Alcaeus neither fell nor flew as he stumbled into the boundless dark. He wasn’t certain he did anything at all. There was no weight, sound, sight, touch, taste, temperature, scent, or spirit - it was a purer nothingness than possessed by the Brecilian, and it seemed to him impossible. To stretch, to breathe, to blink, to balance? All lay removed from his person. Afforded to the son of Nemea was the goldenbright thundering of his heart, drumming-
Thump thump - thump thump! Thump thump - thump thump!
-alone, yet unsounding. Felt through his ethereal will, the rib-pounding rhythm declared, ‘I exist!’
Such a thought was muddled, still. Alcaeus was conscious of his circumstances, but only in the vaguest of terms. It was as if his mind had been inundated with uncomfortably thick water through which fractal observations were forced to swim.
He felt slow.
~ X ~
Was it fifteen or thirty, or perhaps a thousand beats passed? Alcaeus could not say - would not have been able to, had he been asked. He wondered if this was death, this cloying absence.
Had his…
‘Mother spoke of…’
Thump thump - thump thump! Thump thump - thump thump!
Had any time passed at all?
‘What an irritatingly unanswerable question,’ or-
~ X ~
The shift between unconquerable dark and perfect brilliance was beyond Alcaeus’ perceptions and artifice. But it occurred, and did so beautifully: from dark to day, he emerged into a cocoon of whitest light against which his every sense was grated - and the pain of it all was wonderful and welcome, and Alcaeus laughed as he’d never laughed before; madly, inexorably - he hadn’t a care in the world!
‘Freedom from impassibility, how sweet such measly fruit!’
Light of the softest sort painted his face in shades of silver, their chill a welcome pain. Beneath, clouds whirled greyly, encroaching. The wind screamed in unfamiliar tones, whipping at his scarcely covered self amidst the fall. He tasted rain as the storm enveloped his form; and the chill was soothing, and the wet wakeful, and the lightning not his own. Alcaeus’ thoughts veered towards his predicament; for though his senses were returned, he could not move. The perfect brilliance into which he’d been freed was but another prison.
‘No!’ he rebelled, goldenbright thundering further clarifying his mind.
‘No!’ he refused, and his resistance was as his mother would have wished; powerful and unyielding, and savage enough to frighten the stars into averting their gaze.
Naught changed. Alcaeus continued falling headfirst, otherwise motionless. The wind whistled against his ears, while the clouds soaked his skin. His thinking roiled alongside his will to no effect - he was impotent. Then came the arresting. Sudden and vicious, the son of Nemea’s descent was ended by an invisible hand. Cupped, he smelled blossoms and dust; the giant’s warmth was that of a father defiant.
“Away with you, beast from Heaven! I will not have my city suffer so!” The declaration boomed fearsomely from the limb’s surface, which clenched and buckled beneath the force of Alcaeus' downward trend, vibrating against the accumulated power of the storm. For the briefest of moments, it seemed success belonged to them; the world was at peace.
Alcaeus was uncertain before the unknown - none of the events following his tumble into the dark were at all reasonable or expected. But he was gladdened by the father’s triumph, even as he wondered whether they might free him from his cocoon. Then-
-the hand broke: bones shattered, blood spilled, skin split. The sky howled for a thousand leagues as the mighty son of Nemea resumed falling with such speed breakage was to him the same moment in time aslanding. Blue eyes blinked disjointedly, muscles jumping with helpless erraticism. A hand slapped Alcaeus across the face; his own.
Alcaeus breathed in and then out, fingers glassing the ground as they fisted. Settled peaceably across a wilding field of stalky flowers, he surveyed the wispy white departure of his prison; and as the last of their scintillating motes dissipated into the ether, his vision focused upon his surroundings. High above, a sun writ in palest silver hung. Tremendous in scope, before him sat a titanic pillar of carven stone.
Serpents coiled above warring men, fanged maws screaming towards clawed beasts of sickly strength. Swords gleamed in the teeming masses, and all were fiercely wrought, masked and armoured. It was an undamaged tale of contestment, save for the largest human, who stood head and shoulders higher than his fellows. The center of his torso was missing, stony heart bored through - and still, the impressive work was scarcely lessened by the clean break, as if such an injury belonged.
Alcaeus stood, sparking tongue muted by the sight. He’d seen more impressive displays of artistry - watched many such form - however, the energies emanated by the depictions of battle were strange. New. Such was worthy of extensive notice.
…it was as if many persons had distilled humanity’s most essential essence into the stone; all the love and hate, pain and appreciation Man could feel, a thousand-fold, unhindered by mortal conveyance. The dreadful raging was a vivid music of climactic highs and lows echoed in the eyes of their beholder. Alcaeus could have waxed poetically for hours, still and silently kept satisfied. But his focus was elsewhere needed.
From the breakage streamed men and women. Eight in total, as the curved pillar, they were fonts of humanity; lesser in quality, greater in variation, and potent all the same. Their dress was uniformly sleek and billowing, and of two distinct colours and patterns. Eyes honed on Alcaeus, the totality of their features trended towards unfamiliarity: sharper and thinner were they, sitting slanted or smaller on their faces. Dark of hair, they descended from thousands of heads high, gliding controlled. Though, not wilfully so - they were instead buoyed by an interaction between themselves and the world… which was absent tolling.
‘The bells are silent. Gone,’ Alcaeus recognized through his disorientation. Questions formed - dozens, pertinent and not - which he stowed for later asking. The fathomless dark’s unbalancing was dogged, noisy against his skin, and ignorance not so presently dangerous to him as dying. Priorities.
‘Breathe,’ he reminded himself, and so he did.
In-
Uncertainty and irritation he gathered, feeding them to the gentle embers of his heart, whose warmth was not entirely his own.
-and out.
Alcaeus stood taller than he felt as the eight strangers touched down mere paces away. Their eyes were bright with immense vitality, and all but one of their countenances grim. Red and orange or earthen browns were their robes, and searching their gazes. The foremost of them was dressed in the latter colour. He was a rat-faced, buck-toothed, fat-lipped reed of a man perhaps five or six years Alcaeus’ senior. Swarthiest and youngest of the collective, the man’s mouth twitched towards an uncertain grin as blue eyes settled on him.
He spoke strongly in greeting, Alcaeus listened… and not one of the former’s words were understood.
“Do you speak the Noble Tongue?” asked the Nemean, each reverberation of his voice layered with inquiring intent. The reedy man jolted in place alongside his compatriots at such sounding. Together they conversed sharply with one another in their mysterious language before the presumed leader approached; crossing the space between them with a floating step, his mien contrasted his closed off companions.
“Du Zhiyuan,” he said, pointing at his breast.
Blinking slowly at the simple but effective solution, “Alcaeus,” returned the gesture.
Du grinned and offered a hand, moving with careful deliberation. The limb hung there for thoughtful seconds, weightless. Contemplative at first, Alcaeus grinned back and reciprocated the gesture. Energy sifted across the younger’s skin, pooling from their point of contact.
“Greetings,” and though the meaning was clear, the word was not quite itself as it frittered into Alcaeus’ ears - like a mudslide, the emotive rush lost much of its weight in coming and going. The mighty son’s head twitched at the foreign means of communication, will threatening automatic rebellion.
“Hello,” he forced himself to return, grip and authority firm – and so they spoke for hours, slipping and stuttering persistently through communicative errs until twin suns had risen and fallen and risen again. Despite the cavalcade of failures, an accord of sorts was reached betwixt meals, resulting in the seeming departure of the unintroduced seven. Patiently, Alcaeus shared and learned:
This place - the Lingyi Empire, a polity of the First Firmament - spoke Sino, the unifying language of a thousand neighboring kingdoms. Rice (unknown prior to his arrival) paired well with poultry. Naming conventions were done in reverse. His arrival had broken the previously unconquerable defenses of Lingyang, and most probably injured the city’s current lord and master. The sun writ silver was called the moon; a satellite home to a people celestial. Knighthood and squireship were unknown to their lands. Days were hours shorter than those he knew, and no godking reigned from on high.
Rhium, Alcaeus reasoned, was impossibly far away; his stomach dropped in time with the thought’s occurrence, ears primed for further shock. The ceaseless flow of information came to an end upon the arrival of a new face.
“How intriguing,” spoke an unforgettable voice, the Noble Tongue tentatively done but no less comprehensible for the apparent dearth of familiarity with the practice.
“Master,” bowed Zhiyuan in the same moment Alcaeus sighted his addressor; a blank-faced frailty whose milky eyes scarcely disguised the penetrating power of his stare; the dullness of their gold was singular. He was bald and dressed in a simple raiment of white. Bootless and wrinkled, limbs deathly thin, his presence was muted and his face slack; and not one of his muscles twitched as he spoke.
“Du Zhiyuan, if you would,” and the tacit command vibrating the air was followed without hesitation. Once the rat-faced man was gone, bounding back to the city, Alcaeus inclined his head.
“You have my apologies; my descent was unkind,” he acknowledged, syllables strained by tired considerations. Indeed, for the elder’s hands were fraught with unaddressed perforations.
“The sentiment is appreciated, Alcaeus.”
“But you are owed.”
“I am,” and Alcaeus’ sighed reply was slow for multifarious reasons. He was not bodily worn, but the fullness of his circumstances weighed prominently, rippling through his bones: Rhium and all he knew were forever away, and his means of returning were currently unknown. Perhaps the Master of the West could artifice his desire… Perhaps. However, instinct and reason informed the son of Nemea his wanting lay out of reach (as previously thought). In truth, there were a thousand other considerations to be had, but the most basic were wearying enough for the mind and spirit, and could be later done. There were otherings to occupy his time.
“What would you have in recompense, Lord of the West? My prospects are sorely lacking, and your injury more terrible than it seems.”
“Li Wei is my name, and your implications well made. I see in your presence great strength and strangeness, Alcaeus; enough to offset my enemies until such a time I am recovered. I would have you remain here on this field for the needed days; a domicile would be built and nourishment given, and I would afterwards grant you the boon of my influence. Doubtless, you seek a return to your home. I would facilitate as much, so long as you remain outside my city’s walls and assist its defenders should the worst come to pass.”
Alcaeus hummed, for the unvarnished truth of Li Wei’s plainly related words were comforting to him.
‘The Noble Tongue disallows lying,’ he knew, though recognizing their exchange could be more unequal than perceived through subterfuge and obfuscation. Certainly, ignorance was the source of present imbalances between them. Regardless, needs must.
“Your desires are fairly presented and your charity welcome, but I would have answers beforehand,” Alcaeus affirmed, crossing his arms in thought. Why his entering the city was disallowed could be left alone. So too could a multitude of similarly unobtrusive considerations, such as the righteousness of his debtor or the undisguised puppetry being performed by Li Wei. The opponents and issues that he might upon, however…
“My adversaries are many,” revealed Li Wei, in reply to Alcaeus’ venturing. Still, but for his bodily breathing, he continued with a lowly done tone.
“Foremost of them is Xie Tai of the further west; a slippery soul whose tongue spits little besides poison. He will come in one capacity or another; my infirmity is too tempting a target for him to resist.” Alcaeus cocked a brow, beckoning wry amusement. “I will have information of our mightiest foes be made available in the hours to come, but that is then; for now, know that I estimate him to be your equal.” Li Wei continued on without pause:
“Riki the Wanderer was sighted nearby but five moons passed. He is followed by an army of scavengers and will sweep in from the east like a plague. Long has he waited for a moment such as this, though he is no fool; he will prepare, watch, and strike without mercy. Dai Jing will arrive first or last; a creeping cold or thunderbolt from the north. Her army of beasts will prove formidable, even with the bulwark of Lingyang’s defenders…”
On he went: “Xiang Qi… Liu Fang… Song Jin…”
The list built upon itself without end; one after another, the enemies of Lingyang were laid bare before Alcaeus, who found remembering them all difficult indeed; and not only for their foreign make. Li Wei’s descriptions beggared distracting belief in some cases. Alcaeus had never before considered boiling the essence of another human and then distilling the culmination of their being into a pill, but there were such maddened individuals not even a hundred leagues away who longed to do as much to the whole of Lingyang.
Among the indicators of a richly lived life, diverse and plentiful enemies counted highly. But there was such a thing as having too many.
‘...Or is there?’ Alcaeus wondered. If one never suffered for their opposition, were thirty-thousand sources of hostility any different from three? ‘Something to ponder,’ for his only enemy was She-Who-Reigns, and theirs was a one-sided affair with few contemporaries.
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Li Wei shuddered as dawn graced his person, skin flaking into the breeze. Alcaeus watched, unsurprised.
“This body expires?” he mused needlessly.
“You knew of my puppetry,” Li Wei returned with an affected snort, flesh desiccating with every word; the face he wore was moribund. “Impressive.”
“I’ve seen such manipulations before,” Alcaeus shrugged, withholding true judgement. “Though, your choice of housing leaves much to be desired.”
“Does it?” Li Wei’s voice echoed mirthfully. “I did not use this man’s body for the sake of fighting, nor did I for lying; he dies having chosen to secure his home. Is such a fate lesser than those lurking in the banks of your memory?”
Shifting in place, Alcaeus thought of Marcus Altus, his comatose cousin; he considered the old soldier’s utterly spent spirit. Thus, he sighed.
“...You say he did this of his volition?”
“Always. The White-Wearers live out the last of their days in peace, until such a time I have need of them. Only the dying may wear my dress,” and his legs crumbled, earth to earth in Alcaeus’ ears.
Li Wei fell, otherwise unmoved by the loss. Impacting the ground, his arms shattered. A breath splintered his ribs. Another collapsed his chest. Blue met brown.
“Du Zhiyuan will see to your communicative needs.”
The nameless elder died less than dust.
~ X ~
Alcaeus required fifteen languorous days before he was fluent in Sino, for all languages were of the Noble Tongue. Therein, he held close the banked embers of Catherine’s influence, whose warmth was an affirming balm, even as its existence burned. So too did he bear witness to the construction of a single-storied home of wood and brick, and strike up a small friendship with Zhiyuan. The rat-faced man was alone in engaging with him, spending especially informative hours between fetched necessities, such as provisions, weapons, maps and painted representations.
Those days were kind. Fraught with both boredom and the mental toil of one faced with impotent lacking, but kind.
Then came the army of brown robes and their buildings. Further afield than Alcaeus’ thousand paces from Lingyang, they worked in concert to erect vast fortifications; encircling walls and towers perhaps half as high as his wrought ruin swept up with their stomping. There were eight layers, with all but one meant to be abandoned at a moment’s notice. Their mystic might was plain to see in the yellow shimmering of their earthen breadths. The nearest was half a league from Alcaeus’ abode, and down their eastern centre lay a road. Meant for ten men astride. It was then, amidst their work, the son of Nemea discovered none but Zhiyuan were willing to speak with him.
Incapable of aiding the creative efforts, he offered to trial their defenses; for surely such entrapments needed as much, but none would respond; and indeed, most did their best to leave him be without nearing in speech or body, shoulders taut with reluctance. Alcaeus was not insane, though some of his agemates would have argued otherwise, so he kept well away after the third instance. Working through forms kept well his shape, brightening his mood in the face of their obstinate, shivering refusals
In and out – he hummed. Thirty days had passed since Lingyang’s defenses were breached; a moon’s turn. Thirty days since the Calling’s end… or so he presumed. Lifetimes could have blinked by in the fathomless dark. Time might have rewound. Alcaeus had no way of knowing.
He was ignorant. Alone. For the first time in his short life, there was neither kin nor kith to rely upon for buoyance. His father’s reclusive mania, his mother’s overbearing omnipresence, his sister’s new distance - they were out of his reach, further than before. And Arkas’ acerbic brightness, Tomard’s stubborn strength, Ryder’s quiet wisdom, Catherine’s honest warmth, Dea’s gregarious curiosity - they were newly gone.
But one might still remain, and so Alcaeus swallowed learned trepidation and listened. In reply, winds caressed him, almost eager to entertain his passivity. With them came an avalanche of voices and doings; the sum total of whole peoples crashed through his mind. Shutting them out, the son of Nemea breathed.
As he thought, she had no hold on the skies of the First Firmament. Such knowledge prickled against Alcaeus’ skin with knives named Comfort, for he could not decide if this morsel of freedom was worth the lack of awareness and direction. Whether the dearth of bellings meant She-Who-Reigns was in similar straits as his mother…
‘Impractical thoughts aside,’ he huffed, turning his mind to the coming weeks. Scouts dressed in dull scale had shown themselves in the west, creeping about the forestry and mountains therein. They fled from their detectors and carried with them the stench of desert poison. Conflict was nigh, and with the foremost of Li Wei’s enemies. Though how large or chaotic the clashing would be, none could say for certain.
Lying flat against the slope of his domicile, Alcaeus looked upon the night sky and breathed deeply. Boots left below, dressed in a green tunic and pants, he was pleasantly cooled by the air. Wiggling his toes, he wondered at the silvery moon as he mused on the fights ahead: the refinement of self was ubiquitously practiced by the First Firmament’s denizens. Consciously or not, creatures and thinking Man alike followed its pathways, growing greater with the passage of Steps and Stages and Realms. Not everyone succeeded, and most were stonewalled by the first blockades, but all tried.
Body Refinement gave boys and girls half Alcaeus’ age the physicality of men grown. Qi Condensation imbued them with the appetites and supple durabilities of burdened beasts. Body Purification furthered those qualities. And the Realms beyond gifted unto them yet stranger thusness.
Alcaeus could not follow their paths - would not have, had he the ability. But he had learned all Zhiyuan - who was of the first step of the seventh stage of the Mortal Realm, Core Destroying - was willing to impart on the subject. Every morning since Li Wei’s departure, they had fought, and Alcaeus was without defeat; the central differences in their expressions of self were simply too stark to be overcome by Zhiyuan as he was now.
Evidently, the act of supremacy disagreed most highly with qi - a heretofore unencountered energy on his part.
“Discord and harmony,” mused the son of Nemea. In the likely event those of the Earth Realm presented themselves for combative purposes, such interplay would be the key to his success, or so Zhiyuan claimed; and even he was not certain, given the wide-ranging existences which made up his betters. Alcaeus huffed mirthfully, for he agreed; martial skill would aid him little against their like. Able he might have been in the trading of fists and blades, there was a depth of experience he lacked when battling those who had fought or scraped for centuries and millennia. He need only look to the foot of the outlying fortifications to know as much.
In pure skill, he was outmatched by the least of his fellow defenders; a dearth to ameliorate if his current circumstances persisted into the realm of expectations.
Such thoughts were set aside as Zhiyuan arrived, ringed finger twitching: and from the astounding simplicity blinked bowls laden with food, each of them neatly topping a fibrous sheet. The century-old student of Li Wei flinched minutely as Alcaeus joined him on the ground; the ninetieth such instance, the Nemean counted as he touched down.
Allowing mounting curiosity free reign over politeness and discretion, Alcaeus asked, “Do you resent your current position, Zhiyuan?” Kindly, the addressed laughed and shook his head in reply.
“A poor question, Alcaeus,” and the foreign name rolled from his lips gracefully. “But a welcome one. I was wondering when you would entertain your tongue. Try again,” he offered, seating himself.
Stifling his immediate reaction, the son of Nemea mused, then paused. After a beat, he did as bid.
“...Why do you flinch?”
Zhiyuan grinned, the expression deforming his features.
“Well asked,” he complimented. “And well received. I’ve shared your acts of supremacy disrupt qi. But I have not explained how such a thing is perceived. Tell me, Alcaeus, have you witnessed tragedy?”
Alcaeus paused, fruit held laxly.
In through the nose-
And the phantom of Fairbright was set to resting.
-out past the lips.
“You have,” Zhiyuan observed of the youth’s silence as seconds stretched uncomfortably. His mouth pressed into a neutral line. “Painful though it sounds, your presence sings wrongly; the sight of you evokes pain and rage. Your air warns of destruction.”
Alcaeus scoffed, accepting and bemused, fruit having been traded for buns. “My thanks for the acclamation.”
“‘But why did the master not react more harshly; why do I not flee as my juniors have?’” Zhiyuan balanced a skewer of meat atop his finger, reminding Alcaeus of Dea. Shrugging, the older man said, “I suppose it is because I see you as you are; a boy, lost and alone amidst strangeness.” His lips, fat and greasy, curved in a teasing smile at the foreigner’s frowning.
“Do you resent my description?” he asked.
In lieu of lying, Alcaeus rolled his eyes and put forth a question long simmered.
“Can we expect help from those in the Earth Realm? You told me of your emperor and his allies, but made no mention of their coming.”
Zhiyuan’s smile dissipated, his shoulders slouching for the first time in their acquaintance.
“I wish I could say, but none may command their kind, and fewer may predict their doings. It may be none of the Master’s enemies come in person.” He shrugged himself back into his previously perfect posture. “Such are the vagaries of those who fashion themselves after the harmonies of Heaven.”
“Although,” and Zhiyuan’s continuance sounded politely amused, “I would hesitate to claim my knowledge superior to my Master’s. But that is enough of such talk. We were speaking of the similitudes between our homes. I believe we were questioning how and why the measurements for time were so similar?”
“Among other inexplicable alignments, yes.”
Before the bowls were emptied and the song of slumber strong, they talked of cycles, biologies, flora and fauna.
Alcaeus returned to his rooftop and dreamt of Rhium.
~ X ~
Hours later, clear skies writ small snapped open, preempting the passage of great danger. To the east they riveted, narrowing as gold swam through their expanse.
Well south of Alcaeus and Lingyang’s smallest fortifications, a rhythmic rioting screamed westwards, sprawling earth into the air with its going.
‘Bahahaha! Just try and stop me now, dogs of Li! This grandfather will eat your mothers’ hearts!’
Voiceless though the words were, they struck with implacable clarity, reverberating against the mind and spirit with violent intent. It was a potentially deadly interaction; and Alcaeus grimaced, for he recognized the crass crackling from Zhiyuan’s lessons: Riki the Wanderer.
For him to so boldly venture without his followers spoke ill to the son of Nemea. Allyship seemed likely as he recalled:
“Riki suffers from the worst fate a cultivator in the Earth Realm can: he is Ravenous. Unlike Revenants, whose deaths are their chrysalis, Ravenous are borne from degradation of the mind and soul, and are exclusively in the Earth Realm. Their sense of self falls apart over centuries and millennia, piece by piece, utterly beyond recovery.”
“I take it their body is immortal, then?”
“Just so,” Zhiyuan confirmed. “They become more disaster than Man, hungering for whatever they lack to no avail. Kingdoms have been scoured by their emptiness, men, women, and children, all consumed.”
Alcaeus imagined the madness borne when one’s desire to live fully or else die lay beyond reach. The sheer helplessness being imprisoned within his own body would inspire…
He liked it not.
And his thinking was unchanged.
Pitiable nature aside, Riki could not be allowed to make contact with Xie Tai. Not when Zhiyuan had named their mightiest allies unreliable. Moreover, opportunity was never to be wasted - and the Wanderer’s presence was thus.
With such thinking his fuel, Alcaeus gathered his spear and leapt, heart aflutter, form a thunderbolt: across the plains and over the wall he soared to land naked feet before the rambling Riki, whose presence sang to him of unclean chaos.
Bearded and bent at the waist, once rich garb little more than rags, hands scraping the earth, he scuttled backwards as Alcaeus flashed into existence. The ancient wanderer - purported as being tens of millennia in age - was wrinkled and scented like fouled fruit, eyes rheumy. Air that of an invalid, he was utterly lacking in the gravitas of the venerable or the gravity of the strong. Worse, the elder’s focus was shattered. Looking to and past, above and through, he occasionally matched the Nemean’s placid gaze with eminent excitement, teetering his weight between sickly thin legs as his head twitched and tottered. From his mouth spluttered wheezy burbles of amusement.
Riki appeared as the furthest thing from a threat. But his wake was unseemly, meaningless devastation. Dozens of hills lay split at their bases, lopped like infantile trees; they revealed the Wanderer’s path for any who cared to follow such.
“Ah, the beast,” he singsonged slowly, body stilling eerily as he came to rest a dozen steps away. “I was wondering if you’d challenge my jaunting. Here to ravage and savage my innards? I’ll have you know they’re more sour than sweet! Why, I once fed upon the least important organs of-”
Nine lonely hairs drifted in the breeze as Alcaeus struck: body, mind, and spirit, the tip of his spear zipped betwixt here and there as lightning.
Riki laughed, derision thick. Fingers splayed, he clapped his palms around the encroaching spearhead with prescient movements, skin fizzling and sparking as it muted Alcaeus’ music. Wrenching his arms and shoulders, his intent was clear; the assault was to be thrown off course. The son of Nemea could feel the elder’s spirit surge alongside the motion, further enforcing the deftly performed action - as if he was right. As if his doing was above reproach. Goodly, even.’
‘No. Righteous,’ Alcaeus corrected.
Grimly, the Nemean pushed onwards in defiance of the Wanderer’s establishment, replicating the same inexorable force Aetos Aurum had against his manifold strike of weeks ago.
‘This spear is true,’ he hummed, the whole of his body articulating the message.
Bearing witness to his existence, the air quivered and the ground fled, groaning uncomfortably; wounded were those responses. Riki’s correctness fell to pieces before such, erased. His being warped away from balance. Thus, the first and final beat of the conflict was decided.
“Guh!” The elder hacked as his hip was perforated, steely flesh and impossibly dense bones parting eagerly before Alcaeus’ blow, hands blown wide of their original position as if they’d tried and failed to contain a hurricane. Through the point of contact, golden sparks surged just beneath his skin. Unbowed but pained, his mouth twitched towards a rictus grin as he was hoisted up and away from the earth.
‘How amusing, this injury you’ve inflicted,’ he transmitted, qi wafting against the Nemean. ‘No one of importance has died for my meandering. Yet, you act as if I beat your family senseless. Tell me, beast from Heaven, what did Li Wei offer one such as you for this dogged loyalty?’
Spinning his spear, Alcaeus began singing the strength of a storm through the weapon. Unconsciousness was the goal, he reminded himself. Then he could bind Riki and leave him to the warriors of Lingyang. Thusly did his will surge.
‘Truly,’ Riki continued with a hiss, unabashedly amused despite the wet and windsome shocks he was suffering. ‘To attack without banter? To bleed another thinking soul without first trying for peace? Who raised you, beast from Heaven? Such savagery!’
“Parents,” Alcaeus answered, stilling his efforts in the face of Riki’s resistance.
“Hoh, so the beastie speaks?” Riki grinned down from where he hung, making no move to retaliate.
“And thinks. You threatened untold thousands. Potentially millions. Why would I listen to your ramblings?”
“Common courtesy?” Riki sniffed. “Civilized discourse? Obtaining an ally? Making friends? I can go on,” he spat, saliva moistening the earth and giving birth to an orange flower.
Steadily, he met Alcaeus’ gaze. “Do you think this strength of yours makes you good; that this position you’ve taken renders you true?”
“Never,” the Nemean shook his head. “But it brings me one step closer to returning home.”
“Ah, yes. Home - Heaven or some other such place beyond this firmament. I long for mine, but Li Wei stole it from me, the scoundrel. Stole my city out of greed! Nine points I toiled over; a masterpiece of architecture meant to enable my students an opportunity at Heaven. But no! Li Wei damned us all! Tell me, beast from Heaven - boy who dominates by virtue of thought and feeling, whose gaze sings of destruction - where is the justice in that?! I see in you defiance of powers and tyranny! How can you abide Li Wei’s lording!”
Alcaeus sighed his truth: “With ease borne of long practice and the knowledge there live innocent people reliant upon him.”
Riki spat, birthing another flower, and bared his teeth, gums bleeding. Distantly, he asked, “What gives you the right to supersede my vengeance, then?” Blue eyes blinked thrice in reply. Silence reigned for three beats.
“Nothing,” and the word echoed lamely.
“Nothing? ‘Nothing’?” Riki groaned, the sound transforming into a wretched howl of amusement that shook the ground and crumbled the hills which surrounded them. “‘Nothing,’ you say - hah! How base and supreme! How trivializing, to reduce this struggle to mere desire!” His laughter rang long and hard, held aloft by a bloodied spear.
For his part, Alcaeus mused on his next course of action. There was no need to justify himself. Neither was there a desire to counter Riki’s arguments. Though the ancient wanderer certainly seemed convinced of his own sayings, one source did not make the truth. Especially when the speaker was no longer sound of mind. Moreover, the past was not the present. People changed, for better and worse.
Let Heaven and Li Wei’s conscience judge the potential sins of afore. Alcaeus was interested in the man’s present - and all signs, no matter how few they were, pointed towards the man functioning as a protector alone. More besides, needs must. Practically speaking, Alcaeus could no more afford battling Zhiyaun’s master than he could losing his will to live.
Perhaps the coming weeks and months would change his opinion, but such was for then. Not now.