rebel with a cause

[Talon]

D A E M O N

66 Ash 122 Steel

He was nervous. More than nervous, he was fucking terrified. This was all way over his head but he would be damned if he turned away from the task he had been given. He knew the stakes. It was not going to be an easy road but after spending as much time as he had with Daemon, he was not going to turn away from it now. They had been over the plan a dozen, a hundred, maybe a thousand times. He still wasn’t entirely sure any of it would work but they had to try. He knew that there were still some parts of it that were being kept from him but he had to trust that it was for his own good. By now he had gotten used to Daemon’s disposition where he withheld some parts of the whole picture. The man had never given him a reason to not trust him. He wouldn’t start now. He rubbed the back of his neck where the dual marks of two gods now rested on his body. That was going to take some getting used to but it certainly made the eclipse easier to deal with.

Nightfall was upon them and the inky tendrils of darkness were spreading across the skies. Ahead of him, a Lysanrin was gathering the strange lunicite that had cropped up in the aftermath of the eclipse. Like glittering pearls, the dragon gems could be found dispersed all across the world. In the trek from Solunarium to Kalzasi, Mathias had seen people desperately searching for them in order to have some sort of protection from the shadows. He did not carry any himself. Daemon had shown him that he did not need it. Not as long as he had faith and Mathias had faith. He had mountains of it. Letting out a slow, steady breath, that was all he allowed himself before he sprinted forward. Dagger in hand, he darted forward out of the shadows and made a beeline straight for the Lysanrin. He willed himself to move faster, to be swifter, to be stronger. He felt the corresponding answer in the mark of Eminence that graced the back of his neck. As quick as he could, he slashed the pouch hanging from the Lysanrin’s belt, ducked down, rolled to the side, caught the pouch and dove away from the man.

Thank fuck I spent my life as a thief.

As he rolled to his feet, Mathias was surprised to find that he did not feel overly taxed by the maneuver. That was good. He was going to need to run like hell in order to make a getaway. Enough to remain in sight but out of reach.

“Thanks for saving me the trouble!” He held up the pouch and shook it, the gems jingling slightly as he did so. With that, Mathias turned on his heel and darted off deeper into the wilderness.

Please chase. Please chase. Please chase.

Mathias glanced over his shoulder, went a bit wide eyed, then ran faster. In the back of his mind, he could almost feel Daemon urging him onward. Vitality threaded its way into his muscles lending him the strength to keep running. There was another presence too, but he didn’t drift near that one too closely. Even if it seemed like that particular presence was looming a bit closer than he liked. He ran, he ran until darkness had fallen in full around them and the area became illuminated with an aura. He ran until he made it past the edge of a treeline only to come face to face with the rising wall of a rocky cliff face. Ebony stone like jagged obsidian glittered at him. It was, by all accounts, a dead end.

Mathias whirled around to face the Lysanrin that had been giving chase a tense smirk on his face.

“Heh, good to know you don’t give up easily.”

[Florian]

Florian, by all accounts, tried to make himself useful. He could easily defend himself, carried his own divinity and the emblem of one — and suddenly, the emblem of another, something he had awoken to just that morning, with the faded memories of a meeting. He had not seen Talon since their shared dream, and suddenly he carried his emblem. As the day wore on in his confusion, he had sought to do something he found he could do with a sort of ease. The Lunicite was scattered where the moons' light touched the ground, and though one shard glowed in his stomach, the rest were stored in a pouch at his waist. These shards were small, but they served their function, for those who were not under his aurora could not so easily fight the shadow creatures that sought them.

Florian had run in the dark of the wilderness before, but he now preferred a more leisurely walk. He was not given this choice. He had known well the touch of a pickpocket in Zaichaer, and knew to guard himself well. How could he have let his guard down so easily? A boy held his pouch, taunted him, and sprinted into the darkness.

Florian chased after him. His own aurora extended slightly, to illuminate the back of the boy. Though the Lysanrin could see in the dark with some clarity, he did not want to lose those dragonshards he had spent so much time collecting. "Thief!" he called out. He coursed power through the inky black emblem on his hand, solidifying shadow in the boy's path. But the boy managed to avoid these pitfalls too, and Florian released the power from the emblem, wracking his mind for another solution, all in an attempt to get back this small bag of glittering dragonshards.

He did not have to come up with one, and they were soon face to face. Florian himself had never been a thief, but he knew what drove those to such desperation. Perhaps this boy sought to sell the shards in the Midden, to those who often had no other protection. Or perhaps he stole for the fun of it. This distinction made all the difference to him.

"I've never given up easily, kid." Florian remarked. "I have never given up." He asserted again, catching his breath as they stood there. His aurora-like aura lit the area up around them, but as Florian looked to the sky, he realized his aura was not the only one that illuminated the area. He took a few steps closer to Mathias. The hairs on the back of his neck rose with paranoia and suspicion and fear. "Why did you come here? Kalzasi is in the other direction."

[Talon]

D A E M O N

“Yeah. It is.” Mathias agreed. Kalzasi was indeed in the opposite direction. He tossed the bag of dragonshard back toward Florian then hopped up on a large rock. Florian’s aura was joined by another. It was denser and glowed like a white hot silver fire. The shadows were not banished by it, quite the opposite, the shadows seemed to reach for the aura, caressing the edges of it.

Daemon stood with his hands resting lightly at the small of his back. He was wearing the binding armor that served as his prison, seeing no need to conceal its true form when in the company of those who knew it well enough. His silver-white hair was luminous with the light of his aura, just as his eyes were. The aura did not extend beyond 30 ft. from him but it radiated power enough to have leveled the very mountain that they stood beside. He came to stand in plain view of Florian, just opposite of Mathias.

“Thank you, Mathias.” The young thief flopped back onto the rock and made himself comfortable after giving a thumbs-up.

Daemon looked at Florian. Talon had always been a large man. Strengthened by his years of training as a warrior and refined by his upbringing as a prince. Daemon was no less commanding in his presence. However, there was a harder edge to him. He looked physically stronger, as though his ordeals had honed even more the already lethal warrior he was. The silver of his eyes was lacking the normally noble kindness that had shone so easily in Talon’s gaze. The eyes that looked at Florian were sharper, more incisive and possessed of a hooded fury. If Talon had been the Mercy of Justice, then Daemon was its Wrath. Unrelenting and unyielding.

“It has been some time, Florian.” He inclined his head to the other demigod. “Forgive the ruse, I needed to speak with you alone. Here. Not in Kalzasi proper.”

Daemon took a moment to examine Florian from his distance.

“I wish I could say I was here with glad tidings.”

[Florian]

He recognized Talon in the physical, but even to Florian it was not Talon. Not the same Talon he had met even a season ago, nor the Talon in his dreams. There was a marked change. Florian tilted his head to look Daemon in the face, and did not say anything at first. His eyes drifted to regard the armor in full. It was the cage that trapped him, and perhaps it was what changed him, too. Florian didn’t know. But he regarded the armor, and the man, and stepped forward.

Another step forward. And then he hugged the massive mountain of a man before him. “I’m glad you’re safe.” Florian spoke quietly, but he knew that he could hear him. The Lysanrin pulled back and regarded the changed man’s armor. His vision blurred and then, there, he could see what trapped him. Duty, bargains, promises. He was a powerful being, but even he could not escape chains.

There was one in particular that seemed hard even for Florian to look at, bright as it was, gleaming, slithering across the armor that he wore. He could not glean the details from this one, but it reviled him — he was wholly disgusted by its glimmering presence. He stepped away in full.

”Do you?” he asked. ”If you wished you had come with glad tidings, you would have. Something changed to allow you to come here.” He reached to grab the chain that Daemon could not see, and it burned his hand to touch. But with that act enough he knew that Daemon could see it, and if Aoren’s reaction meant anything, relive the circumstances, for the briefest of moments.

”You have changed.” Florian grimaced. None of this felt good. He was not the bastion that Talon had become, he was cold and dark. But he was a fledgling, and he could not stand toe to toe with Daemon in any matter.

[Talon]

D A E M O N

The hug surprised him. He blinked at Florian, taken aback by the sudden display of affection. Some of the icy exterior faded and a flicker of the bastion that he truly was, that he could be, shone through for a brief moment. After a moment’s hesitation he wound his arms around Florian and hugged him tightly. He then released the young man, the young demigod, and watched his reaction. He made no outward response to the witnessing of the events that had unfolded in the time that had separated them. When Florian grasped the chain that burned his hand, Daemon grasped it too. He rubbed it between his thumb and index finger. Unlike Aoren, he was not a mortal and was under no illusion that he was. He brushed the reliving of the experience from his mind.

“I do. I wish many things. Fate, it seems, would prefer I get none of those things. So I have come to forge my own path.” He righted himself, eyeing Florian distantly. He let his hands come to rest at the small of his back once more. When Florian accused him of having changed, he did not deny it. He looked down to the ground. His jaw flexed briefly for a moment before looked up to the skies. He looked into the endless black that blanketed the heavens, blotting out the stars so that only the moons were present. As he looked to the darkness, it stared back at him. He knew without any doubt that he was being watched by something, someone in that darkness. It was a cold comfort but it was a comfort nevertheless.

“Everyone changes, Florian.” He gave a vague response. He knew it would not satisfy the fledgling demigod but it was the only response he could give at the moment. He had to be careful.

“Tell me, Rebellion…” He called Florian by his domain. For that was who and what Florian was. What he would be forever more. “You who have defied every shackle that would have bound you, what did you give up to achieve that freedom?”

It was a rhetorical question but he dropped his eyes from the skies so that he could look at the other demigod.

“I know the truth of the expedition you helped. The creatures you aided the Dornkirks in retrieving. The vermin whose venom was used to weaken me, destroy the defenses of my wedding, and ultimately allowed for the murder of my father, the torture of myself and my husband, and my enslavement to the Imperium.” He leaned forward, eyes narrowing. “I know everything.”

His jaw flexed again in restrained fury. The aura of his divinity grew hotter but cooled.

“Do you know what I have suffered? What I have endured because of the plot you had a hand in building?”

[Florian]

Florian watched Daemon speak with eyebrows raised, not out of surprise but out of incredulousness, and then... he laughed. "Did I not tell you when we first met that I benefited from your imprisonment? And yet I sacrificed my hope for stability to save your husband. If I had not become Rebellion I would have still done the same. You're a demigod with many and vast powers, and you're still blinded by your own suffering."

Florian clasped his hands together, and stared up at the skies for a moment as well, before he looked up at Daemon once more. "You have had such a vast amount of privilege in your life that the very concept of anyone allowing yourself to suffer those agonies has enraged you." He let the question hang for a moment, and then his fists clenched at his side, and his blue eyes turned black with rage.

"But you... you return to Karnor, only to trick me away from assisting your people. You come and you do not even dare reunite with your dragon of a husband, your mother." His fist turned into a pointed finger, jabbed in the direction of Daemon. "You cannot escape a past, you cannot rewrite history, but you can conquer it. Do you think that telling me I had a hand in killing your father will hurt my ego?" He took a breath. "What else of my past do you wish to bring up? How I saved the very life of Brenner Dornkirk? My own mother's unsolved murder? The experiments I endured? I have not received these scars for nothing." He began to unbutton his shirt — the button-ups were a holdover from his Zaichaeri fashion that he had difficulty letting go — and one could see the glimmering of his golden scars, straight and surgical over his chest, blending with the rest of the golden scars that marred his flesh.

"I have paid for my sins, and I will pay them ten times over. But you have no words that can hurt me. You have brought me no Justice, and I still work to save you. If that would bring itself through your silver-spooned brain, perhaps you would make some progress on your own freedom." Florian plucked a rusted chain from himself, and it crumbled to dust in his hands. His anger at the pointed accusation rusted away the anxiety he felt. He was not afraid of Daemon. The worst fate the god could bring was death, and Florian refused to die. But he was well and truly angry — He had long accepted his role in Talon's capture. He had yet gone to tremendous lengths to rectify it, and worked further still to strengthen himself to a point to release him. Aoren had offered his assistance to him, had accepted his emblem, and yet... the god before him was so shortsighted, so incredibly blind. Florian sighed, and started to rebutton his shirt.

"But enough about yourself. What grim tidings have you brought?"

[Talon]

D A E M O N

He listened as Florian spat his accusations at him. It was nothing he had not heard before. Hikami. Dreyfus. Finn. Riven. Even his childhood friend's lover, Taelien. Over and over, repeating the same refrain telling him that his life was glitter and gold. That everything had been handed to him on a silver spoon. He eyed Florian.

"Which do you want?" He quirked a brow. "Please, I would very much like to know."

He began stalking around Florian, glaring at him furiously.

"You say I have not brought you Justice. Tell me, is my tyranny what you want Rebellion? Would you have me scorch the earth and burn the world until the surface is naught but glass? Would you have me call down wrath and ruin upon every injustice you have suffered? Shall I be despised for my fury and anger as I am hated for my mercy and compassion? Shall my faithful be the instruments of oppression you so despise? Hm?" He rounded on Florian and stared him down.

"Shall I be merciful and kind? Shall I be patient and live to be but an example for others to follow? A compassionate god? Pleading with mortals to follow their gentler virtues, only to be called weak and apathetic to the plights of the people I love?" He leaned in, speaking through clenched teeth.

"Which is it?" His gaze burrowed into Florian. "Well? Tell me! You blame me for a lack of intervention for the injustices you have suffered then spit at me when I dare to interfere. You cannot have it both ways Rebellion." Daemon straightened and shook his head.

"You hate me for my refusal to rob mortals of the right to live for themselves then scream to the heavens how I know nothing of the trials you have faced. And so, when I do give everything I am to a people I spend lifetimes teaching to be instruments of good and justice, what happens? They are slaughtered." He sighed heavily, shaking his head as a weariness threatened to overtake him.

"Do you not think your pain calls to me like a knife in my heart? That the suffering of nations does not call to me? I assure, if you think I feel nothing for what you and the world has been through, I would not have given my life four times to save it." Running a hand through his hair he breathed in order to calm himself. Philosophical debate might have helped him in the pursuit of his cause but it was not why he was there.

"I have been commanded to bring a stop to a calamity that is to occur in the south. The key to preventing it rests not with me…" He extended a hand and pointed a finger at Florian. "...but with you."

[Florian]

Florian stood silently as Daemon spat accusations at him. He could see the broken pieces of the man, hanging on by a shred, ready to split apart if not for the chains that bound them back together. There was little hope left in him, but there had to have been some, or he would not have kept going like this. He knew nothing about Arcas, about how the demigodhood that Talon had inherited was not quite his own, with legacy to uphold. He was told this, however, and his face remained impassive until the god was quiet.

"What? I want nothing from you. I found my own way to save myself — you do not need to bend to my expectations. I am not your follower. I just hope to be your friend." His voice was soft, the accusatory tone having left. Even his eyes cleared into their serene blue once more. Though Florian now possessed Eminence, he felt no religious loyalty to Talon. Talon, Arcas — he was neither a savior nor a beacon of light to him. He did not need a lighthouse. He believed in himself, truly, and he believed in keeping the promise to him. He wanted him by his side, but he did not want to use him. He did not believe his — or anyone's — input belonged in how Talon handled himself. That way only muddied the waters for a man who was already struggling to understand himself and his place in the world. Florian had no desire to tell the embodiment of Justice how he ought to wreak it.

"Calamity in the south?" He asked, but his acknowledgement of the phrase sent questions racing through his head. "What possible calamity could require me as a key?" Florian was not a worldly man, but he knew what he was. He was chaotic. He was Rebellion. Either he hoped to spawn a rebellion, and prevent a calamity — or he was sought out to prevent one, which he would not do. "What cause do you have to expect me to care enough to leave Kalzasi?"

[Talon]

D A E M O N

Florian’s words touched on something inside of him. They reached a weary place that was thoroughly fed up with living according to the ideas and perceptions of everything he should be. Strange, that a young man so devoted to chaos would help him, with but a few words, see things a bit more clearly. For a moment, there was a wistful look in his eyes as he wanted to be free to do exactly that. Be himself. That moment was fleeting however as he felt the weight of his responsibilities bear down upon him. He had things that needed to be taken care of first. Perhaps then there would be time to simply be.

“You know…” His voice was softer. Anger still roiled through him but it was less sharp as he worked to cool himself. “I cannot even remember their faces.”

A look of bleak sadness crossed his face as he struggled to recall fully the faces of the people he was so desperately clinging on to the shreds of memory he had of them. The outline of them were there in his mind. He could see the shape of them in his head. He knew what he felt toward them. The problem rest in filling in the details. The details were beginning to become fuzzier, harder to recall and harder to keep. Since the slight loosening of his restraints he was able to more readily recall what he could remember. Beyond that though, he was a man painfully aware that he was running out of time.

“Solunarium is on the verge of a civil war from what I have been able to gather. The fires of upheaval and rebellion are being stoked within it.” He let his hands fall back to rest at the small of his back. “They are mere sparks at the moment. They need a match to light them aflame.”

Daemon inclined his head to Florian.

“There are two beings sealed away in a mountain prison who, if they are free, would uproot everything that Solunarium has known to be its norm for thousands of years. A prison I cannot break them from on my own.” He looked squarely at Florian. “With your help however, I can break the seal and free them.”

He let that hang in the air for a moment before letting out a long breath.

“In return for freeing them, they are prepared to help free me. In their current state, I imagine they lack the power to do so on their own but between the four of us…” He shrugged his shoulders. “It is the best hope that I have right now.”

He looked at Florian.

“I am running out of time, Florian. I have fought. I have clung to what I think I am and who I think I am as tightly as possible but…” He shook his head.

[Florian]

Florian would have been, if the knowledge was public, notorious for his rash decision making and his complete disregard for consequences even minutes into the future. He simply did, and the results of that doing were up to Mother Fate. He held two truths to be paramount for every decision he made, regardless of his decision: he would live, and change would follow. When he had faced his first death, he knew that he would not die that way, and he reformed himself from the cosmic soup to fall back to Ransera.

"I met a girl from Solunarium, in my dreams. Her heart yearned for rebellion from her father." He started. "She told me some of their society. Tradition is deeply held. And she was cursed. Even in our dream, I could see it, the bindings in her blood. She did not seem to be aware of this curse." He paused, and crossed his arms, lifting one arm to put a finger to his lips. He considered, perhaps, why these beings were sealed away in a prison. But the desire to be free was a feeling he would not deny lightly.

"Do you know why they were imprisoned, Talon?" He asked. The wording of his statements implied that these were not mortals to be imprisoned for thousands of years. It felt like an itch somewhere he couldn't reach — he could not feel the stirrings of Rebellion on Solunarium, it was much too far. But to stoke the flames in their society felt thrilling.

"Tell me about these beings. I would like to know what you wish me to unleash upon the world. Releasing a man from his cell is one thing— but to release a pair of beings who have been imprisoned for thousands of years is not a decision even I can make lightly. Not even for you." He narrowed his eyes.

"What would you sacrifice for your freedom?"