Disclaimer: I'm just a fucking nerd trying to calm my nerves during this decade. So, y'know, don't sue me. I don't have any money.
A Glorious Gift
Note: Please take into consideration that the following work does delve into religious zealotry and mindless advocation. Should you find yourself commenting, please keep it appropriate and non-antagonistic.
By design is the light of the outside world ushered away from this place, a space so far beneath the rest of Stonhyrr that the populace knows not of its existence. They know only what little has been spoken, that the God of the ancient world has at last come to grant respite to the weary, cleanse Valisthea and the remaining swathes of land of the plague that has come to claim it.
That the believers of his nation recognize the severity and permanence of this cleansing matters not. When God's word is at last whispered and His will done, their world as a whole will be but a footnote left in the wake of a miraculous end.
The walls of this city and the borders of her nation are gifts far greater than any he could have dreamed as a child born into squalor. Blessing enough was having but a mite of meat for a meal, a night of sleep in which there had been naught to fear beyond the limits of their camp. To be held fast from dusk to dawn in the steadfast arms of she whose love and devotion would shape him... Nothing, even the glories of a nation and crown could ever measure up.
Nothing, until God had at last shown Himself.
While the altar to his ancestors' God is but a paltry offering in comparison to all he has been given, still must it be maintained, his fealty to Ultima a choice made amidst the darkest moment of his life. It had only been then, entwined in grief and resolution that Odin had seen fit to awaken from beyond the aether, grant his power to a boy who would shape the last arc of human history with his own hands.
"Has yer god seen fit to grace us with 'is presence yet, or are you still shuttin' yerself away, playin' at pretend?"
Tobacco intrudes with as much tact as its bearer, the merciless scent threatening to overwhelm that of both sage and sanctity. His entrance is so untoward, so very much like him, his uncertainty and disrespect having blazed brighter and brighter until no longer could Barnabas turn a blind eye to it.
There were only ever a pair of outcomes that might stem from this moment, and the king has never been so naive as to expect that his right hand might seek to understand.
"He has always been here." Eyes skirt the winged figure cast in the mural set just beyond the altar. In spite of the other man's doubt, his God – their God – had never once left this place, only waited for a time in which but one among the masses might at last pay heed unto Him. "Can you not see it? Will you not hear Him?"
The click of a tongue echoes across the room, as clear an answer as any he could have given.
"Tell me ya don't believe that, Barn. It's... It's nothin' but madness!"
It matters not how the words cut and wound, he will not show it. Emotion is the source from which all evil rises, the shadow ever at the edge of mortal consciousness. Why now, after years of dedication and practice, would he succumb to human nature for this man? Why should he?
The king stands and turns, expression statuesque, too aware of the electric fury in the other's gaze as he approaches. This power it has over him — this need to act in accordance with the overwhelming emotions that make him human — will undoubtedly lead to Cid's untimely end. There is no question.
Let this man — his comrade, his lover, his brother in arms — call this what he will, for the words he speaks bear no weight against the depths of a devotion determined from the moment of the king's birth.
The rites of ancestors, those who sought after God and failed to find Him, will be upheld even should the realm itself crumble to naught. Those of ages past had known then what he does now: that their God is indeed among them in one form or another, watching and waiting for the moment in which He might again make Himself known.
That time, it would seem, is here and now in this final age of man, His podium fashioned within the walls of a kingdom built from the ambition of His loyal thrall.
The pleading of one ignorant to the miracle of so divine an encounter will in no way sway him.
"You would have these people, their progeny, continue to suffer."
Madness, he calls it. The accusation is as bitter as when last it came. When it had been his mother standing tall with her faith bared like teeth at the threat of death, honoring the many lives lost in delivering the Circle's teachings into the hands of the new generation.
Barnabas cannot forget the sight of her, defying they who would see his people driven to extinction, nor will he ever deign to try. His mother, their culture and ancestry, had shaped him from the ground up, instilled in him the most precise meaning of devotion and loyalty, even at the cost of one's life.
Never forget all that I have taught you, my son. Promise me...
I...
"Tell me, Cid... How many more must lay down their lives in vain before they are to witness paradise?"
There. It is in the face of Barnabas' perceived nonchalance that Ramuh's anger is fueled, the crackle of lightning licking at the space between fingers. Had Cid his way, the whole of the Circle — an entire culture and its history — would be wiped from Valisthea and the world without.
It is not that he cannot understand the peace that is to arise with the purging of this world, but that he does not wish to. Cid, like so many others, would seek to remain blissfully ignorant of the deaths and sacrifices that had made his very existence possible. All so that the injustices of the world might carry on.
"This so-called paradise of yours... would come at the cost of numerous lives! Not just your own!"
"Would that it might all end here."
Alas, there are but three of the Eikons in attendance here at the foot of God's altar, the vessel itself still too young and ill-prepared for the fate that soon awaits. And while Mythos is permitted to grow and flourish, so too must others of their ilk be chosen.
His gaze is once more cast heavensward to the silhouette of He who will grant mankind salvation.
One day soon, all will be as it should. The promise of a peace at the end of mankind's days is at last within reach, and waiting beyond lies a place, a paradise, in which the living might again be reunited with their dead.
What more could one ask for?
"To unite the Eikons 'neath the banner of a single nation. How glorious a gift to offer unto God."
Though quiet and steady, a length of steel makes itself known as it slides against its scabbard, the hilt undoubtedly clenched within a trembling fist. So, he would sooner resort to treason than pay any heed to the words of God.
How very regrettable.
"It is no gift, Barnabas, but a slaughter! You would lay waste to the whole of Valisthea — to every settlement across the map — at the behest of a false god?!"
Naught more than the ghost of a breath leaves his lips, cold eyes downcast as if in prayer. The faintest echo of the commander's boots can be heard, the steel in hand prepared for a bloody end. The king stills within the enclosed space of the shrine, waits to feel the warmth of the other man against his back.
"You are a fool like all the rest."
I will not fail you again... Mother.