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The vacation period for Titus Drautos coincided, inevitably, with the return of General Glauca to Niflheim. His superiors had decided to send him to Tenebrae to make sure that the troops, and especially the civilians, respected the Imperial orders imposed two years earlier. Knowing that things were getting a little out of hand lately, they had decided to send the only man capable of expanding terror with his mere presence. And who if not him.
He would have laughed if his mood was not already soured. Titus felt the ship slow down, preparing to land. He held his breath, closing his eyes under his helmet, ready to meet the green landscape of Tenebrae.He had left Insomnia less than 48 hours ago, leaving the command to a rash young gun lover for the next two weeks.
No, there was absolutely nothing to laugh about.
He would enjoy a good bottle of wine, or even two, if on his return he would not find rows of reports to sign and no casualties due to avoidable mishaps within the ranks of his recruits in the newborn Kingsglaive. Then, perhaps, he would look for company.
When the tailgate opened, his eyes were greeted by a sunny day. He couldn’t help but admit that Tenebrae was beautiful at this time of the morning. Titus breathed in the fresh air that only Tenebrea could seemingly offer him, the circuits from the ship that were activated with every movement, crackling unnaturally in the morning stillness.
Memories slowly began to surface in his mind as he walked towards the palace. The Empire called it "the taking of Tenebrae", a strategic attack that occurred two years earlier with an aim to ambush and kill the King of Lucis, who was there to seek healing for his son. But things did not run as smoothly as one imagines.
Titus stopped in a clearing, the armor throbbing slowly with each breath, looking over the green and fertile soil that surrounded him. There was so much green but, in his eyes, it was still stained with blood. He closed them and the memory of the flames appeared before him. He still hadn't been able to completely get it out of his mind at night. After the most stressful days of work, nightmares kept him company startling him awake drenched in cold sweat.
Niflheim had decided to support him with the addition of simple soldiers and magitek prototypes for a field test, they had said. Titus remembered how, in the midst of battle, he saw one of these soldiers out of the corner of his eye use a flamethrower against the Prince of Tenebrae. The screams of the Queen still rang in his ears as she used her body as a human shield to protect her son, as any mother would have. Her face having slowly disfigured, melting from the heat of the fire. Her expression having mirrored the thoughts of her slow death.
He remembered stopping, just as the King of Lucis fell among the corpses of his attendants, and how Titus then turned to end the queen's agony. He had acted out of mercy, the blade of his sword piercing the woman offering her a quick and painless death, her clear eyes staring at him as life seeped out of them. Titus can still remember in the vortex of fire and blood that the feathers on the woman's cloak looked like wings. His helmet hid the look of sadness directed to the young Prince kneeling behind the late Queen and the shock that would accompany him throughout his life.
It was not supposed to go like this, nobody was to die besides the King. And, damn the Gods, the latter had managed to survive. If only he had concentrated on the goal, leaving out the humanity that flowed in his veins and in his soul...
The man opened his eyes, moving again to reach the gardens adjacent to the palace. He was not in the mood to listen to soldiers speak of haughty nonsense of their day to day life.
He had personally organized the list of soldiers and people who would settle in Tenebrae -- valid men with good principles, loyal to duty and with family. He had chosen them carefully three days after his recovery from the attack by the King's ancestral blades. And yet, the monotony of life led even the most tenacious of men to let go of their most darkest obsessions.
Titus walked slowly, his firm steps echoed on the stone path, and the pulsation of his armor acted as a constant reminder in his chest. Other difficult memories crept into his mind as the birds on the bushes stopped singing only to fly away upon his appearance. His gaze absently followed the flapping of their free wings, nostalgia reflected in his eyes.
Surrounded by the green of the woods he thought of the pine forest adjacent to his native village, of the sound of the waves breaking on the rocks where men fished, of life before this nightmare. Perhaps in retrospect, Cavaugh was not so dissimilar to Tenebrae, both abandoned to fend for themselves by a fake King protected by his wall. Screams falling on deaf ears in the face of the people’s desperation at their current danger. The day of the attack on his village it rained, just as it rained on the day he allied himself with the Empire. They had promised him the freedom of his lands.
His armor pulsed bright red as his hand tightened around the hilt of his sword. Handling the weapon under his clawed glove brought him great relief. However, hatred coursed through him overpowering his senses.
Titus was experiment number 12 of that fucker Verstael Besithia. The number had been tattooed on his shoulder like an animal to the slaughter. Tied naked to a bed that barely contained his size, he remembered the eyes of that mad scientist who seemed to enjoy every needle punctured into his body.
It took 7 days to complete the experiment.
He remembered the smell of burning when they opened a piece of his chest to insert what would later become his personal demon. Demon blood mixed with mithril molten metal. The excruciating pain that led him to scream despite being under local anesthesia, accompanied by the demonic metal that crawled within his veins to compact under his skin.
Titus had never given up, never regretted that choice.
It took months to get used to his new hell. Months in which the wound on his chest healed and then again torn open with each call from Glauca. His body had tried to rebel against that intrusion even when the pain almost drove him to the brink of insanity on the hottest of nights.
However, no fire could compete with the screams of his fellow villagers as the soldiers shot them like stray dogs abandoned by Lucis to this terrible fate. The King of Lucis could have saved them, he should have saved them. They were his people after all. Instead he sentenced them to extermination.
Hate never left him. Hatred made him fight against his human nature. He had accepted that demon, had given him a name.
“General Glauca …”
Titus came to his senses chasing those memories away from his heart. He turned his head to the left, already knowing who that voice belonged to.
Her...
The Princess of Tenebrae.
That little girl who had slowly become a woman, but who had never had the gaze of a child.
Titus struggled to accept that look. A look that said she had accepted her destiny, whatever the gods chose. But, the Gods do not listen, they are greedy and curious observers of the torments of mortals. And surely they wouldn't choose something happy for this girl.
Time seemed to stand still...
The Princess should have hated him because by all accounts he was the one who had mercilessly killed her mother. It was he who had made her a prisoner in her own house, and unbeknownst to her, saving her from the clutches of soldiers who would have gladly stolen her innocence. Titus was the one who had trained her brother to protect what was left of his home: his sister. It was what he periodically underlined in his briefings -- that anyone who approached the Tenebraen royal palace would respond to him personally.
Lunafreya didn't deserve this hell.
He allowed himself to look at her maturing face and the way her blond strands covered the thin straps of her simple white dress. They fell softly onto what seemed like uncovered slender shoulders while her bare legs were delicately strapped into comfortable white sandals. Her tapered arms clutched at a bouquet of flowers making a lovely image, but still he couldn’t escape that expression on her face.
That look ...
Titus could not stand it.
The look he had been met with the first time two years earlier, when she turned towards him after voluntarily releasing the hand of the man who could have saved her. She had preferred to save her home and family despite the soldiers surrounding them with weapons. Titus had held the girl's determined gaze. He took notice of her young face absent of tears. He had even admired her way of walking amongst soldiers who had forcibly clipped her wings. Taking all of this into account, his pride could only be described as that of a father and in the most hidden and human side of him, he considered Luna as the brave little girl he had to protect.
He would never admit this to anyone, not even himself.
That girl did not deserve all this, that courage and that determination locked up in a white crystal cage adorned with fake approval, but Titus could do nothing but defend her in the only way he knew how.
By sending severe orders and instilling terror.
It was then that the wind rose, shaking the scarlet tails of his cape and waving the girl's skirt. Lunafreya gently raised a hand, holding out a sylleblossom flower to him.
And inside Glauca's armor, another piece of Titus Drautos' heart fell apart.