411. Of choices, gratitude and a little bit of history

Cassandra Pendragon

I imagine you've already figured out what she replied. An ugly shadow, made of fear and guilt rose behind her eyes and the black flame above her heart grew. In a scared whisper she said:

"Then there isn't that much of a choice, is there?" I shook my head sadly. 

"Not really. We could wait for my sister up there to return, if you wanted us to. She's… probably better suited to treat you, but…"

"No," Reia growled, "you'll do it. I know you. You'll suffer just as much as her if you make a mistake. Your… our relatives aren't like that."

"You'd be surprised," I mumbled, "but I agree… for different reasons. The choice is hers, though."

"Hypocrite," Constantine breathed beside me. He hadn't taken Lilith's warning to heart and was still hovering close by. "What do you even expect her to say," he continued in Latin. "She doesn't know what her choice entails. Nobody here, but you and your kin does. Are you trying to assuage your conscience in case something goes wrong?" A stuck up asshole he was, but he was also clever and pretty good at reading people. Which meant his comment stung way more than it should have, because he wasn't wrong. Not entirely at least.

"I don't hide behind the letter of the law or a contract," I snarled, "and I don't presume to know what's best for someone else. If I did, you'd be the first to realise."

"I… I don't need a stranger to stand up for me," Lamia interjected timidly, but with conviction. Of course she didn't, she already had an angel lining up for the job. She leaned to the side and whispered in Reia's ear: "I'm not asking what you'd do in my stead, but if you think I should take the chance. I… it's been so long… I just don't know..." A small smile tugged on the corners of the vixen's mouth and her eyes found mind when she replied softly:

"Yes. I think you should. More might happen to you than you've bargained for, but I'm sure you won't regret it. Remember that huge wolfhound you told me about? The one who protected you when your master made you sleep with the dogs? That's her. Everything she does looks quite intimidating but in the end she's just a fluffy fur ball who can't sit by idly. It might hurt, but I'm sure she won't hurt you, if that makes any sense." If only… I didn't plan on contradicting her, but that was my little sister speaking. To her it had always seemed like everything had turned out just fine in the end and she didn't have the foggiest how much darn luck it had actually taken to get there.

"From your lips to god's ear," I commented and fanned out my tails. Hunching down for a prolonged period of time wasn't for me and my muscles were starting to protest. "Look, Lamia, I know you've understood the dishevelled dictator over there. So… I don't know if it's going to make a difference, but I can try and explain what's going on with you. I didn't actually plan on doing so, you'll know why soon enough, but despite his underhanded way of saying it he isn't wrong. Your parents… you already know that your mom wasn't human, don't you?" She nodded, the corners of her eyes already brimming with unshed tears.

"She was…" I bit my lip and corrected myself: "she is a phoenix, a divine beasts. You probably don't have a clue what that even means, but she basically was close to the top of the food chain amongst known races. Her magic, her power is much stronger than anything a human could have handled. For you to be born your father had to… borrow the strength from somewhere. From you, in this case. What I intend to do is close the hole his actions have torn. Or rather…" my gaze darted to Reia before I finished: "she will. With my help."

"Why," My sister asked in surprise even though I heard a faint echo of joy behind her words.

"Because magic is much more convoluted and complex than most practitioners would make you believe. Spells and power are just one tiny little aspect of a much larger whole. Never underestimate the strength of deeds. You… you held her when she cried, yours was the first friendly face she's seen in years and it will be your heart, your warmth…," oh, to hell with it, "your blossoming desire that'll make her whole." Switching back to our mother tongue I added: "and if you keep on interrupting I'll become much more straightforward with my answers. Am I clear?" She gaped, a faint blush rising to her cheeks, while her eyes darted from me to Lamia. Finally she stammered in a mortified whisper:

"She can understand our language… every language." Oops. Oh well, despite what every teenager believed their feelings weren't much of a secret anyways. They were written plainly all over her… over the both of them. It'd just take a bit of time for them to realise. It really ran in the family, didn't it? Next thing you'd know Mordred was going to bring home a pretty boy. That'd make Arthur the odd one out. Which he already was. In a way. I tried my best to suppress a smile at the intrusive thought, but judging from my sister's deadly glare I didn't succeed. 

Before she could complain further I said: "just as well. Now the two of you at least know why you can barely look at each other. Oh, to be young again," I sputtered to an undignified silence when Reia used her tails to gag me, a magnificent, fiery red rising to her cheeks as she clumsily searched for Lamia's gaze. Which wasn't easy, considering the girl in question was stalwartly looking everywhere but her.

With a satisfied groan I stretched my legs and rose. "I can give you a few minutes. With Sarai, Ahri and me here her flames aren't much of a problem, but you know yourself how pressed for time we are. I… sorry kiddo, but you have to take a leap of faith here. Be honest with her." I glared at Constantine and added: "meanwhile we should talk as…" I paused and cocked an eyebrow when I felt Lilith's heat on my shoulder again.

"No fireworks," the demoness inquired disappointedly and pouted.

"Not yet. What is it with you, anyways? Considering the state you're in I'd have thought you were all fed up with excitement for a few millennia, at the very least."

"That's not the same," she huffed. "It's not my perky ass on the line here."

"No, but if it goes south you'll have to wait all the longer until you're reunited with your perky ass."

"To be honest I'm missing my breasts far more often," she replied wistfully with a genuinely longing glow in her eyes. Before I could figure out what the little devil was getting at she had already squeezed mine and was quickly floating away. Only a few, distorted words reached me through her chime like laughter: "but yours will do until then. You better be careful, Cassy. Every time Ahri isn't near you, you're fair game. And you're not yet old enough to scare me on your own." Cheeky little demon. But two could play that game.

My wings hummed in annoyance, followed by a sound like rolling thunder and a small, silvery explosion. The fraction of a second later Lilith tore right through the bark of an elm close by, shrouded in a cloud of ash and ozone. "Have fun digging yourself out," I harrumphed, my cheeks burning. It wasn't her antics but rather the very peculiar look on Constantine's face that had me embarrassed. No wonder no one, who knew me for more than a minute, took me seriously.

"If I had only known…" he mumbled.

"Known what exactly," I asked as I pulled him away. The little burlesque act had at least melted the petrified silence between Reia and Lamia and the two were again grinning. Grinning and whispering like two… use your own damn imagination. I was already miffed as it was, without acknowledging that my little, twelve and a half year old sister was well on her way to court a sixteen year old slave girl, whose sexual experiences had, as much as it pained me to even think about it, probably been more colourful than my own. Considering how kitsune aged I wasn't even sure if Reia had already hit puberty. For Pete's sake! Simply going near the topic mentally already gave me a headache. One a child who acted like an adult with much too much curiosity and chock full of hormones, mixed with an abundance of transcendent energies, while the other hadn't been allowed to say no for most of her life. Fantastic, marvellous, peachy… unfortunately my family's old, ugly chastity belts hadn't survived the fall of Boseiju.

"That all I'd have had to do was ask for help," the former emperor continued, entirely oblivious to my torment. "You'd have helped me quell the revolution without the need for religion or bloodbaths, wouldn't you?"

"Maybe. But I'd also have put your son on the throne as soon as we'd have been done. Bloody hands are too slippery to hold the reigns. I can't imagine you'd have stood by silently and in the end that clash might have been far more brutal. It's idle speculation, anyways."

"Is it," he replied pensively. "Funny you should say that. I was just about to try." Again my aeons of experience, the multitude of languages I knew, the cultures of a myriad worlds I had lived on culminated in the pinnacle of rhetoric supremacy:

"Huh?" I was genuinely flabbergasted. Technically he was still a prisoner. How could he… right. Lilith. I wouldn't have feared for my life either, if my naked warden had just been groped by a lightbulb. Right then and there I promised myself that I'd get Ahri to help me make one of those dresses made of light she had mentioned. I was done playing the naked princess for everyone. And before you ask, I had one set of clothes left. One. And I wasn't going to sacrifice it now.

"Ask for your help," he explained patiently. "I've figured out a bit on my own and I guess we're just the first arrivals, aren't we? When the rest of my people cross over I want your help to reign them in. And before you play hard to get: know that you'll help either way. Let me just tell you this: my family is the only one in our empire that doesn't keep slaves. Do you know why? Because of me. But that's not even the point." He gesticulated over his shoulder towards Lamia. "I've seen her mark. I know whom she belongs to and they're influential. Very much so. But, as I know, you don't give a shit. As soon as you're going to extract a pound of flesh in her name and become involved I'll be right there anyways, so why bother with the pretence? We could save ourselves a lot of grief if we simply cooperated from the very beginning. And… well, tell me honestly, was I a bad ruler? Not even in comparison to others. By your standards… how did I do?" I would have loved to ridicule him, to tell him that he had been a mockery of what a ruler should be, but that would have been a lie. A pretty big one.

"You were a shitty father, husband and human," I ground out through gritted teeth, "but you carried your crown well. I'm just not so sure if that's a reason to brag." He shrugged.

"Some are born to be smiths, others painters. Some carry weapons, others quills. The world needs them all to evolve."

"Most blacksmiths I know don't harden their swords in the blood of their family," I retorted sharply. "Save your breath. If you're looking for absolution pester someone else."

"I'm not. I've forgiven myself a long time ago. Have you?"

"What for," I flared up. "You don't know me. You don't know what…"

"I know that look in your eyes. My memories started returning three deaths ago. It took me two lives to accept who I was and to realise that I'm not anymore. You… you don't seem like you're there, yet. That's all." Damn it, most fortune cookies were less irritating than this reborn Roman.

"I don't need the advice of an unruly child," I snarled. He only shrugged.

"Suit yourself. I was only observing. What about it, then? Do you feel inclined to lend a hand? They say it's better to dance with the devil you know, don't they?"

"You're getting ahead of yourself, Constantine. Again. Do you really expect me to make a promise in the middle of the woods while I don't even know what's actually going to happen? I'm not that stupid anymore." He chuckled quietly.

"Fine, allow me to paint you picture. Around here it might be a secret, but we've always known that our world is a subrealm of a larger whole. One with a mana density that wouldn't be sustainable on a larger scale. I don't know what you've done, but judging from your reactions you somehow managed to destroy the balance between the realms and now, piece by little piece, they're colliding. Which means my compatriots will soon flood your little garden Eden." He buried his head and his hands, muffling his next words:

"You've seen much. Tell me, who do you think we are? What do you think my people have become over years, centuries, millennia spent in a world filled with an abundance of power? A world that allows you to climb ever higher in case you're prepared to pay the necessary price. A world where an individual can actually rise up to challenge an empire. If they have the strength."

"Blood and games," I scoffed. "Back then even the ruler of the greatest nation on Earth had to fear the masses, that's why the whole Roman Empire spent more on public games than it did on its navy. How many of your predecessors have been dragged from their palaces and crucified or decapitated on the steps of the Forum, because they couldn't assuage the wrath of the people? Hundreds? Without that fear, without anyone holding you accountable, provided you have the strength, might truly makes right. Which explains the slave mark on Lamia and… your fellowship. Tell me, Constantine, how many of your loyal flowers… followers were bought or brought into your fold under duress? Two of the four? Three?"

"None. Like I said, my memories have been returning for a while, but I'm the first to admit that I would have embraced their… our way of living with open arms if it hadn't been for my past… and the knowledge that beyond the stars someone might just be watching. I've never forgotten you, Lucifer, and for that I'm grateful. But you haven't answered my question. Who do you think we are?"

"A people that regards compassion and forgiveness as weakness, a people that keeps score not by the good deeds of a person but the unsettled grudges in their past. They are what you've tried to suppress with religion, they're a representation of the old ways. The Ten Commandments were your solution to escape a vicious circle of death, revenge and the apotheosis of those who were prepared to eradicate their own blood in their misguided quest to attain power. Unfortunately you weren't much different back then. Simply more civilised." He hummed in agreement. 

"And now this… culture is going to descend on your world. I don't mean to sound condescending, but aside from the entirely magical people of your world, like the dragons or maybe the elves, you'll be swept away in a storm of blood and iron. This world's mana is much less condensed than I am used to. My compatriots will fight tooth and nail for what they need and the simple fact that they've been exposed to much more energy already will turn them into a menace, unleashed upon this world. Sooner or later blood will flow, towns will burn and just kings will become prisoners or carcasses swinging in the wind. And that's without considering what nightmares might crawl out of the other realms. I'm sure you don't need me to put an end to the atrocities you'll encounter, but you'll need me to prevent a war that would scar your world for ever. Unless you're an immortal, you have to play by the rules of the world you live in… or you die."