Onine/Chapter05prologue

The Dragon Court sat low over the sprawling buildings of the Imperial City, its construction so different from the almost hap-hazard urban sprawl that the City's settling had promoted after the Empress ascended to the throne. Indeed it was a different building altogether. Constructed at the fall of the Shogunate, it was a tremendously ornate yet utalitarian building, supreme, austere, beautiful - but could withstand bombardment and house thousands of soldiers or - if need be - refugees in the event of an attack. Such was the nature of one of the largest of temples dedicated to the Elemental Dragons and their children outside of the Palace Sublime.

Nearly four hundred feet wide, the greatest hall of the Dragon Court was a massive plaza of stone. One elaborately gated entrance stood at each of the four cardinal directions, and balconies of laquered red-wood trimmed with ornate gold lined the perimeter with stairs spaced evenly around. In the very center of the great hall were five jade statues of the Elemental Dragons, each resplendant in gold and their colour of jade, carved with such detail that they almost seemed alive. The gem stones in the dragon's eyes seemed to watch worshippers everywhere in the great hall, looking benevolently at good men and with disdain upon those who commited evil. Wood, Fire, Water and Air stood in a four point circle around the Earth Dragon. Alters before the Dragons allowed worshippers to offer incense and prayers to them.

The building was a standing monument to not only the Dragons, but the progeny of the Empress herself. Along its extensive walls was a vast and intricate family tree of the now-dead members of the Scarlet Dynasty. Every dragonblood who had died as a member of the realm had his or her name engraved on a plaque of brilliant coloured jade bordered in gold leaf, and this was placed upon the appropriate branch of the tree. The countless intermarriages of the Dynasty and their mingling bloodlines contorted the tree and warped it into a maze of branches like a strangler fig wrapped firmly around the Realm.

The days of strife had ended within a century of the Empress beginning her lengthy reign, and thus the holy building had been made open to any who would make offerings to the Immaculate Dragons. The Dragon Court was a neutral ground, where faction and House supposedly meant nothing, and any man could worship alongside one another regardless of political leaning. Of course, such things crumbled in practice. In the seven centuries past the Dragon Court was frequently used as a safe meeting point for plotters and schemers to pass on news or gossip. Such activities were something of a public secret - everyone knew, but no one gave such activity anything more than a cursory glance. As long as the appropriate respects were paid, and none of the deep rivalries caused a disturbance to those genuinely worshipping, these things were overlooked.

In the height of the realm the worshippers were equally exalt and mortal, but in the modern day the Dragonblooded rarely made the time with their affairs of state. With the strife of the realm more and more men turned their hopes to the Dragons themselves rather than their exalted children. Countless mortals offered their fragrant incense and talked quietly and respectfully amongst themselves as they walked and bathed in the august atmosphere of the Dragon Court. There was a low hum of conversation and whispered prayer that carried in the superb accoustics. There were no secrets before the Immaculate Dragons.

Voices began to hush inadvertantly and mortals began to move discreetly away as another set of footfalls joined the countless others near the gate of Wood. The footsteps were by no means louder than any others, but the sound carried eerily well and seemed to have precedence over all the other mingling sounds of the Dragon Court. These were footfalls of a being destined to be heard. Despite the grace of her exaltation, her presence was obtrusive, like striking a vase with a mallet for the sake of being heard.

Nemorosa the resolute avenger walked slowly into the heart of the court, parting the knots of mortal worshippers like waves breaking on a warship's prow. Those paying their respects finished swiftly and began to move away, trying desperately to look as if it were by choice so as not to offend the dragonblood. They found interest in walls an pillars elsewhere in the Dragon Court, but the strange alure of the exalt drew sidelong glances from the mortals. This Dragonblood was frightening and intriguing at the same time.

She didn't have quite the same aura of power and command that most dragonbloods posessed - of course she had that too, but there was something more to it, like a looming shadow behind an object that struck a different shape on the ground. It was intangible and invisible, but they sensed it all the same, the feeling that something on the edge of their conciousness was extremely wrong. The hairs on the backs of their necks stood on end, and they grew uneasy and flighty as an animal does near the supernatural. It was something so blatant that it pushed through and tickled the corners of even dull human senses. A good portion fled up the many stairs to the balconies so that they may 'study' the upper levels of the family trees. This dragonblood was like a battlefield aftermath, they shied away from her, yet could not completely pull their eyes away.

Nemorosa had grown used to such reactions, she frowned and tried to ignore their fear. The unease was so palpable that it could be felt, and she just wished they would leave and leave the air calm around her.

She swept into the Court like a silent storm. What the mortals could only barely perceive fanned out behind her, her muted anima gripped the flows of essence and whipped them up into a whirlwind of tumbling flows and whirlpools. To the humans she was a mere uncomfortable presence that they would tell their families about the moment they got home, a mere oddity to mortal perception. To those who could touch upon the essence of the world her presence was sickening, countless leastgods stripped from their posts whirled about in her wake, wailing and trying desperately to swim free and return to the rocks, grass and other masses of mundane and simple things they represented. They shrieked and cried out as they were thrown about helplessly like leaves caught in a gust of air.

She could not hear their cries now. Her mind was lucid and focused, and the world was stable and firm about her for the moment.

Nemorosa was slender for a dragonblood. Too slender - she looked wasted, ill or undernourished. Her face was marred by a livid purple mark that stretched from the left corner of her jaw up to the bridge of her nose. At a distance it looked like a tattoo or paint, but up close one could see that it was a cluster of fine veins directly under her skin. The man to be her husband would find far worse elsewhere on her body. Her skin was pale, as one who never saw the sun, even the slightest touch seemed as if it would bruise or at least marr her skin red. Her lips were a deep purple, like one fished up drowned from the depths of the sea. One who would think her completely weak need only look into her sharp silver-white eyes to realise the mistake, the odd colour made the intensity of her stare unsettling. Her aspect markings were almost non-existant, her hair once bearing a rich woodland green tint that had now darkened to turquoise strands which hung matted and disheveled.

Her mixture of pink and purple clothing was once fine, but now was ripped and tattered from a hundred hardships. The cool pinks and purples were accented by a pair of finely embroidered green gloves, and a larger-than-average pair of silver-white Chakrams hanging over each hip. She wore a small yellow flower behind her left ear, the corners of its petals were wilting.

Nemorosa pressed her fingers to her forhead and massaged between her eyebrows, humming to herself. There were times where the world grew surreal and fluid, her perceptions warped and flowed together in a curious mix of dangerous oddities that grated on her mind and stripped her of every last shred of her dignity. There were days when she would awake in strange surroundings, her clothing torn just a little more, fresh bruises and newly opened wounds marred her skin. Sometimes there would be bodies around her. There were days where the places around her would change between one eyeblink and the next. Though her mind had been clear, and pristine for the past year, and now with her road to recovery there was one last thing she needed to do. One last thing she needed to say before she was free. Free of the Coterie.

She passed the five Dragons, but felt there gaze nonetheless. She would make her offerings later. She made her way along the lower tier floors, starting with the name of the Scarlet Empress and moving along the tree, following the winding branches of the Tepet line. So many came to an end in the recent years. Branches that no longer continued with compliments of the Bull of the North. But fallen heroes and warriors she came not to see. The name she sought was further along, far from the family lines of warriors and heroes. There, tucked away almost in shame beneath the late afternoon shadow of one of the flights of stairs were the names she sought. One name made her want to spit in disgust and hatred, but it was not his she came for, it weighed like a dead weight on her spirit, and she deigned it with little more than a baleful glance. Tepet Luen could burn in whatever hells now roasted his blasphemous soul. Her only regret was that he may have taken his wife's with him. Nemorosa gazed serenely at the red jade plaque bearing the name Tepet Greiha. She rested on her knees and plucked the fading little flower from behind her ear and stuck its stem in one of the plaque's loops of gold leaf.

"How long has it been big sister?" She murmered quietly, her voice had the husky edge of a teenager's. "Thirteen years? Fourteen? I can't remember anymore. Since we parted the days and weeks run together and sometimes cease to exist."

Nemorosa shook her head to clear the sudden ringing in her ears. Strange whispers caught the very edge of her hearing. She tried to make out what they said, but even with her exalted hearing she could make no more sense of them than she could a bird's wistle. The air became claustrophobic and choking around her, it burned her lungs with each breath. It was as if the air had become like mud or tar, making each breath a superhuman effort. She leaned forward and put her hand on the plaque to steady herself when the whispers became voices. The little flower she had placed moved to sound the words out like a parody of human lips.

"Nemorosa..." It croaked.

"Ah...!" She gasped, her eyes widening.

"Traitorous Nemorosa... I'll watch you rot... decay...die." The voice continued heedless. "Murderer."

A face began to form in the jade, pushing out of it as though the entire surface of the sacred metal was little more than a membrane. The simple vestigal face leered out of the stone, its half formed eyes were like the empty sockets of a skull.

"W..who are you?" Nemorosa started to back away on her knees, recoiling from the haunting otherworldly sight that sneered at her from the wall, slowly taking shape. There was something unsettlingly familiar in that rasping voice. The pliable face began to take shape, the eyes blinked, the cheeks began to hollow and become dessicated. Another shape began to push through the stone next to the plaque, five points that clawed out like fingers. The young dragonblood felt a cold icy lump form in her stomach as recognition began to dawn. The rest of the figure took shape with similar speed, gaining flight and power from Nemorosa's own fear. She tried to stand, but with sudden and unexpected speed the hand and bony arm leaped out of the stone and siezed her throat in its sinewy grip. Her shriek was cut short as the skeletal thumb and fingers locked around her windpipe and cut the cry short savagely.

"How shameful that you do not regognise my face you two-faced harlot!" The figure of a feeble woman stepped out of the wall and pointed an accusing finger an inch from the frightened young dragonblood's nose. The figure was beautiful once, but sickness had taken its toll on her. The once pristine scarlet hair was matted and faded to a sickly yellow orange, her matted and stained bedclothes hung limply off her skeletal frame. Her red eyes blazed from sunken sockets and blackened teeth showed with every baleful sneer between cracked and bleeding lips. "You sicken me, such a pathetic little wretch."

"Gr...Greiha!?" Nemorosa wheezed through a constricted windpipe. She gripped the bony arm that held her throat like a vice and tried to pull away, but the ancient dragonblood wraith that gripped her so easily sneered at her resistance and tightened her grip, drawing a choked off scream. "Why...?!"

"Why?!" WHY?!" Greiha hissed, narrowing hate filled eyes. She wrapped a second hand around Nemorosa's throat and began to exert crushing pressure on the young dragonblood's throat - but not enough to kill her outright. "Perhaps that is a question you should be asking yourself!"

"Uaaah..!" she yelped. How could such a wasted creature be so strong? Nemorosa's face slackened a little as black spots began to appear in her vision. Greiha shook her sharply to keep her catch concious.

"AAH! You were... d-dying ah... I had.. I had to s-save you...uh."

Greiha leaned in close, the stench of death and sickness was overpowering Nemorosa' senses. "Save me?" The ancient dragonblood leered. "Did it make the deed easier seeing me like this, Nemorosa? Did it make watching me sputter and die as my organs failed from the poison easier to bear? Was it alone enough to shatter the vows you made in our names? Tell me, traitor, how much of you was left behind by your act? You're nothing but a shattered husk now. I can SEE! How much?! ANSWER ME!!!"

"Enou.. enough." Nemorosa gasped feeling the ground fall away and the sensation in her limbs begin to fade. "Lost..enough. Small price... for your soul...sister." She weakly grasped at Greiha's throat to fight fire with fire, but the strength was fading fast from her numbing limbs, she had left an attack far too late and she could not concentrate enough to focus her defensive magics. Meager though they were.

"My soul? You should know of all people that the Coterie transcends the soul - you threw yours aside just as I did! Rebirth? Reincarnation? It means nothing to us - there will be nothing when our task is complete. You cannot stop what has already started." Greiha's voice rang resonantly through Nemorosa's feeble attempts to choke her back. She pushed the young dragonblood down, bending her nearly onto her back, towering and looming over her. Strands of sickly orange hair tickled and caressed the younger dragonblood's face like entanngling snakes. Everything in Nemorosa's mind and sight bore a distinct warping theme of strangulation and suffocation.

"Not...true, it... stopped with you... I'm the...only uaaah...only one left!" She rasped.

"Naive girl! You're so laughably witless - The cycle continues, only smaller now, it grows closer to the inevitable end! You would think that my death and the deaths of the others would be even a minor setback!?" The woman admonished her. "You may have the will to have killed your brothers and sisters of the Coterie, but I have seen into your heart. You have not the will to destroy yourself now! He knows that, your own cowardice is the blade of the guillotine over your worthless neck!"

He?! Nemorosa's mind raced, it couldn't possibly be... "Luen!" she gasped. "But he's... dead!"

Greiha cackled. "And what good is THAT when you cannot believe it yourself? If your really believed him dead - why did you need to kill me!?" Her voice went low and taunting, the smug smile tugging at the corners of her cracked and flaking lips. In Nemorosa's swimming, warping sight the dead woman seemed to fall apart before her very eyes. Her hair fell in clumps, turning into snakes and crawling away hissing over the ringing in her ears. Flakes of skin fell off like dead leaves. Some fell trailing little strands of hair and grew spidery legs. The torn bedclothes ripped and decayed as if in a desert wind.

"He's watching you right now Nemorosa... and he is laughing. Laughing at how foolish you are. At how foolish you've been. You're not the Apostate written in the scriptures - Instead you took my place Nemorosa!" Greiha's empty eyes blazed in the darkened pits of her now fleshless skull. "You are now a ward - you have made it so!"

"NO!" Nemorosa screamed over the crushing pressure against her windpipe. A surge of sudden energy rushed through her, filling depleted muscles with newfound energy, allowing her an all-or-nothing last assault to escape her grizzly fate. She kicked out with her legs, and ploughed her knees into the brittle, empty ribcage and shattering bones with audible snaps. Gripping the skeletal antagonist wearing her sworn sister's face firmly by the throat with both hands she began to fight back, squeezing and pushing up against the weight that pinned her untill they were level. She continued to scream half-formed words and curses, hysterically barraging Greiha with hate-filled shouts of malice and woe. With one last terrible roar she shook the life out of the frail figure and opened her tear filled eyes to look at the woman she had killed for a second time.

Her lungs burned and ached with the want for oxygen, and her breath came with ragged sobs. Nemorosa gasped with shock. Instead of the dessicated dragonblood she saw her own limp and lifeless form in her grasp, eyes empty and face contorted in a horrified silent scream that would never end. In a flash it was gone as if it never existed, leaving Nemorosa sitting on grazed knees with her hands grasping her own bruised throat. Trembling, her hands fell limply from her neck and her wail echoed throughout the Dragon Court. She fell into a heap on the stone, weeping and gasping for precious air, shaking and convulsing as her muscles recovered from the massive asphyxiation she had inflicted on herself. Pins and needles rushed across her body, the intensity of it all was agonising as circulation resumed en masse.

She looked up at the plaque with blurred eyes and watched as the small flower she had planted in the loop of gold was taken aloft by a gust if wind. It pinwheeled hypnotically to the stone before her face, wilted and lifeless. She recoiled back, dragging herself across the stone floor on heavy limbs.

"No..." She groaned weakly. "It can't be true...it can't!!"

But what if it is? A small voice that chilled her heart whispered. It was a correct voice nonetheless, she didn't know if the vision she had perceived was mere hallucination or whether it was something more. If Tepet Luen *was* still alive, then the past twenty years of hardship she had suffered were only the beginning. If he was alive the despicable actions she had taken to escape the black fate that awaited her were futile acts of a woman drowning encased in lead chains. If it was true, she would descend into madness again, and this time there would be no escape, no chance to reclaim the freedom she had sacrificed so much of herself to achieve - such as it was.

A few of the mortals present had heard the commotion and watched carefully from a distance. The dragonblooded were prone to strange behaviour at times, but even this pushed the limits of the wide varieties of things that were considered 'pedestrian' behaviour amongs the exalted. The strangeness of her behaviour drew glances, but nothing more - the mysterious aura caused most to think better of approaching her - dragonblooded or no. Nemorosa was left to her chaotic thoughts.

She stood awkwardly and held her fingers against her throbbing temples. The nausea and dizziness soon passed, but the sickening feeling of helplessness was still very present in the pit of her stomach.

Everything was at stake again, and this time Nemorosa did not have enough of her soul left to pay the price. Unless... Unless she took her actions to the place she had tried so desperately to avoid. It was inevitable now. What her mind had suggested was effectively genocide. Not only was it necessary for her to destroy the sword itself and all the lore that was collected. Her final solution was the complete erradication of everyone the sword's presence had touched. She knew that in the end she would be destroyed by her quest. She would cast her body into the abyss along with the sword.

That was her fate now. And she would see it through.