P.S.S. "The Legend Of The Primal Keys"::Ch.2 b- Desolation [IC]

[Felicity]

Darius nodded, regaining his composure and keeping an eye on Marca.

[Ragnar]

Gideon suffers a few bumps and bruises as they force the thief king into submission as Deric pins him to the ground. it wasn't easy to restrain this wanted man as Marca put up quite a fight resisting his arrest.

"whatever you're planning to do with him, just do it quick, nobody likes to suffer" Gideon solemnly said to Deric as stood his ground, a bit concern on how Deric will deal with Freyal.

[Sutoratosu]

Deric only chuckled darkly at the Turks advice. "Suffer?" he asked. "Suffer? him?" He shook his head, finding the concept apparently hilarious. "You think this is suffering? Compared to what he did to her? Go on, Marca... tell them what you did to Lucretia. Tell them what your crime that night was."

Marca said nothing, simply glancing around at the party surrounding him, then up at Deric, face unreadable.

"Tell them." Deric again ordered, taking Marca's own knife and pressing it against the criminal's cheek, easily drawing blood as it passed through the flesh. "Tell them or else I will smash your god damn skull in right here and now."

Another moment of hesitance... then finally the admittance of guilt. "I...I raped her. and then I slit her throat and left her for Deric and her brother Jezicalo to find the next morning."

[Felicity]

Darius spat at the man. Disgusted. "Fucking horrible. Honestly, I don't think he deserves any kind of mercy, but my own tenants say he deserves some form of justice other than death. Death isn't enough of a penance"

[Sutoratosu]

"Oh, I have no intention of killing him..." Deric said, smiling cruely as he picked Marca up off the ground by the lapels of his long coat. A moment later both he and his captive disappeared... only to come back into sight atop the same building that Boho had materialized on top off earlier. Deric was dangling the man's feet and body over the edge, seemingly prepared to drop him down to the street below. "I tries killing this whore son before... to no effect, as you can plainly see. Look, he even withstands fatal drops!" He let go of the rapist, letting his body drop the thrity feet to the ground below. Freyal hit feet first, completely crumbling as his legs shattered like glass and his pelvis and lower spinal cord along with them. He lay there on the ground, paralyzed, staring up at his childhood friend with what was... fear.

"Do you see?" Deric asked, laughing as he disappeared and reappeared on the ground beside him. his demeanor was getting a bit disturbing... "3 stories, three fucking stories he dropped, and the bastard is lucky enough to manage to land on his feet and not his front of back. But it accomplished what I wanted." He lifted up his foot and stumped with every once of weight he had down onto Freyal's stones... which solicited no response from the man, having lost all feeling in the region from his injuries. "He can feel nothing now, his stones and his pillow is broken... can't commit rape if you can't preform, now can you?"

Boho, surprisingly, stepped up, having seen enough of this. "Remember the oath you took, brother," he warned subtly. "You're a magistrate, not an interrogate or a master of tortures. The duty of those bearing the white is to administer justice fro transgression and little else beyond that, and it is to administer justice in a quick and decent manner." he was walking towards Deric as he gave his speech, seemingly unphased by the wild, wolf like look in the man's eyes. "No one here is going to tell you that this man deserves to live, believe me, with all the shit he's done, he's gettin the kiss of death for his sentence. Go on, if you're gonna end his ass, then just end his ass and be done with the deed. Don't draw it out into some cruel and unusual punishment, that right there is the road to the dark side, and once you go to fully to the darkside, you won't want to come back out. I've seen it happen before, it ain't pretty... especially when I was the one who had to put em down."

Deric considered the elder Magistrate's words for a moment... then shook his head. "Mercy and Justice mean nothing in this particular situation." He said simply. "This is about vengeance, it's what it's always been about, plain and simple. I stopped upholding the law the moment I left my duties and my sword behind... the oath I took is meaningless to me now, it stopped meaning anything when she died and none of us were able to save her or intervene... how could we call ourselves magistrates, defenders of the public good, if in the end we couldn't even defend one of our own from a transgressor?" he drew Lucretia's sword as he spoke, though he cast a glance back at the group.

"Tell me though... how would you punish him? Leonidas?"

"Well, in my time, back in Ocrea... the penalty for rape, though it was a crime that was barely ever actually investigated by authority; if something happened, usually the men of the family dealt their own brand of justice, but the penalty for both official and non official condemnation... was hanging from the appropriate male appendage. once it... was rent from the stress, the transgressor was either allowed to bleed out while being forced to was it blood gush from the wound... that's if the authorities were dealing out the punishment. if it was the family... he would then be beaten to death, smashed in via relentless clubbing from all the immediate male relatives of the victim. In Ocrea it was a crime that went unspoken off, but one that was severely punished nevertheless."

"Hmmm... hanging from the pillow and then being clubbed to death..." Deric glanced at Boho.

"I've only been appointed to put one Rapist to death, and the method I used was the sword. clean and quick, bucko. like Death penalties should be..."

Deric glanced at Lucian next, scoffing a bit at the funky magistrate's preaching for no cruel and unusual punishment in this situation.

"Never been in the situation when I could face down a rapist one to one," he admitted. "Though if my father were to ever stand before me, I'd put one in between his eyes. Keep it quick and rather clean. Sure, torturing him could be justified, but my mother would never condone taking it that far. She'd want the punishment for what he did to her to be humane and not filled with gore."

The magistrate actually even glanced at Abasalom as the boy started to get up off the ground, having heard everything.

"Hm...? Oh, even me?" he asked, surprised. "Um... very well then. I have a older sister, works for the Sultan's personal guard for his daughter's protection... I haven't actually seen her in a long time, but if I were to find out someday had... had defiled her as this man did to your love..." He looked over at Stratos. "I think i'd honestly take my vengeance as far as taking a page from the Sky Slayer's handbook and burn them all alive at the stake in an open field."

Deric actually nodded at the boy's honesty, liking the idea of fire. He next looked at Zoliver. "What about you, boy?" he asked him "how would you punish a crime like Marca here has committed?"

Meanwhile, Sinbad and Shavian stood towards the outskirts of the group as Deric asked his questions. They both could feel a sudden prescence behind them though... then beside them. if either of them turned their heads, they'd notice a young woman in armor and a white cloak standing in between them both. Her beauty was astounding to say the least, her face fair and fine with eyes a deep amber in color. Her gold blonde hair was cut in a short style, framing her face as she stood there watching the whole scene. Her expression was unreadable, but her eyes were fixed on Deric and Marca.

And if anyone else bothered to cast a look over, they'd see her as well... but then quick as lightning, she was gone, vanished... had she even been there at all? had it merely been a phantasm from the past?

[Aurorix]

Zolivar looked at Deric and then back at Marca, "I'd lock him in a deep cell underground and give him enough food to keep him alive. Let him live the rest of his days alone in the dark" He said and began to cross his arms

[Ragnar]

"His soul is beyond repair,Zolivar . we be doing the world a favor by getting rid with the likes of him" Gideon reacts about Zolivar comments as he looks at Deric."I'm no saint, but I have to agree with spectral Boho over here, justice must be swift and you should not take any pride in ending one's life just like my father told me when he was still in the Sultan force.." Gideon said to Marca's executioner.

"but it seems to me you're enjoying this too much Deric, does it pleasure you seeing him in pain? does it make you feel any better that you must savor every moment of his suffering? how Ironic that you wielding a powerful sword yet you don't have the discipline to use it." the swordsman said to another swordsman as Gideon is reminding Deric how far he is going with ill thoughts about torturing the already beaten Freyal.

[Sutoratosu]

"It is not the fact of him being in pain that makes me enjoy this so," Deric said. "It is the fact that he has no power anymore... no power to do anything or harm anyone. It's not him suffering that I get a kick out of, it's not the fact that he's about to die, I got joy from the latter the first time when I thought I had ended him. No... it is the fact that here he is at last at the mercy of the hands of justice, and he can't do anything anymore to get away from what he deserves for his actions." He glanced back at Gideon. "What brings me joy in this moment... is knowing that the man who killed everyone I've ever cared about and called a true friend, the man whose betrayal cut us all so deeply that it proved a fatal wound... is about to never be able to do it again to anyone else."

"Then prove it." A young woman's voice demanded from nowhere. The Phantasm from before was standing by Deric's side, startling him as noticed her sudden appearance. "You're conflicted, Deric," she went on. "Moments ago you said this was about vengeance and nothing else, that you wanted him to suffer for his actions, yet now here you stand, spouting that you're doing it for the sake of justice. so prove which it is. Either you become the very type of monster we all sought to destroy, wasted everything, made all of our deaths for nothing and torture him senselessly when he's already defeated and broken... or you stay true to what we believed in, what we fought and killed and died for."

"She's right, Deric," a man's voice called, not far from where Deric held Marca pinned was the phantom of Jezicalo. "He's done god awful things, and while it might be justifiable to make him suffer, that is not what justice is about. it is about the setting of right to wrongs, to restoring balance and good, not making transgressors suffer to an extreme like you're heading down the path to doing."

"I hate the bastard... for everything." Decate's phantom admitted, appearing behind Deric and Lucretia's apparition. "But just end this, Deric. you're heading towards a darkness you can't escape if you continue to drag out his execution."

"Murder does not justify murder." Royce's ghost said, appearing on a nearby roof top looking down on all of them. "And that's what this whole scene is slowly becoming. Cut off the snake's head and cast his body aside and be down with it. Torturing him won't bring any of us back, it just makes you no better than he ever was."

"Do the right thing. Be humane and swift now." was all Marshall's ghost said as it appeared beside Jez's.

"I...I...all of you..." He looked down at Marca as the man looked around at the ghosts, still crippled. Then he looked down at the glowing sword in his hands, beginning to shake a little, shaking his head in uncertainty.

"You once told me that greif and hate were two powerful things in the hearts of people," Jez recalled as he walked over, leaving no footfalls to behead. He placed a reassuring hand on Deric's shoulder. "You told me that in cases such as this, both of them flare brighter than ever... but you also told me that the ability to tame their fires was what separated people from animals. You told me... that hate would only furthers hate. You told me to grieve and hate this man for the time being, but to eventually let it go... to forgive him. You told me all these things, even as you yourself burned just as bright with those basic emotions." he took his hand away. "well, now I'm telling you to let go, Deric. It's over, it's been five long years, and we're a bit less alive then what we'd like... but it's over. You can stop grieving for us, stop hating Marca. Cast aside the anger. don't let it effect your actions now, only let lady justice guide your course, for she is always true despite being blind."

"I... want to know something." Deric began. "Have you forgiven him for everything, Jez?"

A moment of hesitance. then "Yes... though it was hard beyond belief... I forgave him for his actions I forgave, but I never forgot... never forgot that he does genuinely need to be punished."

Deric's gaze drifted from his would be brother in law and to his dead fiancee, his eye's softening with saddness and reminiscent as he gazed upon her wonderful face, as it had been oh so long ago... "Have you...?"

An even longer moment of hesitance than her brother. She looked at Marca. "I have." she said. "He was lost, thinking it was over, that everything was done for... and those thoughts drove him to do what he did, and everything afterwards as well." She looked back at Deric. "It's no excuse for his actions, but yes, I... I do forgive him. But I can never forget." Marca was... was actually weeping at hearing those words.

"What you don't realize... what none of us realized..." Jez said, looking at the thief king. "Was that Marca hated himself for doing everything even more than we hated him." his weeping intensified as if to give credence to this."

From the party's perspective, all they could see was Deric seemingly having a back and forth conversation with the thin air, while Marca wept like a babe on the ground. It was rathe strange, so much so that even Boho inquired as to whether or not the man had gone nuts, though Leonidas instinctively denied it, saying that Deric, and probably Marca too, was merely seeing something their own eyes were not meant to, were not able to.

"Deric, do you truly love me?" Lucretia asked, pressing her body up against his, though the armor they both wore prevent much feeling of anything... still, it brought a smile to his face, just the memory of the affection in her gesture.

"More than anything in the world, my dear." he said. "more than the stars and the moon and sun themselves."

"Then grant me one final wish," she said, resting her head on his shoulders as he embraced her... one last time. "Forgive him. deal out justice here, not vengeance. Let go of the hate; remember who you really are. Remember what we fought for, what we took up the white cloak in order to protect."

....

...

...

"I will." he said, tears of his own beginning to form in his eyes, voice faltering a bit. "I swear it, Lucretia, I will."

"Thank you." and then just like that, one by one all the friends he had ever had in the world began to fade away. first Decate, then Marshall, then Royce... then even Jez began to fade.

"you two would've been wonderful together," he said with sadness as he disappeared...

And then Lucretia began to fade as well. she looked her once fiancee in the eyes, a tinge of happiness there. "I'll be waiting for you, Deric. someday..." and then she too was gone with the wind.

Deric dropped his arms from the embracing position he'd been holding them, looking as if he'd been given a precious gift from the past... and then told he couldn't keep it. Tears flowed freely from his eyes, though he hid his face from them all to prevent them seeing it. And so it was that he stared down at Marca, sword in hand, ready to carry out the sentence, both men crying... one loudly, lamenting everything and everyone he'd harmed. The other silent, wanting just for a minute more... just even a second more... to be with his one and only.

((Ah shit, I'm crying now... I'm not kidding...))

[Aurorix]

Zolivar was confused by the situation, first Deric was having a conversation with himself and now Marca is crying. Soon the was a long silence as he watched Marca weap rivers and Deric starring off with his back turned to him. Breaking the silence he spoke up, "So, are we going to stand here all day or are we going to get this over with? Either one is fine with me, no need to rush or anything." He said putting his hands on the back of his head. Though waiting was never really his strong suit.

[Sutoratosu]

No one spoke in response to Zoliver's question, a cold wind howling through the square as the minutes dragged on. Absalom glanced around at everyone else, as did Lucian and Boho, namely directing their focus to Leon... but all the man gave them was a shake of his head, looking at Deric with an oddly understanding expression. Sometimes the hardest sentences to dish out... were those that had to be executed by your own hand.

Deric

He managed to stem the flow of his weeping after a while. Little by little he let everything fade away from his soul, the anger, the hate, the raw, primal desire to kill and destroy... everything, and everything's mother as well. If Lucretia herself, the victim of his vile crime, had forgiven this man... then Deric had no right to retain the desire for vengeance against him; To be avenged wasn't what she would want... she'd want order and the law to be enforced, for justice to reign over base emotions like that dominating the minds lesser men far and wide, things like wraith and greed and cruelty and arrogance. He knew her final wish, he knew what she wanted... and to break an oath sworn to her was simply unthinkable in his eyes.

"So this is how it ends?" He asked, looking down at the form of the man he'd so brutally battered and broken. Seeing Marca like this... seeing the man who he once called friend, who he even called brother... it brought back something in his mind, something long buried and repressed. "Do you remember that day, Marc?" he said. "Do you remember all those years ago, when we found the crazy hermit woman out in the woods?"

Marca had managed to slowly stem his own sorrow as well, now staring up at Deric, eyes wide as the recallaition came to his own mind as well. "She... what she said....It came true..."

10 years ago, The Copora Wood, the Capital Province, Renalim

"Any last words, witch?" Deric asked as he stood over top the grizzled old woman, struggling to catch his breath all the while, hair a mess with sweat and the raw exertion of battle. The cold reassurance of steel lay in his hand, sword to the offender's throat, ready to deliver the death she had so rightfully earned with her foul workings. The wild grove around the three of them stirred with a winter wind as a light snow began to fall, turning the earth and treetops all around a dusty white. The ritualistic fire pit nearby had been extinguished during all the skirmishing he and Marca had gone through to subdue the suspect, a few blue coals still smoldering in it, steam hissing and rising as the white flakes made fatal collisions with their hot surfaces.

"Why give her any last words?" Marca asked from beside him, glaring down at the magic user with nothing but disgust, actually spitting on the hermit's defeated form, though she returned his spittle with some of her own, lobbing a thick wad of dirty blood from her mouth, smack onto his cheek where he stood."Arghhh... See what I mean? Kill her! I just want to get out of this damn place and report to your father already...sending us out here to hunt some damn sorceress on nothing more than rumor when it's cold as this witch's tit probably is... what was he thinking?"

"I'm my father's son," Deric answered his gripping simply, keeping the blade where it was. "I was raised not to think lightly of the death penalty, neither when ordering it nor when it's carried out by my own hand. The damned get their last say in this world before the steel flies, that;s the way it's always been and that's the way it shall remain even when the sons and daughters of our own sons and daughters take on the cloak. Now shut yee up, Marca, you're not the one about to die here."

Marca turned his withering gaze on him now instead of the woman, shivering as he rubbed his arm, breath bursting out in great puffs of steam as his anger rose like a candle flame. "Oh please," he said. "We're not even real magistrates yet, you see a damn cloak on either of our shoulders!? You're old man probably just meant for this to be some wild goose chase to keep a few trainees like us occupied and out of his way!"

"Then explain why he pulled us aside after giving us today's assignment and told us to abandon the task and flee back to the Holding if things grew bad? Last I checked, wild Geese don't pose enough of a threat to drive two near fully grown men running like children still clinging to their mother's skirts..." Marca seemed to think about it for a moment, but Deric didn't give the chance to retort. "Obviously my father fully believed what he was telling us, and oh, look... we found a sorceress, just as was claimed we would. Amazing how that works, isn't it, old friend?"

A moment more of silence from the other boy dressed in a light steel cuirass and vambraces. "Fine," he finally said, crossing his arms and turning away, accepting his verbal defeat for what it was. "Just hurry up and kill the old bitch... you waste more any time, and she'll probably turn us to frogs. Either that of those Chimera White people we hear so much about will swoop in and claim her head, and the glory, for themselves...

Deric shook his head as he looked back down at the woman, her ancient, cataract grey eyes blankly meeting his own as he lifted the sword over his head. "There is no glory in this, Marca..." He said, holding the weapon in it's wind up position. "It's not war... and there's not even any glory in that either. Moving on, any last words, sorceress? better make them count."

"You both will become engulfed in stirfe..." She said weakly, blood visible in her mouth and tongue as she spoke slow and monotnously. "Yes, yes... I can see it now, I can see it clear. A wedge, a girl... no, no, a woman... I see... a woman and a man, a bueatiful ceremony... a ceremony which can never come to be in this world"- She began controting strangely on the frozen earth, cuasing both him and Marca to take a step back.- "I see... another man, one scornful of their joy... Dark of hair, dark of eyes, dark of deed and heart. I see him... he will destroy the wedge, and in destroying it, he will cause it to expand farther outwards than ever before-"

"Shut her up, Deric," Marca ordered. "She's babbled long enough, Time to put her down."

"You!!!" She suddenly shouted, pointing at Marca then Derric with a gnarled, wraith like finger. "And you!!! I see... a dragon... eight men. A city, dessert, sand and glass, ethereal moonlight... a beautiful woman's face! Compassion warring with hate, an unexpected visit, a final pardon! blonde of hair! blonde of hair! One of you... will KILL THE OTHER! TEN YEARS TIME, IN TEN YEARS TIME, I SEE IT!!! The old dragon slayer stands witness, the Ulsaran man stands firm! The boy turns away! the Criminal Ponders! the SCARLET SWORD WILL BE THE END OF ONE OF YOU! LONE SURVIVOR, NO ONE BY HIS SIDE-"

"Give me this, damnit!" Marca roared, tearing the sword from Deric's grasp as the hag started cackling hysterically. He arched his arms back. The strikes were brutal, swift and merciless as the north wind as the blood flew from his poor skill with a sword. The mad laughter finally died as her head rolled onto the frosty ground, hacked muscle and sinew dangling here and there as it bounced once... twice... then rolled to a stop. blood specks and bone fragment stained the white around both their boots and on their pants legs. Marca let the gore soaked blade rest finally, breath fleeting from him as he tried ever more to catch it's grace, casting the thing to the earth and walking back the way they'd come from town. All deric could do was look at him like he had just gone mad.

"It's over," Marca said, noticing his expression. "The bitch is finished now, our assignment's complete... let's just forget it now, forget everything that happened here; for she's a corpse now and that was the goal for venturing here in the first place..."

"You took an act of justice and completely stripped it of every shred of honor and good it had..." He said, casting a glance down at the blood stained blade... the eerie thought that the stuff would never wipe off the metal waltzed into his mind. and what she had said...about a scarlet blade... but she had also said it would be ten years... "We can't just...just forget what she spouted though."

"She's dead now, deric!" he said, nerves already frayed and his friend's pussyfooting around things right now not helping. "Any power of divination or prophecy goes to the grave with her! forget the bitch, forget her visions... they mean nothing now." He ended the conversation there, tramping back into the underbrush and leaving. Deric spent a few more minutes. Motionless, stunned. The snow fell in drifts, his shoulders becoming cloaked in their freezing majesty... becoming cloaked like a magistrate's would be.

"A...a scarlet blade..." He said as he stooped and tried to collect his weapon. His bare hand came away with only the hilt. Shattered. The once fine Renal-Wrought Steel blade lay snapped in two in the snow bank, gleaming crimson and white.

And he just left it there, left the hag with a dying gift... aside from the one Marca had so brutally delivered her. and then he turned. and then he walked away... walked away into the white of the snow drift.

Deric...

"One of us will kill the other," he said. "The Scarlet sword will be the end..."

"In ten years time," Marca picked up. "In ten years time she saw it..."

"Blonde of hair..."

"Blonde of hair..."

"Eight men"- He looked at the party, counting that number exactly aside from himself and marca- "A city...dessert..."

"Sand and glass," Marca said. "Ethereal Moonlight...."

"The boy looks...away..." He glanced at Absalom, actually seeing the child turning his back to the deed a little... trying to avert the sight of what he could tell was coming.

"The Scarlet sword will be the end..." Marca fixed his gaze on Lucretia's sword in Deric's hand... just as the prophecy foretold, scarlet of blade... In ten years time she saw it-"

"Blonde of hair... Blonde of hair." He Finished. Then he was immediately down to business. "Freyal Marca Lupai... in the name of the nation of Renalim, on the authority of the power of Arch Magistrate invested in me and in my fore fathers and mothers before me...on the crimes of the Rape and Murder of Lucretia Highlym and the homicides of numerous others....I hereby sentence you to die." He raised the blade above his head... oh so reminiscent of that day, both the sorceress encounter, and... that dreadful evening in the town square. "Do you have any last words...?"

....

....

....

"I'm sorry."

The sound of metal whistling through air... the brief, but characteristic, chink of blade cutting into flesh. Then the thump of a head hitting the stones and rolling away. It was...over. five long years... and actually for five years even before that, this tragedy had been brewing oh so subtly... and now it was over.

"I stand alone..." Deric sung bitterly, gazing down at the body. "No one by my side... No one...by my side." He sheathed his...no, her blade, turning back to look at all of them, no expression on his face...

"It's over." he said. "it's finally...over, all these years...and it's all so damn empty in the end. Each and every last one of them dead, every person I've ever loved or called my dearest friends... I loved those men like they were my family, like we were all brothers bound by blood, even Marca, till the end. And I loved her even more... and now they're all cold and dead, these people who were my friends... these people who were my family. these people...who were My Magistrates."

[Ragnar]

"I know it wasn't easy. but If it makes you feel any better, out of the situation, I think you did the most humane thing possible here, Deric.." Gideon said as he looks at the man with the bloody sword, unfazed by the headless carcass of Thief King. This kind of execution isn't new to Gideon due to the fact he was raised in a sultan monarchy, beheadings of their criminal are common in the dirrosi region.

"time to end this chapter in your life and start a new ((see what I did there)) , you have us now..."

[Sutoratosu]

Deric looked at Gideon for a moment, silent... then he turned his gaze back to the headless corpse of his once old friend on the ground. The wind whistled one last time. His face was unreadable...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-gwzUbcuGo

"Right you are," He said finally, his voice completely unrecognizable from before, smoother, less solemn, holding a playful edge even. He looked up at Leonidas, eyes gleaming with a certain type of charisma "We have a job to do, forbidden and ancient text to find, and a world to save. If we waste time sitting around on our arses, then all their deaths will have been for nothing... And countless innocent people will join them. I intend to stop that before it happens."

"Say hello to Lord Arthur," Leonidas remarked. "Hero of the second great crisis, Spectral Lord, Slayer of Sorcerers far and wide, and the warrior who stopped Sitanas from escaping his prison centuries after I put him there..."