A Thousand Shades Of Blue

Day 75:

He still has yet to wake.

The Mamools are marching, away from Al Zabi.

Immortal scouts see them; they are heading en masse to the Alzadaal Undersea Ruins. There have been reports of them leaving into Lamia Territory, but the scouts dare not get too close.

Curiously enough, the Trolls have not attacked much lately. It’s almost as though they know what’s going on. There has been talk circling around that they are fortifying their own lands, under the impression that the Mamools are attempting to conquer.

It’s a little sickening, and a little sad.

Yet at the same time, I have never seen the people of Aht Urghan so happy, so at ease.

There is a girl who keeps visiting Sectumsempra at the clinic where he is resting. She says her name is Aphmau and that she is a simple puppetmaster that he had befriended. I was not aware that he had met her. I’m keeping a close watch on her.

I barely know this boy, yet from what I have learned from Marzbarz and Caiyuo he is a brave, misguided, tragic boy that was once a simple, naïve chef of his land. Caiyuo explained to me the story of his friend that he had ended up killing due to the Plague.

It is a horrible thing. It has been over a month now, and he still has yet to return to his old group. They must think that the trio has died or forsaken them. I can tell in the way Cai and Marz pace restlessly that the situation is dire; perhaps too dire now to recover from.

Yet what can we do? All we can do is hope that the boy makes a speedy, second recovery and that the people of Al Zabi keep to their word and aid us with numbers and supplies.

He’s started to scream again. This time, he’s forming words.

“Make it stop!” he screams, over and over. His voice is begging us.

I wonder if he wishes for me to kill him. As he shrieks his left hand spasms in pain. It’s a mess of blood, but he’s got all his fingers still. I don’t understand how it works out.

Aphmau is stroking his face, and it seems to calm him down. A tear falls from her eyes and she buries her face in the blanket covering him when he stops again, murmuring something that sounds an awful lot like, “It didn’t have to be this way.”

I’m not going to pretend to understand these two kids; it’s been a long time since I’ve been their age, and I did not understand them any more then than I do now. I’m just a simple minstrel who’s never forgotten what it’s like to spend a childhood stealing to survive.

That’s exactly how I got myself into this mess, anyways. Old habits die hard, I suppose. I was lurking around in my caravan of stolen goods, using Olzhirya as a pit stop between pirate ports as I tried to flee my way far Eastward, when I had passed by Marzbarz and Caiyuo. They had been so desperate, fleeing from the Mithra, carrying this poor boy that I caved in. I remembered what it was like to be so scared, so utterly distraught and afraid of the law, that I hid them and helped them flee.

I guess they’re lucky I was fleeing the Turned, too. I suppose Altana had plans for us already made. I hope she guides us to safety.

Day 77:
I can’t stop shaking.

I feel like near death experiences are beginning to happen a little too often for my own personal comfort.

These last few days I’ve been stuck in a nightmare. I keep killing, and every soul comes back, and they torment me. I know it’s wrong. I know killing is wrong.

I don’t want to kill, I don’t want to kill, I don’t want to kill…

But I keep killing.

Why can’t I stop? Why can’t I do it?

I start looking back at what I wrote, and I feel like that wasn’t really me. It couldn’t have been me.

But I know it was, and I know I felt those things. I know that I was so thirsty to kill, and I know that I started eating my enemies. I know it, and it scares me.

Oh Altana, it scares me so much. I don’t want to be this. I don’t want to do this anymore. I just want things to go back to the way they used to be. I just want to go home.

But home, home is gone. I don’t know what to do anymore.

The word around town is that the Mamools are waging full outright war against the Lamia.

I guess I’m good for something.

But that’s more death, and I don’t want more death. I just want the stuff to stop.

But I know that stopping can only happen if we keep killing the Turned, and to kill the Turned I need an army, and that army had to come from this war.

I hear that the Mamools are winning the fight I started.

My hand hurts, a lot, and I can’t stop shaking. I’ve been summoned to visit the Empress when I can muster the strength.

I’m getting flashes of what I did to the Sage Lord. It’s just not me.

It’s not me. It wasn’t me. I did it, but that’s not me.

I’m so scared. I’m so damn scared of what I’m becoming.

I’m just a boy, and I’ve got to rescue this whole world somehow, and there’s no one to rescue me.

At least a bunch of citizens keep bringing me sweets. One man brought me a whole pot of tea and some biscuits.

I feel like such a traitor. I’m not even part of this land, and I started a war on its soil by playing two enemies against each other, all so that I could get some man power to help me on my own mission.

At least, for a little while, the voices in my head aren’t bothering me. It’s all a little calmer.

I think when I finish the tea, if I can find some warm clothes besides these clinical robes, I’ll go visit the Empress.

Love it, still awesome

Awesome coated awesome with awesome filling. That sir is the only way I can describe this. lol keep it up when you can Sect.

4 updates in two days... SWEET!!!!

i loves you!!! this is so awesome!!!!! xD

Update tonight!

I'm scared that I like writing scenes where I torture the character <_<

Woot!!

Just read this from the start of chapter 1 and I love it! Keep up the awesome work! (b'')b

Woops, fell asleep. Update comes later today after my graduation.

Very full of awesome indeed.

Day 78 - Part 1:
An elvaan man named Kushdeel had robes ready for me. He said he had been commissioned to make sure I had clothes of the right kind ready. They were of the same general design of the Immortals' garbs, but instead were of a dark green, some truly earthy browns, and an even darker blue. There was also a great bit more gold gilded into it. I asked him who had paid, but he would not answer.

I did not have to wait long to answer. I had gotten changed into my new robes and had headed for my audience with the Empress. By now the doors were simply opened as I approached, and I was led into the Imperial Palace once more. As per usual I walked between the two lines of Immortal Guards that led to the throne that she sat on, hidden behind sheets of cloth.

She asked how I was feeling, to which I had no real reply.

How was I feeling? I realized that I wasn't sure.

She saw that I had no answer, and then things grew strange indeed. She requested that everyone, save myself, leave the room.

They filed out wordlessly, even the Vizier.

I saw the cloths part and a young girl with blond hair stepped forward, wearing the baggy red robes of a Puppet Master.

She sat down on the steps leading up to her throne and patted the spot next to her.

I suppose it was an order, and so I followed it. I walked over to her and sat down.

It was all very awkward.

She was just staring at me. It lasted for a few minutes before she finally said, "So many lives were lost trying to protect us, and finally it was a stranger who saved us. I've seen your face; it was only fair to show you mine. We are strangers no longer."

The logic seemed to fit, and so I accepted it at face value.

Then she asked again how I was feeling, and I had an answer.

"Terrified," I admitted. I glanced down at my hands. "Absolutely terrified of what I'm becoming."

"You were a chef, were you not?" she asked. I nodded simply, not even bothering to wonder how she knew. "You lived a life where you made things, and now all you're forced to do is destroy."

I don't exactly know what made me start to tremble, but I know I started shaking.

She placed her hand over my shaking one, and suddenly I was crying. I suppose I just passed my threshold. I was trying to hold in so much that I broke.

So in front of the Empress of Aht Urghan, I bawled my eyes out, and she comforted me with soothing words and gentle hands.

That was a very well written change of pace, Sectum. Keep up the good work!

Day 78 - Part 2:

I was still rather exhausted and, I suppose, my body was not fully recovered from the trauma I had put it through. I wept so much I tired myself out.

I'm actually ashamed to say it, but I basically passed out right there, probably leaning on her crying. I woke up some time later in one of what I can only assume is a palace guest room with an automaton watching me. Some guard it was, though; the thing was shaking to hell and back in a corner and when I woke up, it ran away. Quickly.

They run pretty strangely.

I noticed that some of my lacerations had opened again and made a mental note to gauze them up again later.

Upon opening the door I was led by two Immortals to a dining hall. Marz, Cai, and Selim appeared shortly after, and then a few moments later the Vizier appeared with a few Immortals. It was all very surreal.

We spoke about the current situation; the Mamools had absolutely massacred the Undead in a full frontal siege but sustained heavy casualties. The trolls were reported as digging deeper in the opposite direction of Al Zabi and preparing to have to outlast a siege from the Mamools at any moment.

The Vizier says that there are under four hundred Mamool Ja Warriors left standing and a pitiful amount of Undead... well, not alive, but you get the gist.

I was praised as a hero and after we were fed a stupid number of seafood and other exotic dishes, we were led away to another room with what appeared to be a number of higher-ranking Immortals that had been discussing the elimination of the Trolls.

They ultimately decided on attempting to make a truce between the Trolls under the guise of being scared of Mamool invasion and then using a combined effort to clean up the rest of the Mamool Ja.

Then, it was my turn. They asked my group and I to brief them on what the situation was in the West so they could figure out how many hundreds of Immortals were needed.

When I did, they settled on half a thousand Immortals now with another half a thousand when the Beastmen were totally finished.

A thousand Immortals.

It was all very surreal. Did I say that already? I did, but it was.

They said that the first group would attempt capturing various Turned and Demons and would learn about their enemy, and after that they would help us do a clean sweep through the three major cities and Jeuno and, if time allowed, would help us assemble our own people back into a giant militia with some rudimentary military training.

It all sounded too good to be true, and it only got better.

The Vizier then led us down to some deep chambers in the palace that he had to unlock with some form of magic. Ultimately, he took us to something that I still am unsure should be called an armory or a treasure trove.

The final door he opened up led to a room full of absolutely astonishing weapons and armors and gadgets and gizmos. He simply said, "In return for destroying the enemy that which we needed such weapons for, we offer them to you until your own fight is done." He then said, rather candidly, "No one is ever allowed to use these, take all of them you can carry because they're only collecting dust; the previous four Empresses hadn't even an idea that this cache existed."

Cai let out a whoop, and the gang raided what they could. Selim took some daggers, Marz took two sets of Katanas, and Cai started picking up some Great Katanas but didn't like any of them, so he started taking gear for the friends back home.

I'm not really a weapons expert so I figured I would wait for one of them to finish and explain to me what to look for. I opened up some giant, decaying cabinet.

The first thing that caught my eye was a Katana that looked like a miniature scythe. Marz let out an exclamation and started shouting, "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!"

So I tossed it to her.

My eyes were locked on a long, golden sword. I picked it up and I liked it. I liked it a lot.

I figured it would do better than my old one that came out of a decoration, so I took it.

I left the room as they "ooo"ed and "ahhh"ed at the contents of the chest and probably took anything they could carry. As I walked out, a hand grabbed my wrist.

It was the Empress. She had a finger on her mouth in a "shush" motion, so I said nothing. Instead, I simply followed her as she led me elsewhere.

/applaud.

Thank you :)

OOoooooohhh....


AAaaahhhhh.....

Just to add salt to the wounds of you die-hard BLUs.

That link doesn't work :(

Thanks, Ent!

Wish I had a mantle.

And so the plot thickens! Cue the mysterious music!

Day 78 - Part 3:

She led me through the labyrinth hallways of the palace so far in that I lost track of how I would get back. Ultimately, I gave up. I would just have to trust the Empress.

She pulled me into a room and shut the door. It was quite a large room; looking back, it was probably her bedroom. It was the sort of room that was so obscenely grand and majestic that it had its own little bed of rocks supplied by water that trickled down from a little rock waterfall, with some plants floating in it.

She closed the door behind me and locked it before sitting on a coffer that was in front of a rather large bed. She just saw there, smiling a mysterious sort of smile that had more than a hint of sadness to it.

She looked to the floor and looked back up at me, blushing slightly.

"I never really thanked you," she said.

"I didn't do it for the thanks; I did it so I could get some help," I think I said. It all got a little hazy in my memory, because by that point she had jumped up and latched on to me. This time, she was crying.

"I wanted to help, but I couldn't; the vizier didn't think anything would come out of this. I knew you'd do what you did, oh Altana I kept praying you wouldn't have to," she said, very quickly as she sobbed.

I didn't quite know what to do, so I awkwardly wrapped my arms around her.

"You stopped our war so quickly we barely knew what happened. You, just some outsider, you took all the blood of my hands and took it on your own," she said. She buried her head in my chest. "I was so scared of that, and you made it so that I would never have to face that myself. And you're so hurt yourself, that you shouldn't even be allowed out," she said. "You're the walking dead, and you saved us, all at your expense..."

She was running her hand up and down my chest now. Somehow, in the next few moments, we ended up on her bed, and this time I was the one doing the comforting.

When she calmed down, we laid on the bed a while before she started conversation back up.

"You know, we're both the same age," she said. She looked young, and I knew I was young. "Sixteen, almost seventeen. That's why... that's why I trust you like I do. That's why I feel so comfortable with you."

I said nothing, because that's pretty much what the normal for me at this point.

"We're both these kids that all the adults rely on. I'm at the brink, and you've been pushed so far beyond it..."

She clutched one of my hands and looked at me, her eyes absolutely begging to know.

"How do you do it? How do you deal with it?"

It was the sort of question I didn't have any answer to at first, but after I thought about it I knew.

"I know if I break down and quit, there's no one there to pick up the pieces. I owe... I owe the old life that much, trying to fight for it."

I sighed. "I'm not taking it well, at all. I keep going from feeling like a murderer to a scared little... what do you call them here, Quicorns?"

She let out a small giggle. "Qiqirns, silly!" she said, and squeezed my hand.

Now that I have had time to rationalize all that happened yesterday, I guess that I can understand why she grabbed me and why I went along with it.

We're just two kids, playing the adult's game, and it's killing us both to do it.

"Yeah, those," I said. "When I was doing... what it was I did, to the Sage Lord, I pretty much lost myself..."

My voice trailed off. "I had pretty much given up, and I was half hoping that I would have lost my fight. The only thing that kept me going was the shear audacity of what I was doing. I can't describe what I did to myself..."

A shiver overcame me, and I choked up for a second as I remembered what it felt like for my entire body to just turn into something it downright should not have been.

She moved closer to me and squeezed my hand again.

I bit down on my lips, trying to hold composure, and I succeeded.

I went to go talk more, but she put her fingers over my mouth. "If it hurts too much, just throw it away, that memory, or find somewhere to put it where it won't hurt."

She took her fingers away. "How was life in the West before all this happened?" she said, to change the subject.

"It was great, I guess. No one had it really any better than I did, now that I think about it. I had my own shop, I did what I loved, and I was known as that good natured little boy down the block that made the good soup and pastries. Now that I look back, I guess I took it all for granted," I said.

She looked sad, and in some way a bit jealous. "I have to pretend to be a puppetmaster when I want to get away," she said. "It's been this way for a long time."

She was easy to talk to. Really easy.

"Speaking of which, I think I scared one of your puppets before," I said. We both paused, then laughed again.

"Yeah," she said. "You did. He came running halfway across the palace to tell me that you kept shrieking in your sleep..." she trailed off again. "Nightmares?" she asked.

"Just one." I said. "One that keeps getting bigger, more vivid, each time. Every time I kill, every time I sleep, every time I do anything it gets a little more real."

I didn't want to tell her what the nightmare was about, so I stopped there.

We had inched closer, and I hadn't even realized it myself until then. We were staring each other in the eyes.

I think, for the first time, I slept soundly that night without screaming.

EEK!! OMG that was so sweet! I love tender moments like this in a story. I am so looking forard to the next post.

Day 78 - Part 4:

And that was how I woke up this morning. I felt like I should have been guilty, but deep down inside the coldly logical creature I had developed told me that there was no point in feeling bad for fortune at this point. When I think about it, last night showed me how much I really have changed in the past 78 days.

I feel a little more at calm with the world now, and for the first time in weeks I feel like I once again have something worth fighting for and looking forward towards. I think I've made peace with myself, and as I woke up this morning in the tangled mess of sheets from that giant bed, I realized that I still had real feelings deep down inside. Whatever I had hoped and prayed about having a broken soul, that was all just to protect myself.

I remembered that it was okay to feel something, as long as I didn't let the feelings get in the way of what was important in life. And I guess, those things that you feel could be the important things. It's complicated, I guess.

She's still asleep as I write all this down. For the first time in forever, I can honestly say I feel rested. Spiritually, emotionally, physically, everything. I've still got some healing to do, but I think I can live with myself for now.

The voices in my head, the ones from those I killed, they're quiet. They're not gone, they're just... respecting me now, per say. There was one moment last night where I finally forced myself to face them and scream out in my skull, "You're in my head, and you'll play my rules."

And that's exactly what the voices are doing.

It's kind of cute and kind of creepy, watching her sleep. She hogs the sheets up and she's got this one strand of hair that keeps falling over her face no matter how many times I brush it away.

I guess, on this neck of the journey, I made more than one friend. Selim's an alright guy, and now I'm friends with the Empress.

She offered me last night that I could stay as long as I'd like. I was, essentially, pretty much the biggest hero in a while. She even joked that we could wait a few years and tie the knot, because there really wasn't anything else that had to be done if the Beast Men had stopped their assaults.

That's a bit of a scary premise. What was more scary was that I was tempted.

But ah well. The flowers she has in her little water garden, they glow. They're the only real lights on, the candles in the room have long since died out.

I guess in a few more days I head back to my homeland. The East is a pretty odd place, I guess. I've done some physically impossible things. But hey, it sure as hell beats the South any day of the week.

She just stirred slightly and gave me a small little smile and murmured to me, "What are you writing?"

I explained to her that I chronicled my journeys down since it helped me. Her face turned red and she sort of hid under the covers, but I laughed and she seemed reassured. I told her that before I go, I'd give it to her to remember me by.

Her eyes lit up as she asked me, "Will you come back one day?"

I smiled and nodded. "If you'd like," I said. She gripped my hand again. "I promise, when I'm done with my journey, I'll come back."

She smiled and now she's tugging at my arm again. She says it's still late at night and that morning is still far away yet.

nothing like accecptance from antoher to help you come to understand and accept the monster that dwels deep inside of us. If someone else can deal with that monster then we can also. I am so excited to see where it goes from here.

hmmm...

bow-chicka-wow-wow?

So yeah, somehow, firefox posted the first paragraph and I had to go rewrite the rest back in. How ***.

is there something in there we should be noticing? >.> *coughcough*

like Irohuro said, bow-chicka-wow-wow

Am I getting laid in this story!?!?




Just kidding lol

Good work! Keep it up!