Chapter Text
“I will forward your message.” The captain spoke in a voice that cut through the night air, sharp as steel.
Both Tartaglia and Sandrone looked at their superior in disbelief, sharing widened eyes that expanded further as the man’s voice continued.
“Unhand him.”
It was a simple order and though the younger man and woman exchanged dismal glances, they followed the masked figure’s orders.
Ororon still kneeled before Capitano but with his arms no longer restricted behind his back, held out a pale, unusually clean envelope out to the harbinger. It was a stark white against the black of Capitano’s glove as it disappeared into the black interior of his coat.
“You may stand,” the captain directed, returning his gaze to the watchful faces of his subordinates, tilting his chin just slightly, indicating for them to return to their posts.
Teal eyes seemed to analyze every movement the veiled man-made, following the figure as it moved past him, the black of a cape expanding from the Captain’s shoulders like the mane of an animal.
“You aren’t taking it to her now?” The man asked, standing up and unpermittedly following Capitano as the harbinger started down marble steps.
The young man and woman who stood at the doors exchanged yet another glance, wondering what would happen to the man who deliberately questioned the Captain’s orders.
Everyone knew that Capitano was dangerous and could easily kill anything or anyone in a matter of seconds.
The guards’ fists tightened around the handles of their weapons, but their surprise peaked as the Captain held out a circled arm for the Natzhayen man to take.
“She is rather occupied at the moment. I will deliver your message later.”
Even the tribal man seemed surprised at the arm Capitano offered to help him down the stairs and a spark seemed to glimmer amidst turquoise irises for a split second before simmering away.
The half-gloved hand that revealed pale fingertips gently clutched the clothed forearm, blackened by a dark and silky sleeve.
The walk down the steps was quiet and only the clipping echo of boots against marbles could be heard against the night, brought up by dead silence.
The soft whistling of wind seemed to resonate in the hollows of Capitano’s mask with each step. He kept his head forward, but his eyes were on the man next to him who seemed to walk down the stairs with ease despite the apparent fact that he should be tired after walking up the full flight of steps only a few moments ago.
He was no ordinary person. It was not often Capitano saw many people from the Natzhayen district, as it was one of the farthest districts from the capital.
“I’ve been meaning to meet you.” The man spoke up, the wind tossing at his navy hair, framing it against his brilliant eyes, marked by symbols of black.
He had a soft and marbly voice despite the harsh and cold lines of his exterior.
‘The same could go for you’ was what the Captain wanted to say, but he held his silence. This was the man he was meant to kill, and it made sense to the harbinger as he was the kind of person who could physically make it to the Tsaritsa’s palace. That on its on made the tattooed man a threat.
Ororon looked at the side of the Captain’s mask with lit eyes, as if he could look right through the curved grey and black edges that masked the harbinger’s real identity, almost like he knew Capitano was not looking forward but looking at him from the corner of his eye.
“Is it okay for you to be accompanying me like this? Given you are a Royal Guard and all,” Ororon asked, shifting his hand upon Capitano’s arm but the captain only shook his head.
“It is my duty to serve the people of the republic.” He responded cryptically. In reality, he wasn’t sure what could happen if he let the tribal man be left to his own vices in such close proximity to the palace.
The captain had a good feeling that the man’s job was done there, but he could never be entirely sure.
The turquoise-eyed man must have had a lot of nerve because he laughed at the captain's comment, a drawn-out chuckle erupting from his lips that seemed to fill each crevice of cold air around the two men with an inexplicable warmth.
“Duty to the republic, can you even call this hell hole a republic ?”
The steel heel of a boot hit the last clean marble step before the next landed upon a grime-slick, greyer pavement, marred with dirt. The sounds of Pervaya’s never-ending construction thrummed its mechanical tune through the air. Scraggly pieces of trash blew across the pavement, littered with snow that had turned from a bright white to a greyish brown under a layer of soot and dust.
The Captain felt the weight of a hand lift from off his arm and turned his head from the slate gray of the street to the bright turquoise eyes that seemed to gaze into him, almost as if Ororon saw something in Capitano that he did not.
People would look at this street, thick with dust and grey, marble in ruin, and only see their home. The pride of their industrial habitat. They would cling to the idea that progress was occurring and things wouldn’t be so dim forever. Those people would die and their children would follow, all carrying the same ignorance the previous generations did in hindsight to their surroundings.
But the hum of manufacturing would keep a constant in the air, and the snow that littered the ground would only grow darker until the next winter when that snow was similarly drowned out by dust.
When people saw it, they saw home. Even Capitano saw every bit of the life he knew in each crack upon the sidewalk, whether it was beautiful or not, it was where he belonged.
But the man before him stood with bright turquoise and navy blue, organic against the murky browns and mid-tones of industrial dust and dirt.
Capitano could take one look at him and know that was going to die, and perhaps that was all that mattered. Of course, everyone was going to die eventually, but there was something about the spark of fire that illuminated large, unwavering irises, that told Capitano that spark would not be awake for long.
The silence spaced out between them and Ororon had turned away. The captain stared into the back of the man’s colored hood, wondering why his hand lingered on the handle of the blade. He wondered why he couldn’t kill him right there.
“Who are you?”
Maybe if Capitano knew who this person was, he would know why it was so difficult for him just to draw the blade and slice through the back of the man’s neck.
The Natzhayen man blinked at the captain and noticed the black hand on the sword's hilt, but he didn’t seem to care.
A smile twisted at Ororon’s lips and the laugh from before seemed to once again envelope the air.
He was going to die.
“Would you like me to show you? Who I am⎯ that is,”
Ororon looked through the figure of black, masked and industrialized with greys of silver arches. He looked through the picture that blended Capitano with the scene of black snow and a black sky. He looked into the man who didn’t wish to kill him, and at that moment, Ororon knew that he was going to die.
But that was just the way things went in a world like this, so it was his job to compensate for it.
Capitano unpursed his lips to speak but the start of his voice was interrupted by the bang of Pervaya’s Clocktower, which could be heard throughout all the nations. Other people nearby moved to cover their ears at the loud sound, which was more like an explosion than the thrum of a bell, but the two men in the clearing stood unaffected.
There were two bells that the clock tower would set off, one being the five-minute warning before curfew begins, while the second one was its actual start.
After the second bell, all access to waypoints across the nation would be shut down, as well as streets and public transportation. However, the most important shutdown across the nation was the lights. All of Sheznavat’s power would go out to ‘conserve energy for the rapid industrialization of the republic’ as said by the Tsaritsa.
Of course, it seemed like lights alone would not be that much of a problem, but considering that the sky was completely permeated by thick billows of smog and pollution, without the reflected light of buildings and street lights, there was no way to see at all.
It was rumored that not even a flashlight could shine through the wafts of black ash that would mask one’s vision. Some tales even state that if one were lost in the haze, they would never find their way out again.
Capitano was not so sure of the latter hypothesis, considering that as someone who had mapped out the entirety of the nation’s land beneath his boot with no trouble, smog or not, it was possible to mitigate.
The captain was no ordinary person. By taking the same mechanical steps through the same black plane for hundreds of repetitive years, he had learned his way around.
Yet based on a normal person, it was an easy possibility for them to get lost and end up in a place entirely unrelated to where they came from.
The willpower alone to make it through the haze against the thick air and the swell of a drumming heart was enough to kill a man.
Ororon stood still and steady despite the wretched, terrible bang that echoed through the night air. He wasn’t nervous and the look in his eyes read that he had anticipated it.
“You don’t seem alarmed by the coming curfew,” Capitano said, watching as the man faced him with a soft-edged smile.
“Well, I shouldn’t need to worry if you’re here with me.” He said it was the most natural thing in the world.
Capitano saw his smile, and his soft eyes, solid turquoise that seemed to glimmer in his direction, like they knew something about the future that Capitano did not. It was dangerous and the harbinger knew it was. But there was something in him that couldn’t pull his eyes away from that gaze.
Something that just couldn’t let go.
Capitano didn’t need to look at the clock to know that the second alarm would go off before Ororon would safely reach a waypoint.
Why should it matter if this man isn’t safe when he is a threat to the republic?
Shouldn’t a harbinger such as himself take every measure to make sure this danger is eliminated?
They were simple questions that could be answered by Capitano easily. He was a man who believed in the right of humanity. Perhaps his job coincided with the welfare of humans, given that the Tsaritsa did not care for her people in that manner. She had a love for pieces in a game that she would use and manipulate over her board.
It wasn’t exactly a terrible thing either, to be controlled for the ‘greater means of society.’
“I’ll take you to a waypoint. I can ring it if we don’t make it before the next curfew.”
But Capitano has never been one to take advantage of people in a state of weakness or disadvantage. If he was going to kill someone, he would do it directly, and at a time when that is the only necessary thing to do.
Ororon smiled again, this time without his teeth, and Capitano wondered why he offered his arm again.
Every fiber of Capitano’s being told him not to reach out for him, not to involve himself with this person who screamed danger in every way.
But his muscled arm found its place, hooked with a hand resting against it. Capitano believed that it was just decency, but he was not sure if he had ever done this for anyone else before.
After all, nobody could make it up the palace’s steps.
In Capitano’s eyes, he could see that this man was extraordinary. Be it a revolutionary or a man of government, Capitano held respect for those willing to lay down their lives for a ‘greater mean’
The palm’s warmth could not reach through the thick, cold fabric of his coat, but he could feel its gentle pressure as he guided the hooded man through the empty streets.
His scarf was relatively colorful, woven with purples, blues, and greens. It was not often that even an upper-class Sheznavatayen man would see a bold color other than red, backed by black, grey, or an off-white.
Capitano couldn’t even recall the last time he saw an actual color apart from murky brown, but when he saw that brilliant pattern of blue woven in fine string into the black of the man’s hood, he knew it was familiar.
It felt close, close enough to Capitano to remind him that somewhere under his iron suit was a human. A human that had lived many lives over and over again, who walked the same steps through darkness as the second bell went off. A person who had forgotten what living meant in turn for withholding the state of the world, to keep it as it was. A being who had chosen that balance over their humanity.
The lights went out, but the gentle rustle of Ororon’s scarf wafted through the air above the clicking of Capitano’s steel boots against the ground.
The brilliant ink-toned hue was still engrained into his mind even as his vision was nothing but shadow.
He felt the body next to him shuffle closer, although unalarmed by the bell’s shrill cry.
Capitano had a feeling that this life would be different.
“I can’t see a thing,” Ororon whispered through the silence, a voice distorted by its echo that seemed to bounce between the empty alleyways.
It was quiet. Ororon couldn’t hear a thing except the beating of his own heart. He could hear his breath, growing shallow with every passing second. It was black, and he was nervous.
After all, he was blindly being led by the most dangerous person in the nation next to Tsaritsa. Heck, this guy was the working hand of the Tsaritsa.
Capitano wasn’t known for his cruelty, but rather for being strict and distant. Ororon had confidently placed his bets that his plan would go well, as predicted, and the captain would not kill him at the palace steps, and take his letter.
But even Ororon was surprised that Il Capitano had so easily accepted his presence, and was now leading him through the fog that seemed to whistle into his ears and buzz his mind.
Ororon could not hear a single breath enter or leave the man next to him. He wondered if he was being led to his death by the cold figure his arm had taken hold of.
What if this man was going to kill him?
What if he was going to die before everything could go as planned?
Ororon’s gut began to twist and he wondered if he was going crazy. By instinct, his fingers began to dig into the fabric of the sleeve next to him, and he could feel the firm exterior of the arm that led him, but that was all.
Ororon was never keen on his senses, but he couldn’t feel a presence of life anywhere around him, not even in himself. If anything he felt death, a long slow death that was taking hold of his heart, squeezing the life out of its throbbing beat.
Ororon wasn’t sure when, but at some point, he had lost hold of the arm that led him, and his fastened pace slowed down to a halt. There was not a single ounce of light that filled his vision, his eyes were just as useful as they were open as they were closed. He was blinded, while his heart raged in his chest. There was nothing that he could do to know where he was, he remembered walking but he wasn’t paying attention, and now he was alone.
He was out of control and he was going to
hurt
.
Ororon’s footsteps wavered and the voice that cut crisp through the air startled him as it reached out for him, but it didn’t get through his mind for a few times, not until the cold grip of clawed iron against the bare skin of his arm shocked him into recognition.
“Ororon.” The voice spoke to him and he snapped his head up.
Silver.
It looked like a crown, the upper outline of the mask caught the faintest glimmer of light through the billowing pollution.
He could see him there, feel him there. Feel the hand that guided him back to sanity through the black that he had dragged himself into.
“How do you know my name?” He asked the darkness which did not respond, only pressing a clawed hand fully against the expanse of his lower back, guiding him forward.
Capitano pulled away from Ororon as they reached the statue and the Natzhayen man turned around to look at him. The teleport waypoint even while shut down emanated a small amount of silver light that allowed Ororon to make out the silhouette of the harbinger’s figure.
Capitano used his clawed fingers to press against the underneath of the statue which in return lit up immediately.
The teleport waypoint glowed a brilliant blue amidst the smog in every ounce of reflected light could be seen thick particles of dust, dirt, and ash that were made even more visible than the collective black they made in the air. His large form of silver metal and dark fabric was illuminated blue by the light, his face obscured by industrialized lines.
He looked like the city in the prospect of metals that outlined his figure. But he was clean, his long silky, and straight hair fluttering around with the small breeze. The dirty air never seemed to mix with the clean slate of his coat, no freckles of dust ever splaying across the silver curves of his mask that obscured his face.
Ororon looked at him and suddenly had many questions formed on his lips, but his mind was blank, staring blindly at the figure who watched him in return.
“Why are you helping me?”
It was all that Ororon could say. Given that the harbinger knew his name, it was likely that he knew something about Ororon’s planned rebellion, and if so, it made no sense for the captain to help him.
They were on different sides, people who couldn’t coexist in any way possible because time wouldn’t allow it.
“Did you know that the air was clear once? At night you could see lights in the sky, tiny and millions of miles away. Sometimes they would cross the sky, like beams of fire launched like a catapult across a vast darkness.” Capitano spoke from his mind.
Ororon did not understand what he meant by this, he had never heard of a sky with light. He only knew the pitch black that made the sky into a void that if you bore into it for too long, it would come down and swallow you whole.
Turquoise irises gazed into the ash that flooded the space between them but never settled on the industrious frame that shielded the Captain’s face. The murk stuck to Ororon’s face and burned at his eyes, seeping between his lips and restricting his throat.
“But of course, it matters not what was in the past, as the past is now dead, and the only thing that reeks in this world now is the present. There is no future to change, and the past is not real. There is only now.”
Capitano began to turn away, his body already succumbing to the billows of haze that warped his figure into a darkening silhouette.
Ororon did not understand why, but there was something about the man’s voice that spoke of a different time that made him want to reach out, desperately. He rushed his words, the smoke clogged the piping of his throat piece by piece.
“But that doesn’t explain anything- what are you trying to tell me?”
The wind howled in the circuits of Ororon’s sparking mind, beating its pressure upon his ears. The man across from him stood as a stone pillar, a remnant of the unavoidably distinct. A shard of a fallen castle of glass that had collapsed under its weight.
“You and I will be martyrs by the end of this time, but the spirit of this land will carry on after us. There is nothing more that we can do than set the oblivion ablaze.”
The voice distorted by a separation of time disappeared along with the clicking of metallic boots, the noise overwritten by the industrial hymn of the city.
Ororon squinted against the thick air, moving forward, wading against the current to follow the fading sounds, but was pushed back towards the flickering waypoint, which would quickly turn off.
His heavier judgment led him back to the statue, quickly cranking the mechanism until it designated the target location to Natzhaya. He got up on the platform and squeezed his eyes shut, praying against the darkness that stuffed his soul with emptiness. He closed his palms together, praying that one day, seeing the lights that once scattered the sky. And if that meant death, so be it.
He would be a martyr, and he would die for this cause.