected, had somehow now come to seem small, even fragile. "No, what had to happen, happened. I'm just glad it's over. For what it is worth... for what harm I did that shouldn't have been done, I will be sorry for, until the day I die."
"Then that is all, have her chained and removed to return to her own country to serve out her sentence, this court is now adjourned." He snapped out and slammed the gavel down with finality.
Neia didn't move from where she stood, or even notice as the chains were put back onto her wrists, she was rooted to the spot as people filed out of the pavilion, till none were left but the trio of demons, Pandora's Actor, and the demon of the west.
Demiurge approached the blank faced Albedo.
"You won." She said calmly, her golden eyes fixed on the crystal ones of the archdevil.
"I did. But it is an incomplete victory. I had wondered what we could do with her corpse." he shrugged as Neia met his eyes.
"You wanted an undead prophet, didn't you, Lord Demiurge?" Neia asked with certainty.
"Among other things, I wondered if you might have become strong enough to become an Abbadon. Or if you might take on the nature of the Fury of Wrath. So many possibilities, questions I'll now not have answers to." Demiurge sighed regretfully for the lost research opportunities.
Neia smirked a little, "Not lost, just delayed. I'm a mortal, sentenced to spend my natural life imprisoned in my home, but the judge said nothing of an 'unnatural life'. If it is father's will, when I'm gone, do with it what you want."
"For what it's worth, I'm real sorry." Vanysa said with a little frown on her face, her golden skin and sharp fangs, flashing slightly as she bowed deeply in apology. "I swear I didn'a ever wanna hurt you. Just... what good's a sorry after it been done... yer mah friend an ah tried ta kill yah."
"You were obeying His Majesty, I can't ever complain about that, and besides... you helped make this for me." Neia replied, held up the necklace. "You saved me from pain, great pain. I won't forget that."
"And will again. His Majesty has assigned me to protect you at all costs, if anyone ever wants to hurt the Black Paladin," she held out her talons with her palm up, and clicked them together lightly, "they will have to pass over the corpse of a Tisiphone Fury to do so." Her storm gray eyes watched Neia intensely. "Wait, this is very interesting." She added quizzically.
"What?" Pandora's Actor asked the slender golden demoness.
Vanysa scratched her horns with one hand, "I don't quite understand it, but... for some reason I have this feeling like the best place for me to be is outside the Pope's bedroom window."
Neia's eyes naturally fearsome eyes grew very narrow indeed when she replied, "There's only one woman who gets to lewd the Pope." She let out a deep breath, and her body suddenly began to shake and she collapsed into the chair.
For a moment Albedo's eyes filled with worry, a moment later, after Neia vomited up her previous meal, the matter became clear as Neia began to sob.
"It's over, oh god, it's finally, finally over... how long has it been... how many months...? I, I can't believe it. I just can't." Neia's tears were those of deep relief as she wiped her mouth and flung herself against the back of her seat and stared up at the sky.
"Not exactly heroic, but all I feel is relief, I may not be free ever again... but I live, and I can work. I can be there when my wife gives birth, I can pick a body father for myself... I think, I think I'm ready to have a child. I may not have the freest of lives, but it'll still be mine to live out how I want within those bonds. Mother... brother... thank you... thank you so much... I'd hug you but..." She held up her wrists and rattled the chains a bit and gave a little sardonic smile.
Albedo snatched the chains at their center and pulled Neia to her feet, the Black Paladin looked up at her in surprise, briefly thinking the flash of anger on their was for her, until Albedo grabbed the links, and yanked, hard, snapping them.
"No daughter of mine will go hobbled into her home. The ruling only said you had to have them, not that they had to work. You are the daughter of the man I love, and I will have it no other way." Albedo relaxed easily as Neia fell into the demoness's embrace.
"Father will be pleased, and you will make a wonderful wife to him, one day, surpassed only by your skill as a mother, I'm sure of it." Neia whispered.
Pandora's Actor approached Demiurge and Vanysa to allow the other pair their moment, he extended his hand graciously. "It was a well fought duel mein Namer. Had we not known of your plans to drive Neia mad at the border before returning her, then she might have been hanged for the display she would no doubt have put on."
"How 'did' you know about that anyway?" Demiurge asked as he pushed his glasses closer to his face.
"I told them, Demi." Vanysa said defiantly as she put her arms in front of her ample chest.
Looked at her steadily. "Don't give me that look Mr. Archdevil. Not only is she my friend, but His Majesty said outside of court I'm to protect her at any cost, she was outside of court at the time, was only my job to crush her 'in' court. I followed my orders to the letter."
Under the eyes of his peers, Demiurge rubbed his temple after a minute of silence, "Perhaps I did misread our master's plans. It's so frustrating to not know what he wills. He must have seen this end, and that's why he gave you that order, to ensure that she survived, while also ensuring that the trial's validity went untainted." The Archdevil clenched his fists in anxiety.
"So don't try? I don't, and I still please him. Just do your best, and he'll be proud of you. Even if it was doing your best trying to get me killed." Neia said as the embrace with Albedo finally broke. "All anyone can do is their best, and try to get better, that's what it is to serve a god. To always strive to improve, like a child under a loving parent's watchful eyes. We will not be his equals, but we can always come a little closer than we did last time. As long as we're doing that, we need never fear his giving up on us. After all... he didn't give up on me, a lowly orphan squire, friendless, alone, untrusted, and still he saw I could be more." Neia stepped quietly toward' Demiurge, the voice of the evangelist rich and deep as an ocean with the certainty of every word.
She pointed to the demoness beside him, "Nor her, a peasant who but for his eyes, would have lived and died in the dirt or been swallowed and forgotten by a beastman. Father doesn't want us to be what we can't be, only to be more than we were, that is his will, that I'm sure of. Everything points to it, he elevated Renner, myself, Vanysa, Rargnan, and countless others. Nobody can ever know the endless plans of our god, but we can discern his will for us, and 'that' we can serve." Neia's eyes were alight with pulsing red orbs like glowing red embers in a fire set against an endless darkness, it was impossible not to get lost in them.
In something akin to a note of respect, Demiurge inclined his head to her and replied, "A fair point. Now though, I've had enough of this place, time to go home."
"Yes, it is." Albedo agreed firmly, "Next time I come east... I intend to skip this place and go straight for the Devor Empire. They will answer for daring to pursue my daughter."
"They will answer with silence, because they will all die." Neia said with a whisper, and touched her head gently with a wince. "Gah, even this, can't stop all of it, I hate headaches. What did I say?"
"Something very pleasant, now, would you like to take the gate, or would you like to take the carriage, your choice?" Albedo asked, waving off the pleasant prophecy for later consideration.
"I want to get home as fast as possible but... I'll never see these sights again, and if I know Skana, she's going to go overboard celebrating my return, and she'll need time to plan it. So... carriage it is. It won't take that long if it is racing over open ground." Neia waved farewell to Demiurge and Vanysa as they departed through the [Gate] summoned for themselves.
"Carriage it is then, I will see you home, Pandora's Actor, you may return to Nazarick, you've been itchy without magic items to touch for far too long." Albedo remarked, and a gate opened for him immediately.
He rendered a crisp dramatic salute, "Gladly, mein gutes Fräulein!" He exclaimed and rushed through the hole in reality as fast as he could.
A few minutes later they were on the road, racing west and watching the scenery pass by.
...Weeks Later...
The carriage pulled up to the Papal Estate, and Albedo stepped out as the door opened. She did what had been once unthinkable, and extended a hand to help the human girl who took it gratefully and exited the carriage.
A few feet from where the carriage stopped, the god of death itself stood waiting patiently in all his resplendent glory. "Father!" Neia cried out and rushed to leap into his waiting arms, she fell into it with joy and weeping, "I knew it! I knew you'd come!"
"You were never far from my mind, my prophet, my evangelist, my pope, and my daughter. If I could have..." He began, only for her head to snap up and shake vigorously.
"No father, no apologies, you were a king doing what a king had to do. While there, I did what I could to work your will, and planted the seeds that will bloom into being in the years ahead, one day, that kingdom will belong to you as all the world should." Neia said passionately as she clung to him.
"One day, but for now, you are home, and I wanted to welcome you to it, your wife, predictably, is waiting inside with your friends, but this is a royal privilege I'm exerting, to welcome you first. Albedo, you did especially well out there." Ainz said as he turned his eyes from one to the other.
She blushed deeply and quivered at the praise, but giving it her all, she refrained from leaping at him, instead, she approached with patient serenity. "I wanted only your happiness, and kept my word. Our daughter is safe and unharmed, my king, my love." She looked at him through shining golden eyes.
Neia stepped away and to one side, and with a mischievous smile she said, "Father... mother worked very, very hard to save my life, I think... she deserves a hug."
"Oh..." Ainz said with a brief pause, and for a moment he expected to have to call for the Eight Edge Assassins to restrain her, but instead, she only stood demurely, leaving the choice to him.
It was only a moment's hesitation, like a plant's pause before it broke through the seed that carried it's potential, and then he embraced the daughter of one of his dearest friends, and Albedo melted in his arms, supremely happy, and giving a side wink to Neia, who grinned a knowing grin, and leaving them to their moment, she walked toward the entrance of her home.
She glanced behind her once, and then looked to the distant west and turned her mind briefly to the ruins of the life that vanished when she was only a teenager, and all the ones who'd died along the way. She then looked around to the statues of the heroes who lined the long walkway interspersed with fountains and hedges, and closed her eyes. For a moment she feared to open them, as if she would wake from a dream and find this life she now had was all a dream in the middle of Jaldabaoth's reign of terror.
They opened in spite of themselves, and she found the present still the same. Her steps carried her up to the door, unlocked it with her key, and stepped within. There in the great entryway, Skana stood as big around as a small house, along with many of their companions of war and politics alike, the former elven slaves turned devoted servants, who in one voice shouted, "Welcome home!"
From the midst of the crowd, a tiny minotaur girl rushed over and hugged her leg, "Where were you, I want a story!" Mu'Treiu replied.
Neia wept as she laughed and picked the girl up in her arms and hugged her close as the Sorcerer King and Albedo made their entry at last.
"Here's your story. First I was out There, and now I'm Back Again." Neia said sweetly, as CZ approached, and put a sticker on Neia's forehead, before the heavily pregnant Skana could make her way to her wife, and claim the lips of the voice of god, for her own.
