Chapter 5 "Treacherous Truths"
"Alright, here's what I brought," Fonse dug into a messenger bag for a stack of colony logbooks. "These should be enough to keep us occupied during our upcoming watch of the prisoners."
"Thanks, mate," Yuzet peered at the selection while his resourceful comrade spread them on the table during their early evening meal. It'd been a comparatively uneventful day at Colony 25 with no battles, no assemblies, and no visits from their overbearing consul. "Hang on, the commander let you take the battle logs?"
"I told him we wanted to review them so we can know better for next time," the mace-wielder hunched over the table. "I guess it's not a lie, huh?"
"I call dibs on the one for the battle against Colony Psi!" Denize waved her free hand while she noshed on the last strip of her grilled ardun meat. "I want to see if they noted my slick move when I cut through two Agnians in one thrust."
"We also have ones for Gamma and Eta from last year," Fonse pointed out, to which Yuzet and Solon expressed their interests. "Guess I'll take a survey branch's logbook. Noah, do you mind having the mechanics'?"
"Hmm?" their ponytailed teammate was caught unawares, his hands busily wrapping some fruit in a napkin. "Oh, I don't think I'll need anything."
"You'll be chattin' it up with that Agnian chick again, won't you?" the swordswoman shot from across the table. "You've done so both nights we've been on guard."
"Is that a problem?" he returned her glowering stare.
"Don't let her contaminate your mind," she warned him, wagging her fork.
"I must admit, I'm growing curious about them, myself," the redhead stored away the logbooks. "How often do we get to safely study the enemy up close?"
"Aw Fonsy, not you too…" her posture melted into a defeated slouch.
"What?" he showed her his palms before slinging the messenger bag around his shoulder. "Since when is a little knowledge a bad thing?"
"Sometimes ignorance is bliss," Denize scrunched her freckled face at him, discontented at the idea of leaving her comfort zone.
"There's so much we still don't know about the world," Noah's sights drifted towards the setting sun while it painted the horizon a melancholic orange.
"I don't need to know everything," she returned to her meal, nearly finished with it, "especially if it's from an Agnian."
"I'm not asking you to join me in conversing with them," he assured her.
"Good… because I sure as snuff won't!" With her plate now empty, all five salvagers had been sufficiently fed for the night. After checking the time through their Irises, they returned their trays and exited the outdoor portion of the canteen.
The central plaza was about as quiet as it'd ever been. The only noises tickling the soldiers' ears were the occasional, distant clanking of metal from the ongoing Levnis repairs. Under normal circumstances, anybody might've considered it to be a fine evening, but Noah felt it as the calm before the storm. Staring at the face of the immobilized Ferronis, he knew that the Flame Clock in its mechanical mouth couldn't remain full forever. For now, the salvagers made their way to the prisoners' cage for a third night of guard duty.
Nobody from either side said a word while the logbooks were being passed around. Unsurprisingly, Noah hovered around Mio who acknowledged him with no further than a passing glance. The despondent Agnian had filled out another page of her journal since their last meeting in which he'd provided her with his pen.
"Ahem…" Noah cleared his throat loudly to recapture her attention. "I brought you this…"
"Huh?" Mio squinted to have a better look at what he was offering.
"It's chopped amethyst melon from the canteen," he stuck the tidy bundle through the iron bars. "Figured you'd like to have something other than leftover bread for once."
"Leftover fruit, then?" she stared at the edible gift in her hands. "Um… thanks."
"Don't eat it, Mio," the blue-finned soldier beside her butted in, "it's probably poisoned."
"I had some earlier and I'm feeling fine," Noah attempted to assuage the untrusting Agnian, even daring to grin.
"Do you really expect me to believe you?" Mio's protective cellmate leaned forward, fists on the ground.
"Not at all," the Kevesi scratched the back of his head, feeling minutely foolish. It didn't take him long to recognize this individual as the heavy sword-wielder who'd rescued Mio after their first fight.
"Y'know, Bowan, this is pretty good," Noah's former opponent was already two chomps into her tasty snack.
"You… what?" the finned Agnian was aghast. "B-but… he could've…"
"He knows I want to die by his Blade when it's time," she took a turn at settling him down whilst eyeing Noah through the bars. Although it was a genial gaze, the reminder of her somber appeal from the previous night had a disquieting effect on her chosen Kevesi deathsman.
"You think he's gonna do you a favor?" Bowan alternated incredulous stares between the two soldiers in question.
"I'm still alive right now," Mio borrowed Noah's logic from less than a minute ago. "You want a piece?"
"I will," an Agnian with ether-lines sitting on the other side of Bowan reached out before he could answer. "I'm desperate enough."
"Seriously?" the finned defender's jaw was dropped. "It's not poisoned?" By now, all three of his cellmates were enjoying the delectable fruit, minding not the occasional drop of juice on their already soiled military uniforms.
"Mio, about your… request…" Noah took a seat in front of her, deciding that now was a good time to deliver his long-ruminated response.
"Did you think about it?" she looked at him expectantly.
"I'm sorry," his head hung low, "but I can't go through with it."
"Why not?" her familiar frown returned. "Because you don't like fighting?"
"No, it's not that, exactly," the pacifist's voice dropped to nearly a whisper.
"Then what?" Mio scooted forward after handing the rest of the fruit bundle to her hungry comrades.
"I shouldn't… tell you," Noah peered over his shoulder, "at least, not here."
"If not here, then where else?" The cat-eared Agnian rested her forehead against the bars, providing him with the best opportunity he'd had yet to gaze into her golden eyes. The two youths were close enough to smell each other's sweat, her prisoner's breath mildly deodorized by the succulent melon which he'd provided at the start of this meeting. The fringes of their hair touched ever so slightly while a hundred unspoken thoughts whirled in their heads. "You want to know why I seek death, by your Blade?"
"Mio," the gentle swordsman absorbed the morosity on her face, "don't force yourself just to get me to…"
"I dread my homecoming," her answer popped out before he was ready to hear it.
"Y-your… homecoming?" he blinked twice.
"You know what that is, right?" she raised one brow at his stammering.
"Yeah," his mind raced to decipher her reasoning, "but isn't the result similar to what you want from me?"
"It's the worst way to go, though." Mio shivered at the mere thought of the procedure, in spite of the desert heat. "You survive your ten years through nothing short of a miracle, only to be beheaded by your own consul while your friends are made to bear witness."
"So, that's what you meant by retaining your dignity," Noah recalled the crux of her request, "dying by… my Blade."
"I'd never encountered anyone who could cut me down until we fought," she expounded further, inadvertently complimenting his skill. "You deserve to have my embers."
"Well…" he paused to digest her words, "I agree that it's better than a homecoming." All the pieces of her puzzle were coming together for the contemplative Kevesi, however, a new consideration cropped up as well. "I have to wonder, though…"
"Hmm…?" her ears perked up.
"Theoretically speaking, what would stop you from leaving your colony when your days are numbered?" the ponytailed speculator put forth, studying the cracks in the tiles. "You could find a tranquil place… to scatter your life on the breeze."
"Sounds like a fantasy," she smirked at his presupposition, "to have the choice to do so."
"You think it's unfeasible?" Noah lifted his sights to hers again, imbibing the doubt from her fluid expression.
"Our consul would just track me down, bring me back to the colony, and commence with my homecoming anyway." Perhaps absentmindedly, Mio's hand began creeping along the ground toward an opening between the bars. "As fast and strong as I am, there is no escape."
"No escape…" his own hand moved to meet hers until she abruptly pulled back.
"What's a homecoming like for you Kevesis?" the curious Agnian inquired instead, interlacing her fingers now that her wandering hand had returned to the safety of her lap.
"Our way is similar, only it's a ritual for our northeastern Fornis colonies." Now it was Noah's turn to feel the chills while he reentered a portion of his memories which he'd long shut away. "We make a journey to Ecto Hollow, a cave that opens to the Great Sea's vortex. The… beheading occurs there… before the husk is tossed away."
"No way! Really?" The exasperated voice of Fonse cut into their private chat like a scythe through grain. "That's what they do?"
"You've never attended?" his knowledgeable teammate swiveled to face him.
"No way, mate, and now I'm glad," the mace-wielder dropped his logbook to join them. "What the spark? I thought they took soldiers there to flicker away in peace."
"Hmph, well aren't you naïve?" Mio's tone hardened as she pulled herself off the bars.
"Hey, the consul never invited me to anyone's homecoming!" Fonse shook his fist at her before stopping to calm himself. "If that's how it goes, then I don't think I want to make it to my homecoming, either."
"Fonse!" Denize sprung forth to tug at his arm. "Get away from her!"
"Nice to see you again, too," the affronted Agnian greeted her sarcastically.
"Bitch, I wasn't talking to you!" the swordswoman snapped, unintentionally spitting in her direction. "None of us should be!"
"Denize, did you know about the ritual?" he set a trembling hand on hers.
"N-no…" she took a knee beside him.
"Doesn't it sound awful?" the redhead presented her with a face full of terror, peppered by confusion. "What have we been doing all this time?"
"Er…" Denize couldn't drum up a timely response for him and instead peered past his shoulder to Noah and Mio. "Both of you are bonkers, making it up about the consuls offing us like that!"
"It's true. I've seen it." The Agnian who'd taken the chopped melon from Mio added his voice to the chatter. "We've all seen it at our colony since we don't have anything fancy. It's on full display… probably for our consul to assert her power over us."
"What's even the point of fighting, then?" Fonse spluttered the rhetorical question to anyone listening. "We kill our enemies just so we can survive… to have our heads handed to us on a platter. It's like the consuls don't want us to simply fade away."
"Natural deaths don't feed the Flame Clocks," Bowan mustered enough courage to speak to the Kevesis again, "hence why we're sitting in this blasted cage like an ensnared volff pack."
"The consuls oversee all that we do, whether or not they're actually walking among us." Noah brought the tips of his fingers together while he shared what he knew. "They decide where we go the moment we're born from the queen, they ensure our servitude to the Flame Clocks during transfers, they keep our commanders at an arm's reach…"
"Right, it was our consul who'd ordered us to…" the mace-wielder bit his tongue upon remembering who else was within earshot.
"Our consul was the one who ordered us to ambush the unsuspecting Agnians," his compunctious teammate proceeded with the admission anyway, "sparking the war between our two colonies."
"Hang on, you guys specifically are the culprits?" Mio pointed an accusative finger at the three Kevesis sitting in front of her before focusing on Noah. "Is that why you apologized to me after our first fight?"
"It is, but also I really hated hurting you." The pacifist bowed his head to her, a gesture which, along with his second reason, elicited a quiet yet sharp gasp from the spared Agnian.
"When you showed me mercy out there, I hated your guts," she recalled from their two fights in the desert.
"You'd shown me a bit of mercy, yourself, no?" he tilted his head at her.
"Bowan, Mio, is this the Kevesi you were talking about, earlier?" the lavender-skinned Agnian leaned in from her end of the cage.
"Yeah," the blue-finned defender angled his analytical gaze through the bars. "I'd recognize that hair anywhere. It's definitely him."
"Didn't the survivor from the ambush mention hair like his, too?" their teammate sitting between them tapped on his ether-lined cheek.
"Noah? Y-you… let them get away? On purpose?" Fonse's jaw dropped upon connecting the dots between the Agnians' natters and everything he'd come to know about his empathetic friend.
"I… uh…" Noah observed the awestruck faces of the two nearby salvagers. His secret had finally been revealed, unwittingly kicked out of hiding by the prisoners under their watch, no less. Although his ever-curious crew had nipped away at the truth over the last dozen days, he'd been sure that they'd never get to the bottom of it. And yet, here they were, awaiting a response with rapt attention until patience ran thin and conclusions were drawn.
"You let an Agnian escape… who in turn set an entire colony upon us… which ultimately led to Lana being killed?" the swordswoman laid out the string of events, her ire increasing with each notation. "You… snuffin' piece of…"
"Denize, stop it!" the redhead grabbed her as she attempted to climb over him to reach Noah.
"I… I hadn't thought of it… like that…" the ponytailed soldier shrunk in place, his regret over Lana's death growing more noxious than ever before.
"Oh, you didn't, huh?" Denize tried to claw her way forward. "You're always thinking of yourself!"
"That's not true!" Noah argued back, uncharacteristically riled by her false charge. "I want us all to live in peace!" Mio and the other three Agnians watched the sparks fly amongst the Kevesis, suddenly thankful for the iron bars between the two sides. Likewise, Solon and Yuzet kept their distance, holding their logbooks like shields.
"You're as good as a traitor to me," her teeth clenched in lividity. A timely gust cut through the tension while both disputants took a moment to catch their breaths.
"You can report me… t-to the commander if you wish," his voice was shaky now. "I stand by my actions. I refuse to take life."
"You're weak…" Denize continued to spew her vitriol at him, "weaker than anyone who's ever died at the hands of these mudders." Taking the moisture in his eyes as a sign that she'd delivered a sufficient blow to Noah's psyche, she climbed off Fonse and pulled him off the ground with her. "C'mon, get away from him. I'm not letting you get contaminated, too."
Silence soon permeated the soundscape after the perturbed Kevesis restored their distance from their Agnian captives. Noah no longer knew where to sit, now ostracized by his own comrades who felt that he'd crossed the line. Every pair of eyes in the vicinity prodded him with their varying judgments while he could only bear to steal a glance at Mio. With his team's faith in him whittled away, she was the one person who could offer him a modicum of solace after what'd turned out to be an enlightening evening of treacherous truths.
When the next crew arrived to take over guard duty, Noah waited for the other salvagers to leave before standing again. For a moment, he considered staying put, but the last thing he needed now was someone unfamiliar sticking their nose in his business. Sighing against the gritty breeze, he willed himself to make a step towards the barracks.
"Hey…" a mercifully soft voice called from behind. Peering over his slumped shoulder, Noah found Mio standing in the corner of the cage nearest to him, her solemn expression a mirror image of his own.
"Yeah?" he started to reverse course.
"Ay! No talking, Agnian trash!" One of the new guards barked before sliding between them with their Blade in hand. In no mood to stir up another fuss, Noah slowly backed away. His eyes lingered on her until he was certain that no further threats would come from the hardhearted intervener.
Later in the barracks, Noah lied in bed with hardly a hope of falling asleep. Unlike the inexplicable nightmare from two nights prior, his mind was now beset by concerns much closer to reality and immediate in nature. Denize's words had already stung him something fierce, but he feared that the repercussions wouldn't stop there. Every minute that ticked away, he expected to receive a summons from the commander through his Iris, but the call never came. Even if nobody chose to tattle on him, the restless Kevesi knew that things would never be the same for the salvage branch of Colony 25.
By morning, Noah had accumulated a few hours of sleep after all. However, it wasn't enough to prevent the headache which awaited him the instant his head left the pillow. The daylight entering the expansive tent was muted this time, a decent tell that the rising sun was veiled by the next sandstorm. Breathing a sigh of measured relief, he suited up and began fixing his apparently memorable ponytail.
"Noah…" Fonse's own reddish-brown locks filled the corner of the barracks' mirror, just behind his troubled comrade's shoulder.
"Hmm?" Noah slowly turned around to find the team defender in equally low spirits. "What is it?"
"Denize informed the commander a few minutes ago," the mace-wielder wasted no time with his message. "Just thought I'd warn you."
"Ah, thanks," the swordfighter gripped his power frame tensely. "I haven't been contacted yet."
"I think I know why," Fonse softly scuffed the floor with the sole of his boot. "He's about to hold another assembly."
"I see…" Noah ran his hands over his face before proceeding towards the doorway. "Still, I'm prepared for whatever may come my way."
"Nobody's gonna take a fall for you, mate," the redhead froze him a step away from heading outside. "Look, you might be right about not wanting to take lives, but you were wrong the spare the one who brought their whole colony to fight us."
"Fonse…?" the pacifist started to retreat to him.
"Denize and I loved Lana," Fonse sucked in his breath, holding back tears of both sadness and anger. "She was so insufferably sweet… and you…"
"I didn't kill her," his ponytailed teammate pleaded, hands balled into fists.
"You may as well have. At least, that's how it feels to me, right now." The mace-wielder kept his sights out the door until he passed through it.
Stunned by Fonse's honesty, Noah found himself no longer able to move. As much as he appreciated his warning, he suddenly wished that their private conversation had never occurred. Lana's death floated over him like a cloud darker than what was brewing outside, compounded by the responsibility he now felt for all the other recently lost lives. Innumerable regrets grabbed at him from all directions, each one reaching for a piece of his heart. Shutting his eyes and covering his ears, Noah tried to scream it all away, but not a single peep expelled from his throat. Perhaps, subconsciously he hadn't wanted any of the other soldiers gathering outside to hear him.
The room was quiet like a tomb but for Noah's own heartbeat thumping torturously in his ears. Not since losing his previous team upon Colony 17's destruction had he felt so desolate. The only person left with whom he could comfortably speak was locked in a cage, slated for death the moment the Flame Clock hungered for its next meal. The desire to escape this hopeless situation was greater now than ever, however, Noah couldn't bear to try it without tending to Mio first. He considered breaking her out, though he knew that she still wouldn't be free from her own turmoil. No matter what fate had in store, their time in Colony 25 was running out.
