Hello!
To the handful of people who actually read and review this fic: Thank you all so much! I love you!
*ahem* Unlike my other fics, I won't get so long-winged in the pre-part notes, yet. Please just read my poor baby ficlet, so maybe he'll grow up to be as big a monster as CAN! He'll grow anyway, but reviews are like miracle grow, ne?
\\Blah.\\ is a flashback.
Zebulun
A Xenogears Fanfiction.
*
Old Maison looked at the clock, then started as he realized how late it already was. He'd gotten involved in wondering what was wrong with things in general, and the Young Master in particular, and now he had less than five minutes to get the Young Master up, dressed, fed, and to his meeting with Kaiser Banderas. The Young Master hadn't eaten last night, undoubtedly had no idea what this meeting was about, and didn't really like Banderas, even if they had helped take Deus down together.
Just as Maison started to leap from his chair in a frenzy to get everything done, a stack of papers landed on the table in front of him. He blinked, then looked up at where the papers had come from.
Bart stood there, already in his official attire, nibbling on a roll and some sausage. He had a napkin tucked into his collar to catch crumbs before they landed on his pristine clothes, and his hair was already in a neat braid. Maison stared down at the papers. "What's this, Young Master?" he asked.
Bart shrugged. "My classwork. Calculus, Literature, writing, and economics. I only got half the Physics done 'cause –Excuse me, because—the sensor died part way through. I extrapolated the last data points, though, and marked them in red as theoretical, not observed. Will that do?"
Maison nodded, dazed. "You're up early, Young Master…"
Bart glanced at his watch, swallowing a bite of his roll quickly. "Well, I do have that meeting with the Kaiser in…three and a half minutes?! I had better get going!" With a swish of the cloak that was part of his formal wear, Bart pivoted on one heel and walked out the door toward the conference room.
Sigurd was just headed in (having also slept in), and glanced past his brother toward Maison, an eyebrow cocked in question. Maison shook his head like a punch-drunk fighter, absolutely bewildered. Bart, however inclined his head politely to Sigurd. "Good morning, Sigurd," he said quietly, then was moving down the hall at a rapid, yet still decorous pace.
Citan appeared at the end of the hall and Bart greeted him as cordially as anyone else. Citan wandered in, looking more confused than anyone (an unusual look on him, not to mention rare). "What was that all about, I wonder?"
Sigurd looked at Maison. "Did he sleep at all last night?"
"I don't know. But look!" He tapped the stack of paperwork on the table. "He actually did his homework! All of it. Except half the Physics, because the sensor died, so he just extrapolated…"
The other two stared at him, then lunged for the papers, flipping through them. "He did it, he really did it…" Citan muttered, looking over the math and physics. "These aren't just faked up numbers, he actually did the work!" Sigurd was too busy reading the essay Bart had submitted to reply. It was actually combined writing and literature, since it was an analysis of the book he'd been assigned to read, The Silmarillion. There was another essay, too, and it was about the economic short-fallings of various governmental systems.
Citan looked at Maison, after quirking an eyebrow at Sigurd's absorption. "Did you have another talk with the Young One about his scholarly duties?"
Maison shook his head. "I did not. No one even saw him yesterday, except when Mr. Ramsus came in and at the meeting…He did not even come out for supper!"
Sigurd began to look a little worried. "Is he sick? Did someone say something to him?"
Citan shook his head. "He barely improves when we say something, and doesn't even listen to anyone else, except Fei. And he never listens to Fei about anything official. Even Miss Marguriete seldom gets through to him." He paused a moment. "I know of no mere sickness that could cause such behavioral changes, yet we probably ought to look into it. Perhaps it is simply a phase, but it could be a psychological condition."
Maison sighed. "As much as I would like this to be more than just 'a phase', I do hope the Young Master is not ill."
Citan sighed. "The pressures of ruling a kingdom are great. Perhaps they are finally getting to him?" He shrugged. "I will look into this, but it would probably be a good idea if the two of you are as supportive as possible of him. If this is an actual reform, if he has finally decided to take his position seriously, then we certainly want him to continue!"
*
Kahr sat beside Vendetta in the Gear dock, not doing anything in particular. He was getting some strange looks, but he didn't care to acknowledge them. They didn't matter. He was currently focusing on radiating as much comfort as he could to Vendetta, despite the fact that he was feeling distinctly unwell this morning. This was only their second day in Shevat since the incident, but it had taken almost two weeks to get here with Vendetta's power so low. Now Vendetta couldn't move at all, having expended so much energy in the flight over the ocean, and walking to the ruined remains of the Aerial City.
Kahr kept up a steady stream of quiet whispers to his craft, the cause of the odd looks he was getting, and listened intently when Vendetta made reply. He had tried to tell Vendetta to be silent to preserve even that energy, but both knew it was useless. It was like telling a dying man to be quiet and save his strength; it didn't prolong life significantly, but it did silence any last words or requests.
Oh, sure, he knew that the lack of power wouldn't actually kill Vendetta, that he could be brought back online whenever they became able to, but it didn't soothe any of Kahr's concerns. Especially in light of something Vendetta had told him just this morning. That his power levels were dropping, too. He was smaller than a Gear, so he needed less power, but he also had smaller built-in reserves. And he would die when he lost power, because his biological systems weren't capable of supporting him, since most of his nervous system, at the very least, was made up of nanomachines.
It had been a highly unpleasant revelation. Kahr wasn't afraid to die, not really, even if that did make him a little…odd, since he didn't know if he would get an afterlife, being man-made and not fully human. What he was afraid of was abandoning Vendetta, or being abandoned by Vendetta. He knew they wouldn't have much choice, that now it was simply waiting to see who shut down first, but he had always been terrified of abandonment.
He sighed and tilted his head back against Vendetta's cool, slick armor, enjoying the physical contact. Both of them had lapsed into silence, but he could hear the faint—even to his ears—sounds that betrayed that Vendetta was still operating.
~She comes.~ Vendetta's voice was soft in Kahr's ears, and his tone told Kahr exactly who 'she' was. He tilted his head to track her over the edge of the metal platform on which he sat. Her sea-green hair floated around her, though it lacked much of the luster it had had the last time he'd seen her.
During the very short time between when the Shevat survivors had recovered Kahr, and when Fei and company set out for Merkava the final time, Kahr and Emeralda had struck up a kind of companionship. Actually, it was closer to outright friendship, although neither could say so. It hardly surprised Kahr to see her here; she always knew where to find him. Even as he watched her, she lifted her dark face and her brilliant gold eyes, so much like his, found him.
"Hello," she said, quietly, but he could still hear her over the din of Gear mechanics, technicians, and workers.
"Hello," he replied, and Vendetta greeted her, too. She smiled.
"May I join the two of you?"
Kahr nodded even as Vendetta gave his assent, and Emeralda padded up the stairs and ladders to the platform at Vendetta's eye level. This level was seldom used, except to repair battle damage or camera damage, so Kahr had taken to camping up here; it kept over-enthusiastic techs from trampling him, after all. Emeralda sat down beside him, a slight smile turning up the corners of her mouth, a smile which he returned. Then her smile faded.
"You know now, don't you?"
Through the link they had, a sort of nanomachine resonance very like weak telepathy, Kahr knew she was talking about the power losses. He looked levelly at her pulling up her power levels 'on screen' in his mind's eye. Then he looked away. "You, too, huh? I thought maybe, since you're from Zeboim…but I guess not."
Her smile was gentle, and Kahr marveled at how the ancient scientist Kim had managed to capture the woman Elly's smile so perfectly in their 'child'. "We all run off the same power source, so we will all shut down when all that extra energy runs out." She studied him closely. "But you're alive. When you shut down, you'll die."
Vendetta shuddered in the docking restraints. Kahr knew the machine had been trying to work through the implications of that before-hand, but to hear it so plainly put, with no room for question…. Kahr bowed his head. "I know," he murmured hoarsely, running a gentle hand over Vendetta's 'cheek'.
"I'm sorry…" Emeralda whispered, casting her eyes away, and hiding her face with her bangs. "I…don't understand 'die' very well, though I know Kim died. I won't die, just shut down like Crescens and Vendetta and Andvari. But you…"
He shrugged, then a thought occurred to him. "Emeralda?" he asked. Her golden eyes turned to him again. "When they find a power source for the Gears, they'll probably find one for you, right? Since they don't care as much about the Gears as they do for 'people' like you," a curled lip demonstrated Kahr's opinion on that narrow definition of 'person' quite eloquently. "They may even find one for you first, right?" Emeralda nodded slowly, trying to figure out where he was headed with this line of discussion.
"I…" he started hesitantly. "Emeralda, when you wake up from this 'sleep', could you look after Vendetta?" Those golden eyes flicked up to his face, wide with surprise, but he plowed on. "I don't want him to be alone forever…" Beneath them, Vendetta shuddered again, more violently, this time. Kahr sighed and reached up to Vendetta's 'face' again. "I mean it, Zeb! I will not have you all alone forever, and cheerless!" He lowered his voice. "You're my best friend, and I never want you to suffer."
Emeralda watched them with somber eyes. Finally she spoke. "I wish Crescens was as smart and funny as Vendetta. Is it the Relic?"
Kahr smiled. "He is smart, isn't he? And I think it is the Relic." He frowned. "But Crescens is nearly as smart as Vendetta. I think maybe Crescens is just tired and worried. She did spend a long time in stand-by, too… Have you tried a reboot? Or defragmenting the drives? Maybe she's slower only because of having weird data bits stored in her."
Emeralda frowned. "I could try that…but I do think most of it's just the relic. Crescens will never have one, since I cannot align with one. Is it because you have biological parts? Or is it maybe something else?"
Kahr shrugged. "I don't know." Then he gave her a narrow look. "And you haven't answered my question, yet."
Emeralda looked uncomfortable. "I don't know if I can. Vendetta…" she hesitated, searching for the right words. She had been getting steadily better with words since 'growing up', but still had to think fairly often. "Vendetta is yours; your friend, your Gear, the bearer of the anima that matches your animus. I could never be enough for him."
Kahr sighed, although he'd been expecting an answer of that sort. "I suppose not…But, I need to know someone will be there for him. If I weren't dying now, I'd still have to ask, someday. I'll die, eventually, no matter what."
Emeralda studied his face for long moments. "I—can't promise anything, Kahr," she whispered, placing a dark hand on one of his pale ones. Her eyes met his solemnly, aglow with sincerity. "But I will try."
He smiled. "That's all I ask, Emmy."
She smiled at the nickname and scooted closer to him, leaning her head on his shoulder, attempting to give him what comfort she could, even without understanding. "Kahr?" she asked out of the silence.
"Mmm?"
"Where…do you think you'll go when you…die?"
He sighed. Hadn't he just thought this? "I don't know, Emmy."
"Well…where do you want to go?"
He considered that for a moment. "I want to go to at least visit Krelian. I…have things I want to ask him."
"And then?"
He shrugged. "Wherever my friends are."
She looked up at him, her face vulnerable. "I'm your friend, right?" At his nod she smiled tremulously. "Will you come to visit me, then? I'd really like that."
He smiled and pulled her closer to him. "I'll certainly try. As long as you believe I'm there, I'm sure some part of me will be. I won't leave you alone."
She smiled, then frowned a little. "If you're a copy of Fei, who was Kim, does that make you part way my father, too?"
He blinked. "I don't know, Emmy. I don't think so. I think we're more like…siblings. Brother and sister, always." He smiled into the gold eyes that were so much like his own. "Always."
*
Bart tried desperately to focus his flagging attention on his math homework. Integration was such a pain in his royal ass. He sighed and resigned himself to the fact that he would have to get up and do something else for a while, or his brain would explode. He was trying so hard to do everything right; he researched the meetings he was going to, did his homework on time, used Proper Ignas Dialect, was polite when Sister Agnes brought up marriage, even ate all his peas!
Now, however, things were almost worse. In the week since he had first started his attempt to reform, all of the residents of the castle had commented on how wonderful he was being, how proud they were, how good it was that he was being so grown up…. Maybe they didn't realize it, but in expressing their satisfaction with the 'new him', they were expressing dissatisfaction with the 'old him'.
The real him.
Oh, he tried. He tried so hard it hurt to wipe away all his old violent impulses, all his bravado, and aggressiveness. He was trying to make himself the perfect ruler, and, despite all the training he had gone through, all the efforts to prepare him, even his royal blood, Bart found he just couldn't do it. He wasn't made to be a ruler; he was a leader, and there was a difference. He wasn't used to sitting back while other people did what he told them to. He wasn't used to being looked to for an example of perfect behavior, intelligence, and compassion. He was used to being at the front lines with his men, getting his hands dirty, and doing with them. Now, he couldn't even work on Andvari on his own. Sure, the Gear hadn't moved in weeks, but Andvari was a friend, a war buddy, and now he couldn't even look in occasionally to see if a new power source was anywhere near testing.
He was getting so frustrated. No wonder his father had wanted him to get rid of the monarchy! He was still trying to do that, but, for now, despite all his previous screw-ups, Bart was King, and he had no intention of leaving his people hanging when they needed him.
But, God! He was stifling under the weight of his responsibilities, and no one seemed to notice or care.
He pulled on some nasty, oil-stained clothes, pulled on a hat and tucked his braid under it, rubbed some grease on his face, strapped a few daggers to himself (his weapon of second choice), and slipped out one of the windows. He crept into the deserted Gear Dock, feeling a moment's resentment that no one was here working on finding a power source, then decided that if he needed a break, they probably needed one at least as badly. He strode up to Andvari, gazing up at the silent Gear with a pang of sadness. He climbed the maintenance frame around the red Gear, and opened the cockpit hatch manually. Closing it behind him, he flopped down into the seat. It still curved around him, cradling his body as perfectly as if it had been made for him, and Bart leaned back with a sigh of simple pleasure.
"Sorry, buddy," he murmured, tracing a loving hand over the inner surfaces of the cockpit. "I know I've been away a long time. I don't know who to talk to, anymore, though. All I have is you." He smiled as he remembered his shock upon discovering that the Omni-Gear had no controls, and the exultation that had thrummed through his veins, mind, and his very soul each time he had gone into battle with this great machine. "I wish I could have that again," he whispered prayerfully into the darkened cockpit. "I wish you didn't have to go."
A blinding flash erupted behind his eyes, and he was once again in Andvari's cockpit.
\\"I wish you didn't have to go," he said with a much deeper voice. "I know it's for the peace of Ignas, but it feels like…like killing a part of myself!" He looked around with stereoscopic vision, taking in the sight of the instrumentless cockpit, the smell of sweat, blood, and distant desperation that lingered in it, still. He leaned back in the seat that had always felt made to fit him, just feeling Dan's presence around him, for perhaps the last time.
A gentle face appeared over the edge of the cockpit. Raud smiled at him with the gentleness only the holy had. Sophia had had it, Mary, his bride-to-be from Nisan, had it, and pale Raud, a healer from far away south, had it. He smiled in return at the gentle man, whom everyone loved.
"Hi, Raud. Mary send you to get me?"
A halo of pale hair floated about the healer's head as he shook it. "No. I just thought you should know we're ready." He looked around the cockpit. "You're really going to miss him, aren't you?" He nodded. "Well, maybe you'll see him again?" It was a question, hesitant, but hopeful.
He snorted bitterly. "Yeah, right. Not this lifetime."
Raud smiled sweetly. "Maybe it doesn't have to be."
He looked strangely at the oddly serene man. He was only a little older than he, how was Raud always so calm and sweet? "Maybe," he conceded doubtfully, and gave one last glance before leaping out of the cockpit, Raud swift behind him. As they started to leave the Cannon fort, he looked back one last time at the burial place he'd chosen for his dearest companion.
"I'm gonna miss him so much…" he whispered hoarsely, before his agony overcame his desire to be strong, and he broke into tears. Raud's arms slipped around him, comforting him.
"Oh, Roni…"\\
Bart gasped and shook out of that very distant memory. He knew all that Fei had said about only he and Elly/Miang being able to store memories for their later incarnations, but Bart was having more and more flashbacks of things that never happened to 'Bart'. He was beginning to see people he'd known once in all kinds of places, and he was, frankly, frightened. When he rose in the morning, donned his robes, fixed his hair, he was always amazed at the sight of his own face. Not because he no longer recognized himself, but because he finally did.
All his life, he had had a sense that he was not quite right. Whenever he saw his reflection, he saw something that wasn't quite him, somehow. He'd spent most of his life convinced that that was because he wasn't King. But, during the whole…thing…with Deus and Solaris, he had started to catch himself staring at his reflection, wondering why his hair was so short up front, why he was down an eye, why his face was so much rounder than it should have been. As the first descriptions of Roni started coming up from Fei and Elly, and they had assumed that he was his reincarnation, Bart found himself much more comfortable filling the shoes of his long-dead ancestor than he would have believed possible.
When the dreams first started coming, he ignored them, dismissed as products of his sometimes overactive imagination. Only once they started cutting into his waking life, had he started to truly worry about them. Especially when his first reaction to seeing Krelian had been to think /Krel, what the hell did you do to your hair?/
Now, though, he found he couldn't separate his own experiences from Roni's, at times. His mind still felt fairly ordered, though, not as if the memories were foreign, just old. Hell, he remembered Raud's face, and Mary's, and others far better than he remembered his father's, most of the time.
His face was looking more normal every day. It was losing the roundness of youth and settling into the firmer lines of a man, lines of worry and weariness settling around his eyes and mouth; his eyes hardening into physical manifestations of a steely will, but empty of light; his hair falling into the same waves Sigurd's bore proudly, though he pulled it back so no one would note the resemblance, for Sigurd's sake.
Everyone was so proud of him for growing up, so proud of themselves for forcing him to grow up. Bart, however, was filled with fear, and a terrible sense of resignation, for he was armed with the knowledge no one else in the world had.
He knew how Roni had died.
Being forced to marry a woman he liked and respected, but did not love. Being forced to abandon his dreams of total freedom from all manner of tyranny. Being forced to give and give and give of himself for the good of his people and his country. It had broken his spirit in ways no one who had never experienced it could understand. Roni had wilted and died when he should have still been in his prime as a king.
Years of oppression and war and pain had started it. Losing Sophia, and the losses of most of his closest friends because of that loss had contributed. Losing Andvari had almost done him in, would have, if not for Raud. Life had done the rest over the space of a few decades. The loss of his youngest daughter in a plague, and Raud, who had tried to help the suffering, had simply done him in.
Bart wondered how much time he had left daily, now. He was still trying to reform, though feeling that he should do as much as he could in the time he had. He remembered what it was to rule, had fallen into the old habits easily enough, but the added strain of homework, marriage proposals, and rebuilding the entire world from scratch was compounding all that had killed him previously.
He struggled to force the gloomy thoughts from his mind. He really ought to get back to his homework, now. Maybe the infuriating rules of integration and differentiation would give him a short respite from the doubts that rose to eat him alive at every spare moment.
But it felt so nice to lay here, stretched out in Andvari's cockpit, the seat molded to his body like a glove, cradling him like a parent or a lover, no one in the world with the slightest idea where he was. Maybe, he could just spend the night in here. If he got up early enough, no one would even know.
He set his watch to wake him a full hour before he would have usually, even on his revised schedule, and relaxed for sleep.
He was deeply asleep by the time the weak electromagnetic pulse went off within the cockpit, resetting his watch. He was oblivious even when the Omni-Gear activated, and walked slowly out of the hangar, and flew ponderously out into the desert night, unobserved except by the watchful eyes of Xenogears, Crescens, Vendetta, and the other Omni-Gears.
*
Guess who Raud is! Mary's sorta obvious. Though, so's Raud.
Yes, I think Emeralda and Kahr would make great friends, even like siblings. And Kahr does sometimes refer to Vendetta as Zebulun or Zeb, because, unlike most of the other Omni-Gear pilots, he knows a bit better what happened to make Vendetta the Gear he knows and loves. Aside from him, only Bart and Hyu are aware of the names of their Gears' Anima Relics, and Bart only through flashbacks.
Yes, I believe Bart is extremely intelligent; he did come up with some gems of insight and tactical genius in the game, after all. I think he just doesn't want to do his work, and that the constraints of being King really make him suffer. I also think that stuff about storing info in the introns of the Mother, the Anti-type, and the Contact cannot possibly be the only way in which information can be passed to reincarnations. Besides, why should they always be reincarnated into their descendants? What's more, who did Lacan have kids with that Fei's his kid a few generations later? *sweatdrop* Do we want to know?
Dude, the complaints about integration are me. That is my single self-insertion, and it's just a concept, so don't kill me, ne?
And Dan is so protective of his Roni/Bart! Wait until the next part! Then you'll really see! And the other Gears let him go without complaint. Maybe they know something their stupid human companions don't?
Anyway, thanks for reading my ramble. **SHAMELESS SELF-ADVERTISING!** Please read my other stuff. It's all updating…. Please?