Seclusion Chapter 6
By Aujang Abadi
It was raining again. Thick, incessant rivulets of water refused to relent their attack upon Kain's body, trudging through the mud paths leading to Baron. The drops were ice cold, propelled by a wind of seeming otherworldly intent, so powerful were the buffets. Yet each booted foot rose and fell in front of its counterpart, regardless.
It had been an endless stream of scattered memories, these past few days. It reminded Kain of a kaleidoscope, of shimmering colors never quite grasped, but consciously existing. All he could really remember was the blood. His journey back, from Mount Ordeals, had been without his armor, or any sort of panacea for the demons along the way. Sleep was a rare commodity, one could not sleep with one eye open. So he kept walking. To the coastline, and to Mysidia, begging passage on a ship. He didn't remember what happened then... only salt, and then, the blurry form of the road he now trekked across. But it, it was up ahead. In the distance, he could see the elusive torchlight of Baron castle.
He coughed suddenly, violently, his body refusing to let its exhaustion go unknown. Blood flecked his lips again, but this time, it was the result of no dream... he was bleeding in a thousand places, it seemed, and even more so, for the Imps that crawled from the trees could have no other intent than to increase the number.
Kain nearly wept with frustration, there had been so many monsters, all wanting his blood... it seemed Interstellans didn't recognize their own, or at least not while their own carried the White Lance. He aimlessly searched for it, finding it strangely at his side. It glew magnificently with his touch, searing his eyes. But it rekindled a small part of Kain, the lance still seemed to find virtue in his battered soul. For now, that would have to be enough.
The Imps stepped back at the sign of the lance, snarling their protest to the weapon of light. Kain twirled it slowly, expertly, horrifyingly. The sky roared overhead, pelting him with rain that he no longer felt. When lightning exploded across the darkened heavens, he struck.
Quickly, so quickly, he was among them, this dark figure wielding a harbringer of death. Left, right, the lance flew, ripping past parries needlessly upheld, nothing could stop a blood-raged Dragoon. His body moved effortlessly, dancing with the dozens of Imps, as they moved so slowly that it felt like hours before their blows would land. And he would ever dance away, twisting, turning, thrusting his lance, as imp after imp exploded into a red haze. His blood roared in his ears, drowning out his senses, for he need not smell, hear, or taste, or even see, when he could so explicitly feel. Everything had become so palpable, malleable, in his deadly dance, not even the air was constant, it could be shifted, moved, to rush into an imp's lungs with the thrust of the lance, and rush out with rivers of blood. And the blood, it soaked him, washed off by the rain but never quite rinsed, never quite removed. By the end of it, he couldn't hear himself screaming, and laughing in sheer delight, as blood coarsed in his veins and over his arms. All he knew was the dance, the kill, the end.
As the last imp fell to the ground, breath came in torn gasps, his depleted lungs craving what his mind had utterly disregarded. He fell to his knees, placing a hand on the ground to steady himself, and proceeded to heave whatever was left in his stomach upon the newly made sepulchur. Coughing once more, the revitalizing blood rage having left him utterly depleted, he rose shakily, and began trudging further down the path.
He didn't know what he expected to find at Baron. Well, that was a lie, he knew what he expected to find... but he didn't know what he wanted to find. He needed the Big Whale... he needed the moon. He finally understood why the crystal catacombs had been so beautiful to him, why the throb of the Moon's core lifted his soul. Part of him was destined to be there, and that part of him was not aiming to disappoint.
But that wasn't all. He wanted to see Rosa, even if she was Rosa, Queen of Baron, and Cecil's wife. He wanted to touch her hair, and smell her fragrance, and try and forgive himself for what he'd done, as she already had. Most of all, he wanted to cry with her. To let her know how very sorry he was. To let her know that he regretted nothing more than forcing himself upon her, into her.
Someone called his name, it was a distant echo in a canyon of thoughts. He forced his eyes upwards, and was shocked to find the walls of Baron looming in front of him, casting their stone shadow on the ground. His name echoed again.
"Dragoon Kain! Do not move! Stay right where you are, and lift your hands where we can see them!" He stumbled over to the wall, suddenly confused and very, very weak. He retched again, a colorless bile that only seared his throat. It wasn't supposed to be like this. He wasn't supposed to be greeted like this.
"Kain. You've returned." Cecil's voice was flat, horror-inducing. Kain turned; the world was so blurry now, so unfocused. "You are under arrest, Master Dragoon Kain, for the kidnapping of Queen Rosa." Kain chuckled, bitterly, as the ground broke away beneath him and the world spun, into a giant, black blur.
.