Written by Emperor_Jester and Ronin
A lack of faith had plagued him since the Skirmishes. It haunted him everday. The Light had failed them for seventeen young years, and the city had almost crumbled. And it was happening again. Silent tears crept down the old paladin's face as he lay prostrate, stripped of his armor. Th same questions passed through his lips, multiple times, pleading with the divine for answers.
"Why?"
Why had the Church kept this so under wraps? Why did they not warn the whole city? Why were the children, the Proselytes, being kept in the dark, those with the most to lose in the coming conflict? It was all happening again, and this time, Kurtrin was an old man, absolutely powerless to stop it, to help.
"Please...send me guidance...send me confirmation...something...anything. I beg you." The war survivor would weep, alone in this solitary cell of piety. Pleading for salvation from a diety he secretly believed had abandoned Lutetia half a decade ago...
Savien Durandet walked the prayer hall alone. The main atria was full - rows of proselytes, paladins and clerics kneeling on padded mats, eyes closed, lips moving with the cadence of speechless hymns. Some had crossed their legs and sat upright, breathing slowly in and out, meditating and centering themselves. Smoke wafted from incense lanterns stationed around dimly-lit room, warming it with the pleasant scent of the day's offerings.
The paladin passed the main hall. He would not kneel among his brothers and sisters that morning. Much weighed on the young knight's mind. He needed to gather his thoughts, to plan his next course of action. He needed distance. Space and solitude. For that, one of the private prayer rooms would have to suffice.
A proselyte passed him, a young girl. Her lids were heavy, her hand over her mouth as she stifled a great yawn. Just woken up, no doubt. All proselytes were required to attend prayer and meditation first thing in the morning - a regiment that saw many young students deprived of sleep on a daily basis. She looked at Savien and nodded as she passed.
For a moment, she was one of the proselytes from Lumenia - sclera bloodshot, mouth stretched over her pale, bloodless face, screaming, forever screaming-
He blinked. Looking over his shoulder, he watched the girl assume one of the mats and begin the torturous labor of staying awake for her prayers. No. Not the dead proselyte. A living one. Get your head straight, Savien.
Gruffing, he turned away. The last thing he needed was for this case to mess up his mind. A paladin's greatest power was his strength of will - the Caer would not deprive him of that. Not for anything in the world.
He found one of the doors to a private meditation and entered, surprised to find it already occupied.
"Your pardon," he spoke, his voice a slow whisper. He was about to leave before he stopped. He recognized this man - had never met him personally, but knew who he was.
"Sir Hayes?" a tinge of confusion touched his voice, "Sir are..." He faltered, unsure what to say. Kurtrin "The Golden" Hayes was one of the oldest and most respected knights in the Order. To see him here, weeping in a quiet cell, was a curious sight. Savien wasn't sure whether to apologize and leave or ask what was wrong.
Ultimately, he decided for the latter. This was a paladin, after all. A brother.
"Sir, are you alright?" He stepped definitively into the prayer room, brows knit over plain brown eyes.
The back of his hand would be used to wipe bitter tears from his aged eyes, a faltering smile being returned to Savien in response to the brother's worry. "I assure you, I'm not as bad as I seem. Old age has made me seem more frail than I once was."
He'd rise then, moving towards his tunic which lay folded in the corner. "I've had many troubles on my mind lately, that is true enough. But nothing prayer and hope can't fix. And a good day on the streets, protecting this city from all manner of evil, both small and large. As best I can. If you reach my age, young man, you'll find that having a passion, a duty, is the most blessed gift the Light can give you."
The armor would be next, in between a long pause as he listened to his peer's response. "I hear you investigated the Square...incident. It weighs on you, doesn't it Savien?"
A small, rare smile flitted over Savien's jaw. "With great respect, sir, if I live to be your age, I think I'd thank the Light just for the gift of being able to chew solid food."
His grin faltered at the mention of the Square. He cleared his throat, his expression to its usual stony calm. "Yes. Lumenia. Two proselytes killed. Another..." He looked for the word. "...broken." He blinked, gathering his thoughts, forcing himself to meet Kurtrin's eye. "And now the Nuvellon massacre. Before that, some of the council still thought this might be the work of an imposter." He shook his head. "It seems the Caers have returned to Lutetia."
"...I had hoped to never see their like again, brother. And this one is relatively unknown to us. We thought we'd gotten them all. Every last one. But one slipped through the cracks. One we know nothing about, or at least next to nothing. I've seen a picture though. One of the few, glimpsable images from yours and Proselyte Hogans investigation. He looks eeriely similar to his father."
A sad, forlorn chuckle. "Tell me, Savien. Tell me the truth. I wish to retire to the Monastery. I want to teach these welps how to survive, what to expect, give them some one to talk to. Especially the young Nuvellon boy, especially. I'm too old for field work. But some of the higher ups are fighting me. Something about a tactician on the front lines or other such nonsense."
The final clasp and buckle locked under his armpit, his eyes empty as he sought an answer from the much younger Paladin, almost pleadingly. "I can't face them again."
Savien kept his eye on the older paladin, listening silently to his confession of fear, of weakness. It was an unexpected revelation. The hero of the Caer Skirmishes was burdened by his own legacy, haunted with the memories of the conflict that had made him a legend.
"You will not face them alone, Kurtrin. The Golden." He stepped forward. "We will fight the new Caers as we have every other threat before them - as a family, united in the Light." His voice lowered. "But ... you must understand. You are one of the few who remembers. One of the few who can guide us. We will need your wisdom in the coming days."
He nodded, eyes trailing to the floor. The memory of the slaughtered proselytes flashed in his mind once again, a shiver running down his spine. "You are right to fear them, though." He drew a deep breath. "If one, only one, is capable of all this ... I can't imagine what you must have seen in your day. What you must have fought."
"No. You can't. I've never seen everything so close to crumbing. Fourteen individuals, lad. Thats all it nearly took. And we were so much stronger then. If its not just one, but two, or three, how will we react? We don't have the numbers like we used to. The class sizes of the proselytes grows smaller and smaller every year."
Clasping his sword to his belt, the same blade that had once killed a seemingly unkillable girl, Kurting would grow more imposing, more impressive considering his age, but each ounce of metal seemed to add another weight, another memory.
"She was beautiful, you know? I was young then, not even half way into my twentys. I'd done so well, keeping foul thoughts and temptations from my mind. She looked fifteen. Barely. And to this day, that...that demon...Just remembering her eyes. The way she laughed as her head was taken. We stopped her, but the Bishop was still in intensive care for nearly a month. Sixty of us, and only twelve of us walked away. And...And the higher ups told me she was one of the weaker Noble children. Can you imagine it, Savien?"
"We'll all need help in the days to come."
"Help will come," Savien replied, "in the Wick, all is one."
His voice was sure and confident, but Kurtrin's words weighed heavily on him. In some ways, the Monastic Order was more powerful than it had ever been. Its weapons and technology granted the knights of Lutetia prowess and dreamed of, allowing them to go toe-to-toe with even the most deadly of monsters.
...but in other ways, Savien couldn't shake the feeling that Kurtrin was right.
And we were so much stronger then. What did that mean? What did the paladins of old have that the newer generations did not possess?
"They can be killed," Savien said, almost to himself, "you killed one. Damien Arodring killed one." He looked up. "They bleed. They die. Just as all things do."
"Some things never die, boy." There was a note of authority there, like an elder disciplining a whippersnapper. "The memories won't. They never cease."
A bronze-iron alloy helm made its way over The Golden's features. It was winged on the sides, with a full face mask and visor, splitting in the middle instead of lifting or falling in only one direction. Across its left side, three deep, thin cuts were etched into, and through the metal, as seemless as if it had been forged that way.
"I pray you are right, friend. Brother. I do. I hope we can find this beast, and fully exterminate that accursed family for good. I hope we lose no one else doing so. I hope he is the only one, truly the last Caeruleum to ever set foot in this city." The visor would shut, and the beaten old man would begin to leave the room.
"But I know it is foolish to be so naive. The toll will be heavy, if we manage to win at all."
"Hope is always naive," Savien replied, eyes boring into the stone wall as Kurtrin moved past him. The Golden was not wrong - much would need to be sacrificed to defeat the Caers. Men and women would die. Blood would be shed. Faith would be tested and lost. Suffering would plague Lutetia once more.
"...but then again..." he turned, facing the elder paladin once more. "...hope is really the only thing that is deeply, truly human." He walked forward and put a hand on the Golden's shoulder, looking through the slits of his visor.
"When the time comes, brother, I will be proud to die by your side."
For a moment, his brother's face looked different. Like an old friend's. That same phrase, that same spirit. He'd had it once himself. He'd seen so many others with identical fervor. It was still alive, the spirit of the Church. What it meant to take the Silver. It wasn't gone.
Then he remembered that same face, stuck in a frozen scream, with equally frozen tears stuck to its decapitated features. "And I you, brother." Despite, or perhaps because of the hopeless tone in his voice, Kurt's salute was fierce, perfect, and strong. "Reflect on what I've said. You yourself said my knowledge and insight would be valuable. Don't let them make the same mistakes as last time. Don't let them shelter the proselytes from this. Shove it in their faces. Harden them before the war comes. Kill the boys and the girls. Make them into soldiers for good. Soon."
And then he'd leave, as the bells tolled the hour, disappearing once he'd exited the room into a crowd of young children and old men, to the streets of his beloved city.
Savien watched him go, the elder's last words ringing in his ears. He thought of Celeste. He thought of the grief, the anger in her eyes as he led her to the place where her friends had been slaughtered. He thought of the look in her eye as she examined the corpses of her friends, doing her best to remain strong, to keep objective and steady in her research. Was that strength? Did restraining your feelings make you stronger? Or was there something else at work - a lesson that Savien was not seeing?
The last bell chime broke his trance. He would meditate on it. Kneeling on the mat, Savien touched his silver to his lips and began his prayer as he always did - with a recitation of the Monastic Order's creed.
"Justice above all." He closed his eyes. The face of the dead girl surfaced from the black of his consciousness. Bleeding. Screaming.
"Justice above Duty." The headless girl. The one who lay among the debris of the broken chair. The one who had died resisting, died for fighting back.
"Duty above Order." The boy. Petrified. A babbling mess of psychosis, his mind ruined, his sanity crushed by the fanciful whims of a madman.
"Order above Honor." Celeste, fists raging, mustering every ounce of her will not to weep ... and not to strike him in the jaw ...
"Honor above Self." The Golden's tears, his quiet sobbing, the fear in his eyes at the mention of the Caers. Who knew better than he did? If he was frightened, who was Savien to be brave?
"In the Wick..." he breathed deep. "...all is one." His eyes fluttered open. Before him, the prayer room's candle flickered on a pillar of molten wax. He watched it burn.
"All is one."
