Punishment

[burnburnburn]

Who: Dilandau Albatou, the inhabitants of house 15 and Raphael's indirect influence.
Where: Dilandau's room in House 15
When: Night time of day 81
Warnings: Nightmares containing human experimentation.

When Raphael decides to administer his punishment it doesn't come in the form of a beating. It's more subtle, but far harder to bear. He strikes at Dilandau's weakest time, as he drifts into dreaming about his home.

In Dilandau’s dream he’s in flight, soaring above Gaia’s forest in his guymelef as the two moons shine down upon him. His men are in formation behind him and it’s glorious, the best soldiers in the best technology flying to bring destiny onto its proper pass. Dilandau banks and plummets sharply, hurtling towards a shining lake and whooping at the adrenaline rush.

An eagles plunges down, snatching a fish from the water, and suddenly he can’t stop his fall. The controls are frozen and no matter how much he tugs his limbs he can’t budge them. His men’s screams echo through his ears as he slams into the surface of the lake.

He doesn’t wake up, but now he’s upright in his cockpit again. He can see a sickeningly familiar battlefield through his eyepiece and the screams are getting louder. The Dragon is leaping across the battlefield, finding his men despite their invisibility cloaks and crushing them one after another. However, the screams don’t die out as each man dies, but stretch on, one over the other, so loud that he can’t even hear himself shrieking with them as he realises what a terrible mistake he made when he chose to lead them on this hunt. The chrima his body is immersed in ripples as the fish within it swim around him.

The Dragon finally turns to face him and all the screams peak and cut out. The Dragon steps forward and Dilandau leans back, as if pulling his eye away from the eyepiece will make his enemy disappear. The back of his cockpit is solid against his back until suddenly it’s not and there are hands grabbing him from behind and pulling him out of the equipment. He thrashes and screams, but he can’t break their grip. He’s pulled into the darkness and everything goes black.

He opens his eyes, but not to awakeness. He’s now lying on his back, looking up at the glass tubes of the Fate Alteration Engine as looming figures in black cloaks come nearer, talking indistinctly about particle densities and alteration trajectories. The words don’t make any sense, but the meaning behind them is obvious. They’re ominous, threatening and no matter how loud he screams he can’t drown them out. There’s a flash of fins as a fish swims through the liquid fate bubbling above and one of the cloaked figures plunges a needle into his arm.

He jerks, but doesn’t wake up. There’s a horrible pain in his chest, and now he realises it’s because they’ve decided to try a different tactic. He’s caught in a vice-like machine and Garufo himself is turning the handle, staring at him coldly as the fish swim through the pipes behind him. Dilandau tries to beg for mercy, but he can’t draw his breath because he’s being crushed, just like his boys were in their guymelefs when The Dragon decided to kill them all. This is his punishment for his arrogance and he doesn’t want to deserve it, but his men aren’t coming now matter how he whimpers for them to save him.

He finally manages to draw his breath and screams out their names, finally waking himself up. The pain in his chest doesn't subside, nor does the terror that's making his heart race. He curls up on his belly and tries to draw a large enough breath that he'd be able to stand up and get out of his room. Pride be damned, he can't stand to be alone like this.

Comments

[blackmagus]

"I see."

She keeps to a neutral tone, gaze mostly on her feet. If she'd known what he was thinking, she would have smacked him. But luckily, she isn't a telepath, and she's terrible at Seid magic — her world's rough equivalent. So Fortescue sits there and keeps going, because sometimes talking about it is the only way for it not to kill you. As much as she loathes therapists, she knows that much.

"With technology?"

[burnburnburn]

He nods slowly.

"The Sorcerers found a way to distil out particles of Fate. They used them to Alter my destiny. I don't remember what I was like before." He's managed to piece together far too little about what he could have been. "I was weaker. Insufficient. I was chosen because my father betrayed the Emperor. I don't even remember the man's name."

Maybe it's best he doesn't know. He likes being the success, but the closeness of those mightmares remind him how closley he still walks to the edge of failure. He shivers, but resists drawings the blanket tighter.

"I was the only success, but it's enough that Emperor Dornkirk thinks he can use the technique to alter the fate of the world. That's why it makes sense to me that we've been taken. They'll find how to extract powers from people like you, work out why the alteration techniques worked on me and then they'll Alter themselves or their soldiers to make them stronger."

[blackmagus]

It does make a disturbing amount of sense, what he's saying, and Fortescue hopes that they're both wrong. But she's just simply too cynical to do more than vaguely hope. She absorbs the information he tells her, wondering what her own government would do with technology like that.

"We don't have anything quite like that. We can... change hair color, skin color, eye color. Heal birth defects in growing children, or children still in the womb."

If being chosen by a Guide was part of fate, then she was glad they didn't have that technology. They could mass-produce magic users in their population — and she knows, from how magic users were treated, that they would. Those who could use magic were always sought out, and never allowed to fade into the wood work like other people could. Magic users had to contribute, somehow.

"Why were you chosen because of your father?" she wonders. "To make an example of him?"

[burnburnburn]

"Perhaps. They never told me much and I wasn't allowed to ask. I never heard anything about an Albatou who'd been executed."

His face twitches and he looks away. Even now, even here, the threat of the punishments for being too curious loomed over him.

He changes the subject, latching on to what seems to be a common thread between their worlds.

"So, how did your Sorcerers work out they could do that to babes in the womb?"

[blackmagus]

Fortescue considers. For her, it's information she learned in her history classes. When she was still in school, anyway. Back before... well, everything.

"Scientific progress, mostly. Technology from other worlds. Once we cracked genes and x-rays, things just went from there." She shrugs. "I'm sure they can do more invasive things than just change hair color. They'd never tell us. But they'll never be able to create magic users themselves."

[burnburnburn]

He lets out a little puff of humourless laughter.

"How many things are there in your world that your ancestors would have called impossible? In the end it'll be those who accepted that it's impossible who'll be wiped out by those too stubborn to give up. If they're humans, they'll never stop trying to find a way, even if it takes generations of filling unmarked graves to succeed."

[blackmagus]

"Oh, I'm sure we'll see many more advancements."

But humankind didn't determine who was chosen to be a magic user. That was all Guides and, probably, Behemoths. But given their previous conversations about sorcerers and demons, Fortescue isn't sure how Dilandau would really take that information. Guides were neutral creatures, neither good or evil. She, and other Magi, knew that, but everyone else seemingly cowered in their wake.

Another time, perhaps, if she ever mentioned it at all. She shakes her head slowly.

"Where do you see the manipulation of Fate going, for your world?"

[burnburnburn]

He reels off the explanation easily. Like all good soldiers, he's been well indoctrinated with their goals.

"We're fighting to bring an end to all fighting. Violence occurs when two people's destinies clash, so when the Fate Alteration Engine activates and replaces everyone's destinies we'll have perfect peace."

In his best times, he'd imagined great rewards for himself and his men, with riches and admiration to last them to the end of their days. During the worst, he assumed he'd be disposed of once the Engine was activated and he was of not further use.

"When I was taken... the last I remember was that we were days away from activation. I was stationed on our border, because our enemies were trying to invade to prevent our future coming to pass."

[blackmagus]

Fortescue wonders if any of that is really true. Can humans stop fighting each other? It seems to be the only universal constant: strife. His explanation sounds perhaps a shade rehearsed. Or maybe it's peace in the way that the Nazis see peace. If you rule everywhere, there's no need for war.

"And what will become of you then? Will you have a peaceful destiny?"

[burnburnburn]

"A glorious reward for ushering in a golden age." Another trained phrase. He shrugs.

"Who knows? No one's made me any specific promises. I can't see myself beating my sword into a plough and being happy raising goats."

[blackmagus]

"Mm." She bites her lower lip to prevent herself from smiling too much. As she does so, she looks him over — trying not to make it too obvious — to see if he's still shaking. "No, I can't say I see you raising goats, either."

[burnburnburn]

The shaking has finally stilled, but he's still keeping the blanket around him. Nevertheless, his breathing is calmed and he's lost most of that haunted look. He meets her eyes through his hair.

"I'm not about to keel over, if that's what you're checking."

[blackmagus]

Fortescue finds herself relieved to see that he doesn't appear as panicked as he had earlier. Though, she examines that a moment later and feels vaguely annoyed. She should feel relieved that this means that she probably 'gets' to leave soon, shouldn't she? When had she begun to sort of care about a person who called her a whore just for giving him a nickname?

"Good. I'd have to lay you in some sort of embarrassing position when I put you back on the bed," she jokes, but her tone is still fairly gentle.

[burnburnburn]

"It'd be your only chance to lay me in any sort of position." He answers back. There's even a ghost of a smirk to go with the innuendo. It's odd, this little atmosphere that's sprung between them, that means his soul-baring is letting him feel steadier instead of more intensely vulnerable. He never thought she'd have it in her to make him think she might be trustworthy.

He jerks his head over to his pillows.

"You can lie there if you're tired. I'm not going to sleep just yet." There's a tenseness to him as he makes the offer. He doesn't want to have to beg if he doesn't have to.

[blackmagus]

She snorts — it's an amusing quip — and glances back at the pillows, expression neutral. Part of her wants to make a quip about him getting her into bed, because it seems like just the right opportunity, but she holds herself back. They're being civil, for once, and there's no need to sabotage it. It isn't like anyone else is around to raise an eyebrow at them over suddenly not arguing back and forth.

Fortescue can relate to disconcerting nightmares, and not wanting to be alone.

"All ri'," she agrees, yawning, moving back to curl up on her side. "Don't draw any mustaches on me while I'm asleep," she jokes.

[burnburnburn]

He scoots up so that he's sitting with his back against the headboard while she lies down. He's careful to make sure there's a gap between them. There's been enough touching for now.

"If I had a pen you'd have 'Property of Dilandau' on your forehead instead." He finally pulls off the blanket and drapes it over her shoulders and across his lap.

[blackmagus]

Eyes closed, Fortescue chuckles, sleepy now that all of the adrenaline has worn off. Being horizontal helps, as well. She's too tired to notice that it's one of the few genuine chuckles he's managed to stir out of her, but she's appreciative of the blanket.

"You wish." Then, more drowsily, "Sleep better."