breeding lilacs out of the dead land
Word Count: 1686
The music drowning out the Cathedral cut off at once. The batteries died again.
This time, he managed a fair thirty yards from his point of entry before the roiling shadows sucked his music player dry. Now the earbuds hung limply, lifelessly from his ears. He bit his tongue in contempt.
They still held their value, however - careless officers passed him with voices unhindered as they barked their unwise opinions. But what did they know of wars or humanity? For every forthright grumble intercepted, Elex questioned their standing. Did they know what human meant, beyond the biology of it? Did they know how to conduct wars as office clerks, as postmen, as artists? Could they know?
The questions left him in good spirits. He strolled with purpose through the hallway, dead words fading from his mind, and earbud wires jostling from every step. He passed the familiar stark doorways, the decadent caves that opened up in the rotting architecture, the great abyssal corridor that yawned out into the Rift itself. Ever he walked with purpose, if not with any destination. He endured fewer questions this way.
Was it folly of him to mislead others so? Maybe. He learned to leave such questions in his wake; he had less time to waste on existentialism after Schörl claimed command. She called him lazy, quick to lose his humanity, a breath above a waste of resources. Maybe the lot of that was true.
He smiled, quietly, to himself. Creatures of a thousand kinds lurked here, spanning all levels of intelligence and aptitude, spidering along walls and creasing through crystals' wicked lights in their endless networks. They pattered underfoot, they skittered overhead. They listened. They waited. They took orders with no thought for their own lives, should anything be left of them. Maybe Schörl expected more of the same from him. Maybe she didn't. Maybe all she wanted was a good show out of a wasted life.
But what was wasted about it? Faustite turned a corner, darted down a flight of stairs. Part of a banister crumbled beneath his clutch. Pausing, he regarded the ancient dust that left his hand.
He heeled to decadence before; he knew the petty life he led of complacence, of observation. He knew the taste of crab rangoon from the shores of Sicily, much like he knew the comforts of real Egyptian cotton sheets and the fit of Hugo Boss wool - always witnessing, always playing backseat to his parents' decisions. Always subjected to the pinnacle of mankind's luxuries and designs. Always lectured on their histories, of how to appreciate them, how to think of them. Had these experiences really mattered? Had they instilled in him a sense of brilliance or appreciation? An avid interest in carrying on his father's philanthropy, as intended?
Of course not. How could they?
Perspective is such a subtle trick. A subtle, treacherous trick. A trick that begged him down the path of emulating viewpoints not his own.
He finished the stairs, rounded another corner. Strode down another unoccupied hallway. Passed under an unfinished web. The corridors grew deeper and denser here, threatening to entrap and occlude all sense of direction. Perspective, he thought, painted the floor of the old cathedral in an intimidating light. Next to four-poster beds and hand-woven rugs, the soot-blackened halls spun a foreboding atmosphere. Hugo Boss wool felt nothing like the Negaverse uniform that now constricted him. Crab rangoon remained a distant memory with so many MREs swallowed down contemptibly. Now he knew only the feel of magically-charged material, of cobweb-laden walls, of limitless darkness and decay.
An opposition, to be certain. But an opposition potent in flavor, nearly palatable to his senses. A whisper remained of awe and interest for such derelict places as these, and the few who chose to meet these walls. He could explore and expand here in a manner intolerable in his prior life. He could learn beyond the bounds of the classroom. He could know structure of his own making, and a world of inimitable change.
But there, too, stood wretched barriers. Stark and snarling, they leered down at him with the same contempt that he shared for those around him - a confirmation themselves that he has not yet risen above that same filth. That, even now, he clung so blithely to old notions of riches, of society, of behavior. Of choice. Of aptitude.
Of morality.
He changed direction once more, down a sloping hall that degenerated into jagged, toothy caverns. He descended unhindered.
Faustite rolled his tongue against teeth, saliva bitter with antipathy. It felt so easy, so preposterously simple to just fall into line - to regard this place with the same tired attitude expressed by the non-youmafied soldiers. To hate the grind for its infringement on what docile life he led. To yield to commands given without thought or criticism for how doing so might better his insipid conditions. He needn't commit to any of it. He needn't yield to Arsenopyrite, or Chrysocolla, or even Schörl. Doing so proved no different than following his mother's orders, or obediently lurching about with tired old guests at stuffy fundraisers.
Nails scraped along the wall, with blackened soot coming off in great gouts that left the rocky exterior gouged. Faustite sighed. The myriad corridors wandered at random in an endless labyrinth. Just like his thoughts, he supposed, without music to overwrite them. Thoughts clouded in and rained upon him in a rancorous jumble. He was but a captain, lost among the halls that shunted deep into the earth. Wandering without direction. Capitalizing on his own inefficiencies. Treading through stricken waters. Walking paths better left to rot.
He stopped at once and turned his back on the deepening darkness in a whorl of smoke. Copper and moondust ensconced him. Sweat and rainwater. Old earth and spit. He faced down the path he took before, retraced his steps, and darted up the decrepit steps with renewed purpose. He couldn't wander, not now. He couldn't lose himself to pseudointellectual carnage. Following orders, following hallways, following old habits… Where did any of those choices lead for someone left beyond the bounds of everything considered human?
Hands gripped the desiccated banisters firmly, wrenching at them with each step skyward. He wasn't human, he reminded himself. He hadn't been human. He never was human, even with a body unmarred and sclera white and veined. A vessel of intentions never amounted to humanity. His mother's diligence and his father's guidance meant little in carving out a definition for himself - for his morals, his rights, his privileges. He was a husk, no less impotent than Chrysocolla or Arsenopyrite or the other tattered wraiths that walked these same halls.
He knew nothing of who he was or what it meant to be human - and he would never learn by treading this same path.
He passed the same illuminated crystals, the same exuberant lieutenants and tired captains. The rolling patterns of decayed rock finally gave way to a yawning door, riddled with crumbled gothic intricacies. He pressed his black hands to its still-firm surface and pushed inward, the doors groaning, the hinges wheezing with years of cremains and concentrated agonies, the long walls coming alive with a thousand fettered shadows. He stepped beyond their bonds willingly, committed himself to their judgment, and walked the long and winding staircase down into the Negaverse's very bowels.
The final bastion into the world of inhumanity yawned open for him. Outside, only a sourceless, bleak light shed insight into the austere and inhospitable crags, the roiling rivers. In the distance, a storm brewed, and he could smell the ozone hot on the air. Fear gripped him at once, alongside a knowledge that he stood in a land so utterly foreign to his upbringing. He took the moment to remember his old trappings, savored the thought, and retired it to the whipping breeze that razed the deep valleys.
If he wanted his humanity, if he wanted to define himself, he needed to look beyond all he knew. No, he needed to shatter every social bond learned in his life, examine the remains, and birth himself from the jagged shards. He needed to learn to see again through his jet eyes.
And he would start with but the smallest steps.
The landscape around him lived and breathed with unknown life, renewing his fears and striking caution into every paced footstep. He drew only a handful of feet from the door, where some of his peers still lingered, and drew the dead headphones from his ears. The wind met him in a rush. Exhilaration filled him. Trepidation guided his hand. Closing his eyes, he met the coming storm and scattered his thoughts.
Next came the media player, loosed from pocket and heavy in his hand. An old motion had the headphones half-wrapped around the device before he could stop himself. The words came when the music did not, now backed by his burgeoning defiance. Finally he drew his arm back.
The words cracked in his throat. Hesitated. Tarried until he forced them out, unbidden, into the wind. "This isn't a ******** life."
The words found punctuation as he threw the media player toward the desolate plain, his captain's strength carrying it deep into the youma's territory. He watched the distant device bounce, crack, shatter in half and the fragments tumbled ever further due to the unfurling storm. He sighed, his freedom thick and choking in his throat. He very nearly swallowed it down.
Faustite knew he still carried the words, the melody, the rhythm. They remained ingrained in his heart. And with a timid, tentative voice, he started through the lyrics that once put his mind to rest. Lightning sparked and splintered through the sky. A chill took him.
For once, he let the turmoil and raw passion of the storm fill his bones unbidden. He felt good, for once. Alive. Anchored by a song known and a fear embraced so readily. With it came a wicked excitement, an assurance that maybe,
possibly,
he could stir dull roots with spring rain.
