Story:Kings of Strife/Part 40

Part Forty
Water splashed on his face and tickled his lips. He turned his head, allowing his sopping wet hair to land on the other side of his neck. On this side, too, he met water, and the consistent waves from behind continued to soak through him. The water was cold, but the sun beat down hard onto his back, and for a moment between his exhausted sleep and consciousness, he was at peace.

Eventually Vik opened his eyes and forced himself to sit up.

He was a traitor twice now. Once to his country and next to his vows. He smiled and curled his hands into fists in the sand beneath him as his hair continued to drip sea water onto his back. What excuse of a man was he now, if he ran from duty, truth, vows, and love?

Love. That was what he regretted leaving most. He told Jütenas that he would return, and then he had jumped off Vainia’s airship. It came to him that staying on the ship would have resulted in his death… But maybe that would be better than lies and dishonor.

“A man is better honored in dying for his cause than in running from it.” His father said that once, when he returned from a failed mission. It was early in Vik’s military career, and the last time that he had told his father about a mission. That look in his father’s eyes as he looked down on Vik, the default hopelessness he had within him… It was as if he had expected nothing better from Vik, but still felt the need to show his disappointment. He had always been that way.

Vik stood on shaky legs and let his head roll back to look up at the wanton grey clouds above him. He couldn’t get his father out of his head. Even when he was swimming and swimming and floating and swimming in the ocean, his father’s eyes were peering into the back of his head with more power than the sun. How long had he been swimming? Why didn’t he just give up and let his aching arms and legs fail him, until he floated lifeless to the depths of the deep?

He needed to see Jütenas. He needed to see his father.

His bare feet trembled as he stepped forward onto the sandy beaches of Nneoh. It was a miracle that he managed to drift here. The journey must have been miles long, and it must have taken him days. He had not eaten, and without water his lips were chapped and puckered. There was barely any strength left in him, but still Vik pushed himself on. This wasn’t the first time he had been pushed to the limit, and it wouldn’t be the last.

The Crystal was lost.

After the initial shock of plunging into the water and the roughness of the seas near Icarun, he realized that the Crystal of Flame was gone from his presence. It had doubtlessly plunged deep into the bottom of the sea, or even destroyed – if he was so lucky. At first he had been angered and frustrated, but it didn’t take long for Vik to realize that this may be a good thing. He was separated from something he had an unhealthy dependence on. At the bottom of the sea, there was no way Ouroboros could find and misuse the artifact. Maybe, just maybe, this was his chance to escape; to return home; to find his way into a normal life, somehow.

And maybe this was just another way for him to run from his problems.

He walked down the beach towards the mainland until it turned into buzzed grass, and from there to manicured grass. A road appeared in front of him within a mile, and he followed it to what he figured was south. From how long it took him to meet land after taking a detour past Mortis, Vik figured he was at the tip of the Nneonian continent. The Sand Rock was what most Nneonians called the region, because there was little to be found beneath the soil besides sand or rocks. His father’s estate was in the north, through a large forest and only about forty miles from the city of Shahk, in the north. His reckoning was in the north.

Counting the steps made things much easier. No more thinking about Rosaria or his father, or Jütenas and Vainia, or Silverius. Walking. One step, then another. Walk around the rock. Don’t step on the hot concrete. Step. Wipe sweat, then step. Step again. Sweat. Walk.

The sun began to set before he saw another person, and his eyes had long ago begun to droop. The truck was driving south, in the same direction he was walking, and slowed to a near stop. The driver, a very dark-skinned man with a short gray mohalk, poked his head out his window and spoke to Vik. He was too exhausted to hear the words, though, and could only turn to look at the man with his dry, salivating mouth slightly ajar. Stopping his trek was not an option, either, for if he stopped he didn’t think he would ever be able to start walking again.

A groan of machinery swelled into the hot air as the man stopped his truck. Vik blinked twice before his eyes closed on him, and when they opened next, he was in the passenger’s side of the stranger’s truck.

He yawned, and licked his lips. They were no longer dry. Had the man given him water as he slept?

“Looks like you’ve been through a lot, buddy.” The man said with a sympathetic glance at Vik. “What are you doing way up here near the Rock?” He looked Vik over with a furrowed brow.

Vik’s eyes looked at the torn leather dashboard of the truck without moving. He still didn’t have much energy. “I’m going south,” he croaked. His mouth tasted of salt water and thrice swallowed saliva. “South.”

“Well, yes, I noticed that.” The man turned back to the road and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. In the distance, the beach and its sealine drifted by drowsily. “How did you get up here, though, son? What happened to you?”

The forests below the Rock stood waiting and gesturing only a mere mile south of them. The man and his truck drove towards them, and Vik was simply a passenger in his trip. An outsider even in his own country. “Shahk. Take me to Shahk, and I will find where I need to go on the way,” he muttered.

No other words were exchanged between the two men. The drive took an hour and Vik faded in and out of sleep as the old man navigated his silver truck through the wide road of the Sand Forest. He welcomed the sleep, because as he was conscious and looking out the window into the world around him, he became flooded by feelings of nostalgia. Memories of when he and his sister ran through these very forests with their father as he hunted. Memories from before everything became so complicated. He couldn’t tell if twilight was really descending onto the forest or if he was being clouded by his melancholy; but the hopelessness was there, deep within him and unremovable, and the forest was rooted deep around him as well. It was pointless to unroot a tree and it would be pointless to unroot his unhappiness, so he allowed himself to sleep and enjoy what he could.

The forest ended, and immediately on the horizon to the east of them going south, a mansion was visible, alongside acres and acres of farmland. Vik woke when they left the Sand Forest and grunted at the man to catch his attention. He nodded to the mansion, and the man got his message. He stopped his truck at the intersection with a perpendicular road that led right to the estate’s front door.

“I can drive you there. It’s dark, and it isn’t safe so close to the forest, son.”

A chuckle drifted from Vik as he clicked his seatbelt free from his chest. “Where I’m going will hurt more than whatever’s in that forest.” He shifted to his feet outside the truck and looked back at the concerned Nneonian man. “Thank you. You’ll always be welcome here, if you need a room.” The man nodded at him with a somber acceptance and ignited his car’s engine. The truck drove off, leaving Vik standing alone in his soaked, damaged clothes.

An odd sort of anxiety made Vik’s heart beat as he walked up the road to his estate. He had walked and ran down this road countless times. He recognized each rock, each blade of grass, each gust of wind. This was his land, his past, but he felt as if he was viewing it for the first time. As if he didn’t belong.

What would they say when he showed up? The last time he was home was more than two months ago, probably closer to three. The Nneonian government betrayed him, and Vainia’s cause; they probably didn’t tell his family that he was in the country last week, or whenever he was here last. He was dead to them, a spectre, a phantom, soon to come to life.

He stood in front of the large wooden door of the Hyusei estate for a long, long time. Rain was coming; Vik could smell it on the wind. It was easy to tell when the rain would fall in this part of the country. Humidity was common and rain was thick in the air at all times, but it had a round, coppery smell when it prepared to fall. Finally, after listening to his heart beat and the quiet of the world around him, Vik swallowed his doubts and knocked loudly on the door.

His sister opened it.

The two of them stared at each other for at least a minute. Vik had forgotten how small his sister was, mostly because her personality was so large. She was loud and boisterous, assertive, and had more traditional masculine traits then feminine ones, but her body was thin and fairly short. A fierce shadow: that was how Vik always described her to himself. Lithe, doting, and prone to wearing flowing dresses, Rosaria Hyusei had much darker skin than her older brother, and only slightly lighter than their father’s complexion. Rosaria had their father’s nose and high brow, as did Vik, but she had her mother’s petite frame, long curly hair, and inquisitive grey eyes.

Now, those eyes of hers bubbled with tears. She punched Vik square in his chest, causing him to jump slightly, but he did not move. Rosaria closed her eyes and rubbed them with her other hand before using it to punch him in the same spot. “You’re dead,” she sniffed. “They came and told us you died! Don’t you come back here and torture me!” She punched him again, and again, before he reached his hand up to catch her wrist.

“You haven’t slept.” Vik murmured as he looked down at Rosaria’s face. She looked more delicate than usual, and clearly had bags under her eyes. Noticing how strained and exhausted she looked brought pain into his eyes. “How long have you been like this?”

She looked up at him with frustration. “Almost three months. Ten weeks. 72 days. That’s how long… That’s how long you’ve been gone.”

Vik considered this with somber silence. He looked Rosaria in her eyes and moved his hand to hold her other wrist. “Let’s talk about this inside. Please.” For the first time, she looked him over and noticed how rough he was dressed, how long his hair was, and how whittled down his physical presence was. She nodded sadly and allowed him to herd her inside.

Rosaria sat at the table in the foyer a few feet away from the door. Around the table was another seat which Vik sat in, a small sink, a pantry, and a window with slightly parted blinds. It was dark inside, with only the light from a lamp a couple rooms over to illuminate the midnight scene.

The younger Hyusei sat and let her head rest in her hands. “You used to call us when you were away for more than a couple days. That’s how I knew something was up. Even with you living in the city… We still had contact. But all of a sudden that all stopped.” Her shoulders started to tremble with silent sobs. “You can’t be real. This can’t be real. I can’t believe it.”

For the first time, Vik felt bad about this side of his actions. Things had happened so fast that he hadn’t considered for a second what he was leaving behind here at home. Was it pretentious and self-centered of him to think that he really had to go across the world and save it from some faceless organization? Did he have to do it by disappearing off the face of the earth? He had been in such a rush, such a shock from losing the others in Herohji squad, that he had sent not a word to his family of his plans. It was no wonder they thought he was dead.

No, he concluded. It would not have worked. His father had strong ties to those in the government and the military (which were one and the same, in Nneoh). He would have told the government of his plans. He would have interfered.

“Father,” Vik murmured. He had been looking at Rosaria with dead, apathetic eyes. He felt awful for how his sister was clearly affected by him, but could not make it show on the outside. He had so little energy, felt so drained. Maybe he didn’t feel anything, either. “Where is father? He isn’t asleep, is he?”

Rosaria sniffed. “He retired to his study hours ago. You know we’re not to disturb him when he goes up there for the night.”

‘Tomorrow, then,’ Vik thought. Tomorrow he would see his father again.

He took a deep breath to calm himself. “How have you been?” he asked Rosaria.

“Besides grieving over my dead brother, who never really died?” She looked up at him with a glare before repositioning herself in the chair. Her plain white sleeping dress hung off her chest; she had grown in the time since Vik saw her, he noticed with a degree of discomfort. Rosaria sighed. “Nothing else has really changed. Father grew more distant, when you left. He started going to business meetings more often. And walking around the forests.”

Vik considered this. “He never liked going around the grounds.”

“Yeah, and we never liked having you dead.” Vik looked down and licked his lips. Rosaria’s razor-sharp wit wasn’t something he had prepared to meet, but it was something he deserved. “He started showing more control in everything,” she continued. “It’s really bothering Marzia and Dvarn.” Those two were the housing staff that kept the Hyusei estate in its best condition; Dvarn was only a few years younger than their father, and his daughter Marzia was two years older than Vik. They were as much his family as his sister or father were.

“And your schooling?” Vik asked. He always pushed his sister to do her best in academics, a lesson he had not grasped when he was her age.

Rosaria sighed and bit her lip. “I graduated… but I won’t be able to go to Zeta Academy like I wanted to.”

Vik froze.

His sister continued as if she hadn’t noticed him losing color. “I just don’t understand what’s going on in the world. A couple more months and I would have been there, too… What kind of sick person gasses an entire university? And they escaped! Maybe dad was right, and I should just stay in Nneoh.” She looked to Vik. “You definitely should. Wait, Vik, what’s wrong?”

He stood, shivering and pulling up the scarf around his neck to cover his mouth. That was the one thing he managed to save when he was in the ocean, drowning and swimming and drowning more. The scarf. The only thing he could remember Jütenas with. It comforted him now when his mind was threatening to collapse beneath images of Rosaria dead and shambling forward, like the corpse puppets he had fought off at Zeta.

Rosaria stood next and stepped towards him. “Vik, what’s going on with you? What happened to you?” She reached a hand towards his shoulder, but the touch shook him and he flinched away. Her eyes trembled. “Vik…?”

“I’m sorry,” he said. The scarf muffled his voice. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. So cold… It’s so cold in here!” He shivered again, and coughed. Why was it so cold all of a sudden? “I wanted to protect you, all of you. You guys… The country. I wanted to protect you…” Lies. Selfishness, that was the cause of all this. Selfishness tore him away from his family once and now from the person he loved.

Did he love Jütenas? Or Rosaria, or his father? ‘I don’t love anyone but myself.’ He knew that was the truth.

So cold…

Rosaria’s chair groaned on the hard wood floor as she walked towards her brother. She wanted to put her arms around him and comfort him… but couldn’t. She looked him over again in disbelief. “This isn’t you, Vik. You’ve never been like this before. You’re always so strong, so reliable… What happened to you?”

He remembered the handcuffs, the physical chains from Cidolas and the ethereal ones from his own government. The blood on his hands, from the soldiers he commanded and the innocent Inusian man he murdered in the dead of the night. The broken promises. The lies. All of it were lies.

“Please,” Vik urged. “Go to bed. It’s okay now.” He lowered the scarf and forced himself to take a deep breath. “I’m home. You can sleep again.” He wondered, which of the two of them needed to hear that most?

She looked over him with those storming grey eyes that looked as if they had been extracted directly from their mother. “I can’t believe you’re really here…” For a rare moment, she allowed herself to look at him with raw tenderness. Vik forgot how little he saw that from her. “Will you still be here when I wake up? You won’t leave again, will you?” Vik looked away, and she moved forward to him with persistence. “Promise me. Promise me, or I’ll punch you in your throat to make sure you’re real!”

That word made Vik clench his scarf with another fist. It had grown lighter in color after soaking in water and sunlight for days. “I promise,” he said. “I will be here.”

Rosaria nodded, momentarily consoled, and turned her back to her older brother. Her long black curls danced behind her as she walked down the hallway and up the stairs leading to the estate’s second floor. Vik didn’t look as she left. He couldn’t allow himself to see how hurt she was. In the back of his mind, he knew returning would be difficult, but actually dealing with the obvious pain she held was something else entirely.

Not even a minute passed after his sister’s door audibly closed before his father stepped into the dining room.

Vik jumped at the sudden appearance. He managed only to stutter at the patriarch and nodded at him.

His father stepped closer and lifted his chin to look down at his son. He was a tall man, almost a head above Vik, and still had an intimidating air about him. His chest was wide, his arms thick and strong, and his chin was both untouched by fat and covered in shaggy white hair. He had the same long nose and high brow as all his children, and the last time Vik saw him, his coarse hair was pulled back in a ponytail and was mostly black with salty streaks of white. Now, the ponytail was much longer, and the hair within it was completely white.

“So you’re back.” Vinum Hyusei’s voice was full to bursting with bass, and his gaze was stern. Despite himself, Vik found himself jumping at the breaking of the silence between the two.

“I am.”

“You worried your sister. It’s good that you apologized to her.”

Vik nodded at this and his mouth tightened. He turned towards the window and let his hands curl into fists. He should have expected that. No ‘I missed you, son,’ or ‘It’s good to have you back’. Just ‘You worried your sister’. Was he selfish for wanting more than that?

“I know what you were out doing,” his father stated. Vinum pulled a beer out of the refridgerator and snapped the cap off the bottle. “I can’t believe you.”

“What do you know, father? What do you really know?” All this time, and he still felt an unquenchable mixture of fear and frustration whenever he confronted his father with anything. “I was doing what you taught me to do.”

The elder Hyusei chuckled and wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his long white bath robe. “I taught you to fight for what is right. To serve your country and defeat those who would bring down your freedom. But, as always, you’ve proved a disappointment in that field.”

“Father, you don’t understand…!”

“I do understand.” Vinum didn’t have to raise his voice or get angry with his son. If anything else, his face was drawn taunt with emotion, but he did not have any anger. He sounded resigned. Tired. “Whatever you found on that mission wasn’t worth anyone’s time. That’s why you were promoted. That’s why they tried to move you to a different squad. But you took it upon yourself to run away and chase after ghosts. And now look at yourself. You end up working for a bunch of arrogant terrorists and failing. Just like always. You think you can just crawl back home and be forgiven for everything?”

“I…!” Vik bit his lip as his fists trembled. A part of him knew his father was completely correct… And another, new and unfamiliar part of him wanted to rebuke everything. What he said wasn’t true. Everything had a purpose. “I did what I did for Nneoh. For you all.”

“So fighting Inusia would benefit us here in Nneoh? Need I remind you that they are the ones who saved us during the civil war? They’re the ones who threw this country back in line.” He scoffed and took another measured drink from his bottle. It did nothing to dull his senses, only sharpen his tongue.

“Everything isn’t about the nation, father.” Vik closed his eyes and made sure he spoke evenly, to prevent any emotion from leaking out of him. Exploding in rage wouldn’t make things any easier. “I did what I needed to do.”

“Maybe you’re right.” Vinum exhaled out of his nostrils. “Maybe you needed to screw up one good time before you started to listen to me. While you were out galavanting across the planet, I had to take responsibility of this household. And this country.” He gulped down another sip. “You’re still such a child, Vikcent.”

“I’m a man,” Vik growled. He finally turned and looked his father in the eyes. “I make my own choices.”

Vinum only shook his head slightly and scowled. “You’re a child. My child. That’s what’s wrong with you.” He finished the beer without moving his eyes from Vik and tossed it into a nearby trash can. “There must always be a king. But only one man can be king. A wise man knows when he is a king, and when he is a servant.”

Vik turned and silently went upstairs. His room was just as he left it; moments after he sunk into the comforting bed, he fell fast asleep.

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