The interrogation room was sweltering...This lord Garan must believe I was not a true kin of the dunes. I had been seated in a sturdy metal chair that I now coveted more than my own freedom, its black cushioned armrests perfectly resting my drained left arm.
My energy was now sapped after the display beforehand of my potency on the Dome's glass facade--I needed to understand the limits of my curse more before attempting to strike Svetlan, there could be no blunders when we marched the sacred snow of the north.
There was no fight in me when the guards of the summit came and took me for what they said was to be for my own protection. My mind was clear on the fact that they most likely falsely assumed my role in Saxuns death, a mistaken chronology that would have pleased me if it were factual. Too bad...
It was strange. He had never shown any signs of heart crippling earlier...I wonder if dread frankly had stricken him so deeply that he had attacked his own heart by calamity. A deliciously ironic ending for a disgustingly horrible man, my happiness could not be increased any further upon his demise.
I expended some duration exploring the fine details of the cramped area, each bolted plate that was masking another rusted frame, the interlocked metallic strands that formed the table before me...And the smiling reflection of myself that did not match what I knew was on my face.
The time being king, while short, appeared to be taking a much heavier toll at this point than my resolve allowed me to mull...Banishing the counterfeit image, my heart began to pound once again.
If I didn't know any better...This feeling was almost a constant now, the question I asked while lightly cuffed to the comfortable chair was; WHY?
It started when meeting first with Aiko after my rebirth from Du'esh...Then again when coming here just as soon as the King of Svet arrived, his death allowed for the pang of my aortas to cease once again.
As if on queue to my spinning thoughts the door knob began to jiggle raggedly before fading back into the structure of the door, the entire entrance almost vanishing into the floor within an instant. "I hear you have been asking for Lord Garan...I can't imagine that you possibly know what you are inviting into your--"
The sudden pause from the intruder in my cell allowed me to bask in the absolutely lackluster arrival of the man I had been waiting for to show his scheming little hide. He was of clear Buritian descent with scars marring his entire bald head, and a smile that mirrored my own smug approach to brinkmanship. "Lord Garan...I have waited--" He bit his teeth together upon hearing me speak.
"SHUT THE FUCK UP--" Garan slammed the metal table with enough force to send a breeze through my dreadlocks, his grey eyes wild with untamed rage. I felt my veins pop from my head at the succinct dog-like discipline he was attempting on me in this small room.
"YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP--" My hands instinctively reached out though I was cuffed tightly to the same armrests that before purified my sanity with respite. "How dare you speak to me this way, I am the king of Buriti Vasca...!" My voice went vindictive as the words left my lips, the cuffs now cutting my wrists to a small trickle of precious royal blood.
"You aren't the monarch of shit--You're lucky I'm not Lord Garan! I would put a lead bullet in your fucking head and frame you for that Svet shit bag's murder." His fist slammed my skull so violently I lost consciousness for several seconds before bobbing back into existence.
My mind was more jumbled at the surprised strike than at how he had nearly dislodged my molars with one impact. "I've waited...SO--so FUCKING long to do that to you," Another jab sent my body and the chair backward, my eye welting within seconds as pain shot through my skull.
"You Vascan APES ruined my fucking family!" As I tried to struggle more against my increasingly blood-covered cuffs my unknown assailant jumped onto the table while kicking my hyena hood directly into my sputtering face, the teeth clashing with my own with a short crunch that sent tendrils of agony through my entire brain. "Your family Consumed our fucking country!"
He spat directly onto my heaving chest. "If you pop off your leash you'll see me again, never Garan...But for the next three hours...I'm gonna make you suffer worse than--Well, I dont actually have a frame of reference for what im about to do to you," I heard the sound of a sharp blade flipping from his right hand like some sort of bionic freak of nature, cold metal zinging to life just as he hopped to crouch directly over my bleeding face.
"We will just have to make shit up as we go." A rancid chuckle barely escaped his cracked lips, rarely have I felt trepidation, but everything in my body screamed that the next hours would be more atrocious to my condition than anything the demi-human beast did to me just days ago.
The beast carried a much softer soul behind its bulging eyes unlike this man, he had nothing but black pits where a normal person was meant to have color. They were the last things I saw.
The next thing my mind allowed to pierce its veil was the sound of medical staff shouting while loud beeps sounded off near my right ear. My eyes ripped open to the sight of myself in the plush luxury of a hospital bed and no longer in the clutches of that madman. I searched for Aiko, finding her silhouette near the door of the room they granted me after letting me be assaulted.
"What is the meaning of this?!" My voice felt hollow, the normal strength drained like the blood from my veins after the promised torture wracked my body with sizzling agony. "What kind of judicial system sees kings of countries being picked apart by robotic psychopaths and beaten bloody?!"
The chief doctor among them made himself small, his stupid masked face wincing as he ran over the many injuries on my chart. "Please, Your Majesty...I am just a medical staff--The agents in charge of your case are being held up by your guard, it is nearly..." My eyes scorched into his, forcing him to think clearly about why Aiko would be guarding me now so tightly.
"Send them in with her, I tire of looking at you." I flicked my diagonally slit forearm up and nearly collided it with the quivering man that had sewn me up to an acceptable measure. It mattered little now that I was awake, the condition of being alive and ready for rule was paramount--Not the simple dressing of impairments.
The two agents entered with Aiko along with Fawi. "What are you doing here you treacherous little leech of a man?!" He seemed taken aback by how I blamed him for what happened to me, his eyes going as wide as the depth of his many wrinkles.
"No, no, this was not any Solitudo constable that did this to you! I merely had asked for all the leaders of Izmar to be quarantined in light of Saxun's sudden death!" It was a simple lie that I did not believe, how had he been so fearful of this Garan and then one of his men came to torture me instead of protecting me like the others?
I balled my fist, clicking my tongue in disproval. "If you do not leave my presence I will have you flown along with me and tried as an accessory to my attempted murder, implore whatever puny god you worship that you never see me again...My temper is much more severe when I am not wrapped like molded and discarded fruit."
"I-I--I am sorry..." Fawi responded with sputtering remarks as Aiko steered him out while the male and female agents addressed the doctor on his way out. Neither of them made eye contact with me as they simply nodded, either by design or by function of their job. The only thing that allowed me to note that they were even partners was the way they carried themselves in their sharp gray suits; Like mannered killers, waiting to assail at any moment.
"Lord Vasca...You are a very durable man, not many would be so brash in their conduct after what happened to them." The female agent thumbed through the pilfered medical documents that I assumed were my own. Her voice was flat, almost as if she was completely uninterested in the entire affair. I assume she is a part of this cabal against me.
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my mouth opened to speak but Aiko articulated first. "Brash? You are extremely fortunate that he pulled through--" Aiko stole a glance at the cast over my right arm, I too looked down at it. The pain of the experience was locked behind the drug-induced paranoia that the miniature bald man would come flay my kneecap and stamp my arm in once again.
"We are not even certain that this isn't some retribution for what he did to the king of Svetlan...How did you manage to poison him without anyone seeing?" The male agent stalked to the corner of the room, tracing his fingers to the cement lining of the corner of the farwalls.
My nostrils flared, the manner in which he spoke was as brisk as Dennis' used to be. "If I had poisoned him, why would I have not just poisoned the others? They are as much a threat to me as him now that Buriti is officially autonomous of the Svet's." The male agent paced toward the door, his swinging arms allowing the whole room to focus on his ridiculous manner of being.
The question lingered in the air, I watched the two agents swap glances at each other before both staring directly at me. "Threat?" The female agent betrayed more interest in my statement, pushing her reddish eyebrow into a small arc. I was not certain what race or culture the two hailed from, their accents seamless in the Crimson Tongue.
"I am the Crimson Monarch...Ordained by Dhira, endowed by the sands to oversee it, and what it adjoins. The other majesties fear what they cannot restrain." They both scoffed as Aiko pushed between them and me. The room became hushed for a moment as they most likely pondered at what was clearly madness. But...They all needed to believe in my rite as much as I did not take any mind to its weight.
"While I do believe that you did not poison the king," The male agent spoke up finally. "I left to assume that whoever killed him attempted to do the same to you." He seemed anxious. My knowledge of this Lord Garan appeared to not be an open secret among the agents of Solitudo...I maybe should not have sent Fawi away so quickly.
Aiko bristled, pushing her curled hair back with her gloved hand. "You two have very little time before we leave this place to bring the man to justice, I would conduct my own investigations but there is a clear lack of security that needs to be addressed here." Her harsh flicking hand motions were barely controlled, unlike her measured tone.
"We will try our best but in the meantime, no one but your Cabinet is allowed in and out of this room." The agents left without another word. My eyes cast down on Aiko as she watched them both leave without blinking. My heart felt heavy for her, she would most likely be furious with me as this was the second time being mangled by renegade factions.
Waiting for the scathing result of my blunder of pushing her away I said nothing. Aiko turned to me once she had walked back from closing the hospital door with a loud slam of its lock into place. "Tella is very useful..."
I was shocked, Aiko smiled at me instead of flensing me for being tortured like an impotent fool. "Oh?" How delightful! My appetite for her scheme was peaked. "He is definitely a charming little boy. I do not see how my freeing him would lead to such a visceral reaction." Motioning to my left arm I let out a small chuckle. Aiko reacted with a sudden grasp of my bandaged arm that sent wild blasts of pain through the many cuts and welts that it had accepted.
"That's the key, you idiot...He is not a slave at all, Garan is simply a surname." I felt a surge of unnatural energy radiate from her, a simmering lilac glow building behind her eyes for a microsecond. "Huck...I will give you one last chance to tell me the truth about your--Condition."
I didn't know what to do, I felt my hand glowing in response under the barely clothed bandages that held it. Should I lie? How was she so keen on sensing my abilities unless she truly did harbor her own strange cosmic affliction? "The words escape me when being viced by your lobster-like pincers woman!" She stopped squeezing my wrist gradually, easing the pain I felt shooting through my body but not the energy build of my cursed mark.
"I am not certain what I am...I doubt that human would be the correct terminology for it--The very heavens are at my disposal now, and I have no idea how or why...I apologize for lying to you," Aiko did not react. "I was afraid of what I had become...But clearly, I am still mortal." The statement was flourished by yanking from her possession of my hand fully.
She let out a loud outburst of laughter that made me annoyed due to my honesty. It was not a comfortable feeling to lay myself bare while injured. To be rejected so vexingly by her, the room echoed the sound louder than I could bear before she tapered off into a small giggle.
"You are such a dramatic royal brat, 'The very heavens are at my disposal'. How mighty of you to acknowledge their usefulness!" I frowned as she mocked me further.
I was thoroughly confounded. She was normally dismissive of me but this stung me to my core..."I am but a humbled fool." Aiko's features went from a mocking sarcasm to a sharp look at the closed door of the room. My gambit of feigning weakness worked, amped higher by the fact that I was laid up in the hospital bed like a skinned potato.
My heart pounded in the silence as she sat at the foot of the bed and fiddled with the cuff of her sleeve. "Tatek Moro," The Buritian phrase was lost upon me, my shoulders coming to a painful shrug as the many cuts ached my body. I sensed fear within her.
"Patience, my friend..." Without much more flourishes of her ebony gloved hands, she began to roll her right sleeve up past her elbow and to the top of her bicep. Many scars laced into gritted patterns of past wars Aiko had burdened for our fatherland.
"Im-impossible..." Just as I had expected from the beginning of this entire overly laxed display of pseudo power the assembly was wriggling to the brim with; Aiko, like the fucking king of Svetlan was somehow more than human...She shared what I thought set me apart from any other while toying with the infirmities of my chaotic psyche!
My body detonated up from the bed. The jerk of the many IVs and other pathetic attempts to heal me kept me from lurching the full distance between us as she snapped loudly. The noise froze my body, the muscles ceasing to even spasm against an invisible force. "WHAT IS THIS--"
"You have been whining about not having your agency and my secrets...I grow tired of babysitting you HuckleBerry Vasca--" Aiko snapped once more, releasing me and sending me backward into the plush hospital bedding like a swaddled child."Do you understand what it means for, not only you but all of Buriti now that you have shattered the seals?"
A scathing snarl is all my face could afford to respond with. I had zero conception of what she was speaking of...I had done nothing but nearly be mauled to death and valiantly slayed the Beast of the Caverns! If she had known all along why had she allowed me to call for the annihilation of the entire SandHound merchants?!
Nothing made sense, Aiko truly had been playing me but for how long? How long has this serpent been lying in wait...The idea that possibly she was the hidden ally of Lord Garan and Kyler. It caused my blood to SEETHE!
"Who are you...Aiko? I find it harder and harder to trust you without any real truth, EVER." The near-exhausted expression came out nowhere near as angry as I thought I felt, this betrayal truly hit me harder than any other and she dared to ask me things my mind couldn't understand.
"I am your buddy, Huck...We are the same." She gestured to my intricate marking. "We are among the few that can call ourselves worthy...Harbingers of the divine blood curses bestowed by gods and goddesses long forgotten." Aiko's eyes shone with reverence.
"My affliction comes from Du'esh herself - the goddess of water, destruction, and yearning. While I cannot divine which immortal power has marked you, the fact that we share this condition..." She paused, a look of elation spreading across her features. "It means our lifespans transcend mortality. But it also ensures we will be hunted by other demi-gods and malformed god-beings who covet our gifts."
I felt my chest tighten as the full gravity of her words landed. So Aiko and I were truly united by these curses, these...blessings from realms beyond. A wave of relief washed over me, realizing the barricade I'd long sensed between us could finally pulverize away. No more lies, no more holding back the depths of my true self.
In that moment, I discerned an overwhelming sense of joy and belonging, deeper than I'd ever experienced. Aiko understood me in a way no one else could. We could walk this path as comrades, maybe even forge a bond stronger than I dared hope.
My eyes stung with bitter tears I didn't care to let lose as I reached for her hand, holding it tightly as the heart monitors beeped around me. "You don't know what this means to me..."
"I'm sorry...For what it's worth," She offered her hand to me, taking the black glove off as she examined the scars that marred the surface of it for a moment. "I thought you would be dead long before me...I've--"
Her eyes with tinged with that same unnatural lilac glow. Soon it matched her arm as she leaned closer toward me.
Instead of the normal glow of cyan that had been a constant of the cursed sigil, my mark began to illuminate a deep crimson color. "I've just been afraid of losing you in truth. An explanation is owed but not here--Your torturer runs loose and our enemies want to prove your condition just like I did."
"....That fucking bald son of a bitch is going to pay for treating me like a tanned hyena hide!" A smile beamed across my face, we would find that man...And ignite the engines of war upon the borders of Svetlan before the next season.
I was truly happy in that moment.
End