A/N (Aroihkin's Notes) / Chapter originally written on 09.20.2005. 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 14: the cycle )
"And tell me, Ramirez, has your Lord Galcian done anything he was supposed to besides..." Alley gestured, as though pointing to all of Arcadia, "...take over?"
Ramirez stared hard at her for a lone moment, and when she didn't flinch, he dropped his gaze.
"No."
"Has Arcadia improved since your Lord Galcian took over?"
"..." the Admiral (or was that former-Admiral?) glowered most impressively through a curtain of blackened hair. Yet again, Alley didn't flinch, and Ramirez eventually dropped his gaze. It had been a tiring week, an entire week, since he'd arrived in the underground dock unsteady on his legs and soon to be sick.
One full week, full of pointed questions, from the moment he woke until the moment he fell asleep again. The braided, hideously ugly woman was nothing, apparently, if not incredibly persistent.
A week of this insufferable woman chipping away at his mind, calling things into question that he had carefully ignored. Things that had been wrapped in gossamer spider-webs and tucked away on a forbidden shelf, ideally to never be looked at again. And for the entire week, he'd not managed to throw himself or anyone else into Deep Sky where they all surely belonged.
He wondered how much of that was due to braided warrior's methods. Alley Ashkeveron had bested him in fighting, repeatedly, no matter if he was cold and cunning in his attacks or savage and blood-crazed. Spells were dodged, somehow, and the first time he'd tried to cast Silver Eclipse...
(Ramirez had had enough of her foolishness, somehow always countering him with nothing but a long-handled spoon in one hand and a dagger in the other. He planted his feet, raised his left hand to his face, and placed his fingertips lightly against his skin. An instant later and he was sprawled on the ground, stunned, with a sore jaw.
"Oh, you didn't really think I'd let you do that, did you?" the ugly woman had chuckled, "A little too slow, Admiral!")
After that, he'd realized his best tactic against Alley was simple swordsmanship. And to be truthful, even though he never scored more than the most glancing of blows, it was easily the best way to vent anger and frustration, and that niggling sense of... grief.
Seated across the table in front of him, the ugly woman sighed and drummed her callused fingertips on the wooden surface between them.
"You're brooding again. Do you need to spar?" Spar? What a funny way to put it. Perhaps it was just sparring to her, but Ramirez always went for blood... as much good as it did him. He was under no illusions as to her not knowing it, either. But she had years and years over him, decades perhaps, and she had been a warrior all of her life... perhaps it was a compliment to his skill that he managed to hold out against her at all.
They had even brought him his sword, these members of the Sands, stolen from the Monoceros, and a familiar uniform ghosted out of Soltis itself. Ramirez clung to the familiarity of the uniform, in the correct way his steel-shod boots clicked against the stone and the weight of the layers of cloth on his shoulders. Pity it wasn't enough familiarity, enough comfort, with which to ignore all the evidence, all the questions brought to bear...
"No."
"And what about my other question, Admiral, are you finally going to answer it?"
The Silvite took a deep, shuddering breath, spreading the gloved fingers of both hands flat against the table, staring at them. Flashes of all he'd seen in Esperanza and since, things he'd only half-seen before then, they all played out in front of him. Alley stopped drumming her fingers, and leaned forward, continuing mercilessly as always.
"Has Arcadia improved, Ramirez?"
Shutting his eyes only made the images more vivid, so he kept them open, unblinking. He released his breath, took another. The Sands had apparently been tailing him from the moment Lena had escaped. They had kept track of him in Esperanza, although Ben hadn't known who he was and hadn't been involved in that particular mission. Ben had been nothing but one of many decoys, a false Sands visible in the city to cover the larger, sneakier, true group.
"No." he barely managed to whisper the words, his voice choked. "It has instead rotted."
The Weaponsmaster nodded, saying nothing for a moment as she straightened again. The truth, now spoken, rang throughout his head. Arcadia had turned to decay, his Lord... his Lord had failed him, failed everyone, and he...
"And what of your Lord Galcian?" she pressed, harsh voice almost too quiet for him to hear. It might have been too much, however, because Ramirez buried his face suddenly in the backs of his hands on the table. His shoulder shook, silently, and Alley... who was no good at giving comfort... simply waited for this to pass.
"He... he has rotted as well." Ramirez barely whispered his realization, horror choking him hard, closing his throat in a solid lump of coal. He felt Alley's stare boring into the top of his head for a moment after she stood, silently, and then the warrior sighed.
"I'll be waiting at the dock." it was an odd sort of understanding, that one in her voice, but a legitimate one nonetheless. "Come and attack when you will."
The Silvite took a deep breath, and nodded, but by then there was no one else in the room to see it. Uncounted long minutes later, he raised his head and stared at the wall across from him. Finally, Ramirez stood, trembling, and made his way toward the dock.
If Arcadia had rotted, then these Sands were still no better.
"I cannot imagine why he did what he did, Lord Galcian." the kneeling blond completed his initial report, "the General was a good man."
"He gave no reason?"
"None, my Lord. And he fought... most fiercely, when I attempted to arrest him accordingly." Wren said, "He took out a half a dozen men, my Lord, in the arrest."
Lord Galcian rubbed at his forehead.
"And four in the original murder, counting the General." the older man mused out loud. "Ten deaths and no explanation. Is he in custody now, Admiral Wren?"
"Yes my Lord, he is being held in a cell on Moonstone Mountain. I did not want to risk him getting loose aboard the Monoceros... he knows that ship too well."
"Quite. I'm certain there is an explanation for his behavior, Admiral Wren, he may simply not have trusted you with it." Galcian raised his stare, calculating, boring into the Fourth Admiral's lowered head. "We will leave in the morning... I must speak with him personally."
"Yes sir."
"You are dismissed. Prepare for our trip."
Wren obediently rose to his feet, unsuccessfully biting back a wince and a hiss of pain as his injured leg protested. Galcian's eyes narrowed.
"You were injured, Admiral Wren?"
"Stabbed, my Lord."
"Admiral Jones will see to you." said Lord Galcian, with a dismissive wave of his hand. The coroner-Admiral in question, standing at attention far to the left, didn't so much as blink as she stepped forward.
"Come along then, Wren of Esperanza." the woman's nearly-monotone voice rang through the audience chamber as she stepped past him. "And try not to die just yet."
It was a quiet procession through the halls of the Soltis tower, but after a long (and limping) few minutes, Jones stopped and opened a door, gesturing him inside. The room was cold, tiny, and tiled. An examination table stood in the center beneath the too-bright lighting, and Wren took in the straps with open interest.
"Where is the wound?" Megan folded her arms, glaring at him. Wren didn't bother to hide the smirk as he pointed to his upper inner thigh.
"Your dear Admiral Ramirez was aiming a bit higher, I suspect."
"Indeed." Jones' eyes narrowed, and she turned to a cabinet in the wall to pull out a rarely-used kit, a black leather case with a handle, filled with objects of healing rather than dismembering. Though either could be used for both, she supposed. "Sit on the table and try not to salivate on the straps, if you please, they've been freshly disinfected."
However, when Megan turned back to the table and patient in question, she found he'd already done so.
Without his pants. Or much of anything, actually, besides perhaps his boots and shirt. The coroner frowned darkly, and Wren leered.
"Well?" the injured blond had the nerve to spread his thighs a bit, "Aren't you going to get to it? I hear you did this sort of thing for--"
"You've heard nothing of the sort." Jones interrupted, voice and expression as cold as Glacia as she set the case down next to him and opened it.
"--all the time." he finished without pause, smirking. The doctor chose to ignore him entirely for a moment, purposefully changing out her white silk gloves for sterile latex. She sprayed disinfectant onto them once they were on, and finally turned back to him.
"Those stitches are sloppy." Admiral Jones said coldly, selecting a healing crystal, needle, thread, and one of her standard scalpels from the case. "You were lounging around on the bridge instead of in a proper examination room, weren't you."
It wasn't a question. Wren's smirk grew.
"I know the Monoceros has the correct facilities, Wren of Esperanza, since I was the one who oversaw their installation." the scalpel was set to work, snipping the tiny, precise stitches that would have been flawless had the stupid bastard at least stretched his leg out properly for the (likely nervous as hell) new ship doctor. Jones would have felt professional annoyance on their behalf if she wasn't busy holding back rage for how he was acting -now-.
Wren's interest was pulsing in time with his heartbeat, rising steadily. She ignored it entirely, setting the scalpel aside. She began plucking the bits of suture out of his skin with a pair of tweezers, movements coldly efficient.
And then Wren did something phenomenally stupid. He shifted his hips, rubbing himself against the back of her gloved hand. Jones froze, shocked despite herself, as the Fourth Admiral continued in a sort of slow thrusting motion, and then he groaned.
The coroner was across the room with her gun drawn on him in a heartbeat, resisting the urge to rip off her glove, burn it, and sterilize her -hand-. Though it had been protected from actual touch, the body heat had penetrated the thin latex easily, leaving her skin feeling slimy from the indirect contact.
"I would highly suggest that you explain." her voice, cold... unflinching, unwavering. She took some relief in not displaying her discomfort, feeling it would be unbearable if that smirking bastard knew exactly how close she was to simply fleeing the room.
"What's to explain, Admiral Jones?" Wren attempted a purr, and failed miserably at it. Tannusen Ashkeveron he was not. Manipulator, however, he apparently was. "I would highly suggest you put your gun away and -touch- me."
The sound of the gun's safety being clicked off, the trigger now fully unlocked and ready to fire, echoed through the tiny, tiled room.
"And why would you suggest such a thing?" she asked coldly, unclenching her affected hand and bringing it to the gun as well, steadying the very slight tremor of disgust at the very idea. Touch him? Ha, maybe with a bullet.
"Because if you don't comply, Admiral Jones, I will never tell you what has truly happened to your dearly departed Admiral Ramirez." he sneered, "And you cannot torture it out of me, your Lord Galcian would never give you permission. I know you have asked before."
The gun's safety clicked back on, and the weapon lowered, but she didn't put it away.
"Now, Megan, don't you want to know? I know that you're still his doctor... tell me, do the facilities you installed on the Monoceros have straps as well?" he said in that butchered purr, and even his voice managed to be slimy.
"Come now," Wren whispered as she slowly approached, hands now empty and furious eyes downcast, "you're going to have to behave, or I'll never tell you where he is. And take off those gloves, my dear Admiral Jones, I want you to get nice and -dirty-."
Alley was sitting cross-legged on the ground with her back to him when Ramirez entered the dock. The lightweight, curved blade she favored for their duels was resting across her folded knees, her arms at her side.
"Ready?" her harsh voice, roughened--he suspected--by breathing too much hot ash during his own attack on Nasrad, echoed throughout the enlarged cavern.
Over the course of the last week he had been told by the Weaponsmaster herself that she had, long ago, worked for the Nasultan. He'd dismissed her a year before the Armada's bombardment, having decided that his troops needed no further training. The egotistical fool. She'd been in the city, working as a civilian, when his fleet had arrived and pummeled the defenseless city into ashes and dust.
This she had told him, and many other things besides, though few quite as cheerful and most being observations... things she had seen since Lord Galcian's rule had begun.
"Not yet." he said, approaching slowly. The former Admiral stood next to the scarred woman for a moment before easing himself down onto the ground next to her. She didn't comment... rarely did whenever he did anything strange, she seemed to take most anything in stride.
"What do you want from me?" Ramirez asked after a long moment of silence. "Why was I brought here at all?"
"We want your help." Alley said, not looking at him. "If anyone could form a plan to overthrow Galcian and put things as close to how they were before as possible, it would be you."
The silence between them began again.
"...Any actual assets?" he finally ventured, curious despite himself.
"The C.A.R.s," she ignored his snort, "access tunnels under nearly every Soltisian base and town, a network of spies, a decoy group running out of Esperanza, and about a hundred total fighters. Several of which were active before the change, though most of our manpower is found in those who weren't fighters at all until afterwards."
"I know the tower's every inch, save for perhaps those tunnels." Ramirez said, staring off into space, "and I know Lord Galcian better than anyone. Which means I know that it's hopeless. Even if we could penetrate his guards and security measures, and even if anyone could distract him long enough for me to reach Zelos and disable it..."
"You can't harness it?"
"The only use that would have is to pummel any number of continents... it would do us no good against Lord Galcian himself. And once he'd killed us, there would be no difference made. Just a lot of extra death." Ramirez snorted, "We used to count on our stronger enemies coming to take a shot at him... it beat tracking them all down individually for execution."
"Could you lower Soltis' shields, with Zelos under your command?"
"In a heartbeat. But the moment I did, the entire Armada would be alerted and would swarm in, accordingly."
"I see."
Another long silence stretched between them. Ramirez drew one of his folded legs up, wrapping his arms loosely around the whole and resting his chin on the knee. This is how he remained for a long, long while, deep in brooding thought, his eyes closed.
"I have to stop him." he barely realized that he was speaking out loud. "He'll go mad if I don't, he'll damn himself to a fate much worse than defeat or death. Lord Galcian..." Ramirez took a deep breath, clenching his fists. This was about the limits of his abilities, he knew, this sort of thing was not his... specialty. "Only a few will be able to reach him, and someone has to be able to hold him off long enough for me to reach Zelos. That is what it comes down to." after that, it wouldn't matter much anymore.
"Apparently so."
"You could manage it, but not by yourself. You wouldn't last a minute, alone, despite being able to chase -me- all over the place with your sword. I'd never reach Zelos in time, as I'm certain I would encounter plenty of opposition myself."
Alley watched him as he rose to his feet, and began to pace. The Weaponsmaster remained where she was, calm... far too calm, as Ramirez continued to reason things out verbally.
"There's only one group that has ever beaten him in combat, but they are long since dead..."
"Admiral," the scarred woman on the ground blinked at him, but he ignored the interruption.
"Perhaps you and I could defeat him? No, not even then... the tower's every resource would focus on the one battle, we would be dead before he even broke a sweat. Still..."
"Ramirez..." she tried again. This time, he paused, stopping to look down at her with distracted jade green eyes.
"Yes?"
"The pirates... Vyse, Aika, and Fina..."
"Yes, I know, they're dead." he gestured impatiently, resuming his pacing, "the Delphinus exploded, we never found any survivors or lifeboats. Inconvenient of them, now that I have a use for the happy-go-lucky fools."
"They're not dead."
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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.
Oh ye of little faith...