Ties that bind. Part two
"Here, honey. This one is on the house. You look like you could use it."
"…Thanks."
"You wanna tell me what happened? You know people are always tellin' me their problems. Must be something about bartenders that just make people want to spill their-"
"Thanks but no. I'd really like to just get alcohol poisoning by myself, if you don't mind."
"Sure, honey." The man behind the bar smiled indulgently and handed her a washcloth filled with ice. "For that eye of yours. You're working on a real nasty shiner there. He do that to you?"
"He? He who?"
"Your husband. Or your boyfriend. Doesn't really matter but usually the only time I see girls come into a place like this its to take their minds off the bastard who wasn't treatin' 'em right. That the case with you?"
"Not really…I kind of deserved it. I was in the wrong."
"Listen here honey, there ain't no wrong a woman can do to a man to warrant a beatin' like the one he obviously gave you. Take as much time as you need and call me if you need anything more." Luna blinked in bewilderment as the bartender walked down to the other side of the bar.
He couldn't have been more wrong about her situation. It would have sent her into hysterics years ago with the irony of the situation but she'd been understandably a little less than enthused about life in general.
She realized that she had made a mistake in going to Zelas in the first place but it was unfinished business that she couldn't bring herself to leave hanging in the air, especially when their was a good chance that the Beastmaster only had days left to live.
When the first Maryuu-ou and first Mei-ou had been destroyed about 30 years ago, the mazoku forces had been considerably weakened. In a rush to replace the two fallen Dark Lords, they'd promoted the fourth and fifth most powerful beings in their race. The General/Priest of the Juu-ou, Xellos Metallium, and the general of the Ha-ou, Sherra, respectively to the posts of Demon-Dragon king ( Re-titled the Maokami-ou because of his and his creator's wolf-like characteristics) and Underworld king.
The Ryuzoku, upon realizing the opportunity they'd been given decided that the best opportunity for launching an attack on the mazoku would be while the new lords were still settling into their positions.
They were right as it turned out. Valbazard, the fire-dragon lord, managed to kill Sherra with little to no difficulty at all.
The mazoku never recovered from their loss of yet another Mei-ou and even when the mazoku had managed to awaken another piece of the Ruby-eyed lord, they were still at a terrible disadvantage given the Ceipheid Knight's involvement in the war.
About ten years into the war, when most if not all of the lower mazoku had been destroyed in the fighting and the Dark Lords couldn't afford to spend any more energy on creating more, the Ryuzoku decided to come after the Lords again.
All four Ryuu-ou had decended upon the Maokami-ou and had utterly obliterated him. His children, an adopted ancient dragon and an ancient by way of mating with a golden dragon, were both imprisoned and his wife was murdered.
Not even the chosen human's of L-sama who were to fight in the war survived.
When they questioned the Ryuzoku leaders they had been struck down without a second thought.
The Queen of Saillune and her Husband, The Swordsman of Light, The Princess of Sairaag…
And the Dra-matta herself, The younger sister of the Ceipheid Knight.
Luna had never been able to forgive herself for not protecting her sister and her friends more.
For being naive enough to think that the Dragons would take into consideration all they had done for the war effort.
Two of them had even been priestesses of Ceipheid for crying out loud!
As for the god himself, he didn't exactly approve of the Dragons methods but he felt that if the end justified the means then everything was hunky dory.
For the first time in her life Luna hated Ceipheid.
Hated his politics, hated his inaction, his indifference, his indulgence toward the terrorism that the dragons spread across the land.
Most of all though, she hated his voice.
His voice in her ear telling her what to do, how to act, how to speak, who to kill, who to hate, who to love, who to forgive and who to forget.
He told her to hate Zelas, to forget her, to kill her.
It was at that point, when she'd been ordered to destroy the love of her life that Luna had stopped listening to Ceipheid.
She'd paid for it of course.
She was considerably less powerful than she'd been when she was following his will, she now had only about the power of the weaker Dark Lords whereas she had been as powerful as the Ruby-eye lord himself.
It was a blow to her pride of course but sticking to her morals and beliefs had meant more to her than power.
More than power, more than respect, more than control, she had saved the one she loved and had saved her soul from eternal damnation by realizing that what Ceipheid said didn't always matter and wasn't always right.
Tough it really doesn't matter now, Luna thought bitterly, Zelas probably hates me now. Can't say I blame her but still…It would have been nice to-
Her introspection was cut off as the doors to the pub were knocked in.
Great, what now? Whatever it is I sure as hell am not going to be bothered with it
"Listen up you miserable mortals!"
Perfect, mazoku
"We're looking for the Knight of Ceipheid! We got a report that the wench was in this area!"
Fuck! Shit! Damn it all to bloody hell!
"So if she's here of anyone knows where she is then they'd better speak up right now or every last human in here is gonna get their respective genitals shoved down their throats and pulled out their asses!"
"Is that even possible?" Someone whispered and the mazoku, the one out of the three present who had been shouting, whipped its head around to the woman, a waitress.
"You want me to test it out on you? I'd surly be glad to make an example of such a fine and fertile piece of meat."
Luna sighed and downed the rest of her pint of ale before standing.
"I'm the Ceipheid Knight. You can leave her alone." The lead mazoku squinted its eyes at her, looking at her aura with astral sight to see if she was telling the truth.
Once it believed her it (He? She? Luna couldn't tell) smirked and shooed its fellows out the door.
"Well so you are. If you'd be so kind Miss Inverse as to step outside then we won't have to dismember any of these fine sheep in the ensuing battle."
Luna sighed again (she'd been doing that quite a lot lately.)
"Fine, but lets make this quick alright? I'd really like to get back to my sulking if that's okay with you."
"Sure, although I don't know if you'll have enough time to sulk in hell."
Luna rolled her eyes at the dig, which she couldn't pinpoint as cattiness or male posturing as she followed the mazoku out of the pub.
"Zelas-sama, the reports you wanted to see." Zelas looked to her left to see her secretary, Scheska, hand her an envelope.
She was without a doubt the only Dark Lord to employ a secretary on account of Scheska's duties usually being held by a general or priest.
Since her general and priest had been one in the same being, she'd never gotten around to replacing him when he had become a Lord himself and to have done it after he died would have hurt too much in Zelas's mind.
She hired Scheska, a half-wolf, half-mazoku mix who happened to be good filing and made a kick-ass Pomegranate Martini, to fill in the duties in a way that wouldn't directly replace Xellos and would take care of administrative type things that Zelas couldn't possibly handle herself.
It was still painful to have Scheska be the one handing her various documents knowing who had previously done it but Zelas tried to shut herself off her feelings as much as possible these days.
For the third time in her life, Zelas cursed her half-wolf genes for allowing her to feel anything but apathy toward another being (the first time being when she fell in love with Luna and the second being when Luna left her).
Speaking of the Ceipheid knight…
"Seki went after the Knight!"
"Yes, Zelas-sama. He saw her on the island earlier and took her visit to mean that he was attempting to attack you and lost. I tried to dissuade him from going after her but my efforts were in vain."
Zelas raised and eyebrow as she was reminded that Scheska was no Xellos with that formal manner of speaking.
"Where are they?"
"In Rizenbul, Zelas-sama."
"Rizenbul? Where the temple is?"
"Yes Zelas-sama."
"Fuck! He's really trying to kill her isn't he!"
"I believe so Zelas-sama."
"Ohhh, he's gonna pay for touching what's mine." Zelas growled as she stormed out of her throne room and headed for the town in which Luna's fight with the mazoku was just getting underway…
Author's notes: I stole some things from FMA, gomen nasai! They seemed to fit!
