Another -1 Feb'12
Disclaimer: G-boys are not saru's... and saru already forgotten the details of the anime too.
chapter 9
"...-owwh! ...sorry..."
The fifth soldier flushed a little when he'd reflexively pulled his hand from the peasant's hand, eventhough the young man had warned him that the balm would sting a little; albeit the soldier would say that it was not just a little. Then again, if that was a little sting, perhaps he should decline the medicine the peasant made for them when he said it'd sting a lot, even if his life depended on it. The young man chuckled as if knowing the soldier's thought, it made the young soldier flushed a little more and frowned at the fire on the hearth, just to occupy his mind from thinking about stinging medicines.
The peasant chuckled deeper; they looked almost the same age, perhaps only three years in difference at the most. "You should be proud if you succeed defending yourselves from monster-trees and whipping-vultures in one day...!" the peasant said conversationally, diverting the soldiers' minds from the pain even if it's just for polite's sakes.
The others took turns to cleanse their body and open wounds with the medicine water from the wooden basin near the fire, that was oddly enough was the only light-source in that room; helping each other when they couldn't reach tricky parts by themselves. The blissfully fainted eighth soldier had been the first to be treated and now rested in one of the inner beds, he got a hell of a portion of stinging medicine to be complained about when he woke up later, though. The rest were occupying the lounger and chairs around the hearth, waiting for their turn to get examined and treated.
"You only have four beds for patients." Odin commented on his surroundings in the small room; he'd believed that it was a healer's house judging by the interior of the second floor's furniture and the abundant amount of varied herbs and medicine in jars on the shelves, covering the walls; though it didn't mean that the peasant was not something else as well. He acted like he'd dropped his wariness but he didn't let his guard down; the peasant knew that too.
"This village didn't have that much of folks, sir..." the young man answered with a calm smile.
Odin frowned at the words, "Still no one came back?"
The young man chuckled again, looking like he was enjoying the bandaging and grounding-herbs work; "The soldiers had stopped their fighting around the area, sir... but doesn't mean the villagers would come back this soon."
"Are they coming back at all?"
Cail was inspecting the scene outside the small window and instantly froze, turning to the Commander, recognizing his serious tone even if the question wasn't said in that much of seriousness. The other soldiers turned at their Commander too, they still felt the after-effect of today's shock so their senses were recognizing the temperature of the air dropped with sudden pressure.
"I hope they would, Commander. Why are you asking that?" the young man smiled, his busied hands didn't stop.
"Hmph... I was just wondering about the flocks of beasts outside the village and the impact of this war to your small village..." Odin said with a closing tone.
The young man chuckled again, "Yes, yes. I got your point, sir... otherwise it'd be a waste of a strong barrier this village has, right...?"
Odin snorted.
"Strong as it is to keep beasts outside, the barrier couldn't keep the humans from entering...!"
The peasant's hands paused for a moment; his eyes shadowed, but soon after he continued with the bandage, all the while succeeded to keep his smile on his face. "Your point is..., Commander?"
"You said your sister went outside the village last week. Is she coming back here?"
"Oh... you have good memory, sir." the young man said good-naturedly, diverting the question.
Odin snorted with a satire smirk, "...'sure would remember the last things I heard before I got drugged by a stranger. It's as if those things are ingrained in my dream and coming back to my mind just by smelling the same drug in the air." he rested his back on the chair's back, noting the pain of his wounds there had lessened to dull throbs because the drug he inhaled; the other men were probably not complaining much about their pains because of it, without them realizing.
Cail got the message and gripped the hilt of one of his twin swords still hanging behind his waist.
"Your senses are good... thanks to your demon." the young man nodded once and stood up with the redden water in the small basin in his hands, walking to the sink at the far wall facing the stairs to the first floor, and came back with fresh water and gestured the next soldier to be ready for his turn.
"My demon?" Odin frowned again at the mention of the demon.
"You asked me about him coming here before you back then, because you smell his scent on me, right, Commander?"
Odin didn't say anything to that.
"Well... most humans wouldn't say that they could smell a demon's scent, moreover one that had already gone over three hours on someone who just touched him for some short seconds, sir..." he chuckled deeply as if finding it funny, "Ah... that's why most humans wouldn't be able to sense demons approaching on them in an ambush...!"
Odin still stayed silent at that; the Lieutenant looked uncertain at the exchange that he flicked his eyes on Odin and the peasant, hand still on the hilt of his sword.
"You must have been living with him for a long span of time...?" the conversational tone hid the accusation, or may be the man said it as a fact he knew.
"You notice?" Odin smirked again and follow the game; he was the one started it after all. "And I thought you said most humans wouldn't be able to smell a demon's scent?"
The young man chuckled, "No, sir, I can't smell that. But there are certain ways to smell things that your nose failed to sense."
"Ah, that's right. If you can't use your own nose, just use other's, right?" Odin smiled, "Like that night when you came tumbling down in front of our rides, you used the mountain-broughams' senses to find the demon's scent coming with me."
"I can't do something like that, Commander...!" the young man laughed, but still averting his eyes from meeting Odin's, using the wounds he was treating as his excuse.
"Really? But I thought you were a Shepherd; shouldn't you guys have that kind of ability to control beasts?"
At Odin's light tone Cail pulled his sword a little, the peasant heard that clear scraping sound of metal against metal too for he stopped what he was doing and glanced at the Lieutenant.
"What makes you think I be one of those guys, Commander?" the peasant asked calmly, continuing with his work.
Cail glanced at his Commander, waiting for the cue; but Odin was seemingly enjoying his question-game. "Back then, you said it was 'spiders' to call the mountain-broughams. Villagers and suburban people called them that to scare children and give them the idea of how big the creatures were. Only beast shepherds would see them as just the kind of animal they are, spiders."
The peasant stared at Odin after that, his hands were still applying some different smelling balm from the one given to the earlier soldier, he paused his hands when smiling at Odin. "You're right, I slipped that one out. I was hoping you wouldn't notice it, though..."
"So you drugged me?" Odin asked with drooping eyes, frowning with the accusation.
The man chuckled again, staring back at his hands and work; "Is that why you think I put some sleeping drug into your drink?"
The soldiers stayed silent but the ones behind the peasant now eyeing their weapons; Odin glanced at them and shook his head a little, cueing for them to keep resting.
"I said there are other ways for humans to smell something their normal senses couldn't catch, right? That works with the animals too, Commander. I drugged you so that my-eyes could follow you..."
Cail's sword was out of its scabbard in an instant, Odin glanced at him, but the peasant was ignoring him all the same. The Lieutenant looked annoyed that his Commander seemed calm and unexcited with the exchange, but he didn't jump to action himself without permission.
"Your 'eyes'... would those be the yellow-eyed ones, or the black-eyed ones...?" Odin tested.
The peasant laughed. "You haven't seen my-eyes in the eyes, Commander."
"Can I see them in the eyes now...?" Odin smiled, "Besides the ones on the walls..."
Cail's brows shot up at that and he reflexively searched the walls; the house was barely stylized, and he didn't even see any taxidermy on the wall, let alone a living animal. The only animal-like things were... he frowned, that was the reason why he let his men came into the room in the first place, that there were no animals in that house except for some crocheted items or embroideries of mostly butterflies and flowers.
"You noticed them, Commander?" the peasant smiled amusedly.
"Just some butterflies...-"
"That's because the others are still out... You want to see?" the peasant's tone turned somewhat childish. Before Odin could let his answer out, the young man waved a dry pressed-leaf at him from nowhere and from Odin's shadow a small black dragonfly flew out and landed on the young man's knuckle soundlessly. The small insect was totally black, not iridescent like usual dragonflies; in fact it was so black that Odin's eyes couldn't recognize the shape of its eyes and body volume. It's as if the thing was a...
At that instant the black dragonfly liquefied like black ink and trickled onto the dry leaf and changed into an adequately-drawn painting of dragonfly.
The room fell silent.
"I don't deal with real animals, Commander. So you should be at ease too, Lieutenant. I didn't send those beasts to ambush you nor your young master." the peasant glanced at Cail with a smile, and flipped the dry leaf to vanish somewhere.
Odin's frown got deeper and he regained his alertness in a short time; ". . . you're a wizard!" he accused flatly.
The peasant snorted and for once he frowned out his objection, "...' am not! Please stop calling us that..." he let his hands fell to his sides, and turned to Odin with an alien look, eyeing the man's face openly as if searching for something.
Odin blinked at the scrutiny but he pulled his wariness inside, not wanting the young man to see him so clearly like an open book; though perhaps it's already too late.
The peasant looked down on his own laps, still frowning... fuming; "...our ancestors were called 'druids' once... then in the next age they were called something else. I don't know why you humans liked calling others with names, but, really...-" he stopped suddenly, with mouth still opened in an uneven grimace showing contempt, and in the next second he smiled as if hearing those words coming out from someone else's mouth and chuckled to himself. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't let that out on you..." and chuckled again, longer and merrier.
Odin silenced for some seconds, noticing the young man had continued with his treating-wounds work; ". . . so that's why that dagger is behind your waist; my demon came here to return it to you."
"Yes, he said he should return it before some more trees take the burnt for them..." the peasant kept his smile.
"Trees?" this time Cail quipped; he still had his sword out eventhough at ease, or just because he's exhausted.
"Mm-hm. He had the dagger with him, that's why the trees sacrificed themselves against their pursuers. He minded about sacrificing others more than he let you to see, you should be worrying more about his heart, not his body... Demons are operating on their feelings more than food, especially the dead ones-"
"What?" Odin cut the long speech hearing the last part, he didn't care why the peasant suddenly chattered about demons but he cared about his demon.
"...the dead ones..." the young man turned to Odin again, easing his smile a little from his face; "...you mean you didn't realize you're living with a dead-demon for years?"
Odin stood abruptly, the soldiers gasped and stared at Odin's face with wide eyes; they knew it was a BIG no-no to say something bad about that demon in front of him, especially at him.
The peasant looked up at Odin's eyes, the smile was annoyingly still on his face; "...you should have at least wondered why he doesn't eat?" he paused for a few seconds to let those words sink in.
"...and when you hold him in your bed at night you couldn't hear his heart beat nor his breathing...?" he continued slowly.
"-...uhhh...!" the soldiers behind the peasant were the ones frightened with the way this weird conversation flowed, they tried to pull the young man back to the right rational way of fleeing a certain Commander's wrath, but they didn't know what to do that with that certain Commander's eyes widened with anger at the peasant... who didn't faze at all in front of that hazard.
"...I know he's depending on your life-force for years to survive, and that you're extremely worried about his well-being for not getting his ransom for two nights now..."
At those words Odin's anger froze a little.
"You know..." the peasant looked back to his work, "...others too should be able to see that as easily as I did, even without proxy-'eyes' to spy on you... so perhaps you should reconsider the object of this ambush-"
"Commander!" Cail called out when Odin turned his body in haste, definitely going towards the staircase to look for his demon outside in the wilderness, and the Lieutenant intended to follow him as he put his sword back into his scabbard; but Odin stopped abruptly when a small liquid-ladybug stared him down in front of his face. Odin glanced at the peasant and knew that the young man had painted the insect using water in that instant, he narrowed his eyes at the calm face.
"-...which would be you, Commander." the peasant ended his sentence with a meaningful stare.
The other turned a surprised look at the peasant's words.
"Me...?" Odin whispered that in a dangerous purr, the manic light in his eyes looked even more frightening with the dancing light of the fire. But he never held much value about his existence, not in a political view.
"Yes, you should know your own worth, too... or at least care about it a bit." the peasant snorted a sigh; "You know, when I knew that the Palace sent a single Commander to stop this war, I was a little... you could say, crestfallen... that the governments thought that a single man could patch up this already out-of-proportion mess of a silly family-quarrel back. I was testing you when I showed up in front of you that night..." he nodded a couple times, and in a short moment the others could see the young enthusiastic peasant from that evening on the village road.
"When I saw your demon behind you, I thought... oh, perhaps they're depending on him to threaten those stupid Lords back to their right minds...!" he smiled, "But you did more than what I had expected for the outcome, sir." and the peasant bowed slowly in earnest, admitting his lost.
Odin stared, the manic in his eyes froze into cold penetrating gaze ". . . is that why you let us entered your barrier this evening?"
The peasant chuckled; "No. I could care less about some soldiers die while doing their duties." the mischievous smile showed them that he was serious about that. "I let you inside because I saw a little child defending your hides desperately, eventhough the child was frightened and losing the parent...!"
"You're all adults, so you should try not to depend to a five-year-old child too much, too..." he added, looking a little smug at the uncomprehending stares he got.
'u-kraaayeaa...!' that was the most bizarre sound Lix made that Odin had ever heard in the years he spent with his demon, coming from outside the open window.
"Alright, eiiight!" the peasant called out with a happy flush on his cheeks; "That child is about eight-year-old if it were a human, you know...!" he added pointing out to the window in general. "A Sauria might as well be a baby no matter how many years it had lived, you should treat them more carefully..."
"And about you, Commander..." the peasant stood up, "You should realize that if you fall victim while you're travelling alone with your demon then the people who would want to break the truce between this Kingdom and the demon's Kingdom would have the reason to start that war again...?"
The peasant chuckled enjoying the various faces he got after his elaboration; "I'm may be only a peasant from a small village which could fall prey to a little skirmish of some delirious soldiers in only a half hour span, but I can see a lot of things even dead people could no longer see... and I don't like what I'd see if the war with the demons break again."
"That's why you haven't retaliated for your sister's death?" Odin asked flatly, "...or should I say 'your fiancé'...?"
This time it was the peasant's face turned still, a light of manic anguish in his eyes.
"You know, this house had that feel of a woman in it, not of a man; not you. You came too late, and could only witness what happened to the villagers and your 'sister' without being able to save either of them; it must have been hell for you...!" Odin leered.
The peasant's face turned like a mask, all color drained from it, all signs that indicated that it was alive. "You have acute grasp of things, including humans' dark-side. Must be great to be old...!"
Odin didn't take the bait and stared down the young man coldly, the fire in the hearth mocked the cold air of that room crackling silently.
The young man sighed deeply after that, covering his face with a hand, looking down at the wooden floor, shoulders sagged; he stayed unmoving for a long moment, and the soldiers stilled uncomfortably, not knowing what to say or do.
". . . . . . my sister..." the young man said silently at last, breaking the silence with a whisper; "...she's my sister. It's one-sided, we're just siblings to her... even now..." he chuckled bitterly at the end.
Pulling his hand from his face, he looked at Odin's face again, his calm smile was back on his face; or it was more like a submissive smile, now that Odin could see his motive clearly. "...and yes, I did intend to bask in the sight of Darque and Roude being leveled to the ground if you failed your task or failing my end-goal, and perhaps some Palace dignitaries' estates as well-... but your demon..."
He reached for the druid-weapon stuck behind his waist, covered by his outer-shirt and examined its glory in his careful hands; "He thanked me when he gave this back, although I still don't know what he thanked me for... for the trees perhaps, my sister was a descendant of the Druids of Plants, so he might have thought that this thing protected him with trees... He said if something happens to him and causes the war with the demon's Kingdom to break again..."
The peasant stared Odin levelly; "He asked me to protect you."
Odin's brows twitched at that admission.
"Can you belief that?" the young man's face contorted with incredulity, "Me? Protecting a soldier...? The Palace's soldier? If I was to protect you then it should be before the war with the demons break again, not after that; what does it good if my Kingdom already suffered in the war against them-...!" he stopped abruptly on his outburst, sighing his leftover breath of excitement out; took a few hard breaths looking down.
"...Crazy-demon turning my reasons and excuses upside down...!" he complained with a hard tone but sounded submissive.
Odin was, somehow finding it as amusement that his demon could invert one's deep grudge into rectitude without even trying, trying to stifle his chuckles; or trying to sound like he tried to stifle them from coming out... but he chuckled, anyway; sounding worse even, since it sounded like an annoying clogged drain. The peasant stared sharply at him with an offended expression, and true to his annoying nature, Odin laughed out loud with smug accusing eyes.
Odin opened his eyes in an instant, he was sleeping on his chair near the hearth the whole night; the peasant said he wouldn't do anything harmful to them, the drug in the air was to lessen their pains, and even if it's too much for him to ask them to trust him, the young man had said earnestly that he needed their help about the village, so they could rest the night there with ease.
He had asked earnestly with a deep bow.
Odin frowned.
The peasant looked like he was begging, to others may be, but to him it almost looked like an apology; and judging from what happened ever since their first meeting, that young man had the tendency to do anything that he liked without so much of fear for the consequence later. Almost like a childish ignorance.
Odin stood up, stretched his body with a low grunt; halted when he realized his wounds were not as throbbing as they should. He examined his left hand where long gashes from yesterday hunt stared at him back with accusation, those wounds were only smeared with some balm the peasant made for him and lightly bandaged; and that young man had seemingly made different recipe for each person; and Odin had to admit that he never seen his wounds recuperate to that state in only a night.
"...Druids of Plants, hu?" he glanced at the jars covering the walls, and to his soldiers who were still sleeping; some of them who didn't get too many wounds weren't there, Cail already up with his swords intact; that boy needed to loosen up a little, he thought. He walked over to the eighth soldier's bed, checking his condition, noting the man had some color back to his face and his sleep seemed to be restful; Odin nodded to himself and allowed himself to think about his demon.
He sighed.
Heero should be able to decide what to do on his own.
Lix was purring to the morning air outside the window, he thought he should check the lizard as well and looked down that window, surprised when he saw the Lieutenant with it, seemingly bringing Lix some grass to lie down.
"What are you doing?"
Cail jumped at Odin's voice, he looked up noticing the amused smirk on his face, and his tone before was light too. "Good morning, sir." He nodded. "Oh, this... That man said this grass is Sauria's natural medicine, for healing ache and broken skin, and such."
Lix waited patiently at the side, after the grass-bed was finished it jumped onto it, rolling over happily like a cat finding catnip. Odin arched his brows at the sight, Cail looked satisfied and smiled a little then entered the house, and Odin followed him to the first floor.
"Good morning, Commander; I hope you're feeling better?" the peasant smiled and bowing repeatedly with his every word. He was preparing something to eat on the dining table; three of the soldiers were already sitting there beside Cail, muttering their greetings as he arrived.
Odin stared at the peasant; he was back to being that over-polite enthusiastic young man he first met, the one whom they met on the village barrier gate. More than the other 'faces' that young man had showed him last night, he didn't like facing this one the most, because this one bowed too much and his polite coyness seemed earnest to him that Odin couldn't see his motives openly.
"Please sit, sir; would you like morning brew like the others?" the young man pulled Odin a chair.
Odin sat and eyed the earthen glass in front of the others. "Is it good?" he asked loud enough to the peasant, while examining the glass lid in front the man next to him. At all contorted faces trying not to shake their heads that visible, Odin narrowed his eyes with accusation at the glass just put in front of him. "This is drug."
"Yes, it's a brew. Did I say it'd be beverage?" the young man chuckled putting an empty bowl too.
Odin sniffed at the smell of the steam puffing up from the glass, and tried a gulp. His spectators stared at him waiting for his reaction. Odin pulled the glass lid from his mouth and thought; "...this is good, I missed this drug."
"You do?" the peasant smiled happily at the cauldron he was stirring.
"My great grandfather used to make me something like this when I was a kid." Odin said conversationally; "So, what's your name?"
"Do you have separate names, or should I just call you 'siblings'?" Odin asked again.
A clunk heard when the ladle fell into the bowl in the peasant's hand; he was in the middle of spooning the porridge from the cauldron. Straightening his body, the young man turned around slowly, as if being careful not to jerk something on him.
...or in him; Odin stared him levelly, sipping his warm brew with ease.
The young man's face was level but unreadable, examining Odin's with large eyes, then at the other men in turn, then back to Odin.
"..., sir?" he asked with a small voice.
"Your siblings last night, one of them told me that he needed help from us with this village; you didn't get the message?" Odin asked levelly.
The young man blinked, glanced at the other men's faces, finding they stared him levelly too, waiting for him to elaborate more; and stared at Odin nervously.
"Wha...? You can't-..." he whispered in surprise.
"Yes, there's something about this village you should-..." the young man smiled.
"No, no. Wait- you can't take outsiders-" then he flustered.
"-And it's so fateful that you brought your demon here, too-" and he smiled.
"No, I'm sorry, I'll be back shortly...!" he bowed a couple times and turned hastily to leave.
"It's alright; state your business, already." Odin said levelly, stopping the young man who turned at him slowly with nervous eyes.
"We owe your siblings for the bandages, the least we could do is to hear their proposition...!" Odin flicked his chin at his bandaged soldiers, who eyed the young man with curiosity; while Cail sipped at his brew to hide his, and didn't have a chance to hide his cringe.
"-but... but that's family-" the young man whispered.
"-business!" he said aloud, smiling; "And I assure you that's it's for the greater good." he nodded meaningfully; walking to the end of the table, took a firewood from the pile beside the brick hearth and use it as a seat.
Odin stared at the composed smiling face, and noted he was sitting with ease on the unbalanced small piece of wood without difficulty.
"I'm Odin. Your name?" Odin repeated his question slowly.
"Oh, that's right; since you already noticed that there are a few of us so it'd be difficult to call to-" the young man started calmly with a smile, and stood up fluidly, hitting the bowl in his hand onto the table hard, leaning his body on one hand to stare at Odin's eyes. "-business only!" he narrowed his eyes with a warning, hissing the words out.
Odin stared back at the hostile eyes levelly; "How about I just call you 'rudd' or 'row', they have a feeling of cool water in them."
"...right." Cail commented silently to himself, knowing what Odin really meant with the wordplay.
"Lui. My name's Lui, sir...!" the young man bowed again with his enthusiastic tone. Cail noticed Odin tsk-ed in disappointment when the young man changed back to the enthusiastic one; he knew his Commander would look at that man as a new toy to play with, too.
"Lui, then." Odin said flatly.
"Yes, sir, please don't mind with the- Waahh!" and with a loud thump he fell over on his back, the firewood clattered on the wooden floor. "- -owhhh... at least you could've picked a log. My butts're not your kind of butts...!" he scooted on four to the pile of firewood.
A soft snort. "Whiny...!" a condescending whisper.
"Excuse meee? This's my body, I'm the one feeling the pain, not any of you...!" he half-yelled to the log he got in one hand while the other was rubbing his sore parts.
Lui put the log on the floor at the end of the table; "Ah, I'm sorry with the racket...!" he bowed with his usual coy smile and nervousness, before sitting on it and fidgeted nervously. "Uhmm... please forget about-"
"-the business for the good of other dweller of this Kingdom. Are you up to it?" the composed smile was back in place.
"I'll call you 'Rudd', how about it?" Odin openly ignored the question.
"I know you meant 'rude', Commander; but it's okay if you like it..." Lui chuckled amusedly.
"Are you... a sin-eater, or something?" the fifth soldier asked hesitantly.
"Sin-eater?" Lui asked sarcastically with an annoyed angry grimaced, "Do I look hungry to you?"
Odin opened his mouth with a childish light in his eyes, Cail knew he was going to say 'I'll call you Row' and he intervened before the important topic got out of the conversation again... like last night, there were still things left hanging and he couldn't intervene to ask about them before the mood lurched down and the air became too hostile to ask about them. "What business do you have for us?"
"There's a Maggart around here." Lui said fast, smiling at Cail.
That 'Row'-thing on Odin's mouth froze before he could voice it out. "Maggart?" Odin asked with serious frown.
"What's a Maggart...?" another soldier asked, looking at his Leutenant, who looked at lost too.
"A Maggart is a fiend that eats living-people's souls... and it's always hungry! We need to stop it before it reach town...!" Lui smiled with serious tone.
Odin's left brow arched up, "...but you're going to use the Maggart to level Darque and Roude." he stated; the other men's eyes were instantly at him, and back to see the peasant's face.
"Yes..." Lui admitted with level face, "I did." he smiled; "It's their karma, they made the Maggart appeared here with every lives their silly war took. It's not going to be silly anymore when they face a Maggart in their own homes."
"The name Maggart is from..." Odin rubbed his chin, "I heard a taboo story from a wizard when I was a kid, about a beast Shepherd by the name of... Magul Gray...?"
"Magan-Glay." Lui said levelly, his face turned level too like a mask, that the others couldn't differentiate which-face was speaking. "...was our ancestor." he stared at his hands on the table.
"He invented a Maggart...-" Odin frowned.
"Maggart is the short of 'Magan-Glay art'; it was originally used to call the skill, not the outcome." the apathetic Lui stared at Odin with wide eyes.
Lui sighed deeply. "His age was when the war with magical beasts and great demons in its peak, at least for the people living in that age. He just wanted to save the animals that fallen prey to the wars, either by enemies or by humans' hands... at first...!" he frowned to the table again.
"Magan-Glay felt pity for the animal babies, especially the ones died because losing their parents to humans' selfishness; at first he collected their spirits and carried them with him... then he tried putting them into new eggs." he glanced at Odin's face, who listened with a frown.
"The eggs hatched, but the spirits were tied loosely to the hatchling's body; soon after it hatched, the hatchling died, its spirit was added to the collected-spirits..."
"Or taken." Odin commented off-handedly.
"...more like pulled along outside its body." Lui smiled, and his expression turned to a mask again. "He tried with bigger, stronger animals after that, and stopped after he failed with a horn-lion baby. But the King heard about his experiments and wanted to use it to make weapons...!"
All eyes dimmed at the last part, they knew where this story going.
"The King thought, if his skill could be used to resurrect his dead soldiers, then he'd have an endless supply of men and an undead-army." Lui frowned with contempt. "The King forced him to work with a wizard and a necromancer..."
Lui paused and the room fell silent, the small fire on the hearth burned ignorantly and the porridge smelled nice...
"It didn't work?" Cail asked.
"No. It worked." Lui lost his frown, "But only for a short limited time the dead bodies of the soldiers resurrected, and for having animal spirits inside them, they were almost uncontrollable."
"Uncontrollable but unimaginably strong..." Lui frowned again, his shadowed eyes staring distant at the table; "The outcome was even better than what the King had expected, that strength that no living human could posses. So he told them to try the other way around...!"
"Killed tamed animals to put into the dead men?" Odin asked.
"Yes."
"Did it work?" the fifth soldier quipped, already immersed in the story that he forgot about the taste of the brew in his glass he'd been sipping for some time.
"What do you think?" Lui asked back.
"It's incompatible, animal spirit inside human body." Cail commented.
Lui nodded, "When the King knew that, he asked something evil...!"
"A spirit that could be taught. Put newborn babies' spirit in the collection." Odin added the part of the story he'd heard. Ignoring the wide surprised eyes directed at him, he continued, "When the undead-soldiers stayed animated for a much longer time, the King got greedy and told them to use the living-soldier's spirit as well."
"What?" the shock men asked in unison.
"Magan-Glay wouldn't do it." Lui continued, "His objective was to save the animals, he had that soft heart to care for them that no other human cared to care in the first place. His experiments had gone way out of his objective and he planned to flee the King's City, but the King's men had his family as hostages."
Lui smiled sadly, "At that fateful night when he tried to rescue his family from the Palace, the King used his five-year-old child to force Magan-Glay to finish that experiment right then and there; so he could resurrect his child again if that child killed, the King said."
"The King killed the child?" another soldier asked wide-eyed.
Lui smirked in mockery, "That King had forgotten that Magan-Glay was a Shepherd! The old fool...!"
"He called out his beasts...!" the fifth soldier spoke hopefully.
"Yes. But in the chaos against the undead-soldiers against beasts, the child got injured badly, a sword gash on his front across the chest. Magan-Glay was horrified by the sight that he pulled out the collected-spirit from every undead-soldier in that Palace and put them inside himself." Lui sighed and stood up, taking the ladle from the bowl on the table with him.
He came back with a pan of porridge and handed them wooden spoons to eat, indicating at the empty bowls everyone had in front of them. "You will need the full stomach after this, please help yourselves."
The men complied filling their bowls to eat, wanting to hear the end of the story.
"So the King was frightened when he saw his undead-soldiers fell unmoving one by one, his necromancer couldn't do anything to stop that..." Lui continued when he saw them eating, "But the collected-spirits were too much for Magan-Glay to control, they weren't innocent spirits of animal babies anymore, along their experiments also collected the humans' hatred and thoughts and other things in them...! So when the necromancer read the spell to call the spirits into obedience, Magan-Glay's spirit was pulled along in the loop when the collected-souls shot out of his body...!"
"Did he die?" three of them asked in unison.
"He died watching his child's body lied bleeding and unmoving at the King's feet, at least his physical body died; his wife already killed herself in the chaos, not wanting to burden her husband to be used as hostage. So he charged at the King, using his 'body' of collected spirits." Lui nodded gently.
"Did he die?" the same question asked, though it was meant as the King.
Lui chuckled at that. "The wizard and necromancer tried to seal him with their skills, but Magan-Glay's fury pulled their spirits inside his 'body' as well."
The pale faces already thought that everything was lost after that.
"But his child wasn't dead, he was just fainted." Lui continued with a small smile; "Before Magan-Glay got the King the child called out to him, just like frightened children would do, seeking their parents for protection. The rational side of Magan-Glay spirit felt that pull of his paternal instinct and was pulled inside the child's body; and using his leftover mind he used his beasts to send his wounded child to safety..."
All wide eyes froze at the end of the story.
"Leaving the collected-spirits with his wrath on rampage?" Odin closed.
A collected gasps heard as the others realized about that part of the story too.
Lui nodded grimly without a word.
"So what is it about 'a Maggart' you were saying?" Odin asked levelly, to him a story was a story, he didn't feel for it.
"The first Maggart, the collected-spirits, had its creator's wrath; it dispersed after having its vengeance." Lui harrumphed, "But its binding hadn't severed, so in places where there are negatives feelings collected, or many lives die, a Maggart is bound to bind itself together again, taking the lost souls as its body and food."
"It formed here?" Odin and Cail asked together.
Lui nodded.
"Didn't you form it for your retaliation?" Odin asked openly. Cail suspected that as a possibility but didn't plan to ask it out right.
"I wish I could, Commander. But I'm not that strong; Magan-Glay himself sealed his knowledge so that his child wouldn't be hunted for it... like him." Lui stood up and open the front of his shirt, showing the red scar-like line diagonally stretched across his chest.
Before his shocked guests asked him, Lui smiled; "I'm not that child; this just means that I shared the same curse... runs in the family." he arched his shoulders while fixing his shirt back.
"What does?" Odin asked.
"Magan-Glay's blood..." Lui sat on his log again, "And his child's ability to pull-in spirits."
"You're like a living-Maggart." Odin summed up; Cail frowned at his Commander for being too blunt.
Lui chuckled merrily, "No, not really. It worked horizontally between siblings...!"
"Ah, so that's why you tricky-twins are inside his body?" Odin snorted.
Lui blinked in surprise.
"You notice we're twins?" 'Rudd' asked in amusement, if you ask Odin.
"Row is very possessive about you, Rudd-lad." Odin smirked. As if supporting his words, 'Row' gnarled at Odin; and after that, in the next second 'Rudd' stared at him dumbfounded with a nice flush on his face. Odin chuckled at the young man, though perhaps the-twins died before they matured to a man; "Yes, I noticed you're a boy, too; probably one who often mixed-up as a girl with your smiling habit..."
Odin enjoyed how that flushed face turned redder with more of his words. "You almost smelled like my demon." he leered.
Lui turned wide-eyed at the mention of the demon. "That's right, your demon-!" he jumped to his feet and almost yelled. Odin was about to be disappointed when his new toy(s) changed back to that coy young man.
"We need him." 'Rudd' said levelly, his calm composure always tricked other people's eyes, making him like he was meek and docile, and in a simple word: tame.
"What for?" Odin asked showing his dislike at the subject.
"To contain that Maggart which running free out there."
Now it's Odin's turn looking flustered, eyes wide with anger; all evil-jest fled his face. "Say what?" he hissed with a warning.
"It's fateful that you brought a dead-demon here; a living-demon couldn't contain a Maggart, but a dead one could." 'Rudd' said levelly; ignoring Odin who was baring his teeth at him. "That's probably why your General told you to bring him along to this area."
The wooden chair clattered to the floor as Odin stood up abruptly; his men gasped in surprise and fear, already prepared to see Odin charge at the young man; but he didn't. Odin's shocked angry eyes were directed at the table. His demon wasn't in the list of the General's orderable...; that's what his mind had chided him along the way of this trip.
So that's why...! Odin clenched his fists, feeling betrayed rather than used, or miss-used; right now he really wanted to punch the sly General in the face.
"If you realized that, you better hurry to act about that Maggart, Commander." 'Rudd' didn't smile, "As it was, being a collection of lost-spirits sensing a dead-body it could use, it must have been tailing your demon since he arrived in the area...!"
"Besides, I put my-blood's signature on him when I hugged him yesterday, so the Maggart could find him easily, too..." the young man smiled calmly.
Odin instantly pulled him by his neck, almost making him to stand on his toes; he kept his calm smile, "...so either you help me containing that Maggart into your demon's body with my help, giving your demon a chance of not losing himself to the Maggart's minds... or I'll help myself in using your demon, which I'd mostly be tempted to make him submit to me in the process...-"
A yank hard enough to pull his feet off the floor, the young man stopped abruptly, his smile faltered a bit but he forced himself to word his other option out, gripping Odin's strong arm with both hands. "...or you could let the Maggart follow him to the King's City and eat everyone it sees...!"
His voice was barely audible but Odin saw his mouth forming the words; and with contempt he realized the young man was right. He threw that lithe almost malnourished-looking body to the floor with anger; Lui coughed and wheezed, propping himself on an elbow.
The room instantly filled with butterflies coming out from the crochet-works and embroideries, as they sensed their Shepherd in danger; the scents of flowers weaved so strongly in the air that made the men lightheaded and losing their strength...
saru's note:
saru typed Heero's name in this chapter, but there's no Heero in it... hahahahahaa (you probably want to kill the-monkey for that by now) XD
this chapter is surprisingly took a short time to finish (only two shifts); probably because saru got too many works waiting in line...? -glancing at the work schedule and give a big evasive grin-
was looking into old collections of MP3, and this chapter was typed while saru listening to The Cardigan's 'Couldn't Care Less' ...it's sad, but made you think you missed that feeling of belonging to that imaginary shiny-better past you thought you had. (or saru just thought too much... or being delusional...)
not going to type fics for a month (at least), seeing the schedule and other plans...
is contemplating whether to post this chapter now, or next month...
let's throw coin.
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'now' wins. (it really did...9"9; -sweats-)