Oct 29, 2006 16:43
Time for lunch
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havoc,
carnage,
scholar ling,
qui-gon jinn,
axel,
edward elric,
obi-wan kenobi,
karasu,
lust,
dias,
adelheid,
fayt,
sora,
eric draven,
azel,
naminé,
luffy,
river,
ginji,
ichigo,
luxord,
zexion,
hughes,
greed,
caim,
han solo,
revan,
elena (ffvii),
vincent,
roy,
haru,
kaylee,
daniella,
cid,
cliff,
dante sparda,
schuldig,
darman,
lexaeus,
vexen,
kadaj,
kyo,
inara,
eddie brock,
zack,
seimei,
nowe,
dante,
kurama
Then his eyes caught yet another entering person, and there they stayed. There was nothing abnormal about this person, except for the outfit - but that was what made Caim watch him. He was normal. Spiky brown hair, couldn't have been an adult for very long, if at all ...
And the slight turn as the boy moved to find a table revealed eyes so ridiculously blue that Caim knew he had to have found the person who wrote that note. Those eyes were trusting, almost too much so. Eyes that proved their owner could be easily decieved.
It had to be him.
Caim stood up and, abandoning his food, followed the blue-eyed boy to the lone table. He didn't sit down, merely stood about a foot away and glared down at the boy, left eye hidden under his hair and the right smoldering with unreleased rage.
Talk.
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Feeling stupid in the outfit but knowing that whatever clothes he had on wouldn't make a damn bit of difference in this, he struggled to decide where to start. Caim thought he was with the Empire... He supposed that would be a good place to start.
"Look... If it's honesty you want, then here it is: In the time I'm from, there's no Empire or Union. There is only the Knights of the Seal, the people that support them, and those that are imprisoned by them and used to uphold the Final Seal that keeps the world together. I used to work for the Knights, upholding the Seal and supporting their decision to use those people as sacrifices. I met a woman named Manah who was fighting to free those people and destroy the Seals, as well as a man named Urick, who also used to be with the Knights, but abandoned them as I did." He paused, watching Caim for any indication of whether or not he was believed. It sounded so ridiculous, and Nowe wasn't sure if he would believe himself.
"When my adoptive father Oror was the General of the Knights, they had a good reputation. But ever since Oror was killed by some one-eyed man, Gismor's been in control. He tried to poison me... Said something about how I was getting too strong." The last statement sounded stupid. Nowe's strength wasn't anything compared to Caim's, but he was being honest as he'd been commanded to be.
"I survived, somehow. I don't recall everything about that time. Before I was here, I was travelling with Manah, Urick, and my dragon father Legna toward the Citadel of Light, where Lieutenant Yaha is posted." He realized then he'd neglected to mention how he'd been brought up by Legna for the first few years of his life.
"Legna is a blue dragon who brought me up before General Oror found me and trained me to be human. For a while, I thought I was going to grow up to be a dragon." He smiled a bit despite himself, though the precariousness of the situation he was in quickly caught up to him and he slumped a bit again.
"So... That's that. Whether you believe me or not, I suppose, is up to you now, Caim." He looked up again. He still couldn't believe this man was Caim... The stories he'd heard always glorified him and the red dragon, and this large, furious man standing before him didn't seem like the Caim of legend. Of course, Nowe figured not many heroes he heard about were exactly as they depicted.
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A woman, turned into a stake ...
Caim sat down across from Nowe after the boy was finished speaking and considered the words. A boy raised by a dragon? What dragon would do that? They were all too arrogant, too proud to lower themselves to that. No more Empire or Union? He'd heard of the Knights of the Seal - occasional visits to the capital city had revealed more to him than he'd sought to know, especially when Verdelet found out. The Empire remnants, used to uphold the seals that protected ... that held ...
It matches what you know.
Slowly, Caim raised his head to look Nowe straight in the eyes. Still the rage burned there, but it was less clear now, smoldering alongside the despair he felt each time he remembered. (Those eyes were so similar ... ) Oror ... the name was almost familiar, but he couldn't place it. (A one-eyed man?)
The situation they were in wasn't sympathetic to anyone, but to find someone who knew who he was and knew where he was from made Caim think. What he could do, though, aside from find out who ran this place and fight against them until he obtained his freedom, was completely unknown to him. But what more could he do? Or, rather, what more did he want to do? Killing them all until he found an exit was fine with him. And if he had someone willing to do the same, then so be it.
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He turned his attention back onto the food as his stomach gave a persistent (and rather embarrassing) growl. He picked up a piece of the candy he'd taken, eyeing it warily, and then slowly taking a bite of it and cringing. It was incredibly sweet, almost as if it was pure sugar. What had they called it? Candy corn? Well, it didn't taste a thing like corn, but it was pretty good nonetheless. He offered a piece up to the other man meekly, half-expecting it to be slapped out of his hands, and then he glanced to the nurses waiting patiently around the perimeter. Given Caim's state, they'd probably give him paper or something, right?
Setting down the piece of candy on the table in front of Caim, he looked up again.
"Which one's your nurse?" He asked, and when Caim indicated the woman, he made his way over to her, talked to her briefly, and returned with a notebook and pencil.
"She says these are yours to keep, so you can talk to people." He said, setting them down in front of him, "She said something about conversation being theraputic, or something, but I stopped listening to her after she handed it to me."
Nowe figured it would be much easier to get Caim to believe him, if he knew which questions Caim wanted answered.
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Still ... now that he could communicate, however awkwardly, it would give him something more of an advantage than he'd had in the last four years. Caim opened the book and picked up the pencil, paused, and scrawled a few lines.
Why to the seals? What dragon would raise a human? He paused and stared at his words, almost irritated that he had to ask such basic questions. But clearly he and this boy were not from the same time period, even if they were from the same world. Four years past the end wasn't enough time for him to become a legend - it never had been. Nobody recognized him, and that was fine with him. Only she knew, and only she had to know. She saw ...
And he didn't.
His rage breathing again, Caim scrawled one more sentence before shoving the notebook at Nowe.
Manah is a Watcher and cannot be trusted.
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"We've been travelling to the Seals to destroy them. Once they're destroyed and the Knights have been eliminated from each point, the people are freed again. In a lot of places, the Seals suck away life from the land, too. In the District of Hallowed Water, for example, the fortress the Knights built had blocked up the river, so the people there were suffering since they had almost no water." He shook his head. "It was terrible. So we're trying to destroy the Seals."
He paused, re-reading the next question. It was a good one, Legna always made snide comments toward other humans and spoke about how other dragons hated them.
"As for the next question... I can't say, honestly. Legna said he found me when I was only an infant, lying among the cliffs where he lived, abandoned by... Whoever my parents were." He shrugged. "I'm not sure what made him decide to raise me. But he raised me like a dragon, and like I said, for a while I thought I was going to somehow grow up and be a dragon. But I'm not sure what his motives were."
There was another pause as he looked at the last statement, one hand idly picking up another piece of the candy and popping it into his mouth as he debated how to respond.
"I don't know about this Watcher business. I've heard a little about them, from the stories that were told about what happened 18 years ago. I know they were the ones trying to destroy the world, but Manah as I know her doesn't seem like she's bent on world destruction." He frowned, re-reading the statement and thinking it over. He didn't know how to respond. Caim obviously knew Manah and hated her, but he wasn't sure why. What had Manah done to infuriate him? She seemed like a kind girl to Nowe, one who fought her hardest to free all those prisoners from their so-called martyrdom.
"I don't know." Nowe finally admitted, slumping. "I probably would have stayed with the Knights had General Gismor not tried to poison me. It disgusts me, really. But I know Urick at least, and I trust him, and he thinks we're doing the right thing. But I'm not so sure myself. Or, I wasn't, but it seems that being stuck in this place gives me a lot more I have to worry about." He pushed the notebook back across the table, finished with talking, unsure of what to say next.
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And clearly, Nowe knew nothing.
Siezing the pencil again, Caim began to write, his good eye focused on the words and only on the words he was penning down. His handwriting had never been good (he'd never really cared much for writing, or reading, because Inuart tended to like those more and Caim had been more than happy to let him indulge himself), but now, with his anger controlling him, it became nearly illegible. Whether Nowe could read it or not never crossed Caim's mind, and he refused to stop writing until he had out everything he needed to say.
The Watchers destroyed the world. They murdered the Goddess and destroyed the Seals to come into the world. She commanded them. Manah was their outlet. Her power, her commands, her control. She controlled the Empire. She killed the people, the Goddess, and nearly ended all life. They are still inside her. She murdered everyone and then she tried to die. I showed her the suffering and she couldn't handle it. She took from me again before fleeing.
And apparently, she hadn't died. The fall hadn't killed her. As impossible as it sounded, Nowe knew her, and that meant she had to have survived. And apparently, forgotten everything she knew ...
Or just hadn't told anyone. It seemed like something she would do. She was freeing the remnants of the Empire, even if it was under a guise of kindness. There was no true kindness she would ever perform, and so none had been given to her.
She was the one you blame for the end of the world.
Again Caim shoved the notebook at Nowe. He ran a hand up the left side of his face, fingers resting briefly on his closed left eye, remembering that single fateful moment. Damn her, and damn all she'd ever done ...
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There was no reason to disbelieve him, as far as Nowe could find. In a place like this, where escape was the first priority, it would be easier for Caim to just lie to Nowe, agree with him, get him to work together with him on escaping, and then continue on as they had been, provided that was possible.
Basically, what Caim was saying-- or rather, writing --had to be true. Nowe kept staring at the page for several minutes, unsure of what to reply with.
"I--" He began, but found himself at a complete loss for words. How could he defend her now? He simply couldn't. The thought depressed him. He ran a hand through his hair, and then set the notebook down, burying his face in his hands. Caim was the one who'd saved the world. He'd know what he'd seen. Manah had never spoken about her past or where she'd come from. She must not remember, or she could have been deceiving him too. But did that mean that Urick, also, was lying to him? Who could Nowe trust in that kind of world? The Knights had deceived him, and now Manah as well?
He turned his gaze up to Caim again, staring at him helplessly, his bright blue eyes despairing.
"Then who in the world can I trust, if not her? If not Urick, if not the Knights? Is there only Legna, a dragon who despises my own kind? Do I have to go back to trying to live the life of a dragon, knowing now that it's impossible for me to grow up and become one? Is that it? I can't go back to that life..."
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Don't trust anyone. It leads to nothing good. Not even a dragon can be trusted. Except the red dragon, but ... they had a Pact. There was no reason to lie, because it would be easy to tell. Without a Pact, there was nothing - no trust, no reason not to lie. It was natural. Everything lied for its own good, for its own advantage.
Caim paused when he stopped writing, reflecting on Nowe's words. Not so much the words themselves as the voice that said them. Familiar eyes, and a familiar voice ... different familiarities, but still, they were so ... damned world! He knew them, but he couldn't remember. Worthless existence, to taunt him like this ... !
If you still want to trust her, then ASK HER. Ask her what she did. And if she refused to tell - if she didn't remember - then Caim would just have to make her remember, then, wouldn't he.
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"I can't survive on my own. I've been living with Legna my whole life. Without him, I-I don't know what I'd do."
One of Nowe's fists suddenly clenched, and he pounded the table once, though not hard enough to attract the attention of the nurses.
"Damn it..." He hissed through his teeth, "I saw those people. I saw that they were suffering. I wanted to save them. I truly wanted to save them, with my innermost soul!" He stopped, briefly. Where had that choice of words come from? It wasn't like his usual pattern of speech. Ignoring it for now, he continued.
"I can't look at them and think 'I can't trust anyone, so I won't save them'. Their eyes are so honest when they tell me how much they've been suffering... I saw that woman and her dead infant. I saw them with my own eyes, and finally I could believe what they'd told me. These people weren't martyrs, they were just suffering." He grit his teeth and looked away, his knuckles balled into tight fists.
"Even if I can't trust Manah, I want to save them. I want to break the keys to each District and destroy those Seals. I'm not like you, Caim. I want to save people. I want to protect them. Surely you must have had someone you wanted to protect?" He chanced another glance up into the other's face again.
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"I wanted to save them. I truly wanted to save them, with my innermost soul!"
He knew that phrase. Someone else had said that, long ago, and Caim knew it. Someone he knew very well, someone he'd grown up with, someone who had admired and envied and hated him until the very end. That voice ... he could hear it now, saying the same thing, repeating what Nowe had just said. Someone else ...
But when he cleared his mind, Caim found the boy looking up at him, heard the next words he had to say. Save people ... protect them. No, Caim had not wanted to save people, but he had done so, inevitably, by saving the world. Even though he didn't accomplish his original goal. Yes, he had someone he wanted to protect, but the key word there was had. His only goal was to protect her ...
... and he'd failed.
His face twisted then into a look of rage, disgust, and forced-away memories. Caim pulled his hand away from his face, inadvertently brushing his hair to the side and revealing his stark-white eye, still with a faint ring where the burning stick had made contact. He grabbed the pencil and scrawled more words across the paper.
Someone is always suffering. You can't stop it all. They ended the world. They deserve what they get. No matter how hard you try, you can't succeed in saving them all. Protecting them is useless. They would die in the end, anyhow, by their own hand or another's or the world's passage of time. Protecting any one person will fail. There is no reason to try to protect them all.
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"Maybe not to you. When I see a person suffering, I want to help them. It's just how I am. There's no reason in your opinion, but when I see people who need help, I'm driven to help them. It's just how I am. Oror brought me up to be that way. I'm not sure I could change it. Maybe if you'd caught me while I still thought I was a dragon, I'd think that way." He chuckled, though there was a touch of bitterness in his tone.
"I didn't see them end the world. What I see now are people who have children... infants, dying in their arms. Tell me what sin that child committed. What the women in those villages committed. Some of those people are people who merely lived in the lands the Empire owned, not all of them were soldiers. Tell me why they deserve to suffer if their only crime is that fate dealt them such a cruel hand."
The leather gloves he was wearing for his costume creaked as his knuckles whitened. He couldn't understand Caim's way of thinking. It was too callous, too cold. To unlike what Nowe wanted to be.
He finally looked up again, and his eyes widened at the sight. One eye. That meant Caim was...?!
Nowe cursed loudly and hit the table again, glaring at the floor. The racket was enough to cause his nurse to flinch and watch the table more carefully.
"I can't hate you. Even now, I want to so badly but I can't, because you have no idea what your crime is. You couldn't, you came from a time before. Even if you're the one-eyed man that killed my father, I can't hate you." The boy said softly, his voice shaking.
Nowe inwardly cursed his personality. He cursed the teachings Oror had instilled in him and his inability to break them. The animalistic, more dragon-like side of him was shrieking in rage, wanting to just leap forward and attack Caim and take his revenge. But the rational side, the one that Nowe currently regretted having at all, told him that there was no reason to punish Caim for a crime he didn't know he committed. It was just like those people. Many of them hadn't fought, so why were they punished, too?
Shaking his head, Nowe covered his face with his hands again. He hated his inability to make good judgements. Or any judgements at all. The world was too confusing. First the Knights and their ideals turned out to be false, then Manah turned out to be the one responsible for nearly ending the world 18 years ago...
What was next, Caim turning out to be his relative, or something?
It wouldn't surprise me right now, honestly. Nowe thought as he sat and bristled with frustration.
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Only when Nowe burst out suddenly about the hatred did Caim realize that his eye was visible. Scowling, he turned the page of his notebook and watched the boy, half expecting him to break down - or attack. (The attack wouldn't be unwelcome. As yet, Caim hadn't been in a real fight, and he was dying to find one.) What was he blathering on about? A one-eyed man who killed his father - it had struck Caim before that the boy might have been talking about him, even if he hadn't done anything yet. The Watchers worked mysteriously, and so did the people here ... he didn't doubt the fact that he might, one day, bring down a general in battle. Hell, he already had, and often.
Don't delude yourself. Hate me. Just because I haven't doesn't mean I won't. A person is always capable of killing - I am now. If it brings you satisfaction, then hate me.
There was no point to Nowe refusing to hate if he clearly did. Even Caim could see it, and he was hardly empathic. If it would give Nowe a clearer mind with which to fight, then hate was the answer. Caim refused to associate himself with someone who let simple things like time get in the way of fighting to the best of their ability.
He'd never done it.
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"There would be no point in me trying to kill you here. If I died here trying to fight you, I wouldn't be able to go back. Even if all you say about Manah is true, for right now, her goals and my own goals are the same. I want to break those seals and free those people. After that, I'll find another path to take."
He looked up again, blue eyes swirling with varied emotions. Nowe was hurt and confused, but that wasn't going to get in the way of his stubborn sense of righteousness. Those people were suffering. That much he knew, and that much was plenty enough.
"I became a Knight and made a living of fighting so I could help people who needed it, not because killing gives me any sense of pleasure or satisfaction. I think that your motives may have been different, or they might have changed over time, but they aren't the same as mine. Now, if that's all you wanted..." Nowe started to stand up. They'd seemed to reach an end in their discussion, a point where there would only continue to be disagreement. Nowe knew that people just didn't agree on some things, and he knew that neither he nor Caim was going to change their mind from a simple discussion like this.
"Do you have all the information you wanted out of me? I'm assuming that because you haven't leapt over the table for my throat, it means I've answered something correctly. So, if that's all, it seems like we're done here for now."
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