Chapter Text
1348.
The bells rang.
Crosses were painted across doors. The voices couldn’t stop echoing the sobs that accompanied death. Entire villages were quiet of God’s joy, because each prayer ended the same way, with a funeral.
A servant observed the environment of death behind somebody wearing a black robe with a certain mask.
The servant had once asked why the mask represented a bird.
“It comforts people”, the masked man had answered.
It absolutely did not.
And from there, the two stopped at a cottage. From inside came coughing, and then crying. All too familiar. The robed man entered the cottage with no hesitation.
“Stay close to me.”
“…As you wish.”
The air inside was thick with sickness.
There was a man limp on a stack of straw. His skin was blackened and riddled with buboes. The servant couldn’t help but notice his toes were blackened. And beside him was a woman, struggling to breathe. She helplessly reached towards her little girl, who was no older than seven years old. The poor girl clung to her mother, sobbing.
“D-doctor…” The mother whimpered.
The masked man’s examination was brief. He mixed herbs out of habit rather than expectation.
But he already knew the truth. He knew her reality. How her story ended. A story where God couldn’t allow the child to have a mother, or a father. A story where God left a little girl with grief before she was old enough to grasp it.
The servant remained silent, but his optics dimmed as the girl looked at him with a sense of hope. Because right as she obtained a small amount of hope, her mother exhaled.
And there was no more of God’s life inside of this woman.
“M-mother?”
She was too gone.
The little girl shook her mother’s shoulder.
Again.
Again.
And again.
The servant watched.
Absolutely no command was given for him to move, or to console this child. But he found himself kneeling besides the child. She buried her face into his chest, and unsure of what comfort looked like, the servant rested beside her.
“I am…” the servant searched for words.
“Terribly… sorry.”
But the girl couldn’t fully grasp her mother and father were gone forever. Not in this moment.
Before the girl could say anything, the doctor spoke, “We are leaving. There are others alive.”
The servant stood.
“Yes, master.”
As they stepped outside, he stopped and looked back. He realized this girl would never be seen again. She would most definitely grow up to be a grieving woman.
He would never see her again.
But he would remember her face. Her eyes. Her tears.
Never her name, because names were never important. Only the person they were.
The road stretched in silence.
There were fewer remedies with each house visited, and even fewer people to receive the treatments.
Normally, the servant had asked so many questions to his master before the plague.
Why do humans cry? Why do people pray before they die?
What determines somebody’s worth and purpose in life?
But today, he had one that he felt was worthy of asking.
“Master?”
“Go on.”
“…Who will remain with the little girl?”
And while the question lingered, the servant stumbled on a body.
A body that nobody had claimed.
“No one.”
The servant stopped walking. He felt something. Something that made him want to never want to follow his master again.
“She is alone, master.”
“So are hundreds.” He quickly replied.
A cart passed. It had wrapped bodies with rats festering it.
“Somebody will return for her… if she survives.”
“And if she does not?!” The servant exclaimed, before quickly returning to his formal posture.
And for once, the doctor felt something too.
“…Then she will… join the others.”
They both looked at the wrapped bodies.
“She appeared so afraid, master-“
“Of course she did.”
“Should I have not have comforted her?”
The doctor turned to the servant. When he spoke, there was no anger in his voice. Only exhaustion.
“I have held children while they died. I have had mothers beg for one more hour. And I’ve buried entire families as the sun set.
He looked down at the servant once more.
“If I grieve every corpse I bury, I will forget that God has left me amongst the living for a reason.”
The servant trembled. He looked off into the sunset, a contrast with the darkest night the streets appeared to be.
“I do not understand, master.”
“I don’t suppose you do.”
They resumed walking.
“Our work is not to mourn. It is to continue.”
“Oh… master… but that girl…” the servant worried, as his master continued.
“Compassion delays the work, my servant.”
“She was so alone…”
“We save those who breathe.”
“And now, God has bestowed upon her a life of sorrow and…”
“The dead belong to God now.”
That caught the servant’s attention.
“Well… who belongs to her?”
For a moment, that questions weighed heavier than the sickness within the atmosphere.
“Her mother, her father. They belonged to her.” The servant said as he looked off into the sunset, which had become darker.
“If they are with God, who remains with her here?”
The doctor didn’t even answer. Just kept walking.
“…I understand my duty is to the living… master.”
He looked off into the sunset, which was dim with life and hope.
“But I do not understand why the living must carry the pain of the dead.”
The servant and his master traveled around a mile within the trees before the birds fell silent. No animals were in sight. The wind stopped. No insects.
Just silence.
Then, a tremble in the ground. More. Louder.
“N-no… it cannot be.” The doctor whispered in fear, which was strange to the servant, for the doctor had always seemed to be the holder of life and death.
The servant’s optics scanned the trees. There it was.
Something too large to be human. Because it towered above the mech and the mortal.
“There you are.”
“W-what do you want?”
The figure ignored the doctor. It kept its eyes focused on the mech.
“The Witwiccans continue to hide behind human kingdoms.”
It took another heavy step.
“You will tell us Decepticons where they are.”
The mech stood completely still. Perfectly.
“I cannot comply.”
“You misunderstand,” The Decepticon’s cannon began to hum. “I was not asking.”
Confidently, the mech stood between the doctor and the towering Decepticon.
“And I’m telling you to leave.”
“Servant.” The Decepticon scoffed before shooting.
The servant grabbed the doctor before the blast hit and hid him behind a tree.
The servant was nowhere to be seen. Only the doctor.
The servant, although seemingly confident, didn’t know what to do. He ran faster than each blast. He ended up at the Decepticon’s leg.
The Decepticon laughed, confused and amused.
“What do you plan on doing?”
The doctor watched in the bushes.
“Climb… climb…” he whispered, knowing about the servant’s secret ability.
Instead, the servant did the unthinkable as the little girl’s cries echoed in his mind.
He dug his hands into the Decepticon’s leg.
Crunch. CRUNCH.
The metal bent.
Wirings were exposed.
Energon gushed out.
It was all at an unrecognizable speed. It all happened so quick, but the pain was excruciating.
“Wretched being!!” The Decepticon roared in pain as it fell back.
“No.”
The servant dodged another shot and destroyed the other leg.
More crunching. Energon spilled all over the servant.
Both legs were now messes of energon and wires.
“P-please…” The Decepticon surrendered, backing away against a tree, not even trying to further anger the servant.
The Decepticon had run out of Energon before he could finish.
The forest was still once more.
The servant stood over the corpse. He waited. Nothing. No satisfaction. No relief. Only silence.
“Remarkable.”
The servant turned.
“M-master?”
The doctor pointed at the servant.
“I have seen many things in my life. But never a servant such as you.”
“Why, thank y-“
“Prove your capability. Finalize it. Take its head.”
The servant trembled.
“Pardon?”
“You heard me. That Decepticon is no longer a threat.”
They both stared at each other. The doctor removed his mask.
“But it’s an opportunity. To understand what you are capable of. You have a hidden ability.”
“I’ve already protected you, master.”
“Yes. So show me more.”
The servant remained still.
“I do not wish to.”
The doctor’s eyes widened the most slightest. He was surprised a servant had a preference. But his tone darkened.
“You will.”
“…Yes, master.”
With the hands that held the girl, he crunched and ripped off the head of the Decepticon. All with his bare hands. Energon and wirings were exposed.
”Transform into the head.”
After a little struggle, the servant transformed into its head of the body that once held life.
No satisfaction. No relief. Only silence. Accompanied by a clap.
“Good. Get down now.”
The servant transformed back and got down. The servant had a new feeling of duty first. Emotions second. Service above all.
The servant just had one last question.
“Am I… allowed to feel what I was built to ignore?”
“Of course you’re allowed to feel.” He sighed.
“But feeling is a burden, my servant. And not every burden can be carried under the name of the Lord.”
And as soon as they returned home, the masked man secured away the old chest.
The servant watched him lock it. The servant did not ask what was inside. He had already learned that some things were safer unopened.
If compassion was a burden, perhaps obedience was easier.