guardians_song (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
guardians_song) wrote2012-09-29 07:19 pm
guardians_song) wrote2012-09-29 07:19 pm
Entry tags:
Stand There And Watch Me Burn (PG-13, Nergal-centric, Angst/Tragedy)
Summary: Who are you? What do you live for?
Fandom: Fire Emblem 7
Character(s) or Pairing(s): Nergal; mentioned past Nergal/Aenir
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Angst/Tragedy
Word Count: 4634
Author's Note: Yes, apparently the canon name for Nergal's wife is Aenir. I only continue using Ninis in sporkings because she's been "Ninis" for so long that it would bewilder people if I changed her name. :P (And the Japanese-version term for quintessence was aegir. Yep, guess where the translation error occurred in his English-version death quote.)
Disclaimer: Fire Emblem and all related characters belong to Nintendo and Intelligent Systems. I might add that "Love The Way You Lie" belongs to Rihanna and Eminem, though it isn't really relevant - it's just that I've listened to it so many times while banging out this oneshot that I swear it deserves co-writing credit.
(Final count? A little over 68 times straight. @_@)
Crossposted from my Livejournal.
Who are you? What do you live for?
The traveler caught his breath and stared up at the blazing desert sky, wiping the sweat off his forehead.
I am Nergal. I live to... undo my mistakes. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry...
Swallowing hard, he forced himself to remember; lack of discipline was the first step towards being devoured by the dark, and he hadn't lived hundreds of years
(past his time)
to meet that fate now. He had to bring it all back again. He had to. It was... his duty.
It wasn't at all that the pain was the only thing that made him feel alive now, no. Not at all.
I was too weak to protect my children on my own during the Scouring, and, for the sake of their safety, had to send them to a place where I can never follow. I was too weak to save my wife, and she died for it. I was too weak to do a single thing... too weak...
Weak...
His breathing grew ragged, and he forced his legs to stumble onwards, towards where he might find another set of ruins in this hellish desert - a desert born from the destruction of the country of Nabata during the Ending Winter. A bitter smile tugged at one side of his mouth - Did the common people today even realize there had been a country here, once? He doubted it...
The more knowledge he gained, the more power awaited him. That was the pact of the darkness - That was why countless foolish shamans and careless druids had thrown away their very souls over the millennia, all for the sake of that potentially limitless power. And that was why he had turned his back on the outside world and condemned himself to a seeming eternity of wandering in this barren land, all in the hopes of salvaging forgotten scraps of knowledge...
With enough power, anything could be achieved, could it not? The very laws of nature abased themselves before elder magic - That was the true reason the Mage-Lords of Eturia had banished its practitioners from their lands, not any of this nonsense about "unholiness" and "unnaturalness" that came down from sanctimonious Elimine's pious little church. They feared that which could send them tumbling down from their exalted heights like the stones of a crumbling castle from the dilapidated battlements... like the dragons down the mountains of Bern, when the first shock of the Ending Winter had torn the breath from their lungs...
'
But it was best not to think of those things...
All that mattered was that, when he achieved the greatest power, he would be able to make amends for his failures. The "impossible" would mean nothing to him. He would destroy the very laws of death, and bring her back. He would make a mockery of the power that was supposed to be dragons' alone, and bring his children back from beyond the Gate. He would defy every law of this new, twisted nature, if need be, and bring back the times when they could be happy.
He had only himself to blame, after all. And thus, he had only himself to help him make it all right.
A sudden glimpse of something broke him out of his thoughts; frowning and shielding his eyes from the glare of his sun, he squinted far into the distance. Was that... another solitary traveler? No, how absurd - Was he hallucinating, or had the scrape of the sand-grains across his eyeballs whenever the wind kicked up taken its toll upon his vision?
Despite himself, he found himself heading for the mysterious figure several sand-dunes away; surprisingly enough, he thought the figure seemed to be heading for him as well. He knew it was ridiculous - as likely as not, it was some misguided bandit or desperately lost merchant - but he couldn't help his quickening steps through the sand.
He had had enough of being alone.
"Who are you? And, if I may inquire - what is your purpose for traveling this barren land?"
Nergal smiled involuntarily - and let out an exhausted laugh, though the other man would likely mistake it for wryness and affability.
You have no idea, my friend.
"I am Nergal," he said. "My purpose - I suspect it's the same as yours, is it not? What other reason could one have for traversing Nabata's sands, save the quest for power - for greater knowledge? "
The man did not catch his slip, or interpreted it as a rhetorical insertion. "I suppose that is so. In return for your answer, you are owed an introduction of my own.
"I am Athos."
The smile fell off his face.
Who are you? What do you live for?
I am Nergal, once a child of a miserable little village in Bern, then a foolhardy, ambitious wandering shaman with no place to call home, and then, for centuries, a guest atop the highest mountain in Ilia. Husband to one priestess, father to a daughter and son.
Companionship did make one think more thoroughly about one's past... even if it was only to plan out what you would mention and what you would deny.
Ah, yes. Companionship.
His gaze slid over to the man sitting on the other side of the ruined chamber, and his eyes narrowed.
I suppose I should be thinking of how I can kill him.
Athos had been one of the Eight Generals, after all. No matter how reasoned and wise he seemed, no matter how little like a bloodthirsty beast he appeared... He had slaughtered dragons by the dozens. He gladly would have slaughtered...
(Not that he had. It was Durandal, not Forblaze, that they proudly bragged in Ostia had been first deployed against an Ice Dragon.)
Yet, whenever he had broached the subject, Athos had claimed that the dragons had been nothing but mindless beasts, and seemed to believe it whole-heartedly. Nergal, what is the point of these hypothetical scenarios? he had asked in genuine confusion when Nergal had pushed him enough on questioning his account of the events. While the Scouring would have been a completely different war had our foes been intelligent - they were not. You were on the Dread Isle during the war - Yes, so he had told Athos, and he indeed had a study on Valor
(and there he had left - and there he had failed his children)
to which he could point if asked - you had no experience of those beasts. Truly, they lived for nothing but war. It only astonishes me that they were able to live in the same world as humanity for so long prior to the war - I had my differences with Elimine, but I agreed with her proclamation that dragons can never be allowed to return to this world. Humanity's survival depends upon it.
Nergal had not had the self-restraint to both control his rage and continue questioning Athos with any pretense of civility, so there he had left it. In retrospect, however, he wondered if Athos had not been pushed into the war until well into the conflict - If he had fought nothing but Fire Dragons hellbent on eradication of humans from their lands, it was possible -
You promised yourself for decades that, if you ever came across any of the Eight, you would crush the life out of them on the spot and rejoice in their dying agonies; why have you gone back on your word? Are you such a coward?
Perhaps this one is not what I thought they were, he told himself. Perhaps I was... mistaken.
Perhaps you're a weakling and a coward who has not the strength to carry through on his word.
He gritted his teeth and began dragging back the old memories.
I was too weak to protect my children, and had no choice but to send them beyond this world forever, or let them be torn to pieces by a crowd of jeering savages. His hands tightened into fists. I was too weak to save my wife, and to this day inbred, well-fattened geese crow about having slaughtered someone who would have treated them with nothing but respect and kindness, had their positions been reversed... I was too weak...
Too weak...
Who are you? What do you live for?
I am Nergal. Resident of Arcadia.
And every day, I live with the knowledge that, had I been stronger, I could have had a paradise like this every day of my life.
He could lie, of course. He could say that he lived to improve this paradise and protect it from the outside... Ah. That was not what he was supposed to say, either, was it? Athos wished to bring this paradise to the outside world, to use it to better humanity's lot. Surely, if they but understood what a utopia this union of humanity and dragonkind had created, said Athos, those on the outside would come to realize their errors and change their ways.
Ha. For hundreds of years, he had witnessed such a utopia - one even better for the humans, in fact, since they alone benefitted and had nothing requested of them in return, and the dragon had been quite content just to see them happier and healthier than they would have been otherwise. And he had listened to the preaching of a true believer - that humans and dragons could live in peace, that they could benefit enormously from nothing more than each other's company, that together, they could forge a better future...
...And in the end, she had been driven out of her own home, persecuted, and finally butchered for her naivete. Ha. That, for all her belief in humans and hopes for a better future. And the same went for Athos's dreams as well.
But there was no point to telling Athos the truth - he could hear even in his own mind how "unreasonable" and "scarred by tragedy" he would sound to anyone else, and he understood perfectly well what sort of prissy, high-minded lectures he would receive for his troubles. One never understood these things until they happened to oneself, after all.
So, for now, he pretended ignorance and strove to make the lives of these people better where and when he could. Some days, he even saw a chance to let go... a chance to give up the past for lost, and take his happiness from the world around him, and make his future where he could find -
My children were sent from the home they loved and cherished and the world in which they rejoiced because I was weak, and my wife was driven from the land to which she had dedicated her life and died because I was weak. And I? I could not do a thing to prevent it - because I was weak.
And I live, and continue working for ever greater knowedge, and striving towards ever greater power, because I will never be weak again.
He had to remember that. That was all that was important, under all this pretense of "contentment" and "happiness".
He had to gain enough power. No matter what.
And then -
He didn't deserve to be happy until he had achieved that. Until Aenir stood by him and his children stood before him once more -
There would never be enough power. He must always strive to grow stronger. Not until then could he rest.
Not even in the quiet of his own mind.
Who are you? What do you live for?
I am Nergal, who will not be thwarted. Currently...
He looked at the Fire Dragon currently passed out in a drunken stupor, and shook his head.
Currently, I live for infiltrating Arcadia's deepest archives and discovering what, precisely, the Fire Dragon generals were doing during the final years before the Ending Winter.
Oh, he knew something had sent many Fire Dragons fleeing for the Gate, refusing to fight any more under their generals - and refusing to die, of course - but he had never known what. And now, after years nearly without number, he had at last discovered the truth.
The generals had turned cannibal upon a Divine Dragon in every way save stripping the flesh from her bones with their own teeth: they had destroyed her soul, corrupted her life-force, her aegir (or quintessence, as the dragons translated it into the human language), and converted her into nothing more than a living mechanism to produce mindless golems manufactured in dragon shape - the so-called "War Dragons". It had been an atrocity, an abomination - but it had done enough for them to turn the tide back against the humans, no matter how briefly, and driven the humans to accelerate the development of the Divine Weapons.
Techniques that could subjugate even a Divine Dragon... what power did they hold?
Of course, he had no intention of subjugating any dragon, Divine or not, but surely such powers had other applications. The redirection of aegir alone... The creation of beings from nothingness, abomination or not...
By sealing away that knowledge, the Arcadians had thrown away the powers of gods.
Oh, of course they had had their reasons. The few Fire Dragons who had come to Arcadia after that event (of which the dragon he had just helped along in his intoxication had been one) had been justly repulsed by what their generals had done, and had no doubt been too disgusted to give any cold, rational thought to the techniques at hand at all. (Anyone who claimed the children of flame lacked irrationality and emotions was either a fool, a liar, or delusional. Yes, including those of the children of flame who claimed exactly that.) And so, they had declared the knowledge too horrible to use... but recorded it nonetheless. Heh. How quintessentially draconic.
A pity he wasn't one of their kind.
In the long term, I live to resurrect my wife. And to bring my children back to the home they so dearly loved.
And that goal may at last be within reach.
"Nergal... who is this man you are becoming? And what is the purpose behind your recent actions?"
Nergal blinked. "I... fail to understand the question, Athos," he said with a frown. "Either of them, really. What do you mean, 'the man I am becoming'? I am as I ever was. And 'my recent actions'..."
"Your secretiveness. Your delving into increasingly darker arts in the village archives. Your... ritual murders of small creatures."
"Ritual murder"? Really, that was so melodramatic that Nergal nearly burst out laughing. Instead, he decided to be reasonable. "Do you want to have the dragons swear off meat?"
"What?" Athos's brow creased. "Nergal, what in the world..."
"How does it differ, Athos? They kill small creatures for their own consumption; I have devised a way to do the same for mine. Unless you object to one, it's absurd to object to the other. So, unless you plan to have them go on a strict diet of dates and palm leaves -"
"It is the method that matters, Nergal, not what you deem to be an equivalent end result. In order to... consume..." Athos grimaced at the word, to Nergal's confusion and mild amusement (really, when had he gotten so squeamish?), but continued, "...these creatures, you use powerful and profane techniques forbidden by the Arcadian elders. Perhaps it is due to our varying backgrounds - you have always favored elder magic, I anima, and I know practitioners of your preferred branch of magic are reputed to possess both immense curiosity and immense recklessness by nature - but I believe that, for them to condemn it so strongly, they must have their reasons."
Nergal suppressed a snort. I know their reasons. And I reject them. "And I believe that those who forbid the pursuit of knowledge are mankind's mortal enemy - and, to speak bluntly, the enemies of every thinking being. Come, now, Athos, you are a scholar, are you not? Do you not know as well as I that, did our sort obey the dictates of every quivering village elder, we'd all still be living in meager huts, drawing pictures in the dirt to communicate any complicated concepts, and scrounging in bushes for our meals?"
Athos did flinch at that one. "In this case, however - I agree with them," he said, taking a step forward and making beseeching gestures. "Nergal - how can you be blind to your actions? You rip the essence from living creatures and add it to your own energy, as if you were - for the sake of bringing you to your senses, I shall be harsh - like some immense leech! How can you not see the evil of these techniques! And that is not all you have been researching - the dragons are not as ignorant as you believe! They do not know the details, but as for the areas - You have been seeking out knowledge of how to tamper with the fundamentals of life and death themselves! Do you not understand what you are doing?"
Oh, this. Pah. He hadn't thought he'd have to endure any such nagging until he resurrected Aenir and had to endure the wonders of a priestess taking up the task of priestly righteousness. "And when did you take up preaching draconic theology, Athos?" he asked, tilting his head slightly to the side and raising an eyebrow. "I thought your concern, too, was to solve all the mysteries of the world - Does that no longer matter to you? Have you come to believe, under the tutelage of the dragons, that there are some secrets that should not be breached?" Despite himself - he had meant only to be sarcastic - he felt sadness welling in him. If that was the truth, then -
Hidden by his voluminous sleeves, his hands clenched. But Athos... He had been the only one who ever...
"There are some secrets whose answers can only be obtained by methods that are not worth the cost," Athos said at last. "I... have come to understand this through my studies, by going so deep into the paths of knowledge that I have at last discovered questions that I cannot afford to answer - not because of the cost to myself, which I would gladly pay, but because of the cost to others. You are not without kindness and consideration, Nergal - I have watched you over the centuries, and I have come to know you well - How can you not understand this?"
Because I do not pursue power for the sake of knowledge, but knowledge for the sake of power. Because I must have it at any cost. Because I must.
"It's you who doesn't understand, Athos," he said eventually. "You are the one who has blinded yourself. If only you would heed my words... if only you would consider taking but a few steps on the road I tread..."
"What I fear is that, having taken those few steps, you have lost track of the way back," said Athos. "You must understand, Nergal - I am not opposed to the quest for power, for greater knowledge. However, that quest must be driven from within. To fuel your quest with the stolen lives of others, this brings not wisdom but abomination."
Abomination. Nergal resisted the urge to grit his teeth - visibly. So you've become a theologian indeed, Athos.
He had expected this from Aenir, in the end - and possibly the children, if their talents had inclined them to that route - but he had accepted that as their right to do such things the new lives he had given them. He was a mature, intellectual man, after all. He could gracefully accept ingratitude. But for his truest friend to do this to him... the only man who had ever understood, the man who had walked the same path when they first came to Arcadia...
He shook his head and turned, at last, to go. "I'll think on it, I suppose. Good day, Athos."
"Good day, Nergal," Athos said, and Nergal flinched at the sadness and defeat in his voice. "I hope you do."
Who am I? What do I live for?
The traveler gritted his teeth and pressed the strips of cloth to his wound again, trying not to retch at the feeling of blood and pus leaking down what remained of the right side of his face.
I am Nergal, the outcast, the betrayed. I am Nergal...
...who does not die so readily.
He was nearing the edge of the desert at last; soon, he would reach Lycia, and from there Bern. Eturia would have too many people who had some hope of tracking him, if Athos but insinuated himself into its power structure and stared making inquiries; Lycia had too few places to hide. Sacae was a joke - a literal horde of nomads frolicking across wide-open plains - and Ilia... he had no interest in returning to Ilia. Too many memories. So Bern it was.
Others could not be trusted. If he placed his trust in anything ever again, it would be in War Dragons - or the human morphs thereof, once he discovered the appropriate modifications to the techniques laid down by the Fire Dragon generals. They would not have minds of their own, therefore they could not plot behind his back to BURY HIM! Like the craven, despicable TRAITORS that were the dragon elders and the ever-so-wise Archsage Athos! Too frightened to advance, too spiteful to allow others to do the same - miserable, puking whelps, no matter what their venerable ages -
Heh heh heh... No. He had to keep control over his temper. He would have to keep control over his temper for a long time yet. The overriding flaw of dragonkind was a refusal to change, while the overriding flaw of humanity was an overwhelming impatience. But he had attained long-lasting life - he could afford patience. Indeed, he would have to be patient. Slowly increasing his power in Bern, devouring bandits and foolhardy Wyvern Riders - and benefitting from the occasional borderline skirmish with Lycia - until his power had grown to the point that he no longer feared the elders and Athos, and could begin moving about more openly.
What did he live for, now?
Revenge. Revenge upon everyone who had ever hurt him, upon everyone who had ever scorned him and cast him out, from the village elders who had feared even the meager power of a Flux tome, to the Ice Dragons who had recoiled in disgust from a love between a dragon and a human and called their children abominations, to the humans who had shattered the peace of Ilia out of nothing more than hatred, envy, and greed, to a man who should have known better, the only one who ever truly understood -
Yes. Yes, he had many things indeed to resent, and he would exact repayment for them all. Even if the ones who had done it were long dead - he could exact revenge upon their kind. And since he had been wronged by all...
...Why, all he ever did would be justified, would it not?
His wound throbbed; he had to stop for a moment, gasping. Yes. Yes, it would be just-
What did he live for?
Once, long ago, in a cold and frozen land far, far away, so unlike this blazing hell on earth... he had had a family. There had been his wise and kind wife, and his good and sweet children, and they had been happy...
...And through his weakness, he had lost them all, and he would never be weak again...
Yes. More power. He had to be... stronger. He had to acquire power... the power that could defeat anyone. He had to have power over life and death... He had to open the Gate. He had to do it.
He had to do it if it was the last thing he ever did.
That was what he lived for.
Blindly, hardly aware of the wasteland around him, he forced his legs to stumble onwards, his mind fixated on those thoughts and those thoughts alone. More power. He had to have more power. That was all that mattered. That was the purpose of his existence - to gain more power, to move ever closer to that state of perfection. It was what he needed - to attain the power of a god, the power that would enable him to...
Power...
~coda~
Who am I? What do I live for?
His mouth quirked in a smirk; they were such silly questions, echoing from when he had been much younger and less sure of his purpose in the world - nonetheless, they did drift into his mind on occasion and linger until he gave them their silly answers, so he felt obligated to answer them.
I am myself. And currently, I live to recapture the dragon brats.
For a moment, his smirk disappeared - The thought of those whelps always set his teeth on edge. So disobedient... so... ungrateful. Really, now, did they think a return to Elibe would come without a price? Their current mistreatment was their fault, anyway. He would have treated them quite well if they had only consented to aid him. Perhaps he would have even tossed them scraps of quintessence - made it a bit easier for them to breathe in this altered world. But no, instead they had to be rebellious, insolent, and stupidly obsessed with thoughts of right and wrong.
It's understandable from them, at least - the children know no better. The figment of mercy flickered through his mind, and was gone in another moment, crushed under the wave of a rising headache. They ought to have known better - they were gullible and trusting, not stupid. And he had been trusting upon a time, had he not? But never stupid. And they ought to have been good and obedient, ought they not? They should have been good chil-
He rubbed his forehead, gritting his teeth as the headache spiked. Best not to think overlong on those brats. They invariably gave him vicious headaches.
His smirk reappeared as he let his mind stray to more pleasant subjects.
I live to refine my works of art - to bring my Morphs ever closer to perfection. To not mimic life, but to surpass it. Until I have gained the power of creation and destruction as surely as any god. Until, indeed, I can be said to revive the dead - in puppet form, at least. Heh heh heh... Is that not enough for my purposes, though? And regardless of the fine details, one must not be picky about the details of miracles...
And finally, I live for power. I live to crush my enemies before me and devour their quintessence. I live to bring death and destruction - I, the calamity-bringer, no longer at the mercy of the catastrophes that so rule the lives of mortals, but the maker of them. The pain of others no longer concerns me. Their sorrow matters nothing to me. I care nothing for the misery I have brought others. The only one I live for is myself.
Only myself...
~final~
Why? Why must I lose?
More power... I must be... stronger... I...
Why? Why did I... want power?
......Aenir?
...Don't... under...stand... but... gah... not like this... I will not die...like this.
With my last breath... tremble... and... despair. Hwah ha ha... ha...ha ha ha...
...Nils? What is it?
...I... don't know... Why... am I... crying...?
~END~
Fandom: Fire Emblem 7
Character(s) or Pairing(s): Nergal; mentioned past Nergal/Aenir
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Angst/Tragedy
Word Count: 4634
Author's Note: Yes, apparently the canon name for Nergal's wife is Aenir. I only continue using Ninis in sporkings because she's been "Ninis" for so long that it would bewilder people if I changed her name. :P (And the Japanese-version term for quintessence was aegir. Yep, guess where the translation error occurred in his English-version death quote.)
Disclaimer: Fire Emblem and all related characters belong to Nintendo and Intelligent Systems. I might add that "Love The Way You Lie" belongs to Rihanna and Eminem, though it isn't really relevant - it's just that I've listened to it so many times while banging out this oneshot that I swear it deserves co-writing credit.
Crossposted from my Livejournal.
Who are you? What do you live for?
The traveler caught his breath and stared up at the blazing desert sky, wiping the sweat off his forehead.
I am Nergal. I live to... undo my mistakes. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry...
Swallowing hard, he forced himself to remember; lack of discipline was the first step towards being devoured by the dark, and he hadn't lived hundreds of years
(past his time)
to meet that fate now. He had to bring it all back again. He had to. It was... his duty.
It wasn't at all that the pain was the only thing that made him feel alive now, no. Not at all.
I was too weak to protect my children on my own during the Scouring, and, for the sake of their safety, had to send them to a place where I can never follow. I was too weak to save my wife, and she died for it. I was too weak to do a single thing... too weak...
Weak...
His breathing grew ragged, and he forced his legs to stumble onwards, towards where he might find another set of ruins in this hellish desert - a desert born from the destruction of the country of Nabata during the Ending Winter. A bitter smile tugged at one side of his mouth - Did the common people today even realize there had been a country here, once? He doubted it...
The more knowledge he gained, the more power awaited him. That was the pact of the darkness - That was why countless foolish shamans and careless druids had thrown away their very souls over the millennia, all for the sake of that potentially limitless power. And that was why he had turned his back on the outside world and condemned himself to a seeming eternity of wandering in this barren land, all in the hopes of salvaging forgotten scraps of knowledge...
With enough power, anything could be achieved, could it not? The very laws of nature abased themselves before elder magic - That was the true reason the Mage-Lords of Eturia had banished its practitioners from their lands, not any of this nonsense about "unholiness" and "unnaturalness" that came down from sanctimonious Elimine's pious little church. They feared that which could send them tumbling down from their exalted heights like the stones of a crumbling castle from the dilapidated battlements... like the dragons down the mountains of Bern, when the first shock of the Ending Winter had torn the breath from their lungs...
'
But it was best not to think of those things...
All that mattered was that, when he achieved the greatest power, he would be able to make amends for his failures. The "impossible" would mean nothing to him. He would destroy the very laws of death, and bring her back. He would make a mockery of the power that was supposed to be dragons' alone, and bring his children back from beyond the Gate. He would defy every law of this new, twisted nature, if need be, and bring back the times when they could be happy.
He had only himself to blame, after all. And thus, he had only himself to help him make it all right.
A sudden glimpse of something broke him out of his thoughts; frowning and shielding his eyes from the glare of his sun, he squinted far into the distance. Was that... another solitary traveler? No, how absurd - Was he hallucinating, or had the scrape of the sand-grains across his eyeballs whenever the wind kicked up taken its toll upon his vision?
Despite himself, he found himself heading for the mysterious figure several sand-dunes away; surprisingly enough, he thought the figure seemed to be heading for him as well. He knew it was ridiculous - as likely as not, it was some misguided bandit or desperately lost merchant - but he couldn't help his quickening steps through the sand.
He had had enough of being alone.
"Who are you? And, if I may inquire - what is your purpose for traveling this barren land?"
Nergal smiled involuntarily - and let out an exhausted laugh, though the other man would likely mistake it for wryness and affability.
You have no idea, my friend.
"I am Nergal," he said. "My purpose - I suspect it's the same as yours, is it not? What other reason could one have for traversing Nabata's sands, save the quest for power - for greater knowledge? "
The man did not catch his slip, or interpreted it as a rhetorical insertion. "I suppose that is so. In return for your answer, you are owed an introduction of my own.
"I am Athos."
The smile fell off his face.
Who are you? What do you live for?
I am Nergal, once a child of a miserable little village in Bern, then a foolhardy, ambitious wandering shaman with no place to call home, and then, for centuries, a guest atop the highest mountain in Ilia. Husband to one priestess, father to a daughter and son.
Companionship did make one think more thoroughly about one's past... even if it was only to plan out what you would mention and what you would deny.
Ah, yes. Companionship.
His gaze slid over to the man sitting on the other side of the ruined chamber, and his eyes narrowed.
I suppose I should be thinking of how I can kill him.
Athos had been one of the Eight Generals, after all. No matter how reasoned and wise he seemed, no matter how little like a bloodthirsty beast he appeared... He had slaughtered dragons by the dozens. He gladly would have slaughtered...
(Not that he had. It was Durandal, not Forblaze, that they proudly bragged in Ostia had been first deployed against an Ice Dragon.)
Yet, whenever he had broached the subject, Athos had claimed that the dragons had been nothing but mindless beasts, and seemed to believe it whole-heartedly. Nergal, what is the point of these hypothetical scenarios? he had asked in genuine confusion when Nergal had pushed him enough on questioning his account of the events. While the Scouring would have been a completely different war had our foes been intelligent - they were not. You were on the Dread Isle during the war - Yes, so he had told Athos, and he indeed had a study on Valor
(and there he had left - and there he had failed his children)
to which he could point if asked - you had no experience of those beasts. Truly, they lived for nothing but war. It only astonishes me that they were able to live in the same world as humanity for so long prior to the war - I had my differences with Elimine, but I agreed with her proclamation that dragons can never be allowed to return to this world. Humanity's survival depends upon it.
Nergal had not had the self-restraint to both control his rage and continue questioning Athos with any pretense of civility, so there he had left it. In retrospect, however, he wondered if Athos had not been pushed into the war until well into the conflict - If he had fought nothing but Fire Dragons hellbent on eradication of humans from their lands, it was possible -
You promised yourself for decades that, if you ever came across any of the Eight, you would crush the life out of them on the spot and rejoice in their dying agonies; why have you gone back on your word? Are you such a coward?
Perhaps this one is not what I thought they were, he told himself. Perhaps I was... mistaken.
Perhaps you're a weakling and a coward who has not the strength to carry through on his word.
He gritted his teeth and began dragging back the old memories.
I was too weak to protect my children, and had no choice but to send them beyond this world forever, or let them be torn to pieces by a crowd of jeering savages. His hands tightened into fists. I was too weak to save my wife, and to this day inbred, well-fattened geese crow about having slaughtered someone who would have treated them with nothing but respect and kindness, had their positions been reversed... I was too weak...
Too weak...
Who are you? What do you live for?
I am Nergal. Resident of Arcadia.
And every day, I live with the knowledge that, had I been stronger, I could have had a paradise like this every day of my life.
He could lie, of course. He could say that he lived to improve this paradise and protect it from the outside... Ah. That was not what he was supposed to say, either, was it? Athos wished to bring this paradise to the outside world, to use it to better humanity's lot. Surely, if they but understood what a utopia this union of humanity and dragonkind had created, said Athos, those on the outside would come to realize their errors and change their ways.
Ha. For hundreds of years, he had witnessed such a utopia - one even better for the humans, in fact, since they alone benefitted and had nothing requested of them in return, and the dragon had been quite content just to see them happier and healthier than they would have been otherwise. And he had listened to the preaching of a true believer - that humans and dragons could live in peace, that they could benefit enormously from nothing more than each other's company, that together, they could forge a better future...
...And in the end, she had been driven out of her own home, persecuted, and finally butchered for her naivete. Ha. That, for all her belief in humans and hopes for a better future. And the same went for Athos's dreams as well.
But there was no point to telling Athos the truth - he could hear even in his own mind how "unreasonable" and "scarred by tragedy" he would sound to anyone else, and he understood perfectly well what sort of prissy, high-minded lectures he would receive for his troubles. One never understood these things until they happened to oneself, after all.
So, for now, he pretended ignorance and strove to make the lives of these people better where and when he could. Some days, he even saw a chance to let go... a chance to give up the past for lost, and take his happiness from the world around him, and make his future where he could find -
My children were sent from the home they loved and cherished and the world in which they rejoiced because I was weak, and my wife was driven from the land to which she had dedicated her life and died because I was weak. And I? I could not do a thing to prevent it - because I was weak.
And I live, and continue working for ever greater knowedge, and striving towards ever greater power, because I will never be weak again.
He had to remember that. That was all that was important, under all this pretense of "contentment" and "happiness".
He had to gain enough power. No matter what.
And then -
He didn't deserve to be happy until he had achieved that. Until Aenir stood by him and his children stood before him once more -
There would never be enough power. He must always strive to grow stronger. Not until then could he rest.
Not even in the quiet of his own mind.
Who are you? What do you live for?
I am Nergal, who will not be thwarted. Currently...
He looked at the Fire Dragon currently passed out in a drunken stupor, and shook his head.
Currently, I live for infiltrating Arcadia's deepest archives and discovering what, precisely, the Fire Dragon generals were doing during the final years before the Ending Winter.
Oh, he knew something had sent many Fire Dragons fleeing for the Gate, refusing to fight any more under their generals - and refusing to die, of course - but he had never known what. And now, after years nearly without number, he had at last discovered the truth.
The generals had turned cannibal upon a Divine Dragon in every way save stripping the flesh from her bones with their own teeth: they had destroyed her soul, corrupted her life-force, her aegir (or quintessence, as the dragons translated it into the human language), and converted her into nothing more than a living mechanism to produce mindless golems manufactured in dragon shape - the so-called "War Dragons". It had been an atrocity, an abomination - but it had done enough for them to turn the tide back against the humans, no matter how briefly, and driven the humans to accelerate the development of the Divine Weapons.
Techniques that could subjugate even a Divine Dragon... what power did they hold?
Of course, he had no intention of subjugating any dragon, Divine or not, but surely such powers had other applications. The redirection of aegir alone... The creation of beings from nothingness, abomination or not...
By sealing away that knowledge, the Arcadians had thrown away the powers of gods.
Oh, of course they had had their reasons. The few Fire Dragons who had come to Arcadia after that event (of which the dragon he had just helped along in his intoxication had been one) had been justly repulsed by what their generals had done, and had no doubt been too disgusted to give any cold, rational thought to the techniques at hand at all. (Anyone who claimed the children of flame lacked irrationality and emotions was either a fool, a liar, or delusional. Yes, including those of the children of flame who claimed exactly that.) And so, they had declared the knowledge too horrible to use... but recorded it nonetheless. Heh. How quintessentially draconic.
A pity he wasn't one of their kind.
In the long term, I live to resurrect my wife. And to bring my children back to the home they so dearly loved.
And that goal may at last be within reach.
"Nergal... who is this man you are becoming? And what is the purpose behind your recent actions?"
Nergal blinked. "I... fail to understand the question, Athos," he said with a frown. "Either of them, really. What do you mean, 'the man I am becoming'? I am as I ever was. And 'my recent actions'..."
"Your secretiveness. Your delving into increasingly darker arts in the village archives. Your... ritual murders of small creatures."
"Ritual murder"? Really, that was so melodramatic that Nergal nearly burst out laughing. Instead, he decided to be reasonable. "Do you want to have the dragons swear off meat?"
"What?" Athos's brow creased. "Nergal, what in the world..."
"How does it differ, Athos? They kill small creatures for their own consumption; I have devised a way to do the same for mine. Unless you object to one, it's absurd to object to the other. So, unless you plan to have them go on a strict diet of dates and palm leaves -"
"It is the method that matters, Nergal, not what you deem to be an equivalent end result. In order to... consume..." Athos grimaced at the word, to Nergal's confusion and mild amusement (really, when had he gotten so squeamish?), but continued, "...these creatures, you use powerful and profane techniques forbidden by the Arcadian elders. Perhaps it is due to our varying backgrounds - you have always favored elder magic, I anima, and I know practitioners of your preferred branch of magic are reputed to possess both immense curiosity and immense recklessness by nature - but I believe that, for them to condemn it so strongly, they must have their reasons."
Nergal suppressed a snort. I know their reasons. And I reject them. "And I believe that those who forbid the pursuit of knowledge are mankind's mortal enemy - and, to speak bluntly, the enemies of every thinking being. Come, now, Athos, you are a scholar, are you not? Do you not know as well as I that, did our sort obey the dictates of every quivering village elder, we'd all still be living in meager huts, drawing pictures in the dirt to communicate any complicated concepts, and scrounging in bushes for our meals?"
Athos did flinch at that one. "In this case, however - I agree with them," he said, taking a step forward and making beseeching gestures. "Nergal - how can you be blind to your actions? You rip the essence from living creatures and add it to your own energy, as if you were - for the sake of bringing you to your senses, I shall be harsh - like some immense leech! How can you not see the evil of these techniques! And that is not all you have been researching - the dragons are not as ignorant as you believe! They do not know the details, but as for the areas - You have been seeking out knowledge of how to tamper with the fundamentals of life and death themselves! Do you not understand what you are doing?"
Oh, this. Pah. He hadn't thought he'd have to endure any such nagging until he resurrected Aenir and had to endure the wonders of a priestess taking up the task of priestly righteousness. "And when did you take up preaching draconic theology, Athos?" he asked, tilting his head slightly to the side and raising an eyebrow. "I thought your concern, too, was to solve all the mysteries of the world - Does that no longer matter to you? Have you come to believe, under the tutelage of the dragons, that there are some secrets that should not be breached?" Despite himself - he had meant only to be sarcastic - he felt sadness welling in him. If that was the truth, then -
Hidden by his voluminous sleeves, his hands clenched. But Athos... He had been the only one who ever...
"There are some secrets whose answers can only be obtained by methods that are not worth the cost," Athos said at last. "I... have come to understand this through my studies, by going so deep into the paths of knowledge that I have at last discovered questions that I cannot afford to answer - not because of the cost to myself, which I would gladly pay, but because of the cost to others. You are not without kindness and consideration, Nergal - I have watched you over the centuries, and I have come to know you well - How can you not understand this?"
Because I do not pursue power for the sake of knowledge, but knowledge for the sake of power. Because I must have it at any cost. Because I must.
"It's you who doesn't understand, Athos," he said eventually. "You are the one who has blinded yourself. If only you would heed my words... if only you would consider taking but a few steps on the road I tread..."
"What I fear is that, having taken those few steps, you have lost track of the way back," said Athos. "You must understand, Nergal - I am not opposed to the quest for power, for greater knowledge. However, that quest must be driven from within. To fuel your quest with the stolen lives of others, this brings not wisdom but abomination."
Abomination. Nergal resisted the urge to grit his teeth - visibly. So you've become a theologian indeed, Athos.
He had expected this from Aenir, in the end - and possibly the children, if their talents had inclined them to that route - but he had accepted that as their right to do such things the new lives he had given them. He was a mature, intellectual man, after all. He could gracefully accept ingratitude. But for his truest friend to do this to him... the only man who had ever understood, the man who had walked the same path when they first came to Arcadia...
He shook his head and turned, at last, to go. "I'll think on it, I suppose. Good day, Athos."
"Good day, Nergal," Athos said, and Nergal flinched at the sadness and defeat in his voice. "I hope you do."
Who am I? What do I live for?
The traveler gritted his teeth and pressed the strips of cloth to his wound again, trying not to retch at the feeling of blood and pus leaking down what remained of the right side of his face.
I am Nergal, the outcast, the betrayed. I am Nergal...
...who does not die so readily.
He was nearing the edge of the desert at last; soon, he would reach Lycia, and from there Bern. Eturia would have too many people who had some hope of tracking him, if Athos but insinuated himself into its power structure and stared making inquiries; Lycia had too few places to hide. Sacae was a joke - a literal horde of nomads frolicking across wide-open plains - and Ilia... he had no interest in returning to Ilia. Too many memories. So Bern it was.
Others could not be trusted. If he placed his trust in anything ever again, it would be in War Dragons - or the human morphs thereof, once he discovered the appropriate modifications to the techniques laid down by the Fire Dragon generals. They would not have minds of their own, therefore they could not plot behind his back to BURY HIM! Like the craven, despicable TRAITORS that were the dragon elders and the ever-so-wise Archsage Athos! Too frightened to advance, too spiteful to allow others to do the same - miserable, puking whelps, no matter what their venerable ages -
Heh heh heh... No. He had to keep control over his temper. He would have to keep control over his temper for a long time yet. The overriding flaw of dragonkind was a refusal to change, while the overriding flaw of humanity was an overwhelming impatience. But he had attained long-lasting life - he could afford patience. Indeed, he would have to be patient. Slowly increasing his power in Bern, devouring bandits and foolhardy Wyvern Riders - and benefitting from the occasional borderline skirmish with Lycia - until his power had grown to the point that he no longer feared the elders and Athos, and could begin moving about more openly.
What did he live for, now?
Revenge. Revenge upon everyone who had ever hurt him, upon everyone who had ever scorned him and cast him out, from the village elders who had feared even the meager power of a Flux tome, to the Ice Dragons who had recoiled in disgust from a love between a dragon and a human and called their children abominations, to the humans who had shattered the peace of Ilia out of nothing more than hatred, envy, and greed, to a man who should have known better, the only one who ever truly understood -
Yes. Yes, he had many things indeed to resent, and he would exact repayment for them all. Even if the ones who had done it were long dead - he could exact revenge upon their kind. And since he had been wronged by all...
...Why, all he ever did would be justified, would it not?
His wound throbbed; he had to stop for a moment, gasping. Yes. Yes, it would be just-
What did he live for?
Once, long ago, in a cold and frozen land far, far away, so unlike this blazing hell on earth... he had had a family. There had been his wise and kind wife, and his good and sweet children, and they had been happy...
...And through his weakness, he had lost them all, and he would never be weak again...
Yes. More power. He had to be... stronger. He had to acquire power... the power that could defeat anyone. He had to have power over life and death... He had to open the Gate. He had to do it.
He had to do it if it was the last thing he ever did.
That was what he lived for.
Blindly, hardly aware of the wasteland around him, he forced his legs to stumble onwards, his mind fixated on those thoughts and those thoughts alone. More power. He had to have more power. That was all that mattered. That was the purpose of his existence - to gain more power, to move ever closer to that state of perfection. It was what he needed - to attain the power of a god, the power that would enable him to...
Power...
Who am I? What do I live for?
His mouth quirked in a smirk; they were such silly questions, echoing from when he had been much younger and less sure of his purpose in the world - nonetheless, they did drift into his mind on occasion and linger until he gave them their silly answers, so he felt obligated to answer them.
I am myself. And currently, I live to recapture the dragon brats.
For a moment, his smirk disappeared - The thought of those whelps always set his teeth on edge. So disobedient... so... ungrateful. Really, now, did they think a return to Elibe would come without a price? Their current mistreatment was their fault, anyway. He would have treated them quite well if they had only consented to aid him. Perhaps he would have even tossed them scraps of quintessence - made it a bit easier for them to breathe in this altered world. But no, instead they had to be rebellious, insolent, and stupidly obsessed with thoughts of right and wrong.
It's understandable from them, at least - the children know no better. The figment of mercy flickered through his mind, and was gone in another moment, crushed under the wave of a rising headache. They ought to have known better - they were gullible and trusting, not stupid. And he had been trusting upon a time, had he not? But never stupid. And they ought to have been good and obedient, ought they not? They should have been good chil-
He rubbed his forehead, gritting his teeth as the headache spiked. Best not to think overlong on those brats. They invariably gave him vicious headaches.
His smirk reappeared as he let his mind stray to more pleasant subjects.
I live to refine my works of art - to bring my Morphs ever closer to perfection. To not mimic life, but to surpass it. Until I have gained the power of creation and destruction as surely as any god. Until, indeed, I can be said to revive the dead - in puppet form, at least. Heh heh heh... Is that not enough for my purposes, though? And regardless of the fine details, one must not be picky about the details of miracles...
And finally, I live for power. I live to crush my enemies before me and devour their quintessence. I live to bring death and destruction - I, the calamity-bringer, no longer at the mercy of the catastrophes that so rule the lives of mortals, but the maker of them. The pain of others no longer concerns me. Their sorrow matters nothing to me. I care nothing for the misery I have brought others. The only one I live for is myself.
Only myself...
Why? Why must I lose?
More power... I must be... stronger... I...
Why? Why did I... want power?
......Aenir?
...Don't... under...stand... but... gah... not like this... I will not die...like this.
With my last breath... tremble... and... despair. Hwah ha ha... ha...ha ha ha...
...I... don't know... Why... am I... crying...?
~END~
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I'm glad you found it effective, and thank you for commenting!
[I've wanted to do a Nergal-backstory fic for a ridiculously long time, actually. It was good to finally put one down on paper. :)]