[M] Echoes of Betrayal

[Tolvo]

1 AD, August 4th

The midnight tower's lower levels were very active. Liches, necromancers, any sort of mage on Mersus that was not already engaged in the North was here at the beck and call of the Curator. They were to be heading South, to take the fight to the Southern Kingdoms. Already Rozalia had started the invasion. He'd be joining with her in time. Outside throngs of undead had been arisen. From whatever barrows, graves, and crypts they'd been hidden in. This added to Arael's already sizable force he'd gained from his battles against the Empire and the Ryudeshi, formerly the Five Kingdoms. Even the Bone Collector was making a rare appearance, as it gathered up a new army of skeletons for Arael to take with him. They formed from mounds of bones and were pieced together by it's many limbs and tendril's. A single large skull at the head of its thousand ribbed torso. Unlike other Deathborne the Bone Collector's eyes were empty, it is still a mystery to even the Archlich herself.

In the seat of his tower on the uppermost floor was the lich known as Arael Zandramas. Near to him was a woman, a kensei. A sword saint from the formerly called Burning Islands. Her hand was on her sheathe and the lizard scales wrapped about it. She continued to rub it while looking out the window at the amassing army. Kanon was quiet as usual, but there were unsaid words between the two of them. She must have sensed this. With her back to him she only said one word. "Speak."

[Evening Rain]

Arael sat straight-backed and regal on his dark throne, both hands clasping the cold arms of the chair, fingers drumming listlessly against the metal. There were unspoken words. There always had been. Arael's mind was a place that only he understood. He did not like to share himself, his truth, with anyone. And yet, here he was considering giving away his secrets to a Burning Isles traitor who'd sworn her sword to him in death only a few months ago. Logically, this was foolish. Why, then, was he about to do it? Not even I hold all the answers.

The darkener's eyes were focused on Kanon. She stared out across the wastes. She never met his gaze. Sometimes he wondered whether his charisma ever really affected her. At first, yes... but since then she'd been pensive. Lost. As if trying to grasp a fleeting dream that shrunk coyly back into the recesses of her mind whenever she made an attempt to hold it.

"You'll have to forgive me if I speak out of turn." Arael said quietly, his voice still somehow managing to reach the kensei's ears despite its gentle tone. "I have not spoken my mind in over two centuries." He sighed, watching his breath turn to mist in the chill air.

"I've never been one to rely on others." He said matter-of-factly. "Contradictory, I know, considering it's always other people who carry out my plans... but I've never truly relied on them. Never trusted them." He smiled half-bitterly. "I'm reminded of a conversation we had, before our war with the Empire began. You told me, rather pointedly, that you saw how I buried the human part of me. You wish to know why I engage in this incessant warfare? You wish to know why we fight? Well, let me explain. A long time ago, when I was only a child, I lost my parents. I had a twin sister. Alana." He said the name with cold indifference, as if it meant nothing to him. "Her name was Alana." He repeated again, and this time a hint of pain crept into his voice.

"She died when she was young, and with her gone my life lost its savour. I became depressed. Obsessed with power and vengeance against the one who did this to her. Caelin was his name. The man who murdered my sister. I hunted him down, and broke his spirit, yet when all was said and done I was left hollow. A shell of my former self. I have not known true happiness since I was a boy, I think."

He lifted a smooth, pale hand and stroked his chin thoughtfully. "All of this despair left me with two main goals. My first, to find a way to bring back my sister at any cost. My second, to wipe the taint of humanity off of this earth, and cease the cycle of neverending conquest. Nations squabble, people die and the world remains trapped in this ever-turning wheel of hatred. Only when the warmth of life is extinguished forever can peace finally blossom. A new world of solidarity. An unliving utopia." He chuckled softly. "But unlike the archlich, I am willing to go to any lengths. To commit any atrocity. To pay any price. To scheme and lie and manipulate until the world has been cleansed of the disease that is humanity."

"So you see, Kanon, why I have been reluctant to share my inner thoughts. I am a monster. But I will willingly throw away all that was ever good about me in order to save my sister, and save this broken planet."

[Tolvo]

"Then we are both monsters." Kanon sounded apathetic. She gave off the appearance of being numb, cold. "I am a kensei. It is considered an honor, to be one of the greatest blademasters in the world. Yet what am if not a monster? Even before I was reborn, I fought in many wars. I killed so many, I've seen more blood than most. Even as just a child I was trained to be a killer, and killed other kids just as young as I in battle. I took their noses as trophies for my Daimyo. Heads too I've claimed. I was practically bred for this life. Monsters aren't born they're made after all, isn't that right?" Her head turned towards Arael while the rest of her faced the window.

"What else could we be other than monsters? A weapon of war, a warlock of death. The two of us never had any other path did we? Even now I still pray to the spirits, to the dragons of old. Still divine punishment has stayed its hands of the both of us. Are we bound for hell, or to walk this world eternally marked? I know I joined the Deathborne of my own volition, I damned myself further. But was it the right choice? Providing immortality for so many, did they ask for it? Do we know what's truly best for them? Is humanity so cursed by mortality or is it their salvation? I simply don't know anymore."

The kensei undid her mask. Her features were gaunt, her body was a corpse truly now. Where once had been eyes were sockets filled with sapphire orbs. Ashen hair fell down the sides of her face while her cheekbones jutted out. In her hands she held the mask which depicted a demon, similar to the Shogun's yet more subtle. She made it face herself while she continued to speak. "I've been just going through the motions. Trying not to think about what we were doing. Just being the tool, the weapon, I am. But now i have to ask you Curator, what are we fighting for truly?" With her left hand she let go of the mask and left it in the right. She motioned towards Arael now facing him fully. "Why don't we speak face to face while we're being open. Our true faces."

[Evening Rain]

You speak so coldly. As if nothing matters to you. But that could not be true. If that were true, she would not bother with this conversation. No, there was more to her than that... she was searching for something. A part of her was empty, but she didn't know what it was she lacked. The dispassion was simply a screen, just another mask. She concealed herself just as he did.

She spoke of the life she'd led. The battles that had shaped her.

"Monsters aren't born they're made after all, isn't that right?"

"Yes." The lich replied simply, before listening to what else she had to say. She was precisely correct. Caelin had made him what he was... but in his sombre reflection, Arael realised that that wasn't strictly true. Caelin had triggered his transformation, but... there had been much more to his descent into shadow. Obsession. Vengeance. Remorselessness. Could he be blamed for that? Certainly, without Caelin it never would have surfaced... or would it? Surely with Alana around, Kalyn would never have become the creature he was today. But some part of him wondered if deep down, a monster had always been lurking. Perhaps it had just been waiting for the right moment to show its face.

The questions. The questions that had no answers. These were what haunted him, and reminded him that no matter how ancient and deathly his body became, his mind would always be human. He raised an eyebrow slightly as Kanon removed her mask and turned to face him. "I don't blame you." He said wryly. "Thought is painful. Particularly regarding subjects such as this."

Her next question caught him slightly off-guard. He paused, and slowly rose to his feet. Does she wish to see what Kalyn looked like, when he was alive?

No. Everything was an illusion, save that which lay beneath.

"I must warn you, I am rather... bland." He murmured as he stepped down from the throne, ceding the authority that its height and status gave him. As he walked with measured footfalls toward the kensei, he let his glamour ripple and fade away, revealing nothing but a skeletal lich with burning blue eyes. To think I've let my guard down for the first time in centuries. If she wanted to... she could reveal my purpose to the Ryudeshi. To Koryza. She could lay me bare. Expose me as I am exposed in this moment.

"Perhaps we fight to keep ourselves sane." He mused, now only a few feet from the kensei. "Perhaps we fight because there's nothing else left. Because we're bare and hollow. Empty. Perhaps we fight to give us some sense of purpose in the eternal nothingness that is undeath."

[Tolvo]

"Curator you are not bland. You are skeletal." She approached him but kept a few feet's distance between them. "I've been around skeletons long enough now, I'm surprised you haven't noticed this already." Kanon traced her facial features with her finger. Dragging it around her eye sockets, over her nose, along her jaw. "Our bones are all unique. I've gotten to seeing skulls as I did in life faces. You stand out to me like any face would. Just as I can see Baigujing among many."

She paused for a moment as she looked away thinking on matters. "There must be more to us both. What have we not discovered about ourselves? i feel like I wasted my first life but I won't make the same mistake again. There must be more to us than a purpose, than mere monsters. There must be more to being Deathborne. Or else what purpose is there to our crusade if undeath is just misery?"

[Evening Rain]

"It's strange seeing myself unglamoured." The lich responded quietly, staring down at his skeletal hands. "I've spent so long concealing what I am that I've quite forgotten to pay attention to what lies beneath the curtain." The lich's eyes met hers, and for a moment he felt as if they were truly connecting. As individuals. Is this another lie? Had he lost the will to manipulate Kanon, and now was deceiving himself? Then she looked away, and he too glanced from her, looking up at the smooth black ceiling.

"I'm missing something." The lich murmured. "There's a hole in my heart, a shadowy pit that opened up like a wound when my sister died. Without purpose, do you really believe we could make something of ourselves? Do you believe that Koryza is right? That we'll all live in harmony and joy? It was enough for me to blot the warmth of life from the world. Stagnation was an acceptable substitute for chaos and bloodshed." He let out a rippling sigh. "Misery is a better alternative to agony, don't you think?"

But as he spoke, a more difficult question was beginning to form in the recesses of his mind.

I have no heart. My soul is twisted. Is a Deathborne capable of love?

[Tolvo]

"Misery and agony are two edges of the same blade to me." Again she looked at Arael. Kanon always stood like a solder. Her body positioned to be ready for a fight. But now, now she seemed looser. She folded her arms over her chest and took another step towards Arael. "Maybe. Finding out if there's more must be worth it. I doubt it is as Koryza believes. There won't be perfect harmony. But we could have better lives than mortals. Think about it, we could connect to people without a fear of loss." Kanon got close to Arael. Her soft lips seemed pensive as she uttered something. "Arael, did I just notice something, between us?"

[Evening Rain]

Kanon stepped forward, her soft tone in such contrast to the pantherlike poise of her lean body. Arael took another step to match hers, almost involuntarily. That was strange. What was this... odd sensation? It felt alive. it felt like drinking wine beside a fireplace on a winter's day. It felt... mortal. A fear crept into his heart. Not the fear of loss, defeat or destruction. Instead, a gentle anxiety that chattered of uncertain possibilities. Of dreams that might never come to pass.

"There... is no joy in this unlife," the lich said without conviction. "We do the world a service by ridding it of human strife, but... we must invariably become martyrs for this cause."

And yet, his words were empty. Something had robbed him of his convictions. Even the need to save his sister, seemed for one awful moment, to fade from importance.

"I was beginning to wonder if you'd forgotten my name." He murmured in an odd tone.

[Tolvo]

Kanon held out her arm for a moment. She gripped her arm just below the wrist and pulled, taking off her red sharkskin gloves. Her left hand held the glove while her right she held out towards Arael. "I couldn't forget your name. I just, am never sure. If it's appropriate to do so. I am a subordinate after all, and you are the Curator, the Darkener of the Midnight Tower." Kanon quirked her head a bit to the side. "Unless there's something more to this?" A pale hand, an open palm with thin gaunt fingers nearly worn to the bone with pointed tips was before him. "Does it have to be so lonely?"

[Evening Rain]

Arael imagined a cool smile crossing his face. A thought that would never reach the pristine white bone of his skull. "Yes, yes. The Spinner of Lies. Perverter of Truth, He of the Thousand Veils. All pretty titles to strike fear and uncertainty into the hearts of my enemies. Each is a mask." He thought for a moment. "That raises an interesting question. You joined my side. You served me with such... such loyalty that I began to trust you as I haven't trusted anyone in centuries. Why? Why do you serve a creature such as me? As he spoke, his eyes settled on Kanon's glove and a wrenching pain tore suddenly at his chest. He put a hand on his ribcage.

An icy bridge. Two children walking in the snow. A crimson mitton.

A phantom pain.

"B-but... you are not an enemy." He said with some difficulty, recovering from the intensity of his sudden jump in thought. Composing himself, he straightened and considered the kensei before him.

A second passed. Two. Three. Her arm outstretched and his uncertain by his side.

And then his arm rose and he clasped her hand firmly in his. They stood, facing each other, hands entwined.

"Perhaps not." He said, and his tone was sure again.