#timedeceiver

@timedeceiver

When Moebius went before the council of Helmsburg to demand men and aid for the army, Mortanius stood beside him. He intended to keep the promise made on the night Moebius returned. The promise to stop doubting. Lysander hung in the background. The night before Mortanius confessed he froze up when he and Tove tried to ask the council’s assistance in their search for Moebius, so Lysander came for support. He made a valuable prop too, representing the aid the army offered during the pneumonia crisis. 

Moebius gave his brother a turn to speak. Lysander watched his back, quietly holding his breath. Mortanius met the eyes of the council and clear words of conviction poured from his mouth like milk from a pitcher. 

It would have been poetic to say that Mortanius convinced the council. Of course, it was Moebius’ rhetoric that won the day. But it did seem Mortanius won something. Outside the council house the Death Guardian looked like he escaped a near brush with Himself.

“Well, I was completely pointless in that,” Lysander laughed. “You did good.”

Mortanius shook his head. He was sweating. “I’m glad you were there. I feel confident when I know you’re with me.”

“Why? You could have done that without me.”

Mortanius stared blankly for a moment and then shrugged. He simply did.

The curtains closed on winter in Helmsburg. All down the mountain path spring pushed through the slush and melt with small, green fists that opened to the sun. Vampires receded, unable to withstand the healing water. Like a seed entombed in the earth, Mortanius emerged from the ice changed.

For a time some still gossiped and sneered at the pair of them behind their backs, though they wisely kept their opinions far away from Mortanius’ ears. While Mortanius rarely stood up for himself, when he heard cruel words directed at Lysander he suddenly rose to his full height and the air around him radiated with innate power. On one night he needed to be pulled off of a group of three men he overheard plotting to jump Lysander while the cleric was alone. Those pitiful excuses for men were gone within the hour. Had they actually laid a hand on Lysander, he would not have restrained from killing them.

They did not know about the long years he spent taking beatings for Moebius and Tove in the vampires’ citadel; but they did learn about the man he became because of it. Moebius and Tove no longer needed his protection. He had found someone else. Lysander awakened an inner strength Mortanius forgot he possessed.

To Lysander it looked like a magic trick. During the day the frustratingly timid, stuttering man he knew faded behind a guardian who walked tall wherever he went, who spoke cleanly and inspired confidence in his men. At night Mortanius nestled tensely in his arms, exhausted by the performance. As the weeks passed Mortanius blossomed even in the sun’s absence. Lysander felt like a witness, a gawker. He could not imagine he played any role in the changing of the seasons. Still, it was a pleasure.

Lysander drank. He drank a lot. Moebius’ tightened control over the alcohol rations tortured him, leaving him lying awake at night for hours. Mortanius had tried to help by buying a couple bottles of wine just for him before they left Helmsberg but Lysander drained them as greedily as a vampire in under two weeks. 

Mortanius’ companionship helped, at least for a time. As the army neared Willendorf, Lysander’s home, his insomnia spiked. For three nights in a row he watched the sun rise from inside Mortanius’ tent. To his credit he did not allow himself to fall behind, though he looked more deathly than Mortanius. Sometimes he managed to doze for a little while when the army paused to rest. He missed a lot of meals this way. Each time Mortanius made sure to save something for him. On the fourth night, having retired early, he finally succumbed to exhaustion and passed into a deep sleep in the dark hours of the morning. 

By sunrise Lysander was still snoring. Mortanius dressed quietly, leaving him to rest. They would arrive at the gates of Willendof before noon and Mortanius knew he would need his strength. He would save him breakfast. 

The hooded She-Wolf squinted in question before the rambling old man, standing over what appeared to be a fountain - granting vision before the seer. This was the first when it came to exploring caves in the north. Mae heard tales of Kain encountering a similar chamber during his quest to assassinate the corrupted guardians. Perhaps she stumbled upon the exact event.

The journey to Helmsburg was as dreary as a funeral procession. After the early morning drama the Death and Mind guardians ceased speaking to each other, would not even look at each other, and relied on messengers to pass along information. Some of the men murmured to each other, but none of them had anything good to say. 

By dusk they finally arrived at Helmsburg, where they were greeted with a surly seventy-man militia. Mortanius rode to the front, accompanied by Declan and a few body guards. Tove hung back, coldly indifferent.

Mortanius looked like Death, hollow and melancholy. His eyes were red and sunken, and ice clung to his wind tussled hair and beard, and his dry lips looked paper frail. He longed for and dreaded sleep. When the militia captain came out to meet them Mortanius remained on horseback. He felt secure up there, as if being on a horse gave his leadership credibility.

As it turned out Helmsburg could not give a hair of a rat’s ass about the famous Army of the Pillars. While they were prosperous for a mountain town and proud of it they were not overflowing with milk and honey, nor would they sacrifice their people’s well being to the demands of an upstart crusader horde. They would grant the army a place to camp for the winter, provided the soldiers stayed out of town, alongside whatever supplies they were willing to part with for a fair compensation in gold, and if their so-called holy cause wanted more they would pay for it in blood. Moebius’ army grossly outnumbered Helmsburg’s militia, but they showed no fear. Perhaps the ragged state of the army increased their confidence. 

Mortanius heard their concerns and thought it over. In a moment he was ready with a reply, “I understand your caution. We have not come to oppress anyone, we are only looking for a place to recuperate and wait out the winter, but I promise my men will be no burden on Helmsburg. I agree to your terms. In the future I hope that we can earn your trust.”

No one was pleased with that. 

Without Moebius the army lacked clear leadership. Technically, the position belonged to Mortanius. The new title repulsed him. 

“I don’t deserve it and I don’t want it,” he told Lysander on their second night in Helmsburg, while they both should have been sleeping. “When I stand in front of everyone I feel like a thief.”

Sitting beside Mortanius on top of their sleeping bags, Lysander nursed a flask of whiskey. At their current rate the army would be completely out of alcohol before winter’s end. Shadows flickered meekly in the lantern light. A shrill wind blew outside, rattling the tents. 

“It’s not just you. They give me that same look.”

Behind the guardians’ miracles, behind the promise of a future free from vampirism, there had been a love story: two immortals, a man and a woman, chosen by the holy Pillars as representatives of Mind and Death, seemingly opposites, fated to be together. Now that poetic story had been stolen, replaced by perversion. 

The fairy tale of Mortanius and Tove held little significance to the army itself. If they still had Moebius’ unfailing leadership, Mortanius’ immorality might have inspired no more than jeering gossip. 

Homosexuality was not illegal. However, adultery was illegal and it was common sense that homosexuals, if they married at all, were unanimously adulterous, desiring their own sex. Lysander slept with married men in the past, sometimes knowingly, sometimes unknowingly. He himself had always been a bachelor. Being a bachelor at his age, when he had no reason not to be building a family, was another kind of moral failing. 

Being subject to such negative opinions never bothered Lysander much. When courage failed him, when he watched frozen in fear as the wicked Nature Guardian crushed his comrades in a fist of roots, when no amount of drink could sear the images from his mind, that was shame. When he arrived too late on the day Moebius disappeared, that was guilt. Of all his sins Lust should have been the least. 

On that same night in Helmsburg, Mortanius broke the silence to say, “If I told Tove how I felt in Meridian, maybe this wouldn’t be so difficult.”

Lysander shrugged. He found it hard to stay angry with Mortanius for hesitating. Part of that had to do with their mutual concern for Moebius, but mostly it was because he found Mortanius’ good-hearted naivety charming. 

“Life is just a series of regrets, isn’t it? Listen, you believe all that stuff Moebius said about destiny, don’t you?”

Mortanius nodded. So many days after Moebius’ disappearance in the blizzard, his faith in destiny was all that kept him sane. 

Lysander offered him the whiskey flask and this advice, “So don’t look back.”

Time stopped in Helmsburg. The sun rose and fell in deference to a pointless routine. Small groups of men left the encampment each pointless dawn and returned each pointless dusk, having accomplished nothing at all. Or so it seemed.

On this morning Mortanius was on his way to the medical tent, where he would check in with Lysander. At least there he could hear good news. Despite losing a couple men on their first night in Helmsburg the rest were well on their way to recovery. With less work to be done, Mortanius had arranged it so a few of the healers could go into Helmsburg that day and assist the town’s small hospital with a flu epidemic. He hoped the gesture would ease tensions between the army and militia. 

Mortanius did not sleep. All through the night the sky stayed clear and the spaces between the stars, desolate. He paced around camp, wrapped up in a dark fur cloak and hood, listening for the flutter of giant wings and eyeing the horizon to the north, where the mountain ended in a steep drop. When the sun rose over the snow bleached mountains his eyes felt like white coals. The waiting made him sick.

Finally, a lookout sounded the horn as the search party road back into camp after the morning light. In the tent barracks, Lysander stirred but did not budge. His head felt like it was nailed to the floor. He pulled the sleeping bag over his head and prayed no one came to wake him.

Outside, Mortanius sprinted through camp to meet the search party. His hood blew back, the morning chill nipping at his ears. As he neared the edge of camp he staggered through the crowd, steamy breath beating back the cold, and walked right into the middle of the search party, scanning their meager ranks with disbelief. He turned to their leader, fixing him with a steely glare.

-In the training grounds of the Stronghold-

Moebius: Ah, it’s good to see Solus enjoying herself with some of our trainees.

Rosanna: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-

Solus: That’s it Rosanna! Keep dodging the knives I’m throwing at you! Doing great!

@timedeceiver [ x ]

See, Kain would have just let the ancient one go about his day as clearly the nobleman has been sussed. Doing any kind of violent act was possibly one in many that was already foreseen by the oracle… Yet Kain came here with the intent of claiming this man’s life, now that he knows for damn certain that this man has his days marked.

Kain draws his blade as intended and most likely, predicted.

Mortanius bent down to pick up another clump of snow, keeping his eyes on the ground. Moebius probably knew the answer to that question. Of course he could do it. The vampires didn’t even realize he knew how to summon fire out of the air. They thought he stopped experimenting with flame magic ever since he burned his hand and might not even suspect him if one of their brethren suddenly combusted. Even so, the thought made him sick. 

Violence was the tool of oppressors, like the lord who whipped his father in front of him. Yes, even the vampires used violence to bring Moebius to heel, but while Mortanius leaped to defend his brother without a second thought he never, ever wanted to deliver the first blow. It wasn’t even about peaceful solutions.