Rihaku here. This chapter's got some pretty gruesome details, so if you don't like that stuff, skip the middle three paragraphs of Kira's part.
This chapter starts out a bit slow, but picks up speed at the end. Enjoy!
Final version.
All her life, she had sung. They had dictated that it be so, and she had always complied. There was nothing in it of will or choice – she sang as inevitably as water falls. She did not understand the song and had never tried; like an instrument finely tuned she firmly channeled the music, neither unleashing a torrent nor damming the flow.
For six eternities that had been the way. She was humanity's companion, its muse and its curse. From her throat sprang tales of terrible beauty or beautiful cruelty. They were at once aware and unaware of her; like breathing, she never consumed conscious thought but was constantly resounding at the backs of their minds.
Only one had ever seen her face. He was new: she had not seen him in any of the times before. When they met he had been confused, but he picked things up with amazing speed. She did not know humans very well, and he was the only she had ever met, but she found herself wishing that if she were ever to encounter more of mankind, she would want to meet more people like him. He was kind, truly kind, and she was merely nice, like a porcelain doll with a painted-on smile that laughed, because it did not know of crying.
From her seat of roses she could see the entire world, but that was the difference between viewing a picture and living a truth. Only when Kira had come, with his quiet awkwardness and shying eyes and strange else of humor, had she understood what it meant to be human.
She didn't think she'd make a very good one. Until now.
This song had been different from the others. As far back as her first melody she had enjoyed singing, even dirges and elegies and requiems. They were melancholy but the music was so perfect she could not help but be subsumed in it. Like all good artists she never played the music; it played her.
This one she had not enjoyed. It had been like knives and daggers in her throat, sharp and cold and hurtful. Her heart had felt gnashed, torn open and bleeding onto the green, even though she was obviously unharmed. The worst had been when she found that she could not stop. Truly, she was a slave to her art – if she closed her mouth the words ripped themselves from her throat and sent slashing cacophony into the world. The pain had been constant and grinding and endless and when the last words had fled her lips she had folded onto the grasses and sobbed.
And then she thought of many things which she had not considered before, and realized that she was even more clueless than the humans, more impotent than the smallest child. Her iron-grated gardens were a prison far more profound than the mightiest imperial fortress.
But none of that was important, for she had a dread feeling in her breast about Kira, and she could not stop thinking that his life was to be ruined and that it was all her fault.
---
Kira slogged his way through the deep forest, pushing a bramble out of his face. The trees were waving with a slight breeze and the rain that had fallen while he had made his way out of the meadow was already abating. His flimsy apprentice's garments were dirt-smeared and tattered from his recent expedition – he would have to do surreptitious laundry, again. Last time Master Zao had almost caught him and only his accidental stumble into the water barrel had prevented detection.
The trees began to shake. Kira darted to the side, hiding behind a trunk, eyes peered for Athha Rangers hunting in the wilds. Then he saw the branches swaying towards him, and a chittering horde of squirrels blew through and past him, in a made panic. Confused, he brushed a few of the creatures aside and, ignoring the leaves cascading on his head, continued moving towards the town.
Then the rats came, a pulsing tide of sleek fur and whiplike tails that brushed against his pants. He yelped, jumped into the air and landed on one, wincing as its skeleton shattered under his boot. Swiftly he bent down and scooped up the carcass, setting it gently on a tree before wading through the diminishing swarm. And, suddenly, with a swishing flick the last rat was gone and the leaves echoed with the pattering of feet.
He frowned – there weren't any magicians nearby. A swarm of rodents, thus, only had one reasonable explanation: fire in human habitations. Sweat broke cold against his brow and he braced against a tree, launched himself into a sprint towards the town. It was at least a thousand paces away,but he had always possessed strong legs.
Clearing a small crest, he skidded, almost slipped, in a puddle of mud, and, throwing out a hand for balance, averted a fall. Trees flashed by with the trembling of leaves and he sighted desultory columns of smoke rising with funeral deliberation. Circling them with hawking avarice were a murder of crows.
The scavengers flapped bristly wings with a tarplike sound, eyes firmly affixed below. Kira sped up, almost to the academy…
Before he reached the scene the smell of massacre assailed his nostrils. He gagged, hacking off a few coughs and grabbing a branch to slow his momentum. The smell of rainwater was blended with fire and gore and he stumbled into the hills in a daze.
Most of the bodies had been left where they were slain, blood washed away to leave only lacerated, colorless flesh. Hair hung in wet mops down their backs and their arms were outflung, as if in mad retreat. To the right, Master Zao's eyes stared unseeingly at him, and he tore his eyes away from the face only to meet the meter-long gash in the man's gut. Their academy and quarters were burned to the ground, charred skeletons of wood lonely and steaming.
The last streamers of smoke dissolved away and his legs moved of their own volition, carrying him away. Vellum wall scrolls and codices were strewn around the hill, their bindings slashed and the rich black ink ruined by water. They had destroyed or taken all the pens and inkstands. The written word, crafted well, was more than worth its weight in silver.
The outskirts of the town proper were relatively clean, though the stream held a pink tinge. Buildings here had collapsed inward, walls painted with burn-marks, but the dead were relatively few. As he moved closer to the square the destruction multiplied. A man, mouth hanging open, was slumped against the hollowed frame of a wall, eyes rimmed with red and an arrow sticking from his chest. Two children, decapitated, had twisted grimy fingers around each other in a last act of sympathy. He noted, somewhat detachedly, that they had been twins.
There was a man whose throat had been crushed, his jaw rigidly locked in death. Kira glanced listlessly at him for five minutes before he realized that it was his father. Shivering – his clothes had been plastered to his skin by the rain – he turned his head, saw a woman half-turned-round sprawled on the dirt, purple tresses splayed and blood-splattered.
He blinked.
Staggering forward, he came to the banks of the stream. Here the water moved not at all, clogged by the bodies of the dead. They were stacked six-high, clothing torn and soaked and filthy, fingers and forearms pale. He tasted ash in his mouth as he scanned the razed expanse, and then the bones in his legs disappeared and he fell, palms sore against the hard ground.
His hair was slicked by the rain and it hung low in his eyes; he smeared it out of the way. His reflection in a puddle: eyes sharp yet light blunted, face hollow, breath hissing down into the water and causing ripples.
For a long time he stayed like that, until the wind cut like a knife into his water-chilled bones and the reluctant sun dried out the puddle. Then he stood up without wiping the dirt off his knees and went to work. Their village had contained one hundred and eleven people and before he could eat he would have to bury one hundred and ten of them.
As he dragged the first cadaver along he noticed a rainbow in the distance and he burst out laughing.
---
There were few people in the world Athrun Zala loathed more than his father. Cagalli Yula Athha was one of them.
He stared viciously at the messenger. "You're serious."
Benighted, the man only nodded. "The decision, the Emperor says, is final." Even under the Prince's glare this court functionary maintained his veneer of arrogance. "She will be arriving within the week." Athrun sneered, peeling off a gauntlet and whipping it onto the bed. Were they using Sahaku chargers? The week ended in two days.
"Fine. Get out of here."
With a sniff and a bow the leech was gone. Athrun detached the bulky ornate armor, slipped his scabbard on the table, and flopped onto the bed, muscles sore with an exhaustion so deep it penetrated his marrow. On the floor, masterfully carved body plates lay in a haphazard pile. His heavy armor was steel sandwiched by wood, painted with pitch and glazed over by a smooth resin. Iron blades blunted themselves against its side. Two towns of peasants had worked for months to construct it, and after they had finished they had been killed, to prevent Imperial secrets from being leaked.
His chain mail and the padded vests he wore sandwiching that were still on, but since he had become Marshall he was so used to the dragging links that he could sleep in them without discomfort. And, as the elder Zala would say, paranoia was the essence of war.
Athrun groaned and worked out the tightness in his limbs, massaging a cramp in his left calve.
Outside, the rain tapping on their roof had stopped. He peered out of the window and noticed that the blank white shades were down; was too lazy to release them.
He lay back down, closed his eyes.
Cagalli. Yula. Heaven-damned. Athha. Is Uzumi insane, wasting his leverage on that princess? And to think he's among the wiser governors…
Bratty, spoiled, tomboyish, arrogant, feckless, and completely ungrateful, the "Sun Princess" was everything Athrun despised. When they were young she would always mess up his finger paintings with her overenthusiastic interjections and while he had been too polite to stop her he was silently displeased. After the war started she had spoken out vocally and fervently against the violence, and his escorts had trembled in staying his hand – Lenore Zala's death had been one of the incidents which sparked the first assault. And the girl had the audacity to shame his mother's death by declaring their justice an unprovoked slaughter! Tired as he was, thoughts of her boiled his blood until he could not fall asleep.
She never thanked her guards for protecting her or her servants for waiting on her. She assumed it was her right – not deference-granted privilege – that allowed her near-absolute power over every commoner she encountered. When last had Cagalli Yula Athha defended "her" people against a Western invasion? For what reason did they worship her?
He snorted. That was right – they were fed Athha-loaded propaganda in grade schools, taught from youth to kowtow to "Amaterasu-sama." She had never earned her wealth or position. The only reason she was still alive was because she was a figurehead to the besieged Border Territories. Had he mentioned that her personality sucked?
And now because of Uzumi-san's naivety and Durandal's scheming he would be saddled with her for the rest of his life. The wedding was in forty days? He had better start preparing a will – she would definitely murder him the first night. And, even if he survived, honor would prevent him from taking any concubines.
He didn't need these thoughts right now. The graduation ceremony was tomorrow and his Company needed a proud Captain to present them with their formal swords and outfits. The battered young men needed some recompense for the sins they had been force-fed.
He had hoped Heaven would forgive him, but apparently that was too much to ask. This last messenger had obviously been an agent of displeasure from above.
---
The streambed was swollen with silt and it heaved against its banks, lapping onto the fingers of a severed hand. Kira bent down and picked up another body, hefted it over his shoulder, and headed for the plot which he had cleared of rubble. The sky was sullen, an untasting gray, and winds strafed through his shirt, the sleeves a billowing abandon.
Kira did not know who had slaughtered the townspeople. In all truth, he did not care. His heart was too spent on grief to hold the seeds of hatred.
One day, perhaps, he would go into the East and find out. He would probably die sixty paces from a fort, an arrow through his throat. The prospect wouldn't have bothered him if he hadn't noticed the flowers still vibrant against the stream banks and thought of Lacus. If he died, who would keep her company? She would be alone again, and there would be no witness for her beauty.
He was too tired to come up with a solution. One hundred and eight corpses buried did that to a body. After these two he would just have to find suitable tombstones for everyone and then he could rest, if hunger did not keep him awake. Or perhaps eat, if exhaustion allowed him to move his limbs. He was running on dregs of adrenaline and sheer willpower – a worrying strength, a calligraphist's strength. Certainly not a soldier's.
He slid the bodies into position and dumped them into the individual graves he had made with a crude spade from the blacksmith's. The smith himself was still recognizable – he had taken three arrows before falling – and Kira had buried him twenty-eight slots over.
He set one into its hole, stared at the face for a moment, then closed its eyes. Picking up his spade, he covered it, turned to its companion.
Do we bury the dead out of respect, or because they bother us?
The last corpse had been swallowed by the earth. He trudged away from the gravesite, looking for stones. Halfway across the town a strong wind picked up his collar and he collapsed, the world dimming.
Sometimes when he slept he would have normal dreams, but they were rare – about once or twice a year. Those meant that Lacus wanted to be alone. He hoped fervently that she would be in a companionable mood, now.
She let him in. He touched down on the boundary, iron gratings inches behind him. There were no songs and the blossoms danced sadly in a morose wind. Birds perched on trees and stared balefully at him, accusatory.
He wandered wraithlike past the opening in the trees. The sun was hidden behind a screen of clouds. Flower petals lined the walk and he heard a faint stirring of sound, so quiet that it drowned in the swishing of leaves. He realized that, down the pathway, she was singing.
He had never heard it before. Her voice was light and childlike, caressing the inside of his soul, yet it carried a resonance so powerful his legs quaked out from under him. He had not lived until he heard the song.
He felt that he had not heard the true melody, simply the echo of an echo of it, and so he moved closer, until he could see her tiny figure on the edges of the horizon. The garden was as large as Lacus needed it to be and today she needed her space.
But she had allowed him in. Kira, pulled himself up with a branch and mustered all his remaining will. He let himself be carried to her.
She was staring at a broken rose in the cup of her hands. Her legs were crossed and the dress was the same but she had let her hair go, so that it waved in the breeze like a standard. Her eyes shined with moisture as she crooned to the petals.
He held his breath when he moved and stepped with an assassin's deliberation, desperate not to kill the song. His efforts, though, were in vain. Her ears, trained beyond human perfection, detected him in an instant, and the song stopped. He felt as if he would die, there on his feet.
Lacus had always sung because she needed to. When she had held the rose in her hand, though, a song had welled up in her chest by itself and she had not stopped it. Now Kira was here and he looked horribly tired and the pathway retracted until he was inches from her, and she saw that he was dirty and trembling with hands laid open by sharp rocks and suffering deep in his eyes.
"Oh, Kira," she whispered, rising to place a hand on his neck. "I'm so sorry."
He looked at her, mouth working silently. "Sorry?"
Then, his eyes widened, as if he had taken a punch to the gut, and he clutched her savagely, sobbing, and she felt her heart flip over. She wrapped her arms around him and placed her head in the crook of his neck and cried along with him.
The roses curled upon themselves and withered into the ground. She picked up the song again, and his tears were warm and salty against her neck.
---
They had packed her into this burlesque cart, pulled by sixteen horses, and hitched a train of maidservants, clothing, and guards to it. It had been raining a while before and all of her entourage had scrambled around like headless chickens, huddling below overhangs and umbrellas as if the sky were falling.
Just to be contrary (and to show her displeasure at this whole arrangement), she had flounced into the open, laughing as the rain slid cold fingers down her back and drenched her sundress. They had had to hold up the convoy for hours to get her changed and Durandal had been very displeased. Behind his back she had blown a raspberry.
Now she was being hauled into the carriage again, and she rolled her eyes as they slammed and bolted the door. As if she would be stupid enough to try to escape from a moving carriage.
Well, actually, that had been pretty smart of them. They had closed her window to the driver, as well, so she couldn't force him to stop with a royal command. Her only entertainment for the ride was the window to her side, covered by a yellow-red curtain, and that was too small to squeeze out of. She sighed. Athrun Zala better be grateful – she hadn't even thrown a fit, yet.
The horses started at an easy trot and they clattered over the flagstones, to the cheers (some in earnest) of the assembled courtiers. Cagalli leaned back and grunted. Well, she was glad to be rid of them, too.
There was a wonderfully decorated carving opposite her seat. She ran her eyes over the craftsmanship, aware that whichever master had crafted the work had most likely spent hundreds of hours on it unpaid. It was detestable, how the Zala misinformed the populace in order to exploit their work.
The hard clapping of horseshoes against stone had faded away and now they were pacing on hard-packed dirt roads. Most likely they were reaching the Palace Gates, sixty feet high and two meters thick. The huge interlocking plates slid aside with a tortured steel whine to let them through. Now the ground was soggier, and the horses had to strain a bit more. Around, peasants obediently bowed and cheered, zither music and firecrackers ringing through the streets. Her wheels creaked, water filling the joints.
In her lifetime of seclusion Cagalli had developed very good ears. She could tell they were throwing streamers at her by the fluttering noise that paper made as it twirled in the air. In front, the horses slowed to a crawl, displaying the full majesty of Zala to their teeming masses. The people lapped up sight and spectacle like starving dogs did milk.
She closed her eyes and let the slow rhythm of the carriage rock her to sleep. It wasn't as if she were needed for this show.
When her eyes fluttered open they were cantering over rocky ground, the carriage heaving up and down as they struck pebbles and stones. She moaned, stretching her arms; then got up and peered out the window. Desert whished by, a long hard flat expanse of yellow-brown under an empty blue sky.
The Barrier Wastes were a long, narrow strip of desert fronted and flanked by mountain ranges. It served as the border between Zala and Attha territory: Zala armies had had to march through minute passes and withering heat to engage her family's fortresses, nearly a century ago. But though the desert was dry and determined and vicious the Zala were more determined, more vicious, and possibly even drier (The Emperor was not known for his sense of humor).
She had been asleep at least six hours. They had probably changed the horses at least once – even the legendary Sahaku chargers could not go this fast without getting fatigued – and her maidservants were wasting their lives playing card games. She heard their airheaded tittering from behind, accompanied by the clicking of ivory dice and the jeers of guards.
A band of horsemen, their spears vertical and flying the black-white Zala pennant, rode into view. They wore full armor despite the heat and she saw that the horses, too, had plate barding strapped onto their heads and flanks. The Empire wasn't taking any chances with its loot.
They're probably on rotating patrol. At least six contingents, plus the archers and spearmen in the carriages. Guess they were serious about going into a warzone.
The massive stallions were blocking her view and she sat back down, huffing. Yawning hugely, she fell back asleep.
A cool green scent wafted in from the window and she started. Outside, gnarled trees, lush grasses, and looming mountain ravines. Already? Cagalli wasn't a lazy girl. How could she have slept so much?
Durandal had probably drugged her after the rain fiasco, just as an extra precaution. She knew she shouldn't have taken the tea her servants offered.
Was she really that bothersome? Cagalli supposed she should be flattered, to command the attentions of the Prime Minister for such a time. She hoped she had given him a migraine, at least. Maybe she should have thrown a fit – then again, she wouldn't have wanted to spend this entire trip unconscious. Fighting back tiredness she peered sleepily out the window, glad the guards were gone.
Then an arrow streaked from the wood and buried itself three inches from the window. She reeled.
They were galloping, the terrain a blur, and behind her she heard the wailing of handmaidens and the excited barking of guards. There was a marching of booted feet and then hoofbeats closing in from both sides. Sneaking a glance, she quickly retreated behind the ledge.
Horsemen rode outside, and they carried no flag and wore silver armor. She heard the clash of steel on steel, the neighing of steeds, hooves dancing around as spears impacted bucklers and swords cut into flesh. A Zala rider, his back to her carriage, fended off two raiders with his spear, but one ducked low and chopped the haft in half and the other came in and slashed. Blood splattered in a crescent on the opposite wall.
She set her jaw, ran to the door, and pulled furiously. The locks, bolted and triple-layered with chain, held easily against her onslaught. She growled and whirled away, hands reeking of iron, and beat on the driver's sealed-in window, raging until her voice was hoarse. There was a cruel, airy laugh from the left, and her curtains were torn away by a white stallion, its rider holding a many-knotted whip.
Then a barrage of arrows shattered against her carriage and there was the pained whinnying of horses and someone shouted "release the birds!" and then the cart tipped over to the side. She was thrown, stomach lurching, into the door.
Thanks to everyone who reviewed last time! Please spend the effort to write a couple words of feedback; they really help me write. I can't keep up this speed without inspiration.
Oh, and a preview of next chapter:
Athrun slid low on the saddle, his blade zinging through a raider's torso. Arrows whipped past his cheeks and one slammed into his shield, but he turned with the impact and thrust deep into another's chest, ripping through the man's solar plexus as his charger turned. He was about to dismount and examine the carriage when he was smashed from the side by heavy knotted whips. Righting himself he charged swordfirst at the jeering mask of Rau le Creusete.