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"Hey," Aramis says with an empty smile, raising his drink to you. "Welcome back. I know I... haven't been very entertaining in some time, I apologize. I was kind of depressed, you know, going though this self-pitying stint in order to make myself feel better. Hell, I figured if no one's gonna feel sorry for me, I might as well feel sorry for myself."
*Aramis reaches into his pocket and pulls out a cigarette, promptly lighting it on the dying candle in the middle of the table*
"Picked up smoking again," he says between short, punctuated puffs, "but at least I'm getting off of camythius. The lesser of two evils, I suppose. Now. Where were we? I was talking about Meenah, I know that, but... hmmm... Was it Seraphim? Was that it? I think that was it. All right, let's see... Technically, I was the leader of Seraphim. I'd started the idea of revolting against Kymeris and all of Meenah, for that matter. I'd sent Baanji and Moon and everyone else to recruit members. I told who to
get what, where, and when to do it. But when it came to strategy, well, that's something I was lacking in. Thank Deus for Deedra. She was the real brains behind Seraphim, the intelligence behind my bravado. I was
confident in everything I did because she'd thought of how to do it. Without her, I'd be lost. And she seemed content there, in the shadows, away from any glorious praise Seraphim gave me whenever something
had worked out for the better."
"I was in love with her at that time," he continues, a faint, almost shy smile creeping onto his lips. "To whatever extent I was capable of at that age. Deedra was crass, rough, feared and respected. People went out of their way to make sure she got what she wanted. Deedra was everything I've ever wanted to be. I think, after I left Seraphim, that's who I modeled my life after... I tried to become her, I think, by emulating the very essence of what made Deedra so damned powerful. In any case, my heart skipped a beat whenever she looked at me with those cold, glassy eyes of hers, or made some despicable comment through the cigarette she held between her angry lips. And those times she put her fist into my gut or slapped me upside my head with those large, calloused hands of hers, I felt another syrupy drop of sugar-coated love for her fill my angry heart. I honestly don't know where I'd be without Deedra. She taught me how to stand up for myself, how to pick my battles. She pulled me out of a rut more times than I can count and I'm thankful for it. In her own way, Deedra made me what I am. I don't know just yet if that's a blessing or a curse, but for every sin I commit, a virtue isn't far behind. I'm a good guy. I just do a lot of bad things. Anyway, back to Seraphim. As a tiny, budding group of marginalized runaways looking to each other for comfort, we didn't have much to keep us on our feet. We came with everything we could carry from home, but that didn't last us very long. Soon, we were carrying out planned raids of nearby villages, stealing whatever we could get our hands on, be it food or clothes or gold. We even went so far as to rob the Temples to Deus in order to have a little money in our pockets. Little did we know, we'd developed quite a reputation all over Meenah as a devilish little band of thieves. I didn't know Seraphim was known all over the country then, but gossip sure does have a way of spreading. An old friend once told me that the fastest way to spread news was to tell a woman. All those bored housewives finally had something exciting to talk about, and word of Seraphim spread like wildfire. Once, when we'd cut it too close during a raid and one of Seraphim's members was seriously hurt, we decided to go on a different kind of raid altogether. Deedra told me of a town near Usugaar Fort named Haamomile. Haamomile is where all of the knights get their weapons, a town full of blacksmiths, silversmiths, goldsmiths and the like. And if there's one thing we needed, it was weapons. She devised a plan that would have us going into town one at a time, scouting out several different places, causing little diversions, then sending out the entirety of Seraphim to do a smash-and-grab at the weapons stores. What sounded very basic and crude was actually intricately detailed, to the point where it would take me quite a while to explain it all to you at once. In any case, let's just say that when the raid was over, Seraphim was armed and ready for combat. And since I was the only one who had any kind of weapons training at all, it looked like I would be the one to teach swordplay to Clan Seraphim. I figured that if I'd take five students and taught them everything I knew, they could teach five others, and I'd have a small army under my command. Maybe it was because I was so young that the thought of failure never entered my mind. I wasn't very concerned with what might be at all. Rather, I saw, in my mind, what my plan's outcome would be, and left no room for failure. Maybe, because of that, we never did fail..."
*Aramis smirks a little then, running his fingers through his hair once.*
"I wonder what Seraphim would have been like, had I not left when I did. And though we had some great times, I always felt like I left at the peak of Seraphim's glory. But there were things that happened during that time, things that I'll talk about another time. I guess it's apparent by that comment that I need a little break, huh? This liquor runs right through you, let me tell ya. Come back soon, and take care of yourself, you hear?"
 Bleeding Apocalypse · Tue Nov 30, 2004 @ 02:12pm · 0 Comments |
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