Author's Note: I wonder what sort of interactions Triton had with the other Consuls. This one in particular came to mind.
xxxx
Moebius.
Z had been the first. Then came Y and X. They were pure, in a sense.
All that came afterwards...were recruits, pulled from the neverending cycle of rebirth, to become greater arbiters of the Endless Now. Eventually, they gained a unique title, to signify their role in the great drama: Consul.
The ways they chose to go about perpetuating the Endless Now would vary. To speak of all their exploits — largely wretched, with strange glimmers of intrigue here and there — would take a lifetime, and then some.
The man known as Triton was no exception.
xxxx
/Time: An Indeterminate Number of Years Prior to the Main Plot/
/Origin/
Consul T couldn't remember if there had been a predecessor to his particular title. (There probably had been one. Right? Surely he hadn't been the first.) He'd been Moebius for so long that certain things had started to bleed together.
(Y, K, I, G, and F had occasionally remarked on his tendencies as of late, since he had become a bit of an outlier amongst them all. F, in particular, had told him that he was experiencing symptoms of dementia.)
(Feh, yer fit as a fiddle. So what if your memory's gettin' spotty? So long as the Colony under your jurisdiction keeps fueling their Flame Clock, they can butt out.)
He found himself in the theater less and less, these days; it was simply too dull, too lacking in excitement. Even the inevitability of his subordinates' deaths — a whole generation, guaranteed to be dead and gone within ten years! — at least had some level of variety to it.
To just sit here, like Z did? Doing nothing but watching bloody movies on repeat? He'd be even madder than he already was. And I'm a bit off my rocker these days anyhow...hmm. What's a rocker? Seems familiar. Looking at the screen, his eyes focused on the image of a golden Consul, slicing through automated drones and the bodies of soldiers belonging to neither Keves nor Agnus. Hmm. Those landlubbers are from the City, aren't they? The ferocity with which N fought seemed strangely vigorous, lacking the detachment that most Moebius had for their playthings. It also struck a chord...somehow. Why did it ring a bell? Bah, this is gonna stick on me like a Krabble with one too many barnacles...
"Your presence is unexpected, T," said a cool voice.
Turning his head, T looked towards the entrance to the theater; N was quietly strolling past the seats, Sword of the End humming on his hip. "Back from one of yer little excursions, N? Ye seem a mite too unhappy for doing what ye do best."
"Dealing with riffraff is a chore, at best." Gazing at the screen, N coldly observed his past self's actions: eviscerating the most recent incarnation of Ouroboros. "They were not up to par with their predecessors. Even their potential was lacking. Best to put them down, before hope could turn their lives into a misery."
...ah. That's what it was. A chime's lonely ring; a spark lighting a flame amidst a gusty plain; improbably, an old memory came to mind. "You seemed pretty incensed when dealing with them there Cityfolk."
"They present themselves as those who would stop the flow. As outsiders to the cycle of rebirth that we've cultivated with Keves and Agnus, they can only be allowed to reach so far." He spoke as one discussing the tides at sea, or as a man mildly irritated by a bug he had stepped on.
"Heh, any other day and I'd be agreeing with you. But that ain't what I'm talkin' about." Rising to his feet, T peered down at the smaller lad. Intimidation wasn't the point; ensuring he had the man's full attention, was. "I'm reminded of the fact that you were the one who destroyed the first incarnation of the City. At Hope's Rest, wasn't it? It was a right nasty bit of business."
"What of it?"
"Well...it seems awful odd for someone of yer caliber to carry a grudge for so long. I mean, ye were slicin' and dicin' with such anger, anybody with a pair of eyes would be able to tell that ye hated those poor scallywags."
"Do you have a point?" N's expression hadn't changed one iota.
"Well, for those who have lived as long as we have, hating those lads and lasses would be unsporting! So it makes me wonder...just who is it that you hate so much?" Narrowing his eyes, expression hidden by his charming buccaneer's helm, T asked, "Is that why you don't cover your whole face like the rest of us? So that you don't forget the face of the person you despise?"
Finally, there was a smidgen of fury, in the narrowing of the eyes. "You'd best take care of your words, Consul T. The last time we dueled did not end so well for you."
...well, that doesn't seem right. "Hmm. I think I'd remember havin' a scrap with the likes of ye. But ye ain't the sort for lyin' either...guess our fight must not have meant much!" Laughing to himself, Consul T moved around N's still form, ignoring the icy daggers of his stare. "Blimey, my mind must be goin' places..." he jauntily said, strolling through the long tunnel leading to the theater's exit.
(In the end, that sort of hate just didn't sit right with him, anymore...if it ever had.)
And all the while, Z just watched the perpetual flow.
xx
Right as Triton prepared to warp out of the theater, Consul M stepped out of the shadows of the exit doors. "Ahoy, little lass."
"...my apologies for his behavior," remarked Agnus's silver Consul.
"Well blow me down, a Consul apologizing for another Consul, to another Consul? What will they think of next..." Peering at her golden eyes, he wondered what it was that she saw when she looked in a mirror. (Half the time, he completely forgot what his own face was supposed to look like.) "...tell me somethin'. If he's that gripped by hate, even after this long...what grips ye?"
"...I'd like to say that it's hope," she whispered. "Otherwise, all I'd have left is regret...and I don't want to be in such a wretched place."
...poor, unfortunate soul. Chuckling sadly, he patted M on the shoulder. "Hope's a dangerous thing, for people who live as long as we do, I think. So's regret. Ye might as well just enjoy every moment as it comes!"
M looked intently at him, piercing him softly. "...is that all you have to live for?"
"Aye. What else is there, for those like us?" (The fact that such sentiments slipped into an empty hollowness was ignored. Maybe he'd forget about it?) "At least ye can control what it is that tickles yer fancy. One of the perks of bein' a Moebius!" With a joyful grunt, Triton warped away, fully intent on finding a monstrous enemy to pound his fists into.
(Better for you to forget, and become an ignoramus, than to become like N or M...)
xxxx
After the passage of many years, that incident would disappear into the increasingly murky soup that was Triton's mind, just like so many others.
Even so, embers of those memories remained, still flickering beneath the ashes.
Thus it was, that even though Triton felt a more immediate kinship with Lanz — a headstrong scallywag like that was far more amenable to someone who had become as rambunctious as he! — he couldn't help but feel an odd flicker of pleasure at the sight of Noah and Mio: living with expressions full of determination, and hope for the future.
If anyone would have the insight to ask him why he felt that way...well, he wouldn't have had the foggiest clue as to why.
But it was a good feeling for a salty seadog like him to have.
xxxx
Author's Note: Triton's history is such an open book that there's a lot of directions you can go with him. But he definitely had to have met N and M at least once.