Chapter Text
What would lead one to betray a country?
That was what the man asked as he stood with his back to the militia.
The distant sounds of blurred shouts blended into the high-pitched ringing of his ears. His body, which had always been in a state of unnatural strength, was now weak. Each step he took was from limbs so numb that he could not feel his feet as they dragged down a case of never-ending stairs, covered in black cinders that gleamed an uncomfortable orange.
The smell of smoke filled his nostrils and plagued his mind. His vision was filled with red, flames and billowing smoke rose from the lines of buildings and structures on all of his sides. The night sky, previously black, was now a horrible orange and brown glow as if hell had thrown its sheet over it.
The place that he had grown close to was gone once again.
A sweltering heat enveloped his body, but his blood ceased cold in its place. He could no longer lift his feet as he could not feel them enough to move forward.
He wondered if he was already dead, standing there in the center of mass destruction, not being able to feel an ounce of life within his own body, which already trembled with cold. He could hear that his previously racing heartbeat had gradually slowed down to a throbbing, dying pulse, spacing out further between each syncopation with every passing second.
A light breeze raised the sounds of shouts and cries to his ears, wafts of smoke blowing against his body and into his eyes, blinding his irises with the burning gray.
‘Do not take another step forward’
A void spoke from behind his back but passing through his ears, it did reach through and into his clouded mind.
He shuffled his feet to avoid falling over, but a heave of movement in his arms made him still again. Bright red moisture hit his cheek, and the hack of a cough penetrated the whirr of his ears.
The man looked down at the figure in his arms, which shook as scarlet leaked down from an open mouth, and a blood-stained face filled his vision. The gleam of white teeth in a grin unfitting for the situation stood out against the red.
The man was sure his eyes were upon the devil.
He looked apart from the teeth that appeared sharp against the hazy glare of his smoke-stained eyes, shifting his gaze to the eyes of the man, who had led him to be there in the first place.
But even in the end, the ‘man’ who stood weak, almost dead, could not find himself blaming the other for choices he had similarly made.
He had fallen for the trick and that made him equally evil.
If he was looking down at the devil, he wondered what that would make him, standing before his destroyed country with the heads of spears pointed against his back.
He stared into the teal-toned green, and the reflection of his own face, made unrecognizable by the crinkling of eyes and in their glassy reflection flickered the golden hues of fire-light.
‘You are under arrest for infiltration of government, treason, assisting criminals, and the attempt at creating a revolution, which is strictly in violation of law codes 6263, 2370, 2649, and 4351.’
Like before, the words did not penetrate the man’s mind as he stared down at the devilish face that rested in the reflection of those green irises, a face, rotted and hollowed now stained black and smudged with bloody wounds and burns, dirt and grime caked upon every plane of sagging skin.
The devil’s hands tightened, gripping the back of the man he studied as they both neared their final moments.
The devil’s black eyes widened as the man in his arms laughed, and he felt his body weakly reverberate against a hollowed chest.
A strange resentment and bitterness took extreme root inside of the devil that wore a man’s skin as he looked down at the dying figure in his arms. Hatred filled and further jumbled every corner of his deteriorating conscience.
Pieces and remains of the devil’s mask clung to portions of his forehead and jaw, and he watched as fingers weakly reached up to pull the remains of his mask away from his face.
The approaching of heeled footsteps filled the air upon a booming voice’s order, and the clink of a sheathing sword cut through the air, but nothing could drain out the voice that went straight into the standing man’s mind.
“You must hate me now.”
The words cut through the fog and the resentment for their circumstances only grew.
“I do.”
The devil responded.
In the distance was the beating of footsteps, thousands of people marched towards the capital. The man could not hear them, nor could he see them coming. But the man he held heard them, and a sense of acceptance filled his eyes.
“But it was good while it lasted, wasn’t it?”
It was over.
The standing man could feel charred fingertips on his withered face, and unlike himself, he watched a set of shining teeth join in the green eyes’ reflection.
The man smiled upon his betrayal.
His betrayal smiled back up at him, a bloody hand cupping a bloody, rotting face.
“It was,” the man told his sin before the blade cut through his neck.
-
The captain’s feet crunched against the snow that lay a light frost upon the road. The streets were filled with noise, shouting people, and the banging, industrial sounds of construction.
There was a new structure being built on Pervaya, the main street that ran vertically through Sheznavat, leading from the ocean to her palace at the center of the world.
6 other main streets ranged straight from the 6 subdivisions of Sheznavat like Monlaysav, Liylakhara, or Natzhaya, but they were not as used by members of the upper republic, who used Pervaya as a means to get around.
It was supposed to be a temple dedicated to the Tsaritsa, a place of radical worship for her, but it had been a project for a hundred years, and still had not been built yet. Mainly because too many workers would die trying to reach the top, falling off, or the Tsaritsa’s harbingers would deliberately destroy parts of the building, on her order, to keep it from being built.
Of course, the people did not know the latter part and continuously wasted energy that could have been used on ‘betraying the republic’, on a never-ending project. Many structures across Pervaya carried the same ideals, which were blindly wasting the people’s time for means of industrialization, while simultaneously keeping them ignorant.
Sheznavat was a nation constructed around control. Those who were in power installed fear within the people and beings below them, keeping them in line.
Since the beginning of the nation’s glory, or rather since year 0, Sheznavat has been ruled by tyrannical gods, in specific, Sheznavat’s Tsaritsa who would always focus on means of radical industrialization and militarization to create technological advancement within their theocratic society.
Alongside the tyrant, there would be a small selection of humanity’s greatest soldiers who would lie down their lives and carry out the tyrant’s law, while there were the people who worked as slaves to society.
In just about all of Sheznavat’s regions everyone else fits into the last selection of people, making everyone equally suppressed.
The people who made the lower cut of society were forced into dire poverty. Everything they worked at was for the good of the republic, and nothing more.
But if all of these things were taken away and used as resources for the industrialization of Sheznavat, then where was there any incentive to work hard?
There were two simple reasons why the people slaved for their republic, one being they would die otherwise, and if you worked hard enough, devoting your existence solely to the Tsaritsa, there was a chance you could be considered one of her ‘Royal Envoys’ or rather, her ‘Harbingers.’
The captain’s boots carried him toward the capital, a large, golden-toned marble building with curvy pillars that held up tall and circular Bochka Roofs. Aspects of it looked like a castle, like in its decoration and grand size. But other parts looked more like a prison, given to its barred windows and how isolated it sat on the top of street Pervaya.
There were around a thousand steep steps leading up to the castle, and the harbinger had already made it up the first few hundred, almost reaching the halfway mark. Of course, there was no mark, he had just grown used to walking up the stairs so he had a mental note on how long it would take depending on how fast he moved.
It was another way of people being kept in ignorance. It was almost impossible for an ordinary person to get up those steps and reach the Tsaritsa, and ordinary people made up the entirety of the lower class.
If any normal person had any complaints about the republic, they would have to request for a message to be accepted by a harbinger, who would carry out the letter to the Tsaritsa. Of course, the people who usually delivered messages to Harbingers would ‘disappear,’ and the contents of their letters would likely never be disclosed to the Tsaritsa.
It didn’t matter because the way society functioned, was without change. The Tsaritsa would always build her military and industrialize for reasons that the Captain himself did not yet understand.
Once he reached the top of the stairs he was met with large marble doors, where two guards stood on both sides. One was a small young woman with pale hair and a ruffled dress. Her stature did not fit the large greatsword that was held tightly at her chest.
The other was a similarly young man, with citrus-orange hair and a grayish suit, who carried a golden bow that also did not match his tall frame.
The young man took note of the captain’s presence and nodded, and he similarly returned the notion before pushing open the large doors.
The inside of the palace was large and empty, a giant hall of marble and glory, with vaulted ceilings that were painted in depictions of the ‘war’ that marked Sheznavat as Year Zero.
At the end of the dead-silent hall was a large throne, adorned with gold and silver that glimmered under the natural, blue-toned light that filtered through long stained glass windows.
The man got down onto one of his knees and lowered his head.
“Your Highness,” he addressed the Tsaritsa from across the hall.
It was silent for a while and all that he could in his body were the cold eyes that rested over the crown of his head. He was awaiting her order and could kneel there for however long she wished.
“You may come forward,” she directed and the captain stood up before walking towards the throne with an empty gaze and raised head.
Once he was at a good distance between himself and the throne, he lowered his head and kneeled again, the Tsaritsa’s heeled shoes taking up most of his vision. Her legs were crossed over and the length of her silver-blue dress pooled at the base of her pale legs.
The captain closed his eyes as the silent gap between them widened.
“There have been rumors of an upcoming and planned rebellion in Natzhaya, I’d like for you to go investigate it, and annihilate anything you find to be a necessary threat to the republic.” She spoke, holding out a brown, classified folder to Capitano.
The soldier raised his gaze only slightly before reaching out for the file and taking it within his grip.
“Open it,” she told him and he abided.
There were a few pages of details on setting and witness accounts that other harbingers had addressed, signed by their names, but the first page which was stamped in red as mandatory, was a page covering a lower-class member’s details.
There was a headshot in the top right corner of a man with brilliant green eyes that shone brightly despite the brown tint of the picture. He wore hand-drawn markings under his eyes which was usual for the tribal nature of Natzhayens. There were other details about the man on the left of the pages other details like physical and mental attributes, or even general status.
“The People have grown restless of our way of life, Capitano.”
The captain put the folder away in an inner compartment of his coat, looking up at the Tsaritsa who gazed right into him, her blue eyes furthering the engraving of her words into his mind.
“You will deal with it. Understood?”
Almost robotically the man lowered his head to the god.
“Understood, Your Highness-” His mechanical words were interrupted by the sound of struggle and subtle shouts outside the fortress doors.
The Tsaritsa raised her flattened gaze to the doorway across the hall, her eyes thinning out into thin slits before she looked away.
“Go deal with that and remember your orders .”
The captain nodded and saluted the Tsaritsa who now appeared rather uninterested in the situation, before he turned away.
Her words echoed in his mind but were cleared out by the sounds of growing commotion outside of the palace doors. The captain’s brows furrowed from underneath the dark mask he wore. There was no reason for Tartaglia or Sandrone to be going through any particular trouble at the gates, after all, it was rare for anyone to even go through there other than himself, Dottore, or Arlecchino.
Just as the sound of shouts grew heightened and a tapping of footsteps that Capitano did not recognize approached the palace doors, he pushed the large doors open.
Teal-green eyes, belonging to a man currently restricted by the arms of Sandrone and Tartaglia, bore straight into Capitano’s dark mask.
It was no mistake that the man the captain had studied in the file was now right beneath his gaze.
Tribal markings covered the man’s tanned arms and sat dark beneath his striking eyes that were filled with nothing more than unwavering grit.
The man and the woman struggled to hold Ororon back from the Captain, who stared back down at the man who was forced onto his knees by the two harbingers.
The captain knew his eyes were concealed, just like the rest of his face, but through how the Natzhayen man looked up at him, he could feel the man forcefully hold his gaze, not permitting the harbinger to look anywhere else but him.
The captain watched a grin map onto the man’s face. The man no longer struggled against the restraining people, as if they were of no concern to him.
Ororon focused on the black-veiled man who stood before him, looking up from his kneeling with a smile and straining neck.
Ororon parted his lips, telling his next words to the man who stood above him and no one else.
“I have a message for the Tsaritsa.”