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...well. fan-fiction, really, set in the world of Surge, featuring my Kuon and ThisSpaceForRent's Law. Surge and all it's junk belongs to Tahi Malestrom, Khogi-san, and Risen from the Ashes. I warn you ahead of time, it's freaking long, there's lots of violence and angst, and sort of semi-yaoi (Dose it count if both charecters are technically genderless?).
Also, lots of corny-ness at the beginning. This started as semi poetry scribbles when I was bored in American History.


- LAW
-
- Over my years in the service of the lord of this world, the merciless god of my existence, I have seen many kinds of death, and of undeath. I have seen the undead, artificial, shaped and stitched together and given life by his cruel, bloodthirsty, beautiful hands, sent out into the world to destroy and dominate for their creator. Less often, I have see the undead, once living, hollowed out by the horror that surrounds them, until nothing remains but a shell, powered only by the irrepressible desire to live. But only once have I know one of these rarer undead to return to life. Just the one, myself.
- I was as dead inside as any of his hand made soldiers when he found me, murdered by loneliness and the cruelty of others. I thought there was none who could know me. Then, I saw him. Brutal and angry, lashing out at any who approached him. I was at once terrified and enthralled. This creature was alive, truly and wholly, in a way I could never be, and I longed for the merest touch of his attention, be it good or bad. I would have given anything in the cold shell in which I lived in order to be touched. To feel again. I approached him, despite my fear, and, for no reason I shall ever understand, he let me in.
- He reached out to me in the darkness, this paragon of cruel and unforgiving flame, and I, a lonely and listless moth, hurled myself into the inferno without hesitation. He was a monster, as sure as breath, this terrible creature of power and terror. He destroyed all in his path. He dominated and manipulated. He bowed to no one and let nothing hold him back, not even me. And I loved him for it.
- I knew, knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, from the very day I met him, as well as I know that I live, that, one day, he would realize that I was no longer of use to him. On that day, after all the long delays were past and he had spared my life as long as he could, he would kill me. And I would die happily, knowing at least that, in my death, I was removing one more obstacle from his path. I had no regrets. Almost no regrets.
- My one and only desire in life was to see him happy, and I would have done anything to achieve it. I cared for nothing else in the world. The tasks he required of me, which others tell me now were horrible cruelties, were as nothing. For I would have carved out my own heart and soul and gone on living and serving him without them if that was what he asked of me. I had no life, no will of my own. And I was happy this way.
- And yet, in the night, when sleep would not come and blood still stained my hands, another wish, deep and unadmitted, burned like a hidden candle in my heart. I wanted him to love me. To care as I cared for him. It was a silly dream, and a hopeless one. But, no matter how hard I tried to suffocate it, how fiercely I beat it down, the love remained, a dim and flickering ember that would not die. I loved him. And he would never love me.
- I fear, however, that he knew of my desire. He plundered his soldier’s minds so often, mine perhaps even more often than most, in search of thoughts of treachery and rebellion. He could not understand my unwavering devotion. He was not a creature of love or affection. Such human follies were below him. But, even if he could not comprehend the depth of my feeling, he did seem to recognize that I desired him. He rewarded me with land and riches as he did all his generals, but he knew that I cared nothing for them. My true reward came in the gentle touches, the soft smiles, which he gave to no one else. A pat on the head, a soft spoken encouragement, easy rewards for his favorite weapon, and he knew how I treasured them. That I could not hide, despite everything else.
- When things were at their worst, when my heart ached for him, and my body bled for the things he asked of me, when the pain was so great I wished for death rather than remain trapped in the hateful world a moment longer, I comforted myself with thoughts of these kindnesses. I deluded myself, if for only a moment, with dreams that he might actually care for me. I dreamed of his insistence in keeping me near him, always by his side. Of how he boasted of me, my strength, my unfailing loyalty, to his other generals. I dreamed most often of his ferocity in protecting me, that day so long ago, when he saved me, avenged me, and brought me to his side forever, never to leave it again. It is my fondest memory. He, his still young face contorted with fury, blade flashing in his hand, bringing it down again and again into the hateful flesh of the one who would dare touch what was his, what belonged to him, had always belonged to him. Me. But, though I think of it often, I can not dwell on it long, for thoughts of that day always lead to thoughts of the times before it. Of pain, of blood, everywhere, of dying, of terrible fear and weakness. Of shame, both that I should be so weak or, worse, that he should see me in such a state. And yet, at the same time, this memory, this nightmare, led to another, one I longed for and at the same time tried so hard to ignore, to suppress, because it was too good to be true. I remembered warmth, the first I’d ever felt, his arms around me, carrying me away from that house of pain and anger and blood and telling me I’d never have to go back, promising me that I would live, that I was strong enough, that he would never leave me again. That I was safe. It was such a small memory, and half obscured by the haze of pain and blood loss, it should have been easy to forget, but something in me refused to let it go. I know he saw it there too, every time he entered my mind in search of deceit he knew he would not find. I could feel how still he became, feel the anger tensing in him at this reminder of a weaker, softer time. He was so young then, and not nearly so cold. These were the times I feared him. Always, I waited obediently, expecting attack, but none ever came. Always, instead, He stopped the search there, expression unreadable, and sent me away. I hated myself for hurting him, and wished he would lash out at me as he did at his other generals when they showed their incompetence. But, and I’m sure even he did not notice, or he would surely have corrected it, he never once struck me. It seemed that he, of whom pain was such an essential part, could not conceive of harming me. I think perhaps it was the final recognition of this that brought on the end.
- “You must forget.”
I knelt at my master’s side, head resting against his knee, in one of those rare moments of quiet and happiness that made the horror of his conquest worthwhile. His hand rested on my head, not out of any sign of affection, but merely a convenient contact point for scanning my mind. He had found the memory there again, as well as my regret that I had been unable to hide it from him, that I had troubled him with it. I had dreamed of it the night before, and it was too fresh in my mind. I expected the usual stiffness, maybe anger that I had attempted to hide it. He surprised me instead by speaking. Usually he was silent, merely waved me away. I looked up to where he sat on his throne, gazing out over the empty hall, face carefully blank, as it always was these days. He couldn’t risk revealing any emotion to his treacherous, power hungry generals and councilors. He had a deep disdain for politicians which I shared.
”You must forget that moment of weakness.” He continued, voice even, black eyes still trained on the far end of the hall, “Were my enemies to sense it, they might mistakenly assume that you are of value to me and attempt to use you against me. I have neither the time nor the patience to find someone to replace you with if you die. Do not put me through such inconvenience. Forget.”
Slowly, unthinkingly, his hand on my head rose and fell, smoothing my hair with a surprisingly gentle touch, which I leaned in to, equally without thought. He noticed what he was doing and hesitated, then continued. He did not say it outright, he never would, but he didn’t need to. I could feel the concern for me behind his cold words, in the hesitation as he spoke of my death, and in the soft, easy motion of his hand on my hair.
- The next day I was sent to the warfront and did not see him again for many weeks, except at a distance. I led the undead forces into battle, and brought the fury of the sea down on our enemies. We were victorious, and claimed another section of the earth for our own. It was not a particularly terrible battle, not compared to others we’d waged, but we had stumbled across a Resistance pocket we hadn’t expected and, like a rattlesnakes hiding in the underbrush, they had retaliated with considerable venom before we managed to kill them. I was wounded in the fight, not exactly an unusual occurrence, but this time badly enough to leave me unconscious in the nearest hospital for quite a while. I had woken in hospitals alone many times, even before he began his war to wrest control of the earth from the idiots who claimed it. And, consequently, I had expected to wake, as before, alone and sore, just long enough for the doctors to realize I was conscience and medicate me again. Instead, I woke to a haze of darkness and warmth, and the touch of a rough hand against my cheek. Still half asleep, I pressed against it, following it the little way my battered body would allow as it suddenly left. I whimpered for want of it as it vanished, then flushed in the darkness, embarrassed at my lack of self control, finally waking. A deep voice to my right chuckled darkly at my shame.
“Are you really so desperate for physical contact?” It asked. I flushed darker. I knew that voice. Knew it better than any other in the world. That explained the darkness as well. He hated the light. He would have ordered them turned off for his visit.
“Since when do you make hospital visits?” I shot back brazenly, surprised at how weak my voice sounded. Despite the fact that I now served him, he still treated me as a friend sometimes, when he was in a good mood.
“This isn’t a hospital visit,” He answered, “This is business. I heard you were dying and wanted to see if there were any parts worth salvaging. I was already planning a most magnificent hybrid using you and a few Resistance members we caught the other day. Might have even made a half decent general. Imagine my surprise when I heard you’d pulled through!”
“I’m sure you were terribly disappointed.” I said with a laugh that took more air, and more energy, than I’d expected it too. When I’d stopped coughing and could breathe again he had called a doctor and was holding a bottle of painkiller, which I refused to take.
“No, I don’t need it,” I told him, “I’ll be fine in a couple of hours without it, then I can get back to work.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, you won’t be fit for anything for at least a week.”
“Nonsense, it’s just a scratch, I’m all right now!”
“They stuck a spear halfway through you.”
“Exaggeration. I’ve had worse.”
“One of your lungs collapsed, and the other was full of holes from your ribs.”
“Well, I’m breathing just fine now, aren’t I?”
“You lost a kidney.”
“I have a spare!”
“Just drink, damnit!” He snarled, forcing my mouth open and quite literally pouring the potion down my throat. I stopped fighting and swallowed without comment. I hadn’t meant to make him angry.
I could feel it starting to work immediately, the stabbing pains in my side easing off in a wave of tingles, my sight wavering, consciousness preparing to flee. I clung to awareness stubbornly, unwilling to lose this moment, my friend, my master, sitting beside me, and unconsciously clung to his hand as well. He surprised me by not pulling it away.
“You really are desperate for touch, aren’t you?” He said quietly, curiously.
“It’s what I am.” I said, voice faint with approaching sleep, “You know that. From the first, my talent has always been seduction, manipulation. Physical relations are a part of that.” It was the truth, and, shameful as it could sometimes be, I was used to it. Proud of it, in a way. I was created to lie, a lovely lure with which to trick and destroy. It was a physical pain to go so long without touch. The castle was empty most of the time, save for him, who touched even me, whom he trusted, only as a rare reward. I only left the castle, left his side, for war. And the only contact to be found in war was full of anger and hate, emotions that burned and weakened me.
“And yet, you do not pursue those who could fulfill your needs.” He continued, “I have offered you countless concubines, beauties all, even that ridiculous Resistance kitten you used to chase when we were young. But you refuse them. Why?”
I didn’t answer, only smiled in the dark. He didn’t understand. I could have no touch but his. Any other would mean nothing, and would have no affect. I’d rather live as I did, half starved, on the scraps he saw fit to feed me, than take advantage of such empty touches, which would only sharpen the pain and never satisfy. But I couldn’t have told him this even if I wanted too. The world was slipping away from me, and the deeper darkness of sleep called. Still, I held to his hand even as the rest of the world dissolved. I could feel his skin against mine, and the happiness that caused echoed throughout my broken body and across my dreams.
- Darkness, light, darkness, light. The world flashed in and out of view. Voices shouted and screamed, a sound like thunder tore across my pain hazed, heavily medicated brain. Something heavy fell against me and I smelled blood, close and hot and fresh.
“Kuon…” The voice was breaking, strained.
More shouting, someone marching toward me, the weight was gone suddenly, there was a blur of motion, a sharp sting, and nothing. The blackness closed in around me.
- I woke screaming.
There was pain, such pain. I was lost in it, a pin p***k in a black ocean of pain, pain pain. I felt as though I’d been torn open, everything inside me exposed to the air, my blood spilled out and running away. I could see nothing, hear nothing, sense nothing but the horrible, nightmarish agony. I had never felt such pain, not since…There was an extra stab of pain to my heart as I realized the truth. My master, the wars, the warmth and happiness, all of it had been a dream, a lie I told myself as I blacked out between one attack and the next, as my brother expressed his rage at what I was, who I was, in the medium of bruises and blood on my body. Nothing else existed. A sob wrenched its way out between the screams, and for the first time I became aware of my howling, and of other voices.
- “What’s that he’s screaming?”
- “I don’t know, and I couldn’t possibly care less.”
- “Sounds like…Aw, lookit, he’s crying for his master!”
- “And I don’t give a damn. Shut him up, he’s giving me a headache.”
- Something heavy connected with the side of my head in a wash of white pain that vanished, absorbed, into the waves of agony rippling from my stomach. It connected again, with my shoulder, then my leg. I heard something snap and now I screamed in earnest.
- “SHUT UP!”
- The heavy object collided with my stomach and my throat closed, mouth open in a silent scream, pain too extreme to express in sound. I curled around my wound, silent, shaking. I could feel tears running down my cheeks into the sticky pool of blood that surrounded me.
- “Law…Law…”
- “Stop your whimpering.” The second voice snarled, “He’s not coming.”
- “No one’s coming.” The first voice laughed coldly, “They’re all dead. You’re the last one. If it were up to me, you’d be dead now too, but the Lady wants to see you first. Maybe she wants to publicly execute you. Make an example of you. I hope she’ll let me play with you first. You’ll be begging for death by the time I’m done.”
- “Law…” This time there was no mistaking the weak, broken voice belonged to me.
I was awake now. I could feel the cold metal underneath me, the road rushing along below it. I could feel the wounds that covered me, the rope around my hands, vaguely see the two men who sat near me, one laughing, the other looking in disgust at my blood on his shoe. I knew, somewhere in the back of my mind, that the Resistance had attacked, that I had been captured, that the empire had been overthrown, but none of that mattered. Nothing mattered. How could anything as trivial as politics stand in the face of what tore at my already bleeding heart? “They’re all dead. You’re the last one.” The last one. The last.
- “Law…LAW!”
I screamed my anguish to the sky I couldn’t see. My thrashing wails renewed the flood of red onto the truck bed, but it didn’t matter. No pain could compare to the shattering wrench of my heart as I realized each smile from him, each touch, each word would be the last I’d ever receive from him. That I would never see him again. It wasn’t right, it didn’t make sense. He was everything. Everything I had ever done, everything I had ever said, every thought and dream and breath, had been for him. How was I alive now when he was not? It wasn’t right. He was too much a part of me to die and leave me alive. It wasn’t right.
- I thrashed and screamed and cried and ignored the blows that rained down on me as my guards tried in vain to silence me, until a glancing blow finally caught me in the head and I fell gratefully in to the waiting arms of oblivion. His name was the last thing on my lips.
- “Law…”

- I fell in and out of conciseness for what might have been days or months. Always there was pain, always there was darkness. Sometimes, there were voices. Always distant, only clear when they shouted or stood right next to me. The voice of a woman was there, again and again. I thought I recognized it, but I couldn’t be sure. I slipped back into sleep before I could reach any conclusion. Only bits and pieces of conversations remained. Through all my long sleep, I dreamed only of him.

- “…good is he to me dead?! If he dies all of this will be for nothing!”
“Well, he’s alive, isn’t he? Besides, you never said-“
“Never said what? Please don’t beat our best bargaining chip to death before he even gets to base?”
“No, you didn’t! What’s the big deal anyway? The empire is fallen! He’s useless!”
“I highly doubt that, Keegan.”
“I was there when we took out that base. Nothing survived!”
“Law doesn’t die that easy.”


- “Naw, I checked. He’s definitely a guy.”
“Seriously? Could have fooled me.”
“It’s the hair, I think. Or those skinny little hips.”
“Whatever man, I’d still hit that.”
“The Emperor’s favorite toy? Hell yes. I bet he taught him all kinds of tricks.”
“Maybe the Lady will let us have a go at him when he wakes up.”
“You think? She …”


- “…up Kuon. Please wake up.”


- “….Roan?”
“What?”
“When we were bringing him here, and sometimes in his sleep, he keeps mentioning Roan.”
“How?”
“Screaming. ‘Law, help me Law. Roan is coming. He’s going to kill me, Law. Please don’t let him kill me.”
“…”
“Sounds pretty pathetic to me. As though that b*****d would ever save anyone but himself. Maybe we need to get this guy Roan on our side, if he can scare the Emperor’s favorite general that badly. Mind you, I don’t know how he ended up a general. Doesn’t look like he could fight his way out of a wet paper bag. If you ask me, he was probably Law’s fuc-“
“Shut up! Idiot. You have no idea what this boy’s been though. Get out of here!”


- “…only two left, Kuon. If you die, I’ll be alone…”


- “…it, Rou! He’s never going to wake up! The empire is fallen and no one’s seen the Emperor since we caught this one. Even the birds are starting to come back. Even if he does wake up, what good will he be?”
“You don’t understand. We’re the only two left. I can’t just kill him. If there’s a chance, even the smallest chance, that he could live then I have to take it! I can’t just doom my race to extinction.”
“He’s already dead, Lady. His body just hasn’t realized it yet.”
“I don’t believe that. Someday, he’ll wake. He has to wake.”


- “Don’t give up Kuon, please. I’ll wait. But please, don’t give up.”


- I woke because I heard his voice.
It was the only thing that could bring me out of the darkness. The scattered bits of my heart glowed briefly like blown embers. He was alive. He was here.
I fought free of the darkness and clawed my way back into consciousness. I didn’t take in my surroundings then, the bare concrete room, the old medical equipment, the wires and needles weaving their way in and out of me like some bizarre modernist sewing project. All my attention, all my energy, was focused on his voice, near, but indistinct. I sat up in bed, and nearly blacked out again at the effort it took. There was pain, dull and throbbing, but there, waiting to attack as soon as the haze over my mind withdrew. I wouldn’t give it the chance. Everything would be all right once I found Law again. I swung my legs off of the bed and tried to rise, tearing away wires and needles with my weak, fumbling hands. For a moment I thought I would make it, but no sooner had I shifted my weight to my legs than they collapsed like string beneath me and I crashed to the ground. My heart beat like a rabbit’s, my weak lungs gasped for breath. Through the crack in the door of my room I could see a hall, and across the hall was a second room, in which a television news program was running. A video played, rough and unedited, of my love, my master, standing at a podium, addressing a huddled crowd of terrified survivors, informing them of the rules of their new government. It was an old one, I recognized it from when we annexed Europe, and he looked young and ferocious, burning with furious joy. The camera pulled back, and there I was, standing next to him, staring up, proud and victorious, loving him so much. He reached out, put an arm around me, commended me for leading the invasion that had taken the new continent. On the floor, I cried silently, unable to muster the energy for sound. The rest of the video was blocked out by people coming from the room, shouting, rushing, lifting me up and dropping me back into the bed, trying to reconnect the tubes and needles I had thrown off. I didn’t fight them, and when the haze of medicine induced sleep descended, I didn’t resist it. I fell into it gladly. In my dreams I stood by him again as he looked over the newly conquered world and told me how he thought it would never happen, that I was the reason this was possible. He had let me lean against him, and petted my hair as he sometimes did and, for all the short time the dream gave me, I was happy.


- “Law…” I said the name in my head, but no sound came out when I opened my mouth. My voice had dried up and died in my throat. All that came out was a soft hiss of air. I moved, strained to form the syllables of that name, that all important name. A harsh rasp, nothing like his name at all, emerged at the end of the hiss this time, and my throat burned from the effort. I closed my mouth, shut my eyes, and resisted the urge to let sorrow consume me again.
- “I knew you’d wake up.”
- I jerked, startled, but lacked the strength to sit up. The woman who had spoken moved obligingly to stand where I could see her. My ragged breath caught in my throat. I should have recognized the voice. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t. But it had been years upon years since I had seen her last.
- “Rouknette,” I tried to say, but my voice refused to cooperate.
- “Give it time, Kuon.” Rouknette, said gently, “You’ve been comatose for a long time. It will take a while before things start working normally again.”
- But there was something I had to know first, my health be damned. If the answer was no, then there was no reason for me to live anyway. I opened my mouth, strained to make my voice cooperate. It took three tries, but at last the name I craved was audible.
“Law?” The question was a harsh rasp, and it hurt almost as much to speak as it did to remember what my voice had been before.
- Rouknette’s face fell and my heart twisted.
- “I…don’t know, Kuon.” She said slowly, “Part of me refuses to believe he could die, but no one’s seen him since we took you, since the empire was overthrown. There’s been no attack, no retaliation, not even a surrender. His court has all gone into hiding or given themselves up. But none of them know what’s become of their leader either. Like us, they assume him dead.”
- “Alive.” I answered, and this time it was easier, if still painful, “I’m…alive. He’s…alive.”
- It was the closest I could come to explaining to her that my heart could not continue beating if his did not as well. So he was deep in hiding. So he had not come to rescue me. It did not matter, so long as he was alive. I had always been waiting for him to run out of usefulness for me, to kill me. That he abandoned me was not a surprise. Even so, it hurt.
- “The attack was never meant to kill him, you know.” She continued quietly, “The intent was to capture you. We did not expect him to be there, nor to fight so fiercely. It took most of our attack force to subdue him long enough to escape with you. And they only just barely escaped the explosion ourselves. So…”
- “How…long?” I strained to speak, interrupting her. He was alive. I refused to accept anything else.
- “Many months. Almost a year. That’s why you’re so weak. Your muscles have atrophied.”
- “What…will you…do…?” With me, I meant, but I hadn’t the strength to finish it.
- “We….” Rouknette hesitated, “We had hoped, with the empire gone, with Law…we had hoped that you would join us. We could use your strength as we try to reestablish the government. We could tell everyone Law had brainwashed you. From what we’ve seen of his other generals, he may have. They say he used telepathy to ransack the minds of those close to him in search of treason. Some of them show definite signs of him rearranging things in there. It’s entirely feasible he did it to you too.”
- I shook my head, a slow, painful, strenuous act. I could feel the muscles in my neck burning.
- “Not…me.” I told her, “Never…me.”
- “No, he didn’t need it with you, did he?” Rouknette said sadly, “You were totally loyal to him from day one.”
- “Won’t…be…tray…him. Kill…me…”
- “I had a feeling you’d say that.” Rouknette frowned, “But I won’t kill you. We’re the last two left, don’t you understand? All the other Artifalist are dead. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you alive.”
- “Kill…me…please…”
- Rouknette looked pained, “Why?”
“He has…no more….need…of…me. I have…no more need…to live. Kill me…please…”
- “No, Kuon. I have need of you, even if he doesn’t.” With that, she stood to leave. Fear and impotent anger flashed through me. I did not want to be alone, I did not want to be alive. I wanted Law!
- “What…need?” Was all I could manage.
- Rouknette turned back and gave me a long, solemn look.
- “You give me hope.”

- The meeting had worn me out, and I slept for hours. I only woke when Rouknette came with food, and when she left I slept again. She came back several times, trying to convince me to join her. Whenever she did, I was silent and pretended to sleep. Even if he had turned his back on me, I would never turn my back on him. This routine continued for almost a week. I was gaining strength, walking short distances and talking more easily now. My old wounds had healed almost completely, but they had left terrible scars. It hurt to look at them. I had such smooth skin once. I had imagined Law’s fingers on it, admiring its flawlessness many nights. Though I knew this fantasy would never come true, it still shamed me to see how ugly I had become. I was much too thin, emaciated, bones sticking out everywhere, pale and wan, scars all over. Someone had hacked off my hair. I suppose it got in the way. It hung short and limp and ragged around my face now. I would never look the way I used to again. Still, the injuries my body had sustained were as nothing to the still bleeding wound to my heart. Law was dead. There was no purpose to anything anymore. I went through the motions of life. Eating, breathing, speaking on rare occasions, but I was as dead inside as I had been before he found me. Worse even. Now, there was not even hope.
- It was late at night when the news came. I’d had physical therapy that day (despite my repeated refusals to help her, Rouknette insisted on restoring me to health, much to the dismay of Keegan and Smith, the only two of her followers who knew about my presence) and I was exhausted, but my mind refused to rest. It drifted instead, around thoughts of Law, of what he was doing now. I wondered if he had forgotten me yet.
Nonsense, medicated fantasies played through my head of what I had wished for he and I. His rough hands on my skin, his mouth against mine. The taste of him. Of what it would feel like to have him inside me, surging forward, his breath on my neck. I wanted him so badly it hurt. I wanted to stand beside him as I once hand, looking over our world and feel his arms around me. I wanted him to love me. But he never had, and he never would.
- A quiet noise, something half moan, half sob, escaped me, and I heard something move in my dark room in response. I sat up with a jerk, ignoring my aching head.
- “Who’s there?” I called.
- “Master Kuon, Right Hand of Death, Master of the Great Eastern Gardens.”
- I blinked in surprise. I hadn’t been addressed like that since…since that last battle.
- “Your master lives.” The voice continues, “He lives, and believes you dead.”
- My heart stopped, then suddenly leapt to my throat, hammering. “You lie!”
- “I do not.”
- “How do you know this?” I asked the voice in the darkness.
- “There are those of us who still remain loyal to the empire. I was stationed within the resistance long before the rebellion.”
- I could have cried for joy, “Where is he? He is well?”
- “He is mad.” The voice answered, “He lost his mind for grief and fury. He says for the loss of his empire, but we all know it is for want of you. He thinks the Resistance has killed you. He was badly injured, almost killed, in the attack that lost us the empire, but he would have marched alone after the Resistance, torn them apart with his bare hands despite his injuries if we had let him. We were forced to restrain him, lock him away, until he calmed enough to let us treat him. He is almost ready to attack now. In a few days time, I will report. He will soon know of your survival. What he will do then, only he can say.”
- “Tell him…” Tell him I love him, I thought, but I could not speak the words, “Tell him I will wait for him. Tell him when the time comes to attack, I will fight for him.”
- The voice did not answer, but I heard the door open and close and felt I was alone again. Tears ran down my cheeks in the darkness and I felt suddenly that I had strength enough to fight, to dance, to do anything. Law was alive. He was alive. No man on earth could ever have matched the terrifying, paralyzing joy I felt, the heat that burned in my chest. Everything would be all right. Law was alive.

- “You seem happier today. Something happen?”
- Rouknette was leading me down a hall, with me leaning on her arm, in the painstaking progress of reteaching my legs to walk. I smiled.
“Merely a wonderful dream, Rou.”
We were making laps up and down the hall my room was on. I never left that hall. If the rest of the Resistance or, god forbid, the civilians, caught sight of me there would have been mass panic. I would have died, undoubtedly, but I would have taken many with me. It was safer for the time being to keep me out of sight.
“What will you do with me, anyway, Rouknette?” I asked mildly, “You know I’ll never join you. And once I’m back at full strength I’m bound to turn on you. Why take the risk?”
Rouknette frowned, “Because you have nowhere else to go. The empire is dead, Law is gone, you have nothing but enemies wherever you go. I’m the only one who’ll keep you alive.”
“So you’re just going to keep me?” I scoffed, “I’m not a stray cat, Rouknette. And besides, you’re wrong. The empire is not dead. The empire will never die.”
“So you say, Kuon.” Rouknette sigh exasperatedly, “So you keep saying. But we’ve yet to see the slightest bit of activity from the empire since you’re capture.”
“Give it time.” I said coolly, “It won’t be long now.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Kuon,” My jailer said, frustration in her voice, “There’s been no attack, no retaliation, no activity at all. The Emperor’s entire council has either gone into hiding or given themselves up, and not even they have news of your beloved Emperor. Give it up, Kuon. The Empire is dead. The Resistance has won. See sense and join us.”
A tired flare of anger sparked within me. The old argument. I held my head high.
“As long as I live, the Empire lives.” I said proudly, “And the Emperor will come for me in time.”
“Law is dead Kuon!” Rounknette snarled, turning me perhaps more sharply than was strictly necessary as we reached the end of the hall and began the march back up, “And what fragments of the empire still remain won’t do anything lest I kill you, which I just may if you keep this up!”
- At this point she gave a particularly vicious jerk forward and my legs flew out from under me. There was a long pause in our conversation as we attempted to get me back on my feet, then over to the wall to rest. I was flushed and breathless and embarrassed at my own weakness. I should have been stronger by now. Rouknette sat beside me, looking perturbed.
- “Do you really love him so much?” She asked, a touch of desperation in her voice.
- I didn’t answer.
- “Perhaps I was wrong.” She said quietly, sadly, “Maybe there is no hope for you.”
- She stood and walked away, leaving me stranded in the deserted hall. My punishment for disappointing her yet again. No matter. I would drag myself back to my room in time. At the moment, I was to tired to do anything much beside lean my head back against the wall and think of Law.
- I didn’t even realize I had fallen asleep until I was woken by a shriek.
- The woman was mid to late thirties, drab, and standing in front of a pile of fresh linens. A civilian. A civilian who clearly and obviously recognized me. The panic on my face was mirrored by hers. Terrified, she retreated slowly a few steps, then bolted for the door. Panic rose like bile in my throat. She would tell everyone. They would come for me. I could not afford to die now, not when I was so close to seeing him again. I clawed myself up the wall and hobbled at full speed for my room. I threw my old clothing, still bloodstained and torn, in a bag, pulled on my tattered coat, grabbed a bottle of painkillers. It didn’t matter how weak I was. If I stayed here I would die. I would leave now. The adrenaline pumping through me would get me far enough to find Law. Everything would be all right then. I could already hear the shouting beginning below. Forget the rest. I swung the bag on my back and made for the door. But by the time I got their, they were already blocked. A mixed crowd of angry civilians and furious Resistance members stood in the way, many holding weapons. Keegan and Smith stood in front, Smith blank as ever, as though he had expected this, Keegan grinning viciously. He had expected this, and had been looking forward to it. I remembered the conversation I’d overheard between my two guards while I was still flickering in and out of sleep. ‘I bet he taught him all sorts of tricks.’ I felt all the strength I had left draining out of me. I couldn’t fight them. I doubt I could have taken one in the state I was in, much less a whole mob of them. I dropped the bag and thought of Law. If I could just focus on that one thought. Law was coming, Law was near. I could see Rouknette behind them, slumped on the floor. She looked unconscious. No help there. No help anywhere. I closed my eyes and took my mind away as the blows fell like hail. I felt bones shatter, wounds reopen, my blood flowing out on the floor. I had practice at this. I did not react. I did not retaliate. I thought only of Law. When the mob had had its fun and I was too broken to move, I was dragged off by three or four of the more violent ones, someplace dark. My room, I thought. I felt my clothes torn from me. I fought them then, as much as I could, but I was too weak to hurt them. In desperation, I called for Law, again and again. When I could no longer call with my voice, I called in my head, as I had that first time. It was so much like the first time, and so much worse.

- In my head I was small, only a stage 2, as I had been then. My older brother, Roan, was screaming, fire raging from him. I already had bruises. Therion was too frail to do anything, watching helplessly. He would patch me up when Roan was through, but he could do nothing else. My mother crouched in the hall, hands over her ears, eyes squeezed shut, shaking. She didn’t want to see it. It wasn’t happening if she couldn’t see it. Law’s words still echoed in my head, “You’ re stronger than him, stronger than he could ever be. That’s why he hates you. You have to fight him!” I believed him. Even then I trusted him completely. I shouted back at Roan, I pulled the scythe from my hair, swung it at him recklessly, missed, nearly hit Therion. Roan stared at me as though I had confirmed everything he had ever said about me. He wrenched the weapon from my grasp, screaming. I was evil, an abomination, vicious and soulless. A monster that needed to die. His fists burned where they struck and his nails tore holes in me, ripped at my clothes, exposed my skin to the light. Something came over him, something that scared me so much worse than the injuries he’d given me before. I was so small then, so very small. He tore the cloth on purpose now, ripped it away, shoved me to the ground, tore me open as he slammed into me, told me this was all I was good for, a worthless whore.
Always, always I called for Law.
And he came. Burst through the doors like an avenging angel. Like an angel. He burned with fury, white hot and terrible. He was young then too, but he didn’t look it. Roan didn’t stand a chance. He spread him all across the room. He would have killed Therion and my mother for watching, but I was more important. He wrapped me up, he carried me away, he took care of me, and I loved him. I loved him more then than reason allowed. I loved him to the brink of insanity..
- So I called for Law.
- He didn’t come.
- The pounding rhythm seemed to last forever. When they finally left, I couldn’t feel anything anymore. I was outside myself, listening to the constant refrain of “Law…Law…Law…” to no avail. Hours passed of blankness and dark. After a while the door opened. Someone was dumped inside. The door shut. Darkness returned. I heard a woman’s voice whispering my name, felt fingers scrabbling for mine in the dark. Rouknette. From the sound of things she had received similar treatment. She pulled, pleaded, begging me to be alive. I had no way of telling her. I wasn’t sure if I was alive myself. I remembered Law’s joke about salvaging my parts and slipped gratefully into the memory. The rest of the world dissolved. I slid from memory to memory to dream with no pause between for what felt like ages. If this was the afterlife, I thought, it wasn’t so terrible. I was happy here, at least. Lost in memories of him.
- After a long while, I returned to see what had become of my body. Rouknette had propped it against a wall and seemed to be trying to put it back together.
“We’re all that’s left,” She kept crying, “Please don’t die, we’re all that’s left.”
- I was sorry for her, but there wasn’t much I could do. I could still feel my heart beating in my chest but it was thready and erratic. I was already dead, and my body would soon follow suit.
- Somehow, she kept me alive through the long night. I could feel my body pulling me back, but I resisted the tug. I knew the pain that awaited me there and I had no interest. Days passed in the darkness. Eternities crept by unnoticed. No food, no light, except what the men brought with them when they returned sporadically to make sure we kept bleeding. There was so much blood. We should have run out so long ago.
- By the fourth visit, she was too weak to take care of me, and I had long since stopped caring. There was a dead, empty look in her eye. She had given up as well, but in a different way. The next time the door opened she launched herself at the men their in a whirl of fire and blood and hatred. They were dead in an instant. She paused in the door, blood falling heavy upon the floor, her breathing was shallow and inconsistent, and looked back at me. There was an inferno in those dead eyes, and for a moment I wanted to move, I wanted to follow her, but that would have meant something I wasn’t yet ready to admit. Her last words rang in the still air that would soon after be choked with shouts and screams and bangs.
- “I’ll come back for you.”
- She wouldn’t.
- Keegan would.
- His hand around my throat brought me back from where I floated, lost.
- “She’s dead.” He snarled, “She’s dead because of you! Why couldn’t you just die and leave us alone?! I’ll kill you! I’ll make you beg for death!”
- A fist connected with the side of my head and stars danced in my darkening vision. For the moment I was on the floor part of me registered confusion. Shouts and gunshots still rang through the building. There was the distant rumble of an explosion and the floor trembled beneath me.
The hand closed around my throat again and slammed me hard against a wall, shoving the air from my lungs. I distantly heard the clinking of a belt being removed. In the distance, the sounds grew louder, closer, no longer so distant. I could feel his hand between my legs, but my mind was already elsewhere, my eyes focused on the open door over his shoulder.
- “Law…” I whispered.
- “Don’t start that whimpering,” Keegan snapped, “Law is dead.”
- “I disagree.”
- The cut was swift and deadly accurate despite the bloody machete, which would have been clumsy in anyone else’s hands. Keegan fell to the ground, bleeding, paralyzed, but alive, the vertebrae in his neck expertly severed. And over him stood the Emperor of Earth, the warlord of the living and the dead, cruel and terrible and absolutely beautiful.
Law stood over his prone form for a moment, machete raised, radiating cold fury, then thought better of it and turned to me. I lay where Keegan had dropped me in a pool of my own blood, but I didn’t care. Law was here. Everything would be better now.
- “You came.” I whispered with my shattered voice, tears running down my cheeks, “You came.”
“Oh, Kuon.” He said slowly, voice strained, “What have they done to you?”
“I…love you…” It came easily to my lips. I knew I was dying, I had to tell him now, or never.
“Hush.” He said sharply, “Don’t say things like that. You can talk once we have you patched up.”
I smiled and shook my head, but I was quiet. I had never seen Law look so desperate. He wavered uncertainly over my wounds, kneeling in my blood, unsure what to do. He tore off his shirt, balled it up, pressed it to the flooding wound on my stomach.
“There’s too much internal damage.” He said nervously, “I have to get you to a doctor. Try not to move.”
“What doctor… would treat… me?” I said with a smile, “What…doctor…could?”
“I told not to talk like that!” He snapped, “You’re going to be fine! Just don’t…don’t…please, don’t…” Something seemed to be breaking in him, he was crumpling in on himself, leaning closer to me. I frowned, reached up to touch his cheek. I had to feel them to be sure.
Law was crying.
“I’m sorry.” He whispered, “I’m so sorry. I promised I’d never let them hurt you like that again. I told you I’d save you. And I…God, Kuon, please…please don’t die. Please don’t leave me. I love you.”
I thought I might burst from joy. My heart ached from happiness. I pulled his head down to mine and he kissed me so softly, so gently, as though afraid I would break. It was better than I ever could have dreamed.
- “The sea.” I whispered, “Please. Take me to the sea.”
Law nodded, and his jaw set. Tears still shining on his cheeks, covered in my blood and his, mixed and flowing, he lifted me into his arms and turned to the door. A crowd had gathered there, civilians and Resistance members and soldiers of the Empire all together. They parted soundlessly before him and watched him pass, the ruthless Emperor, carrying his dying love to the sea. I barely saw them. I was safe and warm in Law’s arms, and that was all that mattered.
- The Resistance head quarters was built on a cliff overlooking the Pacific. The sea had been so close, but I had been to weak to feel it, to weak to call it too me. The waves stirred gently as we made our way down the cliff path to the beach. Clouds of somber gray gathered in the sky, but did not rain. The sea was calm and sorrowful. The crowd followed behind us, a strange funeral procession that trailed in our wake on a carpet of scarlet, mine and his. He took me out to the water’s edge, the gray waves caressing his feet, and kept walking. He was up to his waist before I told him to stop. I looked up at my Emperor, so strong, so cold, crying for me, and my heart broke again. I kissed him one last time, and as we parted a sphere of light, swirling stormy gray, came from between my lips and settled in my open hands. The waves reached up impossibly to scoop me from his arms and pull me out. As we parted I pressed the light into his hands, smiled, and kissed him a last time. My last sight before the sea swallowed me up, was his face, holding what would someday soon be his son, looking empty and broken, watching me go.
- Then the world turned to water and light and stars. No darkness. Never darkness. Night, often, but a night as bright as the day, shining with diamond stars and a brilliant white moon. The moonlight dances like ghosts on a pearly shore, where a castle stands, and where I sit and wait for the day my love will join me there.

- Or maybe not. Maybe when the sea swallowed me up, it only held me for a moment. Maybe, just as Law had lost all hope, the waves broke open, and there I was, whole and healed by the ocean’s power. Maybe he took me in his arms and kissed me fiercely, and we went home together to the cheers of our friends and enemies alike. Maybe word got around of the Emperor’s love, of his quest to rescue his only heart. It seemed like such a love story after all. A great Emperor and his loyalist general, fallen in love, then separated by war, one captured by the enemy and broken by their hands, the other driven mad, wounded to the point of death, and imprisoned by his own men to prevent him chasing after his love, each one thinking the other dead, then reunited and saved by a miracle at the will of the sea. Maybe people began to see the Emperor in a different light. Maybe when he took the throne again, his love and his child at his side, people weren’t so resistant to his rule. Maybe he brought the whole world under one banner, and ruled it well, and was loved by his people forever. Maybe they didn’t take the throne again at all, but vanished together into the wilderness, to wander forever or make their home in places beyond human reach.

Or again, maybe not. Maybe the story was a tragedy. Maybe the sea never swallowed the broken body. Maybe he just died in its embrace. Maybe, heartbroken, destroyed, the Emperor used his power to bring the shattered form back to life. Maybe it worked, and Kuon returned to life. Maybe he was only alive for a while before the rotting set in. Maybe the corpse lived, but the soul never returned. Maybe the Emperor, heart destroyed, colder and crueler and more hateful than ever, returned to his castle, perhaps alone, perhaps half mad and carrying the broken doll. Perhaps he conquered and ruled the world for centuries as a vicious tyrant, with his most loyal assassin, the soulless corps of his love, still by his side, unchanging, all humanity lost.

Perhaps the heartache was too much. Perhaps he returned to the shore only to stay there, forever, staring out at the ocean that had taken his love, and the world went on without him. Perhaps he turned to stone, a statue on the beach, hand still clutching his child, who would never be born. Perhaps the weather beat at him and wore at him and carried him away piece by piece to the place where his love had gone, until he was unrecognizable from any other large stone on the beach. Maybe he’s still there today.

Maybe he moved on. Maybe he found peace. Maybe he left for the mountains with a strange child in tow. Left for a place where no one had ever heard of him. Maybe he raised his child there and told him stories of a great and terrible Emperor from long ago, and the tragic story of his lost love. Perhaps he grew old, and the child grew into a man, and together, as the old man was dying, they went back to the sea. Maybe when they got their there was someone waiting for them. Maybe the old man grew young again, and took his love in his arms, and they vanished together into the sea. Maybe the boy saw this, and made his home in the town that stood on the cliff above, where once stood a base where a great and terrible love story took place. Maybe he met his love and married her, and told his children the story his father had told him. And maybe they grew up and told their children as well. And in that way the story, and their love, just went on forever.
And maybe they lived happily ever after.
I’d like to think so.