paixaorpg | Kick the Dog [completed]

Entry tags:

Kick the Dog [completed]

Character(s): Marluxia and Gabranth
Content: Even more experiments!
Setting: ?
Time: Week two, ?
Warnings: Let's play a rousing game of "Poke the Trauma Buttons!" Also, Marluxia's ~~a bit of~~ an asshole.

Marluxia hadn't known what to expect of this "Gabranth," but it certainly wasn't what he saw. A man in armor--a knight, perhaps? It left the Nobody curious enough to wonder, at least.

He remained silent after the man had been strapped down, letting the silence fill the room and wondering how long it would take for him to speak. That was, if Marluxia wouldn't have to be the one to speak first.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

To say that Gabranth was displeased would be an understatement at this point. He had been pulled from a conversation with his young lord, only to find himself thrown into a holding cell like a common criminal. Clearly the armor of Archadia meant nothing here. (Somewhere in the back of his mind a small and ill-used part of himself retorted that no it wouldn't be given this was hardly Ivalice, but he'd long since learned to ignore that voice.)

When the strange white creatures had come for him some time thereafter, he had reacted in kind as best he could without his swords. But in the end he had done no damage to them and had been forced to suffer through the indignity of being carted away and strapped to - of all things - a table.

The silence stretched on for only a moment longer before Gabranth's voice shattered the silence in the room. "Release me."

He seemed to be a fighter; all the better.

"I'm afraid I can't do that," Marluxia replied simply before stepping through and phasing through the armored man.

This was going to be almost too easy.

His lips curled up into a poisonous smile. "Interesting. I wasn't expecting to be given a traitor," he began. "How long have you been lying to yourself, Noah?"

"I'm no traitor," Gabranth snapped back, almost on reflex. He hadn't been the one to abandon home and kin. That had been the fate his brother had chosen. He had stayed with Landis until the bitter end. Besides, he had a more important question to ask, namely how the other man had been able to walk through him.

The question died on his lips; buried by the mention of the name he'd once had. "Gabranth," he countered, anger lending force to his words.

He pretended to look surprised. "You aren't?" He thought for a moment and shook his head. "No, I'm sure you are. What else but a traitor would side with the ones who destroyed everything he cared about?"

Marluxia loomed closer, leaning so he was next to Gabranth's ear. "And what else but a traitor would ruin his brother's name and throw him to the feet of those same destroyers?" The Nobody straightened once again. You really shouldn't lie, Noah."

Lying? He was hardly lying. It was simply the truth, albeit the sort of truth that was a lie he'd told himself so many times that he'd all but forgotten it had been a lie. As a result he simply took the continued comments about him lying to be little more than an attempt to irritate him.

"He forsook his homeland when it needed him most. What happened was a fitting end."

Marluxia nodded and put a hand to his chin. "You have a fair point. When all is lost, it's better to put yourself into the dragon's lair in order to slay it once and for all. ...That is what you're planning, isn't it? It's what any man of honor would do, after all. Your mother must be proud."

"Just as proud as your emperor must have been of you to give you such a title."

Proud? She was dead. As dead as Landis was, now. There was nothing she could say to him. "Don't speak to me of honor." Any honor he might have had was gone now, beaten to death by the Empire and her law.

"I am Judge Magister," he answered. 'Hound,' Vayne had called him, but that was no title and thus couldn't possibly be what the other had been referring to.

A stubborn hound, at that. The Nobody decided to switch subjects.

"As well as a protector, am I right?" he asked. "The boy, Larsa. What happened to him after you disappeared, I wonder?"

At the mention of Larsa's name there was a flicker of concern in Gabranth's eyes. He didn't know what had happened to Larsa after he'd show up here. Clearly he'd managed to survive (and had mentioned having seen him not long before arriving?) but just how things had gone, he had no clue.

Nor did he have an idea of what had happened after he'd been so suddenly kidnapped. But rather than admit to not knowing he simply let silence fill the room.

That had gotten a reaction. Marluxia decided to go from there.

"You don't know, do you?" He heaved an exasperated sigh. "How shameful. For all you know, he could be here--same as you are now." He walked a half-circle around Gabranth. "Or the boy could be dead, and you didn't do a thing about it. I suppose it all depends on who it was that went to fetch you."

"Very shameful indeed, Noah."

"He's in the city," Gabranth answered. "I spoke with him."

Beyond that, he had no way of knowing. It would take a cruel man indeed to cut down one so young as Larsa but he was not particularly convinced that the man who had kidnapped him was anything but.

"If you've harmed him..." he began, letting his voice trail of in a many that would hopefully imply that things would not go well for them if they had.

"If I harm him...?" Marluxia echoed. "Look at where you are now. Taken when you were supposed to be protecting him--he might as well have been taken too. You couldn't help anyone if you tried."

A derisive laugh. "Is that why you decided to join the enemy? Because you couldn't even save your homeland? Who will you turn to now?"

"I..." Gabranth began before cutting himself off, hands clenching into fists as the truth of Marluxia's words cut deep. If Larsa had been taken as well then he well and truly would have failed in his duties. For now the only thing he could do was hope that Larsa was yet safe.

"Better that then abandon her in her final hours," he spat.

Gabranth had hesitated, which meant Marluxia need only press further.

"And yet you couldn't save her," he repeated, speaking over Gabranth's last few words. "Instead you saw her fall into the hands of the ones you hated most, and you ended up in their hands as well because you were weak, weren't you? You couldn't raise a finger to be of any help, nevermind raise a sword. Now the little prince is going to face the same fate. And still you can do nothing."

He shook his head sadly.

"I am not the only ally he has here." The words hurt him to say, and he was all but certain that the pair of sky pirates were unaware of his presence, nor was he pleased with placing his charge in the hands of a madman but Larsa had other allies.

"If I must sacrifice myself to keep him safe, than that shall be my course of action."

Again Marluxia leaned forward, his voice barely rising above a whisper. "I'm afraid you're too late."

"Then all is lost," Gabranth answered, a strange hollowness in his voice.

Marluxia stepped back and wordlessly bade the Dusks to come in and take Gabranth away, a look of triumph spread across his features as the man disappeared through the door.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Kick the Dog [completed]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject