Legacy Character: A Story in Two Parts
Part 2: Anoris' Story
The shuttle returned to Nuadullspace from Tirol without incident. The landing jolted Anoris, slamming his back into the wall. He scowled, but quickly suppressed the expression.
He waited for them to come to him. After the Nuadullian Zentraedi had taken him away from the Survivalist camp, they had confined him for a while, until news of the forthcoming journey to Tirol had been dropped without preamble.
His predecessor's rejection did not bother him. In truth, he would rather not have encountered Exedore at all. Seeing his antecedent directly, had been...frightening, seemed to have been the word which fit it the most. It was a foreign term, but not entirely unknown to the Zentraedi. Or at least, the Zentraedi he recalled. Perhaps these Zentraedi knew fear much more easily than his contemporaries had.
And almost as much as fear, it was disgusting. Even if he admittedly seemed to have done well his duty to the Zentraedi collective, Anoris did not want to be such a thing as Exedore was, stunted and weak and consorting with females, cut off from his people.
Thankfully he had kept most of his reactions hidden, and now it was all behind him.
Anoris heard the clanking of Staldral Trem's boots as she walked back to where he was being held. "Time to get up."
Anoris knew he could not do so until she released the restraints around his body. He tensed at the prospect, sweating, but offered no complaint, even though his true opinion must have been obvious.
The belt-like waist restraint clicked open under her hands, and Staldral moved back far enough to allow Anoris to stand. She towered over him, but her hand was instantly on his shoulder again, to guide him in the direction of the control room.
Ophicuron, the physician, something almost as unnatural as a female engaging in close contact with a male, appeared to intercept them.
"Is there any particular reason why you have to shadow him so closely? I don't think he will be going anywhere, and it won't help him adjust."
Staldral ignored that, and kept marching Anoris on.
Protesting his own treatment would be useless; the sooner these protocols were over with, the sooner he cold return to the business of his new existence, whatever it would be.
---
Jenral Malta was at the shuttle's control room. The viewing screen first appeared dark, but Anoris, looking closer, could discern the metallic seams of a tunnel roof. Yes, they would have to enter by an underground way, so as not to startle any of the populace with his appearance.
I am living history, Anoris thought suddenly, but had control of himself in an instant: no, he was simply a clone of a famous entity who was now essentially obsolete, someone that he was very different from.
His head hurt; memories of rocky plateaux swirling with green gases invaded his mind for a moment, but they passed, leaving nothing in her wake.
When the four of them descended the ramp, the hangar appeared to be deserted. A few ships and equipment waited idly, their designs still incongruous to his eye: there was nothing that looked truly Zentraedi.
"Come on now," Staldral said, roughly, before Ophicuron intervened again.
"Let him look if he wants to. He'll have plenty of time to do anything else later."
Anoris realized he'd been standing on the floor, not walking, looking at the ships, for several moments. "My apologies; let us continue."
And they had, their footsteps echoing in the chamber.
"We will have to place you back into the quarters where we first put you," Jenral said. "But soon we'll find a better place, and get you some proper clothes."
Anoris was not comforted. He didn't feel he needed to be, and Jenral was courteous, but he had seen something when he had met her for the first time, some dislike of him just below her surface.
"Here we are." Staldral reached into one of the pouches on her heavy belt and drew out a commlink, which Anoris already knew how to use. "Call to us if you have difficulty with anything."
Then she left, which Anoris was very much fine with.
The layout and contents of this room looked very much like those of the quarters that Temron Kravshera had left him in, a fact which was, if not entirely comforting, nonetheless had provided him with a cooling sense of equilibrium, which now returned.
Anoris stripped off his prison uniform, donned the yellow bed-smock, and promptly went to sleep. His dreams were jumbled and largely forgotten upon awakening.
An un-uniformed male soldier soon came, entering with a tray of food and liquids, and his expression suggested a sharp, silent loathing. Anoris ignored it.
----
There were days of emptiness, and others when he was given textual material to read, in order to better understand the new order. But there was no way to put this knowledge to use, and the inactivity slowly became grating, though at a pace that was geological in comparison to others who might have ended up in a cell with nothing to do.
Eventually a Zentraedi appeared at his door that he had not seen before. This one was oddly short and slight, like Anoris was, but with normalized features.
"If you'd come with me, Sir?"
He was trembling. Anoris ignored it; he would not ask the other Zentraedi what his particular physical condition was. Non-combatant Zentraedi were supposed to answer questions for others, not ask them.
Though the rules were different here.
Finally they stopped before a pair of doors set into the tunnel. Someone had painted them with images of ancient Zentraedi machines in battle, along with some vaguely-outlined rocks and soil for the Pods to stand upon. The images, at least, were familiar.
"These are the archives," the other male said. He then stood still, bobbing up a trifle on his feet.
Anoris had been told what an "archive" was, and what it had to do with his new position, so there was no need to question that.
His escort was saying, "Fortunately, the, uh, chambers were spared during, the, uh, attack. But you'll soon be being quartered aboveground, and merely work at the archives.
"The plan is, uh, the plan is to give you recently-produced records, and have you help integrate them into the archives. And citizens are allowed to come to you with any questions they might have. I'm Hara Selam, and you can ask me any questions you want."
Except for the male's name, Anoris knew all this already. He had also been told that it would still take some time before the city was stable enough to allow him to perform the job in full; perhaps that time had already come. And if he was being given permission.... "Hara, what is your physical condition?"
"My what?"
"Your physical condition. You seem undersized in some areas, oversized in others."
"Oh, Sir, I uh...I'm an adolescent." Hara licked his lips and bobbed up and down again. "It means I'm not finished growing, but I'm close to it. Zentraedi are...you know that Zentraedi are born right now, and we start out at as babies--a very small stage, and get older and bigger until we become adults. I'm not quite there yet.
"Normally I don't think I'd be here, but my superior was killed in the attack, so I'm...I'm one of the people who's been assigned to help you become adjusted."
Anoris had been informed of the biological life cycles already, but decided not to correct the...young one.
Hara turned and began to push at the doors to open them. He spoke as he made the effort and ushered Anoris inside, despite the exertion that the former took. "I'll tell you, though, we showed those Survivalists something. Civilization is what sent those dirt-eaters straight to the Void! We had better guns, better tech, and better strategy--Ha!" Hara snapped his fingers vigorously, along with making an equally powerful sweep with his arm. But he straightened up and added, "Pardoning the last one, of course, Sir."
----
Hara was part of another group of three, this one including a female named Yaita (herself named after a famous historical figure, apparently) and an older male named Nim, the senior member.
All of his helpers seemed quivering and distant at first, but gradually they settled in. They read to him, showed him videos, and taught him how to speak and write the new Zentraedi language, with its altered syntax, simpler glyphs, new words, and new idioms.
Anoris learned of that strange girl, that Minmei. Though the Zentraedi had long ago learned that her music was actually considered a frivolity by her native race, her relevance to the Zentraedi remained enshrined, even after she had mysteriously disappeared. Seeing the hologram of her had a strangely hypnotic effect on him, which left Anoris blinking and wondering at it afterwards.
They gave him new clothes to wear; at work he wore a purple-trimmed black robe with narrow sleeves and a high, rounded collar, and otherwise could chose from the second- and third-hand garments he had been given.
When they looked over his face, it was discovered that nothing could be done to restore his eye, and so Anoris asked them to leave his facial asymmetry as it was. "It would help to distinguish me," he had said, much to his own astonishment.
When asked about other distinctions, Anoris had declined to have his head shaven, but had found the urge to ask them to change his hair, and they did, cutting it shorter in the back, closer to his nape, and also with shortened, pointed bangs.
And now he was being taken outside. It was not for his public reveal, which still was coming soon, but for getting him adjusted to the natural environment, among the hills and canyons near Blen, things which seemed large even to Zentraedi, and Anoris knew there were farther and more diverse territories beyond that, where the Survivalists had lived.
It was very deep in the night, so that the chance of their being seen on their brief walk aboveground in passing between the underground areas and the city limits was practically nil.
A cool breeze now ruffled his hair and the edges of his clothing. The guard and the scholars surrounding him were quiet for the moment, until Yaita spoke up:
"What do you think of it, Sir?"
And he found that it felt...good to be out there, even, peculiarly, the way that it smelled. But Anoris frowned at her intrusion. Were they again going to attempt to propagandize their lifestyle, instead of allowing him to discover it for himself?
"It is a strange sight." He was also remarking on the lights of the city below. There weren't as many as there would have been in a non-Zentraedi city, he'd been told, due to power concerns, but it was not completely dark.
"But I enjoy the way this environment feels upon me. But while it is true that Temron never allowed me outside, he said it was for my own protection."
Yaita added, "He wished to keep you stunted. Likely he remembered from example, that Zentraedi exposed to the outside world tend to rebel."
"You can only speculate on his motivations," Anoris said, "Perhaps he only desired my safety." It was a strange thing he had been doing, allowing himself to pursue deeper arguments and stronger lines of questioning, and also to turn the words of those in authority back upon them.
"It was just to feed his own ego," added Nim. "So all our civilization would bow down and worship him as overlord."
"Did you believe in what he was doing, Sir?" asked Bakorel, another female, who had come along to monitor him.
Anoris could not come up with a definitive answer. "My duty was to serve. And I understand that one of you is likely about to reply with the retort that now I am at a point where I can consider my life. And that is true. But I do not love you unreservedly."
Bakorel: "Do you like being drawn into a line of questioning, Sir? To exercise your mental abilities beyond simply figuring out the best way to destroy things?"
"There was nothing simple about such a thing," Anoris said, before he could stop himself. At least he wasn't shouting.
But a question which had been building could finally be asked. "Nim, are there truly so many going to be so many who are upset at my imitation of Exedore?"
"It depends on who you speak with; Jenral may have given you the wrong idea, since she's a bit of a fanatic for history, and largely arranged that mission to Tirol by herself. Among the rest of us, the name 'Exedore Formo' still carries meaning, but its power varies widely, and I personally do not think that there's going to be much anger directed at you for that. Some fear and shock, yes, but that will fade easily in comparison to your status as a Survivalist. Don't underestimate the latter."
"There aren't any other Formos left, you know," Hara put in, interrupting the silence after a time. "When the civilization was getting started, Exedore asked that all Formo clone line material be destroyed; nothing would be incorporated into the new children they grew from old gene samples.
"He was afraid of having children, and didn't want the next worst thing, other Formos asking for some connection with him. He didn't have any with the other Formo clones in the old days, but knew that things would change now, with blood-born children coming up. Paranoid stuff."
Anoris repeated, "It does not matter. Not in the sense of my feeling rejected. But perhaps I...require this knowledge of him to understand my status further."
Anoris had seen the face of his progenitor often in the records, and read some of his publicly-available journals, too. Some of Exedore's movements still appalled him, as his predecessor seemed to revel in the loss of his Zentraedi equilibrium and objectivity.
Yaita went on. "I agree with Nim. You should be much more concerned with your status as a Survivalist, though if you emphasize the constraints of your previous situation and appear repentant, it might help them accept you."
"I am afraid that I cannot. At that time, I never once thought of betraying Temron."
"But did you love it?", Hara asked. "Did you really want to do it, and believe that it was right?"
"I did," Anoris replied. "Inasmuch as I knew that it was what I had to do, and to Zentraedi of my era, that amounts to the same thing. I understand how appalling you must find this, but...." What?
"But what?" said Yaita, as if echoing his thoughts down to the confused tone. "You are still going to be held accountable for it, so you must be honest?"
"Yes, I must. As much as I am honest about enjoying this 'natural' environment. I can tell them only what I was, and that I feel no remorse."
He remembered waking up, taking the final amniotic (a word these new Zentraedi had eventually taught him) breaths of the cloning chamber, before the fluid had drained away.
His initial steps had been strong, as he had walked unerringly towards the blurred figures waiting just beyond the chamber's edge.
But somehow he had stumbled, falling forward, but was caught by a pair of strong arms before he could hit the ground. Anoris had looked up into a brown tabard, with a crisscross of yellow braiding on the chest, his gaze travelling farther up as he had straightened himself on his own.
The Zentraedi had the features of a Kravshera, and his bright blue hair was edged with grey. There was a small cybernetic component covering his left eye, which Anoris would later learn was connected to mechanisms in his arm and hand, which would interface with any automatic weapon and allowed for greater targeting accuracy; this was from the autopsy that the Nuadullian authorities had performed on Temron's burned and shattered corpse.
"I am Temron Kravshera," he had said, pushing Anoris carefully into a standing position.
Anoris had taken a few steps back and then rubbed at his face. "What is going on? Has there been an accident?" He had had no idea what exactly "accident" could have meant.
"In a manner of speaking, yes."
This Kravshera was dressed as a high-ranking male commander. But as Anoris' vision was clearing, he saw that the outfit had a crude, patched-together look.
"I am about to tell you things that are very shocking."
"Then please tell me, m'lord." Even if his outfit was crude, this Kravshera must have held that rank. For why would a Zentraedi have attempted to imitate a higher officer?
"You are a second clone of Exedore Formo. He was instrumental in a great change in Zentraedi, a very long time ago. Centuries."
Moment by moment, Anoris had found that he was becoming more comfortable, more decisive. Very good.
Temron continued on; the other figures in the room had not spoken. "The ones who searched for Zor's ship found it on a world full of Micronians, like Tirolians but far less advanced and much more fragmented. The Zentraedi became addicted to the things the Micronians offered, and when Dolza came to destroy them for their contamination, they turned against him. They sided with the Micronians, and Exedore Formo and Breetai Tul led this betrayal.
"Now, today, the Zentraedi live like Micronians, but at their true size. They have sundered the ranks into something difficult, disjointed, which is reflected in their society. Males and females mix freely, and they manufacture children with their bodies. Only a small fraction of them still participate in the business of fighting, and even then, they don't actively seek it, but passively lie back and wait for battle to come to them."
For the first time, Temron smiled. "I want to help them. I am going to bring the Zentraedi together into a single unit, so they will be free again, and have no conflict with each other, no fear. It will take time, but if we persevere and are flexible, the truth will come in the end. We brought you to life to be a part of this."
"I?"
"You were one of the greatest minds of the Zentraedi, and when we return to life, I will need a strong advisor at my side to guide me."
Temron had put his hand atop Anoris' wet head. "But your progenitor still lives. Because of that, you will be Anoris Formo."
Anoris, thus christened, had almost said, Yet Exedore is my true name, before stopping himself. The duty of the Zentraedi was to do whatever his or her superior wanted. Thus, we would be Anoris.
Another male had then walked up to Temron and given him a box. Temron had passed it to Anoris. "This will be your clothing. I'm sorry that we were unable to make something better."
Inside it had been the imitation advisor's outfit that the salvage party had eventually caught him in. Anoris had later realized how ill-made the uniform was, with a threadbare, clumsily-folded cowl, misaligned piping, and boots whose shoes had been spray-painted purple. But he had at the time worn it without complaint.
"But you have to rest now; I will show you to your quarters. While you recuperate, the first phase of the campaign will begin. I know this is difficult to hear, but you don't need to concern yourself with that yet. We will call you when we need you, but right now your first priority is to rest and become adjusted."
Another of the personnel had handed him an artefact called a "book", a crudely-bound thing which explained what these "Survivalists" were: Zentraedi who lived as in the old times, for purposes of relaxation and clarity. There was a camp of females nearby, with the same manifesto, though Anoris never met any of them.
Anoris had only waited in that room, not fearful of exploring, simply devoid of any urge to do it.
And now?
***
There was always plenty to do; stacks and files of transmissions had arrived, to be transcribed into the main database. Because they were recent, many dealt with the public's reaction the Survivalist attack, which had been documented extensively. Anoris felt a twinge at this that he could not deny, a cold ache in his chest that refused to go away. Yet at the same time, he could not feel guilt.
Why was that? He ought to learn to balance those two aspects. After all, he would eventually have to deal with the public in a greater capacity.
But now he was being marched before a crowd. Anoris knew from reading the materials that the anticipation and rumours had gradually swelled in intensity, the public only knowing for certain that there was some secret thing that had been taken from the former Survivalist camp by right of salvage.
When the scavenging party had first brought Anoris back before the authorities, it had been with his cowl over his head, and they had subsequently yanked it back downwards for a rude reveal to the assembled politicians and police forces.
This procedure would not be quite so humiliating, but they had requested he put on his prison uniform again, and with a hooded cloak over it, though since his hands, with their unusual red-purple skin, were still revealed, he would likely be considered suspect upon arrival.
It was on an outdoor stage. Anoris could hear the sounds of the crowd, though slightly muffled by the cloth, chattering among itself and likely standing in a disorganized rabble, though he had been told to keep his head bowed, so could not yet see it for certain.
The hood was rolled back slowly, and the crowd below the platform let out a common gasp, although many surprised curses immediately followed.
"This is Anoris Formo," Jenral Malta said from beside him, and she began to give the crowd a truncated version of his origins and future purpose, before beginning to take protests and questions from the crowd.
Anoris watched the contorting faces of the Zentraedi...civilians. They were standing in their variety of clothing (though there were some uniforms among them, those were also highly varied), some with offspring on their shoulders or in their arms, for they apparently tended not to shield their children from things.
Zentraedi had always had individualized appearances and hairstyles, but now there was something about the set of their faces, the position of their bodies, which suggested the true loss of uniformity.
And yet, they were also said to be a close-knit, very social society which often tried to bring everyone into everything. And it seemed to be so, for several repeated others' gestures of head shaking, exchanged glances, and more surprised curses. Perhaps it could be a new kind of unity.
Anoris was silent as the crowd asked questions that seemed not to be directed at him, but the officials surrounding him on the platform. The citizens demanded again and again to know why their government would employ a former Survivalist in any high position, questions which Jenral and others answered in the same way they had for Exedore: because Anoris could still be useful.
When Anoris was asked something, he recalled that he had been told not to answer, and he obeyed this. Angry voices could not sway him, and they all seemed to ask the same things regardless: How could you do this? How could you live with yourself knowing that you made plans to send Zentraedi to murder others? How could you be so calm about it?
And the answer he would have given was that he was simply what he was. But...there was that lingering notion, the words he remembered from Exedore's journals, how Zentraedi had reshaped themselves. Could he still truly lay claim to such indifference? Could it happen--
Something thudded into his temple; Anoris reeled as pain burst in his head. He turned and saw it: a rock, now resting on the edge of the platform.
There was little garbage to throw, most of it having been recycled multiple times, but there was grit and debris, and it pelted the stage.
The citizens were still shouting and carrying on. If there had been a heap of detritus there, all of them would likely have been snatching at it and hurling it. A few protests he could make out:
"Filthy murdering dirt-eater!"
"Rest in the Void!"
"Belly-crawler!"
But mostly it was incoherent, their cries drowning each other out. What crowd was this, who would allow themselves to be collectively swayed by the reactions of a few unruly personages?
Yes, now there were tall Zentraedi in uniforms, breaking up fights, roaring at the troublemakers to stop this and depart. Many immediately submitted, but a few fought, and then folded beneath an oncoming rush of the internal police.
They would all still live, however. There was no longer any sense in simply slaughtering the unruly, when there weren't dozens more of the same clone line ready to fill their positions. Each were individual, each were fragmented. The Survivalists had only been the exception because of the danger they represented.
***
The walls of Anoris' room were coloured a very faint blue-green. An artist had enterprisingly painted some mechanical and circuitry patterns in several places.
It was obviously done to evoke the interior of an ancient "male" Zentraedi ship, and while Anoris had never asked for what scholars called "the womb of the ship" when discussing "his" era, he had seen no reason to deny the artists their peculiar pleasure, and this was as good a room as any for him to live and conduct business in.
Upon the walls were copied images of journals and articles from time periods past, all of which had been handed down by his superiors. The windows were opened and covered in porous screens, letting in the light and air without disturbing his materials.
The chime near the door began to sound, and Anoris pressed one of the buttons on the room's many consoles, signalling his approval. This, and even the door, was a recent addition.
The person who entered was Kurno Norri, a recent addition to his "handlers". Her skin had been dyed green as a statement of fashion, and her hair was purple.
"Oh, hello," Anoris said, hoping that he sounded welcoming. Many likely still thought him fearful of inter-gender interaction. "Please, sit down." He indicated the chair on the other side of his enormous desk. Another bestowal, the chair was intricately carved, but also scuffed and loosely jointed. Justification for ornamentation was another thing that Anoris was still having difficulty accepting, though he felt several steps closer to understanding it intuitively.
They clasped each other's forearms in the polite gesture. Anoris knew that his grip was weak, and his hand had emerged slowly from the sleeve of his robe, but one could not help being sickly when they were born from inferior, cobbled-together facilities.
And her grip was metallic. Kurno had an artificial lower arm while before, beginning growth in such a state would have led to her immediate recycling. Even a non-combatant needed two hands.
"Your box there...may I see?"
"Yes, you may." Anoris lightly pushed the box across the desk, before rolling the lid back. Inside were a child's toy, a cheap painting sold for public consumption, a few candies, carved metal disks that might have been coins in another society, and some other trinkets.
"So, you like these things?"
"They are interesting to me." Such things were now often sent to him by others, tokens of the outside world. "But I still prefer to live in this place. I would not discard it."
"Is that what you believed Exedore did? Discarded what should have been his rightful place?"
Kurno had asked for this meeting. It wasn't one of those annual interviews designed to evaluate his status, but he ought to have expected her to make such inquiries.
Anoris rubbed at the damaged side of his face. "What, really, is it that you have come here to ask me?"
"Why don't you seem very interested in going outside? Is it because you still fear for your life?"
"Not at all. It is simply that I prefer it here."
"Anoris...you don't have to deliberately take the opposite path from Exedore."
"No. I have admitted many times the similarities between us. But I prefer it here, inside the archives." He gestured to the ceiling. "Isn't this what they wished? For me to work for them in order to find my redemption?" There was a touch of coldness in that last word, he knew. He did not need to be redeemed, and knew they had other reasons for keeping him alive
"A true historian isn't isolated," Kurno said. "You have to learn to interact with the world you've been given."
"I will make it part of my duty. But on the level of sheer leisure, I will not venture out. I jump at no shadows, simply find this outer world...distasteful, rather than fearsome."
"Then you would have preferred Temron's way?"
Anoris sighed and rolled his good eye. She was young, and youths of whatever species seemed to tend to speak in such absolutes. "In some ways, I do feel more relaxed than I could ever have imagined before, but can you understand that this loud world is simply not to my taste? Pity me if it is your inclination, but do not do so within my earshot."
"I...guess my question was childish. You do meet your duties well, and we should acknowledge that." Kurno said after a moment.
Suppose? Anoris thought, but he let it pass. Kurno was one of those who seemed to want to treat him in a friendly manner despite his past. "I ought not to be so defensive."
"I know. But you're still adjusting. It will still take a long time, Sir."
"I am also beginning to feel more like I am simply 'Anoris' rather than an Exedore-clone." Though the name of his progenitor was not entirely drained of resonance, still invoked that odd flare of sensation whenever he heard it.
And those flashbacks he'd been having, he had been told, were normal; extracting and preserving memories for eventually importing them from one body to another was still an inexact science, even so long after Zor Prime.
"I enjoy my own segment of the new world. But outside is still disjointed, messy. And there are ways in which both versions triumph over each other, no matter what the preference is.
"Exedore told me something similar, but I do not think he was quite as impartial as he attempted to be. He'd long ago thrown his lot in with the new Zentraedi culture."
Kurno scoffed loudly at his speech, reminding Anoris that there were different levels of respect and power still involved. "Everyone wants to believe that their way is right. It doesn't make us dirt-eaters if we happen to feel the same way as our enemies on that. You do what you wish, Anoris; it's what we allow."
Anoris frowned at what he nonetheless recognized was her teasing, and found himself remembering Murta Hilo again.
She was still imprisoned, he had heard, somewhere where he would never see her. Not that he missed her at all; the records said she had been his "caretaker", and that was certainly correct, but they had barely met directly. Instead, a square hole had been cut between their adjoining rooms, and a hinged door made for it, so that they could speak in a crude approximation of the monitors that were acceptable for inter-gender contact, and she could pass food through the aperture.
Murta could propagandize with the best of the Nuadullians: "They would fear you in that other world, because they are running from history. Seeing you again would remind them of the truth of their existence: that you can never escape what you are. And so they would hate you. But here, we revere you. We love you. You are going to be the key to our victory."
Had he let that play to his vanity? Did he possess vanity? But there was no sense now in denying that he couldn't have such a thing. No, he...he was not indifferent. He wanted to live like this. He had to learn to trust his own instincts in such a place. He had to act for himself.
***
And then his progenitor came for a visit.
"It hasn't been long."
"No, it hasn't. By necessity."
Exedore drew in a long, slow breath. Anoris saw Lantas glace quickly at him, but she faced Anoris again.
It was near sunset. The two of them were on his desk, both in Tirolian mobile chairs, not because they were severely weakened, but because it was more convenient for their transportation in this world.
"Because I wished to. I don't believe that it erases all that has occurred, but I wished to. It would be pointless to continually pursue the past, when the future is still yet occurring."
Lantas briefly reached between the chairs and ran her white fingers through her consort's equally white hair. Anoris wondered for a moment how she viewed him: as a metaphorical offspring, when they shared no genetic material in common? Or as something more perverse?
She said, "And so did I. I'm part of this." She swallowed. "What have you been doing?"
Anoris gestured vaguely to the contents of his walls. "Archiving, as they asked me. They supply me with information to be stored, and I do so. There are youths who help me, and citizens who despise me." He left the desk as he said it, pausing to turn the lights on as it was darkening rapidly.
"Do you enjoy it?" she asked.
"They ask me that often. I do; I enjoy feeling efficient. But I prefer to stay inside with my work. Except...except for outside. I have come to enjoy the 'natural' world. And I do like investigating the trinkets that all aspects to this world offer. It makes me feel well. So I can now understand and accept, to a slightly better extent, what you made of yourself. But there are some things that I cannot do, including accept this world unreservedly."
"Ah." It was Exedore, this time.
Was that sound he made a nostalgic one? But it was Anoris' turn to ask a question. "How do you feel towards me?"
"Gradually, the sense of obligation has come to dominate. And, I have begun to think that it might have been a good thing to know you, as a friend, after your debts had been paid."
As a friend? Perhaps another would have been angry at the notion, perceiving it as devaluing their genetic tie. But Anoris could still understand why Exedore would only have chosen that; there was nothing strong enough to blind him to that truth.
Lantas' mouth twisted. "May we...stand on your hand?"
Though she asked it tentatively, Anoris recognized that part of her was still repulsed at the idea, and was struggling to fight down that same feeling. And perhaps there was also fear to contend with.
But: "Yes."
Anoris placed the back of his right hand against the desktop, near to the chairs. He waited as the pair of them stepped out. Exedore was also frowning a bit, even as his body trembled and Lantas leaned in to help support him, though after an instant, the elderly Zentraedi had drawn himself up completely straight.
It was doubtful that they had changed their minds and saw themselves as his parents, or forgave him for being a Survivalist. But they walked onto his hand, their small thin forms exerting only the most miniscule of pressures.
Suddenly he realized what this odd gesture meant: it was a sign of trust, for, even weak as he was, Anoris could have crushed Exedore and Lantas in an instant if he so chose. That the two of them were standing there meant something, even if it was not the erasure of everything.
They stepped off his hand and back into their chairs.
"My status in the outside world is still under debate," Anoris said. "But I wish to be your escort into the city." When had that occurred, Anoris still wondered at it.
"Yes, well, thank you. We can't stay long."
----
And indeed, they did not. However, Anoris was not the only one to know of this visit. It would be impossible for it to be so, and Exedore and Lantas were taken through the main streets of the town, their chairs on a metal plate held by the up-stretched arms of two police mecha so that the old ones had a good view of the city's buildings, many with painted and decorated facades, for isolated public art was considered a nuisance.
Anoris followed them on foot, taking note of the variances among the watching citizens. Some crowded close, peering intently forward and trying to get a glimpse of
Exedore, while others peered out windows with that same eagerness. Yet other areas were empty, or had Zentraedi who took the briefest glimpse before hurrying on.
Anoris asked Exedore, quietly, "Do you feel pride at these sights?" He did not feel angry or challenging towards his predecessor. It was the buildings as much as the adulation of the citizens which could excite such feelings.
"Yes, I do. I know that others participated, then and now, but it is lovely to see this. Part of it is my handiwork."
From the records and journals, Anoris knew that for his progenitor, pride in one's personal accomplishments, in things undertaken solely due to one's own desires, had been a new and exciting thing, centuries ago. Perhaps part of Exedore still remembered what it was like to feel that awe, before giving himself fully over to self-importance.
He could empathize, to an extent. Anoris still belonged to the Zentraedi, but the work was his now, in a sense that defied objective scrutiny, even if there were certainly still ways that the Survivalist world had been better.
The three of them did not speak much further, yet it did indeed feel like something necessary had been settled, even if there were certain things that could not change, but on other levels.
Exedore and Lantas left, escorted by the young Tirolian man they had hired to pilot their shuttle there and help with any physical needs.
Several turned out to watch the shuttle depart, and Anoris was one of them.
"Farewell, Anoris," Exedore said.
"G-Good-bye, A-Anoris," Lantas echoed, falteringly, and her face stretched slowly into a smile.
After they were gone, he then returned to work.
End.
Author's note: I don't generally explain my in-jokes, but "Anoris" was the obfuscating name given to Exedore in the original production of Robotech II: The Sentinels, so that no one outside the staff would mistake the Sentinels production for a Macross sequel. Due to a printing error, "Anoris" is used several times in place of "Exedore" in the summaries in Robotech Art 3.
Also, I apologize in advance to anyone involved with episode 12 of Macross Frontier.