Part Two City of Angels

"Sometimes I feel like
I don't have a partner
Sometimes I feel like
My only friend

Mozenrath stepped out wearily from the portal that brought him to the edge
of the city, stumbling, walking on an energy that wasn't there. He didn't
possess the coherency to realize he came against no barrier when he passed
into the territory of the black sands.
He bumped a shoulder on his way past a guard posted at a door of one of the
richer households, and mumbled a quick "Sorry" when he realized the guard
had slumped to the floor.
He recoiled as a dead face looked up at him.
He looked down the streets, at scattered bodies that lay dead, though it
seemed of naturally causes because they looked like they had died all of a
sudden.

"Is the city I live in
the city of angels
Lonely as I am
Together we cry"

Mozenrath remembered something Destane had once told him
" This is my kingdom little kitten, and as such, whether you like it or not,
those who reside in it are mine do with what I please."
The bastard took that literally.
The bastard tied his life to them.
All of them followed their ruler to hell.
"Except me", Mozenrath said aloud to no one, "I sent them".
He pushed past the nausea that momentarily clutched his stomach as he walked
past a dead child, and looked toward the steel sky, broiling behind a
meaninglessly sinister Citadel.
The sun was shinning in Morbia
He glanced down at the unsightly little package in his hands, and placed it
on the sand without a second fleeting look.
He let his feet carry him where the will of the city would, tears gracing
his tracks, numb, cold ones.
"I drive on her streets
'cause she's my companion
I walk through her hills
'cause she knows who I am"

The leaned back into the wind the always seemed to whip the sand for him,
and knew it was her embrace, the city's embrace.
The thought filled him with such a cutting sadness, but kept walking,
knowing where to go but instinct, mind departed even as something slid onto
his shoulder, nuzzling his hand for petting, quiet yet alive now.
He reached up absent-mindedly to stroke it behind its fins.

"She sees my good deeds
And she kisses me windy"

He climbed up inelegantly up the boarding of Destane's stables.
Scratch that.
His stables.
A piece of blue cloth, torn from his cloak in his scrambling to a safe spot
on the roof, flapped in a non-existent gale.
Mozenrath wondered why it wasn't stained with blood.
He took a short, shuddering breath and looked at his hands.
And waited.
Nothing.
He laughed to no one, or maybe to his new friend perched on his shoulder,
but mostly the humor was something only meant for him.
He couldn't even cry any more.

"I never worry
Now that is a lie"

But this city, this Citadel, made it so he didn't have to, at least now.
It fortressed him in his own world, not to keep others out,
But to keep him in.
And that's the way it should be.
He suddenly had the intense urge to cover his face in shame, but realized,
whom was he hiding it from?
It was just he, and she, the city.
He caressed the thought almost affectionately, and realized that his life
before this second, this breath, was nothing but a memory.

"I don't ever want to feel
Like I did that day
Take me to the place I love
Take me all the way"

He took a deep breath as he made his way back to the solid sand, and felt
the raw, salt, diluted smell of death.
It suited him.
He gagged a bit as he took a too quick step and realized, maybe it didn't,
but it would have to.
The thing that followed him from Morbia, the eel like thing, brushed his
neck while it floated beside him, jolting him.
He turned and was faced with watery gray eyes.
"Xerxes" he spoke in his race's tongue.
The eel balked, hurt by the comment of his appearance, knowing Xerxes was
the term used for unsightly.
Mozenrath threw back his head and laughed, too world-weary to do much else.
He shuffled into the Citadel, less than surprised when the doors conceded so
easily.
He looked around for a moment in the expanse of the doorway.

"Its hard to believe that
There's nobody out there
Its hard to believe
That I'm all alone"

It was so quiet.
It burned in only the way frost could. No hushed scurrying of the servants
and household staff, no hum of life, and none of Destane's incessant
humming, always humming.
The leaden silence didn't even buckle as Mozenrath mechanically made his way
to the throne, settling in it awkwardly.
"Well Xerxes, it looks like-".
That's when his voice cracked.
He doubled over as an unbearable pain gripped him, starting from his chest
and down.
He wondered faintly if he was dying, it would suit him, however, to do.
He was a murderer after all; why not atone right now?
But then he realized he finally felt what he had done, what he had lost,
what was dead, what was over…
"Allah", he gasped through the chocked and shuddering sobs of pain.

"At least I have heard her
The city she loves me
As lonely as I am, together we cry"

But something soothed away his grief as the quiet returned.
It almost felt like the city.
While he felt an almost business like acknowledgement of the city towards
Destane's demise, it didn't feel right that it was what was coming through
to Mozenrath.
The city was grieving; he could feel it in the aloof pulsing of the walls,
the hoarse scrape of the winds of the corridors, and the frantic dance of
the shadows.
But something felt oddly personal about the casual sharing of that grief,
the generous supply he felt doled out to him as he made his way to his
bedroom.

"I don't ever wanna feel
Like I did that day
Take me to the place I love
Take me all the way
I don't ever wanna feel
Like I did that day
Take me to the place I love
Take me all the way, yeah"

And as he stared at the ceiling once more, idly watching the eel fret about
him, he knew.
The city was his.
Therefore, the misery of this city Allah turned his back on was his.
He lived in the city,
And the city lived in him.
The city of the dammed,
The city of angels.
Dean