A/N (Aroihkin's Notes) / Chapter originally written on 06.23.2005. Re-polished on 01.12.2006 for the arowrites dot net archives.
Review-replies can be found now on arowrites dot net.
Formatting repaired on 04.13.2010 -- thanks, ffnet, for eating all my scene-dividers sometime in the last four years!
05.02.2010: All scene-dividers have been eaten, again, on all of my stories. I give up. Please just go read this story on arowrites dot net where it hasn't been made incoherent; I am unable to keep up with this site's stupidity.
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Requiem for the Dream
( entry 12: tarnished silver )
The thud of fist impacting metal echoed dully through the corridor.
Followed by a startled hiss that had nothing to do with bruised knuckles.
Ramirez knelt, scooping a few glimmering, metallic coins into one gloved hand. He allowed his fingers to move beneath the metal disks, letting the surfaces glimmer without really seeing them at first, staring for a moment through the jarred door of the grill's lower compartment.
It was full of these coins, absolutely full. His moment of rash behavior had jarred a single pile, the top few coins tumbling out the opening when the door swung loose.
The Admiral took a deep breath, steeling himself before letting himself study the faces of the coins. Glittering golden discs, currency, money. Absolutely unnecessary in this era, and illegal. Of course, you might not care about that if you're planning to -change- the era. Ramirez's eyes narrowed speculatively.
His mind churning away as he stared at the dog's head crest on the gold coins, fingers curling around them as he stood again. The Admiral had uncovered many plots against his Lord over the years, but most of them had been by civilians, or at the tower. He had never supposed he would come across something this horrendous on a simple assessment mission...
/ But perhaps... this may be why I am here. My Lord may have suspected this. /
His musings were interrupted by another soldier rounding a far corner. The Silvite quickly hid his captured evidence in the palm of his glove, turning to watch the man approach as he nudged the grill's ajar door shut again.
"Hey now, there, you leave that grill alone." the approaching man said in a slightly nervous tone, "I'm just now coming on shift to keep an eye on it for the General. He's very insistent that no one mess with it."
The soldier snorted, oblivious to Ramirez's suddenly murderous mind set.
"Anyway, I heard what you were -doing- down there, recruit, so you better get on in there before the General hears second-hand and doesn't see that fancy letter you've got, first."
Ramirez stared at the other man, his expression flat and unfriendly.
"And what's so special about this grill?" he asked, in careful tones.
"No idea." said the soldier, "I heard the delivery personnel call it 'a golden opportunity', though, and the General laughed, so I suppose we're going to start having more fried stuff at mess. Supposed to be more efficient than the ones Mendosa built in years back."
"Ah."
And with that, Ramirez whirled on one foot and knocked on the General's door, well aware of the dog crest on the banner beside it. He remembered the nervous messenger in Soltis tower as his knuckles rapped against the wooden door, his right arm tensing in a peculiar, but familiar way.
/ And this, is why everyone is right to be so scared of me. / he thought coldly as the door was opened by an assistant, and he was ushered in. / I've killed traitors on less evidence than this. /
But he would ask him directly, of course. Just to see if he scared the man. Ramirez pushed past the guards stationed inside the doorway and stalked to the General's desk, flinging two of the three captured coins onto the wooden surface.
The General seemed surprised, but when he picked one of the coins up by reflex and studied the surface, he smiled.
"Ah, they have arrived!"
"Yes. They -have-." Ramirez growled, feeling his temper snap. So the traitor admitted he'd been waiting for his new currency to get here!
"Would you like yours now, or with the others?" the General asked, looking down at the paperwork on his desk and shuffling through the small stack for something. The Admiral's fingers flexed on his right hand, just -so-, and the silver armband far up his right arm loosened and dropped silently into his hand.
It wasn't even an eye blink before the fully-formed silver sword was slicing the air. Only a startled shout from the guards audibly marked the moment as the General's body slumped over the desk. Blood went everywhere, his head hit the floor with a sick sound and rolled... to be accidentally kicked out of the way by the charging pair of guards. As they came within Ramirez's range, however, they sealed their own fates.
The one on the right was left twitching on the floor, clutching at his innards and gurgling mutely through a slashed throat, the cut going from chin to navel. The other managed to swing once, twice, before the gore-soaked blade came from the side in a vicious stab. An ear split, then a skull, and the blood and guts weren't alone on the floor with the bodies.
Ramirez whirled to chase the fleeing assistant, the man so frantic to escape the office that he wasn't even shrieking for help. The sword slid home between his ribs from behind with deceptive ease, blade scraping audibly against bone. That grating sensation traveled up the blade into the Silvite's hand, elbow bending as the sword burst out the other side of the assistant's rib cage. -Now- the man screamed, a desperate, bubbling sound.
Ramirez brought his other hand to the sword as well, jerking it free with a harsh spinning motion and chopping deeply into the side of the man's neck at the end of the movement. The assistant dropped, convulsing, the cut not quite clean enough to sever the brain stem in one shot. Both hands still on the hilt of his weapon, the Admiral brought the blade down fast and hard, ending it swiftly in a final splash of arterial spray.
Time was of the essence, and he had no time to dwell on the carnage he had wrought. Ramirez wiped his sword clean of blood and gore on the General's upturned back before allowing it to form back up into his sleeve, becoming an armband once again.
Ramirez quickly stripped off his uniform jacket and laid it over the General's slumped body, hiding the stump of neck in supposed respect. The head itself, off in the corner, he would ignore for now... later saying he hadn't been able to find it in such a short time. He knelt carefully in the blood next to the assistant, being certain to leave evidence of his knees and shins in the cooling puddle as he stood again.
He staggered out of the office, wide eyed and shaking. The corridor was empty, the guard had left, and Ramirez took a deep breath before shouting for help.
"So when you got there, everyone was already dead?"
"N-no, sir." Ramirez ducked his head, careful to keep his revulsion twisted, warped to appear as if he was scared and sickened, rather than repulsed and angry. He wasn't much of an actor, but, as long as there was something for him to change, just a little bit, he could manage. As it was, the smells of blood and released bodily fluids were still thick in his nose, and the sound of a loosened head hitting the concrete floor still echoed in his ears. Perfect fodder for the results he wanted.
"Who was still alive?"
"The assistant, sir."
"And so? What happened?"
"The assistant let me in, sir, and then..." here he faltered, intentionally, taking a page out of Admiral Jones' book. Pauses, she'd once told him after he had watched her interrogate a pirate, could be as telling as what was actually said. "And then..."
"Spit it out, recruit."
"He closed the door, sir, and then something... something moved behind him." Ramirez swallowed, making sure his darkened hair hid his angry eyes. "And then something... moved -through- him, sir. R-right through his ribs a-and nearly t-t-touching me... and then... and then..."
He cast his thoughts far back in his mind, skimming over executions and battles, looking for something truly horrible. It settled with a snap, on a night filled with ashes and spotlights, the bare ribs of the Delphinus and the sticky, bloated remains of the pirates inside. The smells are what came back to him the fullest, and he choked on his bile before thinking better of it.
Ramirez bent over double in his chair, and heaved.
"Oh -moons-..." he gasped, shaking.
"Disgusting." his would-be superior growled. "Absolutely disgusting. Don't plan on making much of a soldier, do you?"
The irony wasn't lost on Ramirez, but, he kept it firmly bottled down.
"Well, it's clear that it wasn't you, anyway. Not even a drop of blood on your sword or courage in your gut. Admiral Jones might be brought in if we don't catch whoever -did-, though." the man threatened, only vaguely heard.
The name Jones, now that his mind was scrambling around in the past, brought unbidden images to the surface. Bright lights of the examination room on the Monoceros, his arm bleeding profusely as a pair of skillful hands blotted the blood away and cleaned the wound. They had cracked a sacrulen crystal before resorting to needle and thread when the magic failed to fully take hold of the Silvite's skin.
Another time flashed to mind; a dark, empty room and a spell-welded door. The sounds of fleeing pirates outside. Jones' cold, monotone voice coming from just behind him and enquiring 'and what -now-, clever Admiral?'.
"Did you hear me, recruit?" a harsh voice knocked him out of his thoughts, "Report immediately to the barracks! That means get out of my sight!"
"Yes, sir." Ramirez said belatedly, standing and turning to leave, entirely forgetting to stagger or at least look hopelessly sick. Just as well that nobody was looking, now that he'd made a nice mess of the interrogation room.
It was several days of polishing and scrubbing later that Fourth Admiral Wren was due to actually appear at sunset. Ramirez didn't quite scramble into his place at the top of the mountain like everyone else did, but, he was only just settled when a familiar form loomed on the horizon.
The Monoceros.
He felt something in his throat clench tightly. How -dare- the bastard use -his- flagship! Was that his crew on board, too? His Shadows and his helmsmen, taking orders from that pitiful excuse for an Admiral? The dying sunlight shimmered against the lone warship's familiar external hull as it drew closer, propellers churning in the air.
Ramirez quickly bit down on his resentment as the craft pulled up, slowly, to within gangplank range of the edge of the mountain's sheered top. There, it hovered ponderously, waiting for the metal walkway to bridge the space between. The Silvite was slightly consoled by the fact that the new Admiral didn't, at least, deign to leap off the deck of the ship while it hovered overhead, as he himself often did.
Finally, once the men around Ramirez started to fidget nervously, Wren emerged from the ship and strode across the gangplank, flanked by two soldiers. Thankfully, they weren't Shadows... Ramirez wouldn't have known what to think if his own elite forces had been following the usurper around.
The two blond Admirals had something of a staring contest as the newcomer drew nearer, and Ramirez wished fervently that he wasn't here undercover. He wanted to stride forward and demand answers and demand them -now-, ideally wiping that knowing smirk off the traitor's face.
Wren took up his place in front of the rows of standing soldiers, clearing his throat.
"As you all know," he began, "I am here to inspect this mine. Of course, it has already come to my attention that your General has been assassinated, and it is my duty as one of the two Admiral's here, to solve this puzzle."
Two Admirals? The soldiers stirred in alarm around Ramirez, who openly glared at Wren from the back row.
"Fortunately for almost all involved, there isn't much of a puzzle to solve."
More stirring, a few dared to whisper to one another.
"I have been informed of the damage done and the time frame given. I know of only one man who could have accomplished this heinous act with such viciousness and speed, and not been himself killed." Wren smiled, "Also, he happens to be -here-, right at this very moment, which doubles his likelihood of being the murderer."
Two guards from the ship silently came up behind him, he felt their looming presence.
"Ah, Admiral Ramirez." Wren lifted his voice and chin, smiling slyly at him as he blew his carefully-created cover sky high. "What a... pleasant surprise."
Ramirez's breath left in a hiss between his clenched teeth as every eye on the mountaintop came to rest on him, the closest besides the guards backing quickly away. Realization spread like a virus, looking at him and knowing he was Ramirez suddenly made it as plain as day. The ink in his hair had only hid him because no one had -suspected- he could be the Admiral. Any resemblance had been shrugged off as coincidence.
Until now.
"Wren." Ramirez spat, "What do you think you're doing?"
"My job." Wren replied, smile widening before he addressed the guards, "Lock him up!"
Of course, that didn't go over so well. In a flash, Ramirez had his military-issue saber drawn from his hip, gleaming in the dying rays of sunlight as he jumped aside, narrowly avoiding being tackled by a guard. The other drew his own weapon as he turned to face the Silvite, jade green locking with deep blue, before the Admiral side-stepped deliberately.
Wren's slash pinged off the armor encasing the guard's torso, startling an oath from the one who had nearly stood up -into- it. Unlike the guards inside the mine, these were outfitted in the old Valuan armor, sans helmets. Ramirez didn't take more than an eyeblink to analyze this fact before he swiped at Wren, causing the other blond to stagger backwards.
In that moment of weakness, Ramirez pulled the saber back and -lunged-, letting go of the blade at the correct moment so that it sailed forward and buried itself in Wren's unprotected thigh. Thus far the rest of the mountaintop had been staring, unsure what to do, but when the Silvite's signature weapon appeared seemingly out of nowhere they mostly turned and fled.
Only a handful remained, and they drew their weapons to join the guards and the crippled Fourth Admiral.
"Where there is light," Ramirez intoned, raising his Crystal-embedded left hand, "there is... darkness." the Crystal -pulsed-, he stepped forward and promptly vanished.
"Sword of the Dark Moon!"
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Skies of Arcadia Legends belongs to someone else.
All here that is not found in the canon... is mine.
Never steal if you value your spleen.