FIC: Flyboys, Conclusion
Apr. 18th, 2008 08:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jeriendhalI'm not sure if the last line works emotionally, but I couldn't think of anything better.
“The Holy Den Mother blesses this bounty,” Bellander said, eyes closed in prayer over her plate.
“As the Holy Den Mother blesses us all,” her husband and children responded.
“The Holy Den Mother watches and guides us.”
“For she sees all from her Den.”
“The Holy Den Mother protects us from the Cold and Dark.”
“For Her fire is bright and warm, and Her love is eternal.”
“And all who are lost to us, are sheltered by Her.”
“For they are welcomed by Her fire.”
“Holy Den Mother bless us all.”
“Holy Den Mother bless us all.”
Her head rose and she opened her eyes, looking across the table to her husband Rulfen and their cubs. Five in all, surely a blessing by anyone’s standards. Samula helped little Terisa with her meal, cutting up her portion of the kin goose, while the twins dug into their own food with their usual voracity and Rulfen spoke slowly and carefully to their youngest son, who looked like he was going to be difficult about sitting properly at the table again. Not that young Rolas could help such things, trapped as he was in a four year old’s body, but with the mind of a cub barely a year old by their best estimates.
“It’s started raining,” Rulfen said, glancing out the dining room’s bay windows to the garden beyond. The sky had been gray and threatening all day, the breeze cool and uncomfortable, with winter lingering into the first month of spring.
“I hate unpleasant weather, especially this time of year,” she replied. She shook her head and dug with determination into the goose, trying to enjoy it despite her lack of appetite.
“Eight years this week.”
“I know, Rulfen,” she said sharply. She shook her head again. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right, love.”
No it isn’t. But that wasn’t what Rulfen and the children needed to hear. So she chewed on her food, made herself swallow, and turned the conversation to more pleasant things.
Dinner was taken away, and Rulfen gave up on keeping Rolas in his seat and let him play in the corner. They were still waiting on the dessert when the dining room door opened unexpectedly and the maidservant Nan walked in, her mouth open and her face aghast.
“Nan, what’s the matter?” Rulfen asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“I think… I think I have, milord Greycoat,” Nan answered. “I went to answer the door and… and… he was right there!”
“Who, Nan? Who are you talking about?” Bellander demanded.
“Me, I’m afraid.” The door opened and a figure stepped inside. When Bellander saw who it was, she felt the teacup in her hand slip from her nerveless fingers, to drop to the floor and shatter.
“Rolas?” Rulfen asked softly. For it was indeed Rolas’ brother and Bellander’s late husband. Not so late now, for he was standing before them in the flesh, looking nervous and slightly abashed. He was dressed in the most peculiar outfit, the comfortable tweeds she always remembered him wearing traded for a loose tunic, open at the neck and chest, and trousers, both made of some soft, unfamiliar white cloth and embroidered with a curving, abstract pattern highlighted by precious jewels. He hasn’t aged a day, Bellander thought to herself. Except, perhaps, in the dark look in his eyes.
“It’s me,” Rolas confirmed. He favored them with a smile that was obviously meant to be reassuring, but only turned out ghastly. “Hello, Rulf, Bel. Hullo children.”
Into the dead silence that followed, Bellander said firmly, “Samula, Artineth, Andra, don’t gape. Say hello to your father.”
“Hello, sir,” Samula said, echoed a moment later by her brothers.
“Oh,” Rolas said, the smile dropping from his face, “surely I’m not a sir to you.”
“Well… Old Bean… I’m not quite sure what to call you myself,” Rulfen said. “Are you a spirit, sent by the Holy Den Mother?”
“Oh, I’m not a spirit. Quite fleshy, as a matter of fact,” Rolas said, pinching his arm by way of demonstration and letting out an, “Ow!”
“Rollie,” she said very carefully, because the alternative was breaking down in tears, “where have you been?”
“Where?” he echoed. “Oh, that’s a very… that’s a complicated subject. I’m sorry, dear, I’m making a hash of all of this. I had this marvelous speech planned out, very dramatic, where I was going to explain things. I meant it’s not like I haven’t been dreaming of this moment for years and years. You have no idea how lonely I’ve felt up there.”
“Rolas,” Bellander interrupted gently, “you’re babbling.”
“Oh, I am? Sorry. Er, let’s start from the beginning, when you last saw me. That was at the launch of the Queen of the Skies eight years back. Anyway, we got Professor Swiftfoot’s telescope mount put together, which worked marvelously. Then Captain Lakewalker brought us up to altitude and we started taking photographs. Oh, I should tell you the engines worked just fine, Rulfen. Anyway, the Professor was quite pleased with the results and we were getting ready to come back down for the day, when they arrived.”
“When who arrived, Rolas?” she asked.
“The creo. Remember those peculiar grey skinned fellows from Artie’s dreams? They’re quite real. They landed one of their shuttlecraft right on the upper deck, neat as you please. We were all in a panic of course, not knowing what was happening. Professor Swiftfoot tossed a photographic plate to me.” He laughed and scratched his ears. “That seems so ridiculous in retrospect, trying to save the photograph. I mean, the Visitors was marching right across the deck in front of my eyes, but we had to save a picture to prove things to the world. Anyway, I ran, photoplate under my arm. I managed to head into the starboard envelope frame and got a parachute on. I had climbed up onto the top of the envelope when one of the creo soldier stunned me.”
“Stunned?” Rulfen asked.
“Oh, yes. They have weapons that can do that, knock your body senseless but keep you alive. They weren’t trying to kill us, you must understand. They wanted to take… well, I’m still not sure if we were guests or test subjects.”
“But if you were knocked senseless on top of the envelope, wouldn’t you have fallen?” Bellander asked.
“I did fall. Slid right off as a matter of fact, tumbling through the air, no control at all. I was thinking the whole time that if I cold get my hand on the ripcord, I’d be all right. But I couldn’t do anything, couldn’t touch anything. After about five minutes of this I was just praying that I’d smack into the ground quickly so I could stop thinking about smashing into the ground.”
“Why didn’t you? Smash into the ground, I mean.”
“Because… this is going to sound strange in light of everything else I’m going to tell you, because in its own odd, clumsy way, the Dominion is compassionate. The commander of the assault team ordered their landing shuttle to take off again and dive after me. If you could imagine something that looked like a metallic brick the size of a house diving straight down after me, snatching me out of the air less than two thousand arms above the ground, then believe me it was much more impressive to see in person.”
“Hold on, slow down,” Rulfen said. “Rolas, where did these creo come from? The Visitor?”
“Yes,” Rolas said carefully. “The Visitor is a ship, a spaceship, designed to travel in the void between the stars.” He laughed again. “Poor Lili. She thought it was from another world in our own system. She was so wrong.”
Bellander watched as he began to pace the dining room. She wondered if her own expression was as dumbstruck as Rulfen and the children’s. He went on speaking, seemingly oblivious to the fantastic words coming from his own mouth. “The thing is, worlds like ours, with air and liquid water and green growing things, are rare, so marvelously rare. In all their millennia of exploration the Varn have only found perhaps a score that are fit for a person to walk on unaided. So when they find one, they… covet it.”
“Wait, Rolas,” she said. “I thought you said the ones who boarded the Queen were called the Creo. Who are the Varn?”
“The Varn are the rulers. They are the founders of the Dominion. They were one of the first races to learn how to travel between stars, themselves and the Ardactavians. I’ll get to the Ardies in a minute, but the important thing to remember is that the Varn have been traveling the stars for a good long while. While our ancestors were just figuring out the whole ‘wheel’ thing, they had already built starships to go exploring. And when they found another race on another world, it pleased them greatly, for it was another race to bring their wisdom to.”
“What wisdom?”
Rolas smiled at them, an expression as bleak and empty and helpless as anything she had seen on poor old Artie’s face, in days before the two brothers’ old servant had taken his own life. “Why, the wisdom of service to the Varn, of course.”
“Service? What service? What do they want us to do?”
“To do what we’re told. Just like poor Artie always did what we told him to, no matter how scared for us it made him. That’s why they sent me, us, back down. Right now Lili is having this same conversation with the Countess Brushtail. Three dozen of us, speaking to three dozen of the most influential people on our world, telling them the same thing.” He bowed his head. “Our Wise Masters have ordered us to convey this message. Worship of the false god known to us as the Holy Den Mother must cease. The only gods to be acknowledged from this point forward are the Varn. The only wisdom to acknowledged must come from them. The only worship must in their Name.”
The children gasped and even Rulfen’s jaw dropped at this heresy. “Rolas, you can’t mean that!” he exclaimed.
“With all my heart. It’s our only choice, you see.”
“Rulfen, put the children to bed,” Bellander told him. “I need to speak to Rolas privately.”
“But--“
“Now, please.”
“Yes, dear.”
She waited until Rulfen had persuaded the children to leave the dining room, with poor Aritneth wailing, “But I want to see Da!” and young Rolas being carried by his sister Samula. Then she motioned for Rolas to sit in a chair beside her.
“Love, are you all right?” she asked.
“Strangely, yes,” he said. “I’ve been dreading this conversation for eight years. Now that we’re finally having it, it’s a like a burden being lifted off my shoulders.” He slumped down in his chair, taking an abandoned teacup and sipping its contents. “Ahh, real tea, haven’t had that for a while now.”
“Rolas, love, I know you’ve just told us many fantastic things and I know I’ve seen the Visitor myself, but are you certain…?”
“About the Varn coming to take over? About forswearing the Holy Den Mother? Of those things I have no doubt.” He rubbed his eyes, looking weary. “You’re thinking I’m wrong. You’re thinking there must be some way to resist, to fight them. I’ll tell you right now, Bel, there isn’t. They can fly between worlds as easily as you could take an airship across the sea. They have weapons that could crack open the land and boil the oceans, if they chose to use them. They have… I met the most extraordinary female once. She’s a trained interrogator, except she doesn’t have to use physical persuasion, she just puts her hands on your head and pulls what she wants out of your mind. She did it to me once, just once, because after that I was willing to tell them anything they wanted to hear, just so I wouldn’t have to feel that pain again. They can do anything they want to us, it’s just a choice of how much pain we want to feel before we obey.”
“Oh, Rollie.” She sat down besides him and held him tight, as he buried his face in her shoulder.
“Were you happy, before I came home?” he asked softly. “Has Rulf treated you rightly?”
“Rulf has been a fine husband.”
“Sometimes,” he said, still speaking into her shoulder, “sometimes if I was obedient, if they were satisfied with what I told them, they let me look in on you, using their invisible spy eyes. It was so strange, watching our children grow up, not able to touch them, or speak to them. Seeing them… do without me.”
“They were so young when you disappeared. Artineth and Andra never had a chance to know you. Even Samula has a difficult time remembering you.”
“I know, I know.” He sighed and sat up, grasping her hand. “Terisa is a beautiful vixen and young Rolas… young Rolas will do much better, I can at least promise you that.”
“What do you mean, Rollie?”
“The Gene Mage, that’s one of the Varn and don’t ask me what a ‘Gene’ is, because it’s very complicated, he promised that he could help young Rolas. Re-adjust the chemistry of his brain, so he’s able to see the world as other cubs see it, and not be trapped inside his own head.”
“Oh. Oh.” Bellander lowered her own head, resting it against his, trying not to cry.
“They like their servants happy and healthy, you see. It makes them so much more efficient.”
“And the chains will hardly feel heavy at all.”
“So they say.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry.”
“We cannot forget the Goddess. We cannot turn our eyes from her.”
“If we are to survive, if all the vulpine are to survive, we must. Bellander, the Varn are ancient and patient. If it takes a thousand years to erase the Holy Den Mother from our memories, then they are willing to wait that long. They’ve done it before. The Creo don’t even have memory of their homeworld anymore.”
“Then for a thousand years we will whisper our prayers in secret. We cannot forget the Holy Den Mother, Rolas. We would not be vulpine if we did.”
“Perhaps not.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry I brought this down upon you. I would rather you think me dead, rather than have to face this.”
She slipped her hand into his, squeezing it tightly. “No. I will not regret being reunited with you, Rolas. Never that.”
There was a low rumble from somewhere above them, which rattled the dishes on the table and made the walls shake. In the distance, she could hear one of the servants cry out in fear.
“He's come,” Rolas said, his voice flat, drained of all hope or fear. Bellander followed him, holding tight to his hand as they walked together to meet Rulfen in the front hall.
“Old Bean, I take it our guests have arrived?” his brother asked.
“Not guests, the new owners,” Rolas replied.
“For now,” Rulfen allowed. He took Bellander’s other hand and they walked together out the door and into the rain, where the ship (she supposed it was a ship) waited, a great metallic slab that sat in the ruins of the front garden. A ramp was extended out from the belly of the machine and a tall, robed figure, with green skin, horns and golden eyes waited for them.
“Rolas,” the figure said in perfect Vulpine, “you have explained what is to be expected of them?”
Rolas let go of Bellander’s hand and went down on one knee, head lowered. “Yes, Lord Gene Mage. Thank you…” his voice caught. “Thank you for letting me see them again.”
“Rise, Rolas Greycoat. I could do no less for one so loyal.” The Gene Mage gestured to the ship. “Come.”
“Rolas, where are you going?” Bellander demanded, feeling her heart skip.
“Away, to wherever I am needed,” he said, coming to his feet. He turned his eyes away from her. “I’m… valuable… to him.”
“Brother, you can’t leave!” Rulfen cried out.
“Take care of Bel and the children, Rulf. I know they’re in good hands with you.” He turned to face the Gene Mage again. “I’m ready, my lord.”
“Rolas!” Bellander cried out. “Don’t forget what I said! Don’t forget Her!”
He paused, nodded, then continued walking up the ramp into the ship. The Gene Mage gave them a smile, then turned and followed. The ramp closed up like the maw of some great sea beast and engines a thousand times more powerful than anything her late father could have imagined roared and pushed the ship into the sky. She watched it disappear into the dark clouds.
She did not see him again.
The End
“The Holy Den Mother blesses this bounty,” Bellander said, eyes closed in prayer over her plate.
“As the Holy Den Mother blesses us all,” her husband and children responded.
“The Holy Den Mother watches and guides us.”
“For she sees all from her Den.”
“The Holy Den Mother protects us from the Cold and Dark.”
“For Her fire is bright and warm, and Her love is eternal.”
“And all who are lost to us, are sheltered by Her.”
“For they are welcomed by Her fire.”
“Holy Den Mother bless us all.”
“Holy Den Mother bless us all.”
Her head rose and she opened her eyes, looking across the table to her husband Rulfen and their cubs. Five in all, surely a blessing by anyone’s standards. Samula helped little Terisa with her meal, cutting up her portion of the kin goose, while the twins dug into their own food with their usual voracity and Rulfen spoke slowly and carefully to their youngest son, who looked like he was going to be difficult about sitting properly at the table again. Not that young Rolas could help such things, trapped as he was in a four year old’s body, but with the mind of a cub barely a year old by their best estimates.
“It’s started raining,” Rulfen said, glancing out the dining room’s bay windows to the garden beyond. The sky had been gray and threatening all day, the breeze cool and uncomfortable, with winter lingering into the first month of spring.
“I hate unpleasant weather, especially this time of year,” she replied. She shook her head and dug with determination into the goose, trying to enjoy it despite her lack of appetite.
“Eight years this week.”
“I know, Rulfen,” she said sharply. She shook her head again. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right, love.”
No it isn’t. But that wasn’t what Rulfen and the children needed to hear. So she chewed on her food, made herself swallow, and turned the conversation to more pleasant things.
Dinner was taken away, and Rulfen gave up on keeping Rolas in his seat and let him play in the corner. They were still waiting on the dessert when the dining room door opened unexpectedly and the maidservant Nan walked in, her mouth open and her face aghast.
“Nan, what’s the matter?” Rulfen asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“I think… I think I have, milord Greycoat,” Nan answered. “I went to answer the door and… and… he was right there!”
“Who, Nan? Who are you talking about?” Bellander demanded.
“Me, I’m afraid.” The door opened and a figure stepped inside. When Bellander saw who it was, she felt the teacup in her hand slip from her nerveless fingers, to drop to the floor and shatter.
“Rolas?” Rulfen asked softly. For it was indeed Rolas’ brother and Bellander’s late husband. Not so late now, for he was standing before them in the flesh, looking nervous and slightly abashed. He was dressed in the most peculiar outfit, the comfortable tweeds she always remembered him wearing traded for a loose tunic, open at the neck and chest, and trousers, both made of some soft, unfamiliar white cloth and embroidered with a curving, abstract pattern highlighted by precious jewels. He hasn’t aged a day, Bellander thought to herself. Except, perhaps, in the dark look in his eyes.
“It’s me,” Rolas confirmed. He favored them with a smile that was obviously meant to be reassuring, but only turned out ghastly. “Hello, Rulf, Bel. Hullo children.”
Into the dead silence that followed, Bellander said firmly, “Samula, Artineth, Andra, don’t gape. Say hello to your father.”
“Hello, sir,” Samula said, echoed a moment later by her brothers.
“Oh,” Rolas said, the smile dropping from his face, “surely I’m not a sir to you.”
“Well… Old Bean… I’m not quite sure what to call you myself,” Rulfen said. “Are you a spirit, sent by the Holy Den Mother?”
“Oh, I’m not a spirit. Quite fleshy, as a matter of fact,” Rolas said, pinching his arm by way of demonstration and letting out an, “Ow!”
“Rollie,” she said very carefully, because the alternative was breaking down in tears, “where have you been?”
“Where?” he echoed. “Oh, that’s a very… that’s a complicated subject. I’m sorry, dear, I’m making a hash of all of this. I had this marvelous speech planned out, very dramatic, where I was going to explain things. I meant it’s not like I haven’t been dreaming of this moment for years and years. You have no idea how lonely I’ve felt up there.”
“Rolas,” Bellander interrupted gently, “you’re babbling.”
“Oh, I am? Sorry. Er, let’s start from the beginning, when you last saw me. That was at the launch of the Queen of the Skies eight years back. Anyway, we got Professor Swiftfoot’s telescope mount put together, which worked marvelously. Then Captain Lakewalker brought us up to altitude and we started taking photographs. Oh, I should tell you the engines worked just fine, Rulfen. Anyway, the Professor was quite pleased with the results and we were getting ready to come back down for the day, when they arrived.”
“When who arrived, Rolas?” she asked.
“The creo. Remember those peculiar grey skinned fellows from Artie’s dreams? They’re quite real. They landed one of their shuttlecraft right on the upper deck, neat as you please. We were all in a panic of course, not knowing what was happening. Professor Swiftfoot tossed a photographic plate to me.” He laughed and scratched his ears. “That seems so ridiculous in retrospect, trying to save the photograph. I mean, the Visitors was marching right across the deck in front of my eyes, but we had to save a picture to prove things to the world. Anyway, I ran, photoplate under my arm. I managed to head into the starboard envelope frame and got a parachute on. I had climbed up onto the top of the envelope when one of the creo soldier stunned me.”
“Stunned?” Rulfen asked.
“Oh, yes. They have weapons that can do that, knock your body senseless but keep you alive. They weren’t trying to kill us, you must understand. They wanted to take… well, I’m still not sure if we were guests or test subjects.”
“But if you were knocked senseless on top of the envelope, wouldn’t you have fallen?” Bellander asked.
“I did fall. Slid right off as a matter of fact, tumbling through the air, no control at all. I was thinking the whole time that if I cold get my hand on the ripcord, I’d be all right. But I couldn’t do anything, couldn’t touch anything. After about five minutes of this I was just praying that I’d smack into the ground quickly so I could stop thinking about smashing into the ground.”
“Why didn’t you? Smash into the ground, I mean.”
“Because… this is going to sound strange in light of everything else I’m going to tell you, because in its own odd, clumsy way, the Dominion is compassionate. The commander of the assault team ordered their landing shuttle to take off again and dive after me. If you could imagine something that looked like a metallic brick the size of a house diving straight down after me, snatching me out of the air less than two thousand arms above the ground, then believe me it was much more impressive to see in person.”
“Hold on, slow down,” Rulfen said. “Rolas, where did these creo come from? The Visitor?”
“Yes,” Rolas said carefully. “The Visitor is a ship, a spaceship, designed to travel in the void between the stars.” He laughed again. “Poor Lili. She thought it was from another world in our own system. She was so wrong.”
Bellander watched as he began to pace the dining room. She wondered if her own expression was as dumbstruck as Rulfen and the children’s. He went on speaking, seemingly oblivious to the fantastic words coming from his own mouth. “The thing is, worlds like ours, with air and liquid water and green growing things, are rare, so marvelously rare. In all their millennia of exploration the Varn have only found perhaps a score that are fit for a person to walk on unaided. So when they find one, they… covet it.”
“Wait, Rolas,” she said. “I thought you said the ones who boarded the Queen were called the Creo. Who are the Varn?”
“The Varn are the rulers. They are the founders of the Dominion. They were one of the first races to learn how to travel between stars, themselves and the Ardactavians. I’ll get to the Ardies in a minute, but the important thing to remember is that the Varn have been traveling the stars for a good long while. While our ancestors were just figuring out the whole ‘wheel’ thing, they had already built starships to go exploring. And when they found another race on another world, it pleased them greatly, for it was another race to bring their wisdom to.”
“What wisdom?”
Rolas smiled at them, an expression as bleak and empty and helpless as anything she had seen on poor old Artie’s face, in days before the two brothers’ old servant had taken his own life. “Why, the wisdom of service to the Varn, of course.”
“Service? What service? What do they want us to do?”
“To do what we’re told. Just like poor Artie always did what we told him to, no matter how scared for us it made him. That’s why they sent me, us, back down. Right now Lili is having this same conversation with the Countess Brushtail. Three dozen of us, speaking to three dozen of the most influential people on our world, telling them the same thing.” He bowed his head. “Our Wise Masters have ordered us to convey this message. Worship of the false god known to us as the Holy Den Mother must cease. The only gods to be acknowledged from this point forward are the Varn. The only wisdom to acknowledged must come from them. The only worship must in their Name.”
The children gasped and even Rulfen’s jaw dropped at this heresy. “Rolas, you can’t mean that!” he exclaimed.
“With all my heart. It’s our only choice, you see.”
“Rulfen, put the children to bed,” Bellander told him. “I need to speak to Rolas privately.”
“But--“
“Now, please.”
“Yes, dear.”
She waited until Rulfen had persuaded the children to leave the dining room, with poor Aritneth wailing, “But I want to see Da!” and young Rolas being carried by his sister Samula. Then she motioned for Rolas to sit in a chair beside her.
“Love, are you all right?” she asked.
“Strangely, yes,” he said. “I’ve been dreading this conversation for eight years. Now that we’re finally having it, it’s a like a burden being lifted off my shoulders.” He slumped down in his chair, taking an abandoned teacup and sipping its contents. “Ahh, real tea, haven’t had that for a while now.”
“Rolas, love, I know you’ve just told us many fantastic things and I know I’ve seen the Visitor myself, but are you certain…?”
“About the Varn coming to take over? About forswearing the Holy Den Mother? Of those things I have no doubt.” He rubbed his eyes, looking weary. “You’re thinking I’m wrong. You’re thinking there must be some way to resist, to fight them. I’ll tell you right now, Bel, there isn’t. They can fly between worlds as easily as you could take an airship across the sea. They have weapons that could crack open the land and boil the oceans, if they chose to use them. They have… I met the most extraordinary female once. She’s a trained interrogator, except she doesn’t have to use physical persuasion, she just puts her hands on your head and pulls what she wants out of your mind. She did it to me once, just once, because after that I was willing to tell them anything they wanted to hear, just so I wouldn’t have to feel that pain again. They can do anything they want to us, it’s just a choice of how much pain we want to feel before we obey.”
“Oh, Rollie.” She sat down besides him and held him tight, as he buried his face in her shoulder.
“Were you happy, before I came home?” he asked softly. “Has Rulf treated you rightly?”
“Rulf has been a fine husband.”
“Sometimes,” he said, still speaking into her shoulder, “sometimes if I was obedient, if they were satisfied with what I told them, they let me look in on you, using their invisible spy eyes. It was so strange, watching our children grow up, not able to touch them, or speak to them. Seeing them… do without me.”
“They were so young when you disappeared. Artineth and Andra never had a chance to know you. Even Samula has a difficult time remembering you.”
“I know, I know.” He sighed and sat up, grasping her hand. “Terisa is a beautiful vixen and young Rolas… young Rolas will do much better, I can at least promise you that.”
“What do you mean, Rollie?”
“The Gene Mage, that’s one of the Varn and don’t ask me what a ‘Gene’ is, because it’s very complicated, he promised that he could help young Rolas. Re-adjust the chemistry of his brain, so he’s able to see the world as other cubs see it, and not be trapped inside his own head.”
“Oh. Oh.” Bellander lowered her own head, resting it against his, trying not to cry.
“They like their servants happy and healthy, you see. It makes them so much more efficient.”
“And the chains will hardly feel heavy at all.”
“So they say.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry.”
“We cannot forget the Goddess. We cannot turn our eyes from her.”
“If we are to survive, if all the vulpine are to survive, we must. Bellander, the Varn are ancient and patient. If it takes a thousand years to erase the Holy Den Mother from our memories, then they are willing to wait that long. They’ve done it before. The Creo don’t even have memory of their homeworld anymore.”
“Then for a thousand years we will whisper our prayers in secret. We cannot forget the Holy Den Mother, Rolas. We would not be vulpine if we did.”
“Perhaps not.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry I brought this down upon you. I would rather you think me dead, rather than have to face this.”
She slipped her hand into his, squeezing it tightly. “No. I will not regret being reunited with you, Rolas. Never that.”
There was a low rumble from somewhere above them, which rattled the dishes on the table and made the walls shake. In the distance, she could hear one of the servants cry out in fear.
“He's come,” Rolas said, his voice flat, drained of all hope or fear. Bellander followed him, holding tight to his hand as they walked together to meet Rulfen in the front hall.
“Old Bean, I take it our guests have arrived?” his brother asked.
“Not guests, the new owners,” Rolas replied.
“For now,” Rulfen allowed. He took Bellander’s other hand and they walked together out the door and into the rain, where the ship (she supposed it was a ship) waited, a great metallic slab that sat in the ruins of the front garden. A ramp was extended out from the belly of the machine and a tall, robed figure, with green skin, horns and golden eyes waited for them.
“Rolas,” the figure said in perfect Vulpine, “you have explained what is to be expected of them?”
Rolas let go of Bellander’s hand and went down on one knee, head lowered. “Yes, Lord Gene Mage. Thank you…” his voice caught. “Thank you for letting me see them again.”
“Rise, Rolas Greycoat. I could do no less for one so loyal.” The Gene Mage gestured to the ship. “Come.”
“Rolas, where are you going?” Bellander demanded, feeling her heart skip.
“Away, to wherever I am needed,” he said, coming to his feet. He turned his eyes away from her. “I’m… valuable… to him.”
“Brother, you can’t leave!” Rulfen cried out.
“Take care of Bel and the children, Rulf. I know they’re in good hands with you.” He turned to face the Gene Mage again. “I’m ready, my lord.”
“Rolas!” Bellander cried out. “Don’t forget what I said! Don’t forget Her!”
He paused, nodded, then continued walking up the ramp into the ship. The Gene Mage gave them a smile, then turned and followed. The ramp closed up like the maw of some great sea beast and engines a thousand times more powerful than anything her late father could have imagined roared and pushed the ship into the sky. She watched it disappear into the dark clouds.
She did not see him again.
The End
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Date: 2008-04-19 02:04 am (UTC):-)
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