Notes: Couple of notes (as always). I know Folken said he didn't know much about Dilandau but raise you hands if you, like me, thought that was a bunch of bull shit. 1) Dilandau's his main little lackey throughout the whole series and has some "interesting" personality quirks. Do you really think that the first time Dilandau went berserk and torched something to the ground yelling "Burn!" Folken didn't go and find out why he would do that?
And 2) Folken is Strategos. It point blank said that he is the head of a bunch of guys who answer only to Dornkirk himself. And yet he claims to have only heard rumors about what they were doing to the kidnapped children. That just doesn't make sense. Especially if he was so far involved with the fate-alteration research.
But why would he lie? you ask. Easy. The Hitomi scooby-gang already didn't like him. Had no reason to trust he was a good person so he has to try and get on their good sides. Am I the only one here who thinks that if Folken told Allen that he had been part of the group that had turned the knight's beloved baby sister into a pretty-boy pyro, he would have been chopped into itty-bitty pieces? That's my short version (yes I said short version) of the little rant I have about that part of the Escaflowne storyarc.
I'm not sure exactly which religion, if any, is practiced in the Escaflowne world (I know they mention something about a sea god/goddess when Millerna gives Allen leave to fight in the last episode) so when it talks about sins and souls and such (wow, that's a fun phrase) it's not necessarily Christian dogma, more like an all-around generalization of belief. Just in case you miss it, Folken is 22 and Dilandau is 12.
Warnings: Yaoi, pedophile, rape.
Dedication: As always, to my main girl Jennie, aka, Gatomonangewomon. And to my Escaflowne muse from the far north, Amy-chan! Also to Amy in apology because I'm supposed to be working on a Folken/Dryden fic (with extra Van/Dilandau goodness), but I started this one a while ago and just got in the mood to finish it.
// denotes thought
All the Broken Butterflies
"I REFUSE!"
I admit that I'm not exactly acting with all that much self-control. I know my face is flushed with anger and that I'm yelling, something I very rarely resort to. The other navy cloaked sorcerers only grinned at me, cocky in their belief that I will do what they want.
"You cannot refuse. Emperor Dornkirk has seen that your future lies in becoming the Strategos of Zaibach, Folken. It is what you are destined to do."
//Damn, betrayed by my own creation.// I wasn't the sole designer of the Emperor's Destiny Prognostication Engine but I think of it as my Magna Opus, even better than the stealth cloaks I just finished designing.
"I will not become the Strategos. Isn't what we do here harming enough people? Why would I want to make figuring out how to destroy lives in the name of Zaibach my permanent duty? I will not kill more innocents than I absolutely must."
Again they smiled, as if humoring a two-year-old. Damn, I may be decades younger than them but I have the same authority as they do. I wish they would stop treating me like a child, I'm already 22 years old.
"You will become Zaibach's Strategos or there will be at least one more death on your conscience." I glance up, trying...and most likely failing, not to look worried. //Surely they can't have found out about my past…about Van. If they are threatening Van I will kill them all.//
Their leader nods his head in the direction of the door and I watch as two burly soldiers bring in a young boy, covered in chains. His silver hair is covering his eyes, but I can clearly see tear streaks on his dirty face. I feign disinterest, "and who is this?"
"This is Dilandau Albatou. One of your experiments; if you can remember him, after all, there have been so many. You changed his destiny a few years ago, he used to be Celena Schezar."
Now I can remember him, the one Jajuka was so worried about. The little girl who, it was determined, could better suit Zaibach as a soldier than anything else. The one I made a mistake on...a mistake that put her through days of unnecessary agony. I had wanted to kill her, put her out of her misery, but they would not let me. They said she would be a success, even more so now, because of her emotional and mental instability. Her need for destruction.
"You've explained who this boy is, but not why I should care if he lives or dies." At these words the child stiffens, raising tear-filled crimson eyes towards me. Eyes that beg for me to help...to care...as I'm sure no one has yet bothered to do. Not since Jajuka anyway.
"Come now Folken, surely you aren't so cold hearted as to let this child die just because you don't want to accept this great honor. We've seen you, with the Doppleganger...the leopard twins...you can't stand to see any innocents suffer."
I begin to laugh quietly, //I cannot let them get to me.// "Kill him. I don't care, what's one life compared to all those who will die by my hand as Strategos? All those innocents weighed against one life?"
"But it's my life." Breath catches in my throat at that voice. None of the others have heard it. A tiny thing, thin with pain and fear. Taken from home, separated from family, and put through what could only be described as torture, Dilandau's life is the only thing he has. The greatest and most precious thing to him, and we play around, bargaining with it as if it were our's. Shame fills me but I cannot falter now.
"Very well. Kill the boy." The sorcerer seems unhappy but it is with my continued refusal, nothing to do with the child he has so off-handedly condemned to death.
The guards holding Dilandau's chains have stepped forward, drawing their swords. His breath catches in panic as he lunges forward as far as the restraints let him; far enough to grasp the edge of my cloak.
"Please." Tears flowing freely, those eyes...those cursed eyes, scream at me to stop them. Why couldn't he understand? //If I become Strategos, my hands will overflow with a spring of blood. I cannot allow that stain...to...// my thoughts trail off.
I raise a hand to the guards, "Hold." I crouch and take the boy's chin, trying to ignore the wonderfully soft skin under the control of my good hand...like the wings of a butterfly. "Dilandau, do you believe you have a soul?"
"Y..yes."He is confused. //He is cute when he's confused.//
"And if a person is bad, where do they go when they die?"
"Some...place bad?" //That's it Dilandau. Strike out blindly and pray you hit upon the right answer.//
"And have you been bad Dilandau?"
He shakes his head wildly to deny it.
"Then I will give you a choice. You can die now while you're still pure, or I will save you...on one condition. Because it is your fault I will have to hurt people, your soul will bear the sin of those deeds. When you die you will go someplace very bad, because your life will have hurt many people. Now, which fate do you choose Dilandau?"
He hesitates, obviously what he said about believing he has a soul is true. Finally his eyelids lower, I for one feel freer with their gaze averted. "I...I want to live."
* * * * * * * * * * * Some months later * * * * * * * * *
I hear quiet crying behind me. It must be Dilandau. We have just started one of the more advanced tests of Fate Alteration, trying to create Advanced Luck Soldiers. The results were...unexpected. And, to say the least, unpleasant. As it so happens, one of the main ingredients combines with another and forms a toxin, which slowly poisons the bloodstream and ends in a rather painful death. Sixteen children have died so far and I assume the last four test subjects will be shortly joining them. //Hmm...Dilandau's taking this very hard.//
As I would usually be, but I find my deal with the silver-haired boy has changed me. He suffers so I can be free. //A refreshing change indeed. It amazes me, when I first touched him I compared him to a butterfly. I can't believe how right I was. He is so fragile. Sometimes I wish I could gather him in my arms just to watch his face...especially his eyes...as I crush his delicate wings.//
"Something the matter boy?" I ask, a smile obscenely hovering around the edges of my mouth.
"No." The tears make his voice thick and husky. //I think I like the sound...maybe I should make him cry more often.// My abrupt laughter startles him. He runs out the door without even waiting for my permission. //What a disobedient child.//
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * Later that Night * * * * * * * * * * *
"Lord Folken."
"Yes? What is it?"
"It's Dilandau m'lord. He's in the infirmary."
My teeth grind together in anger. //This is not the time for that idiot's antics.//
"M'lord, shouldn't you..."
"Deere, keep your mouth shut. You sound smarter that way. And get out."
"Yes, Lord Folken."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
I stalk into the room whose only occupant is the boy. He jerks upright on the bed as I enter. I flash him a dark, humorless smile. I can taste his fear. I am giddy as I get the chance to finally break my pet butterfly. //After this night, he will never fly again.//"Thought I'd let you go that easily huh?"
"Lord Folken..."
"Get up!" I throw the blankets off his legs and haul him up. I am pleased by what he's wearing. A thin over-shirt, much too big for him, that ends midway down his thigh. So beautiful. The only thing that mares his beauty are the thick bandages wrapped around each of his wrists.
"Did it feel good?" He's so scared it makes my blood sing. I push him backward until he hits the brick of the fireplace. The fire is large and the hot stone must be burning his smooth legs but he won't dare to step away...for that would mean being closer to me. "I bet you looked so pretty...covered in you own blood."
"Lord Folken, I'm sorry."
I ignore his apology, taking his hands and slamming them against the wall by his head. I want to squeeze them til they break, til the bandages are soaked in his blood. The pain must be crippling...and I can see it in his eyes...something is breaking. //That's right little one, I want you shattered. So break, my pet...I want to hear you scream.//
"You know, you're very pretty." His impossibly soft hair tickles my face as I pull him close. He tries to move away but has no where to go. I whisper, "So pretty."
Tears trail out of the corner of one of his eyes. I pause and delicately lick them away. I'm pressed close enough so that he can feel what he does to me, laying hard against his stomach. He begins to cry in earnest and his pitiful whimpers almost undo me. "You're mine Dilandau. When I gave you life, you sold your soul to me."
I let go of his wrists to rip open his shirt, baring his body to my eyes. "Undress me." His eyes widen but he neither moves nor says anything. "You are a soldier. I am your commanding officer and I just gave you an order."
Shaking hands reach out to find the clasps to the cloak. He slowly strips my clothing off of my body. He stops for a moment to stare shocked at where the arm and chest melded together in a hellish example of the wonders of science, but quickly moves on. When he's done, I bring my knee to rest between his legs. "Open them Dilandau."
"Please don't Lord Fol..."
Instead of waiting for him to finish, I simply force my way through. Grabbing his soft behind, I lift him up to grind his body against my shaft. "I'm gonna fuck you 'til you bleed." Finding the most innocent part of him, I push to defile it. I push as far into his hot little body as I can but he refuses to cry out, even as I rip and bruise his flesh.
"Stop." He finally finds the spirit to try to fight me but it's too late. //If I can't crush his wings...I'll just burn them to ashes.//
I pull his delicate, almost artistic hand into the flame beside us. My claw protects him but soon the hideous metal will turn red hot.
"Can you feel the fire enter your blood, Dilandau? It's going to burn you away until you're nothing but an empty shell." //He already looks dead. Bleeding, burning, breakable...beautiful.// Shaking in my arms, clenching and unclenching around the chosen "weapon" I've impaled his body with. //Too far gone to even cry anymore.//
His body jerks as I push into him over and over and over. Hiccupping, tiny sobs without tears as his eyes stare blankly into mine. //Now that they have no power, they are...rather pretty, actually.//
Drinking in his anguish threatens to end this before I want to. I still and instead kiss the skin at his throat. I want to feel his pulse as I'm sure he feels mine, buried deep within him.
"Soldier, Dilandau. That's what you are." My lips press against the adorable shell of his ear. He breaks out in goose bumps but otherwise ignores my words. "You are a soldier. You have no soul. You are to destroy anyone who gets in your way. You are to fear no one...no one but me. Do you understand?"
He says nothing. I resume motion, repeating the words. Each time I begin again my voice raises, my thrusts become wilder, even more violent. Sometime he has begun to moan and whimper but it is a far away thing, absent of any real thought or emotion. I kiss him for the first time, tears wetting my cheeks as I finish deep within his body. I carefully take our hands out of the fire and lower the other set. "What are you, Dilandau?"
"I...I am a soldier."
"Where is your soul?"
"I don't have one."
"If someone is in your way?"
"I burn them to the ground."
"Who do you fear?"
He has trouble with this question. I kiss the tears from his pale, satin cheeks. "Who do you fear?"
"You."
I limply pull out from him and he would have collapsed if I hadn't held him close. I rest my chin on the silver hair laying against my chest while my hand traces soothing patterns on his back.
I think I love him.
Just as I love all my broken butterflies.
Das Ende
*blink blink* Crap! *tries to shove Folken under the bed* Amy-chan's gonna kill me when she's sees what I did to her Folkie. I didn't mean to I swear. I started out trying to make him a bit pervy and really tortured but instead he came out really pervy and really sadistic. But I swear I didn't mean to make him that way.
And 2) Folken is Strategos. It point blank said that he is the head of a bunch of guys who answer only to Dornkirk himself. And yet he claims to have only heard rumors about what they were doing to the kidnapped children. That just doesn't make sense. Especially if he was so far involved with the fate-alteration research.
But why would he lie? you ask. Easy. The Hitomi scooby-gang already didn't like him. Had no reason to trust he was a good person so he has to try and get on their good sides. Am I the only one here who thinks that if Folken told Allen that he had been part of the group that had turned the knight's beloved baby sister into a pretty-boy pyro, he would have been chopped into itty-bitty pieces? That's my short version (yes I said short version) of the little rant I have about that part of the Escaflowne storyarc.
I'm not sure exactly which religion, if any, is practiced in the Escaflowne world (I know they mention something about a sea god/goddess when Millerna gives Allen leave to fight in the last episode) so when it talks about sins and souls and such (wow, that's a fun phrase) it's not necessarily Christian dogma, more like an all-around generalization of belief. Just in case you miss it, Folken is 22 and Dilandau is 12.
Warnings: Yaoi, pedophile, rape.
Dedication: As always, to my main girl Jennie, aka, Gatomonangewomon. And to my Escaflowne muse from the far north, Amy-chan! Also to Amy in apology because I'm supposed to be working on a Folken/Dryden fic (with extra Van/Dilandau goodness), but I started this one a while ago and just got in the mood to finish it.
// denotes thought
All the Broken Butterflies
"I REFUSE!"
I admit that I'm not exactly acting with all that much self-control. I know my face is flushed with anger and that I'm yelling, something I very rarely resort to. The other navy cloaked sorcerers only grinned at me, cocky in their belief that I will do what they want.
"You cannot refuse. Emperor Dornkirk has seen that your future lies in becoming the Strategos of Zaibach, Folken. It is what you are destined to do."
//Damn, betrayed by my own creation.// I wasn't the sole designer of the Emperor's Destiny Prognostication Engine but I think of it as my Magna Opus, even better than the stealth cloaks I just finished designing.
"I will not become the Strategos. Isn't what we do here harming enough people? Why would I want to make figuring out how to destroy lives in the name of Zaibach my permanent duty? I will not kill more innocents than I absolutely must."
Again they smiled, as if humoring a two-year-old. Damn, I may be decades younger than them but I have the same authority as they do. I wish they would stop treating me like a child, I'm already 22 years old.
"You will become Zaibach's Strategos or there will be at least one more death on your conscience." I glance up, trying...and most likely failing, not to look worried. //Surely they can't have found out about my past…about Van. If they are threatening Van I will kill them all.//
Their leader nods his head in the direction of the door and I watch as two burly soldiers bring in a young boy, covered in chains. His silver hair is covering his eyes, but I can clearly see tear streaks on his dirty face. I feign disinterest, "and who is this?"
"This is Dilandau Albatou. One of your experiments; if you can remember him, after all, there have been so many. You changed his destiny a few years ago, he used to be Celena Schezar."
Now I can remember him, the one Jajuka was so worried about. The little girl who, it was determined, could better suit Zaibach as a soldier than anything else. The one I made a mistake on...a mistake that put her through days of unnecessary agony. I had wanted to kill her, put her out of her misery, but they would not let me. They said she would be a success, even more so now, because of her emotional and mental instability. Her need for destruction.
"You've explained who this boy is, but not why I should care if he lives or dies." At these words the child stiffens, raising tear-filled crimson eyes towards me. Eyes that beg for me to help...to care...as I'm sure no one has yet bothered to do. Not since Jajuka anyway.
"Come now Folken, surely you aren't so cold hearted as to let this child die just because you don't want to accept this great honor. We've seen you, with the Doppleganger...the leopard twins...you can't stand to see any innocents suffer."
I begin to laugh quietly, //I cannot let them get to me.// "Kill him. I don't care, what's one life compared to all those who will die by my hand as Strategos? All those innocents weighed against one life?"
"But it's my life." Breath catches in my throat at that voice. None of the others have heard it. A tiny thing, thin with pain and fear. Taken from home, separated from family, and put through what could only be described as torture, Dilandau's life is the only thing he has. The greatest and most precious thing to him, and we play around, bargaining with it as if it were our's. Shame fills me but I cannot falter now.
"Very well. Kill the boy." The sorcerer seems unhappy but it is with my continued refusal, nothing to do with the child he has so off-handedly condemned to death.
The guards holding Dilandau's chains have stepped forward, drawing their swords. His breath catches in panic as he lunges forward as far as the restraints let him; far enough to grasp the edge of my cloak.
"Please." Tears flowing freely, those eyes...those cursed eyes, scream at me to stop them. Why couldn't he understand? //If I become Strategos, my hands will overflow with a spring of blood. I cannot allow that stain...to...// my thoughts trail off.
I raise a hand to the guards, "Hold." I crouch and take the boy's chin, trying to ignore the wonderfully soft skin under the control of my good hand...like the wings of a butterfly. "Dilandau, do you believe you have a soul?"
"Y..yes."He is confused. //He is cute when he's confused.//
"And if a person is bad, where do they go when they die?"
"Some...place bad?" //That's it Dilandau. Strike out blindly and pray you hit upon the right answer.//
"And have you been bad Dilandau?"
He shakes his head wildly to deny it.
"Then I will give you a choice. You can die now while you're still pure, or I will save you...on one condition. Because it is your fault I will have to hurt people, your soul will bear the sin of those deeds. When you die you will go someplace very bad, because your life will have hurt many people. Now, which fate do you choose Dilandau?"
He hesitates, obviously what he said about believing he has a soul is true. Finally his eyelids lower, I for one feel freer with their gaze averted. "I...I want to live."
* * * * * * * * * * * Some months later * * * * * * * * *
I hear quiet crying behind me. It must be Dilandau. We have just started one of the more advanced tests of Fate Alteration, trying to create Advanced Luck Soldiers. The results were...unexpected. And, to say the least, unpleasant. As it so happens, one of the main ingredients combines with another and forms a toxin, which slowly poisons the bloodstream and ends in a rather painful death. Sixteen children have died so far and I assume the last four test subjects will be shortly joining them. //Hmm...Dilandau's taking this very hard.//
As I would usually be, but I find my deal with the silver-haired boy has changed me. He suffers so I can be free. //A refreshing change indeed. It amazes me, when I first touched him I compared him to a butterfly. I can't believe how right I was. He is so fragile. Sometimes I wish I could gather him in my arms just to watch his face...especially his eyes...as I crush his delicate wings.//
"Something the matter boy?" I ask, a smile obscenely hovering around the edges of my mouth.
"No." The tears make his voice thick and husky. //I think I like the sound...maybe I should make him cry more often.// My abrupt laughter startles him. He runs out the door without even waiting for my permission. //What a disobedient child.//
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * Later that Night * * * * * * * * * * *
"Lord Folken."
"Yes? What is it?"
"It's Dilandau m'lord. He's in the infirmary."
My teeth grind together in anger. //This is not the time for that idiot's antics.//
"M'lord, shouldn't you..."
"Deere, keep your mouth shut. You sound smarter that way. And get out."
"Yes, Lord Folken."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
I stalk into the room whose only occupant is the boy. He jerks upright on the bed as I enter. I flash him a dark, humorless smile. I can taste his fear. I am giddy as I get the chance to finally break my pet butterfly. //After this night, he will never fly again.//"Thought I'd let you go that easily huh?"
"Lord Folken..."
"Get up!" I throw the blankets off his legs and haul him up. I am pleased by what he's wearing. A thin over-shirt, much too big for him, that ends midway down his thigh. So beautiful. The only thing that mares his beauty are the thick bandages wrapped around each of his wrists.
"Did it feel good?" He's so scared it makes my blood sing. I push him backward until he hits the brick of the fireplace. The fire is large and the hot stone must be burning his smooth legs but he won't dare to step away...for that would mean being closer to me. "I bet you looked so pretty...covered in you own blood."
"Lord Folken, I'm sorry."
I ignore his apology, taking his hands and slamming them against the wall by his head. I want to squeeze them til they break, til the bandages are soaked in his blood. The pain must be crippling...and I can see it in his eyes...something is breaking. //That's right little one, I want you shattered. So break, my pet...I want to hear you scream.//
"You know, you're very pretty." His impossibly soft hair tickles my face as I pull him close. He tries to move away but has no where to go. I whisper, "So pretty."
Tears trail out of the corner of one of his eyes. I pause and delicately lick them away. I'm pressed close enough so that he can feel what he does to me, laying hard against his stomach. He begins to cry in earnest and his pitiful whimpers almost undo me. "You're mine Dilandau. When I gave you life, you sold your soul to me."
I let go of his wrists to rip open his shirt, baring his body to my eyes. "Undress me." His eyes widen but he neither moves nor says anything. "You are a soldier. I am your commanding officer and I just gave you an order."
Shaking hands reach out to find the clasps to the cloak. He slowly strips my clothing off of my body. He stops for a moment to stare shocked at where the arm and chest melded together in a hellish example of the wonders of science, but quickly moves on. When he's done, I bring my knee to rest between his legs. "Open them Dilandau."
"Please don't Lord Fol..."
Instead of waiting for him to finish, I simply force my way through. Grabbing his soft behind, I lift him up to grind his body against my shaft. "I'm gonna fuck you 'til you bleed." Finding the most innocent part of him, I push to defile it. I push as far into his hot little body as I can but he refuses to cry out, even as I rip and bruise his flesh.
"Stop." He finally finds the spirit to try to fight me but it's too late. //If I can't crush his wings...I'll just burn them to ashes.//
I pull his delicate, almost artistic hand into the flame beside us. My claw protects him but soon the hideous metal will turn red hot.
"Can you feel the fire enter your blood, Dilandau? It's going to burn you away until you're nothing but an empty shell." //He already looks dead. Bleeding, burning, breakable...beautiful.// Shaking in my arms, clenching and unclenching around the chosen "weapon" I've impaled his body with. //Too far gone to even cry anymore.//
His body jerks as I push into him over and over and over. Hiccupping, tiny sobs without tears as his eyes stare blankly into mine. //Now that they have no power, they are...rather pretty, actually.//
Drinking in his anguish threatens to end this before I want to. I still and instead kiss the skin at his throat. I want to feel his pulse as I'm sure he feels mine, buried deep within him.
"Soldier, Dilandau. That's what you are." My lips press against the adorable shell of his ear. He breaks out in goose bumps but otherwise ignores my words. "You are a soldier. You have no soul. You are to destroy anyone who gets in your way. You are to fear no one...no one but me. Do you understand?"
He says nothing. I resume motion, repeating the words. Each time I begin again my voice raises, my thrusts become wilder, even more violent. Sometime he has begun to moan and whimper but it is a far away thing, absent of any real thought or emotion. I kiss him for the first time, tears wetting my cheeks as I finish deep within his body. I carefully take our hands out of the fire and lower the other set. "What are you, Dilandau?"
"I...I am a soldier."
"Where is your soul?"
"I don't have one."
"If someone is in your way?"
"I burn them to the ground."
"Who do you fear?"
He has trouble with this question. I kiss the tears from his pale, satin cheeks. "Who do you fear?"
"You."
I limply pull out from him and he would have collapsed if I hadn't held him close. I rest my chin on the silver hair laying against my chest while my hand traces soothing patterns on his back.
I think I love him.
Just as I love all my broken butterflies.
Das Ende
*blink blink* Crap! *tries to shove Folken under the bed* Amy-chan's gonna kill me when she's sees what I did to her Folkie. I didn't mean to I swear. I started out trying to make him a bit pervy and really tortured but instead he came out really pervy and really sadistic. But I swear I didn't mean to make him that way.