Celena walked slowly into the kitchen, where Dilandau sat, still in his bedclothes. His shoulders had the hunched look of someone who had lost all hope, and he stared into the grain of the table before him, his eyes as dead as glass.
He didn't react when she put a hand on his shoulder, but a tear fell from his eyes. She sighed heavily, knowing that if she said anything it would just upset him more. The inextricable bond between her and her son told her that, and that Dilandau had just gone through something real, something terrifying.
She gave him a squeeze on the shoulder, and though it was incredibly hard for her to do, she walked out of the room, leaving him alone to contemplate.
"You push and I'll pelt."
They so smote the garden bed
That the flowers actually knelt,
And lay lodged-though not dead.
I know how the flowers felt.
Robert Frost-"Lodged"
Dilandau barely felt the comforting pressure from his mother's arm. He sensed it as a bloom of warmth that ran from his shoulder halfway down his arm, but then it fled and he was alone with his thoughts.
The betrayal he felt could not be measured in words. He was barely conscious of the tears that dripped from his eyes. They were… He couldn't think about it. He began to shake again, his breath came too quickly.
He paused, took a few deep breaths and tried to calm down. He found it easier, out here in the waking world. Like it was with every other dream, the barrier between it and the waking world was palpable. Unlike other dreams, he could still remember every detail, though the impact was definitely reduced.
Now that he could separate his emotions from what had happened, he tried to think about the trial as a whole, the ultimate goal of it. At first, with Gatty's testimony, he had thought they were trying to prove his guilt in the death of his Dragonslayers. Thinking introspectively, he realized that the plea of not guilty was entered more to defy the madoushi than because he really thought he wasn't responsible. He knew in his heart that he could have prevented their deaths.
So at that point of the trial, they were trying to prove his negligence in the Dragonslayers' deaths, and they were succeeding. Shesta's testimony made all the more difference in the case, despite the fact that Zongi defused it.
But when Jajuka got up on the stand, it seemed as if the entire goal of the trial changed. Instead of convincing the jury that Dilandau was a part of his friends' deaths, the focus changed to hurting Dilandau as much as possible. It was such a gradual shift through the witnesses that Dilandau had hardly noticed it within the dream, but now he was awake it was obvious.
All that culminated with Miguel's testimony, which was still so painful to Dilandau that he winced when he thought of it. A testimony tailor-made to hurt him, to fly like an arrow to his deepest heart and crush what he held within. But why?
Dilandau, tears now gone, eyes focused and determined, leaned forward and bit his thumb. Why attack him like that when it was the jury who were in charge of whether he lived or died? That is what he assumed was the consequence of a guilty plea, his death. Not true death, the death of his spirit, the stealing of his identity as the Madoushi had done before.
And at first, Folken seemed not to know what Miguel was up on the stand for. It took a wild shot and some quick thinking for him to get the testimony that the madoushi obviously wanted Miguel to give. But that made no sense.. The attorney was the one who chose the witnesses, wasn't he? But then, Zongi had said that this was no ordinary trial.
And also… Dilandau paused. He had said, that first time that Dilandau had the trial dream, that there was only one person who had prejudices in that courtroom. And that person was… 'the judge'. The person who would make the final decision about whether he lived or died. Something extremely important was hovering just beyond the grasp of his mind, and it frustrated him to no end.
It was ridiculous wasn't it? That only one person in the courtroom had a bias for or against him. Everyone in that courtroom seemed to have some opinion on him, and it ran the gamut between open hatred and amity. They all had that in common, didn't they… And something else, they were all…
His train of thought was interrupted by the purposefully loud clatter of a bowl being set down in front of him. He looked up to see his mother staring worriedly down at him.
She was relieved to see the doe-eyed surprise on his face, fearing the strange caged fear that she had seen before. She sat down in front of him and smiled wordlessly.
"Mother." he said, in a daze. He looked down at the bowl, which contained a thick, warm oatmeal of some kind, filled with fruit.
"Good morning." she said, a little too quickly.
He saw the worry and heard it, and smiled weakly, "I'm all right, mother." he said, his voice soft and tentative, "I've had night terrors before."
"This was real, Dilandau." his mother said, frowning, "You don't have to tell me, but I know that this wasn't a dream. It must have been a memory."
"No memory, mother." Dilandau said, a hint of sadness in his eyes, "Just a dream. As simple as that." he looked down at his porridge, and avoided her gaze.
She studied his face silently for a moment, watching him swirl his porridge around and around. She let out a breath slowly, and smiled at him, "You look tired." she said kindly.
He looked up, seeming confused, "I do?" he asked flatly.
He very much did. It reflected in the pallor of his skin, the dullness of his eyes and the dark circles around them. More than that, he looked weary, as if he had run a marathon instead of sleeping that night.
He felt his way over his weary, waxy face, and ended by sliding down the scar on his cheek, "Last night…" he paused too long, "wasn't restful."
Celena nodded, as if she understood exactly what he was talking about. But she gave him a sad look, one that he could no longer deny.
"My dreams…" He said vaguely, then, "Mother, I don't know what's going on. These dreams are REAL. I know they are. I had one the night before, too. It's a trial, mother, not a memory. And they're all there, and they HATE me." his eyes filled up, but he willed his tears to go away.
Celena took his hand, "Who's there?" she asked.
Dilandau turned away, slipped his hand from her grasp, "It doesn't matter." he said, looking back at her with his haunted gaze, then he looked away, "The madoushi, the dragonslayers, everyone. And no one… I still don't understand it all, mother. I still don't know if I understand what I saw, felt." He stared back at her, his sunken cheeks and prominent cheekbones even more obvious in his fear, "But you'll see it tonight, I know you will. You have to help me win, mother…" he looked down at his hands, "If I lose, I don't know what will happen…" he said, lost. He put his head in his hands and tried to will his panic away.
Celena watched as her son began to shake with repressed rage, fear, and sadness. She put a hand on his shoulder, horrified at what this dream, these dreams rather, had done to him.
She quietly walked around the table and put her hands on his shoulders, "We'll do it. Whatever you ask me to do, I'll do it." she said, frightened.
He shook his shoulders out, denying her grasp of them. He sighed, "I don't know what I want you to do. I don't know what will help. I… I have to go think about it." he got up with surprising swiftness, and ran through the hall to the door and through it, pushing a breeze into the house.
Celena looked after him, trying to restrain herself from following him.
Dilandau walked off the beaten path in the small forest that separated his house from Ravi's. He didn't feel like talking to anyone. He needed to think. His mother had interrupted an important train of thought, and now in his sleepless state, he had lost it.
It came to him in the form of Zongi's voice, 'There is no prejudice in that room. Not one soul in that entire room harbors any grudge against anyone.'
"Except…" Dilandau muttered, settling himself down on the pine-needle covered ground, "The judge. What in the world is that supposed to mean?" he said, frustrated, throwing his weary body down on the ground. Zongi's assertion seemed to Dilandau like the key to this entire mess. But he was so tired, and the pine needles were surprisingly soft, and Dilandau felt himself…
No! He couldn't fall asleep, because then they'd find him again. He sat up, bit hard down on his fist. He was awake. The judge. But what had Zongi said then? Dilandau had protested and then Zongi said that… That maybe they were talking about more than one trial. More than one judge. The first judge had to be the obvious one, but the other judge had to be someone else.
Could it be one of the Dragonslayers? No, it seems he would have already lost… Or the Madoushi! Dilandau suppressed a quake of fear; it couldn't be them. If he thought that, he may as well give up all hope. Maybe someone not obvious, like Folken… Or Zongi himself? No.
The problem was that choosing from all these different people with prejudices wasn't helping him. He had to go by what Zongi had said. That there was only one person in the room who went there with any preconceived notions about him. Which meant that this one person should stand out, which would make it obvious to find him! But if it was so obvious, then why wasn't Dilandau finding him!?
At once, Dilandau understood. He couldn't find the judge because he wasn't looking in the right place. He was looking at the other people, the people around him. But the judge was the only one with prejudice, and Dilandau knew that HE had prejudices. Going into the courtroom, he took the burden of what life had taught him. And the rest of them were all dead, perhaps leaving prejudice behind altogether.
The judge was HIM. He was the judge. That explained why they were trying to hurt him as their primary goal, rather than trying to support their case. The realization gave Dilandau no joy, no happiness. Now that he knew he was the judge, he was even less sure whether he would win the case.
He would be the one to decide whether he was guilty or innocent. But… He believed in his deepest heart that he was guilty. He knew as if it was a God-given truth that he had been responsible for the deaths of his only friends. He couldn't lie and try to tell himself that he wasn't guilty, probably less so in the dream, where everything was vague and nebulous.
Despite the fact that Zongi had attempted to defend him, despite everything that he had done to keep his head above the water, they were still going to take him. Because he couldn't forgive himself.
Even less so now that he knew his friends would not forgive him.
There was a scattering of brush, and Dilandau sat up, looking in the direction of the sound. A short distance away, two brown eyes were looking sheepishly at him.
Dilandau's best friend Ravi walked up as best as he could. His long legs kept tripping over roots and branches. While shaking his leg free of a brambly bush, he greeted Dilandau, "Hey." he said simply.
"Hi." Dilandau replied dully.
Ravi finally shook his leg free of the brambles, and took a baleful look back at the overgrowth behind him. Looking up at him, Dilandau wondered whether Ravi would betray him the way the Dragonslayers did someday. It was probably some colossal fault of his that caused them to hate him so, and that fault could not have died with them.
Dilandau sighed, and stood up, "You came to find me?" he asked.
"Yep." Ravi said, "Your mom told me you'd be out here. It was a weird place for you to be, but she's always right, and here you are." he smiled, and then frowned worriedly, "Are you all right, my man?" he asked.
Dilandau turned away, lifting a hand and brushing away Ravi's question. His gesture said 'of course I'm all right, now let's go.' He slid swiftly through the spaces between the brush, and Ravi groaned at the prospect of more thorns in his arms and legs, and followed Dilandau through the brush.
Author's note: Hey, when I start updating again, people start coming back! Whoa!! Anyhow, I was so glad to see people reviewing again that I decided to update early. I was snowballed under a ton of reviews on Tuesday, July 22, which was great because I was having a rough day and it helped me feel better. So thanks everybody who reviewed, not just the ones who did it on Tuesday. This chapter and its earliness is dedicated to you. (That's good, see, because nothing truly horrible happens to Dilandau!)
Now I must snowblow these reviews!
Feye Morgan: Yay! Always the first, never the worst! I love updates too! I also love reviews. And no, I'm not going to tell you. Anything. It is a rather sad poem. I love it because of the vivid imagery that leaps out at you. I wrote this truly excellent paper on it in AP. Yay! And this update's on time! Double yay!
WaTaShIwA ShInImEgAmI: You're back! I forgot to answer your review the first time, gomen! But you wouldn't have read it anyway, skipping all those chapters like that! Honestly… Well, I hope you like the rest of them, and I'll try and answer your questions by answering whether you'd find the answer by reading the other chapters. @.@ That makes sense, I swear. OK! Why is Miguel all of a sudden being evil? (NO) Why is Dilandau and Zongi almost friends? (YES) Why are the Dragon Slayers being traitors? (NO) What are you planning with Van and Allen? (NO, but I dunno yet) Is Dilandau going to be ok? (NO, but yes. I'm too nice to be mean to Dilly after I tried so hard to make him happy in the last story) OK! Hope that clears something up…
nature_girl19: Thank you! And I just did! (updated, that is)
Blue Aloe: Oh, the lateness! OK, I'll try to address two of your reviews at once. (Even though they're really long… Keep it up, by the way!!) Thank you! I actually really loved that line myself. You just tag onto the stuff I put the most thought into, style-wise. That's a good compliment, thank you! Zongi as a lawyer will make the most sense by the end, I assure you. At least as much sense as the end itself. And as for breaking Dilandau, if they broke him, it would be easy for him to choose death, and then they wouldn't have him at all. Being dead, they're limited to mind games instead of drugs and manipulation. If Dilandau dies inside, they can't bring him back. He'd probably just fade away.
Eboni: Yeah. It hurt me, too, when I realized this. As Dilandau is now, even if the same thing happened over again, he wouldn't be able to kill his friends. He's just too nice. He might have cracked, but it's not likely. The next chapter is out right now! Buwahaha!
Etowato: I know! I'm so happy it turned out well. I was almost about to give that chapter up for scratch and write a really bad one to fill space so I could go on with the parts of the plot I'd already figured out, but like I said, it came to me in a snap of the fingers and it was awesome. It made me think, too. There has to be something more to those characters than what they show in the series. I think I got the idea partly because I'm rereading the Ender's Game series and company, and there are youth soldiers in that who are incredibly intelligent. But I digress. You know me, so why do you even ask that question? Of course I won't let anything TOO bad happen to Dilly-sama! Sheesh. I'm such a bleeding heart, ya know?