Meeting the end of his words, Balor simply stood still in silence. His head hung low, his eyes closed shut as though he were attempting to focus. The air was hollow and motionless, but its body was occasionally rippled like waves in the sea by the pounding hammer clenched in General Gallows' hand as it plummeted down upon Momus' former gladius.
Folks in the white-robed crowd then turned to one another, engaging in frenzied chat to figure out just what exactly was their king doing. But to certain people of this ivory forest, this veil was thin; completely see-through. Telvern's steely brown gaze focused those before him, honing in on Balor.
Just as the genius' eyes zoomed upon the king, there was a sudden pick-up of the wind. A powerful gust of wind funneling into this space from the east, from Telvern's right. The very second it so much as touched Balor's skin, his sapphire eyes pulled open. He leered viciously into the crowd, pulling the top of the urn down onto its side.
His uncle's ashes began to pour out from the urn's mouth, getting caught in the wind like it were a broom sweeping out the trash. Everyone watched as every grain of ash scattered into a powdery cloud, a sense of ambiguity, a two-faced visage gripping them all.
After a brief time, the air decided to calm down. It settled back into place, the moment of turbulence ceased. The moment the wind dissipated from this place, Balor tossed the urn away in anger. His unyielding stare deadly upon the crowd, hearing as the urn hit the ground hard to his right. "Your motives will condemn you," Balor adamantly spoke to each and every soul with a furious, unwavering voice. "Live by the sword, and you shall die by it. You cannot and will not change a thing, because I will refuse you, reject you, and end you everytime. It matters not who you are in title or surname, you will fall by my hand. There is no escaping it, you cannot flee, cower, deceive, or murder your way out of it."
His message was clear, striking the crowd in a severe, punishing manner.
This
was the fate, the ultimate kismet, of any and all who would turn their back upon the Imperial Kingdom. This was the moment where people began to feel something, hearts swelling up with angst, with fear. The idea that their death could come swiftly, that they could possibly be dishonored just as Momus scared them to death.
After all, having one's ash tossed aside meant that they were not allowed to be reunited with all others in Utopia, separating them from their loved ones... It meant utter damnation, absolute death, to be secluded, isolated, alone for all eternity.
It was then that a unique sound came from behind the king, sounding like glass crackling, yet it had a beautiful, exotic quality to it, like the sound of wind chimes. Telvern recognized this foreign sound almost immediately, having heard it in the homeworld of his kind.
Such a wondrous sound quickly became deafening, from one resonance to a thousand as it crashed and shattered. This sharp, excruciating sound like nails to a chalkboard to the Solasúian ear. Everyone reacted in the same fashion, clenching their ears, face clinched tightly in a grimace.
Balor was unfazed by this, despite having hearing even more potent than the others. His dazzling blue eyes kept drilling into the very soul of each person in attendance, even of his own men. Everyone investigated the source of the sound, finding it in the direction of that anvil and Gallows. What their eyes saw was a crumbled ruin, the gladius, anvil, and the hammer Gallows wielded laid in shambles.
Broken parts and pieces of glistering adamas laid dirtied upon the velvety, green terra. After hearing the horrendous noise pierced the air like a spear with a razor tip, Balor began walking over in its direction. Everyone's frightened eyes scurry behind him, seeing him approached the broken shards of adamas left behind after Gallows' monumental beating.
The king stood before the pile of debris, looking down deeply upon it. He fell down onto his knees, his hands stretching out and his fingers kindly, thoughtfully latched onto the broken remains of his uncle's weapon. He pulled it out from the wreckage, his glowing eyes looking down and reflecting off of its broken, fractured body.
Though he felt truly monstrous and cruel about what he had done, he knew that there was no use in looking back. There was no way to alter the path, for the brinks had already been set into place. He stood back straight once more, quickly facing the crowd. He showed off the broken gladius to the crowd as a symbol, a message. "This blade belonged to Momus," Balor told them. "Just as the rest of us, Momus inherited this from his parents. He succeeded his mother Atere Barn as possessor of this weapon after he killed her, after this weapon was reborn in the pyre fueled by her death. Momus was an assassin who ruthlessly stole the lives of his mother and father, among countless others. He conspired with the Resistance in their actions against the Imperial Kingdom, and attempted an assassination of the queen and myself."
Balor shook his head in earnest rejection. "He was a disgrace," he venomously spewed. "His name and his life shall eternally stain my family name, always dishonor us. Henceforth, I formally renounce his claim to the Barn bloodline, nullify his deeds, his titles, his privileges, and the inheritance of any successor should he have one. Any possessions he might have had -- personal or otherwise -- is hereby relinquished and awaits destruction. Furthermore, I declare the dismissal of any and all recognization or association he had with the Barn family. He will now only be recognized for what he truly was in life: a manipulator, a compulsive liar, a criminal, a thief, and a murderer."
It was then that his mournful eyes turned like man to beast, searing so angrily and accurately into the faces of the crowd as if they were magma-hot needles. He stepped forward, holding out those broken remains to paint a better picture. He wanted to deliver once more a message, a warning. No, if anything, he desired most of all to deliver... a threat.
"To those of you standing in my midst," Balor spoke spitefully, scrolling his watery eyes across the crowd. "If you choose to stay beside us, you will be handsomely rewarded. I swear to you that my sister and I will construct our promised Utopia, and we will grant you unlimited access to its splendor. But if you seek to betray this beautiful, abundant country that we offer you, then I will make it my personal mission to find you and kill you. I will show no mercy to you, and I will feel no remorse or grief when I take your worthless life. I will see your conspirators executed, your homes burned down, your faces wiped from memory, and your deaths without lament. I will not find respite until your existence is purged, until your very name isn't even so much as a stain on the page of a book. It will be like you were never born, because
nobody
will remember you. You will become as all the others: another forgotten, pathetic, miserable failure."
Everyone in attendance stood there, slack-jawed with exposed eyes as if they were without eyelids. It was an overwhelming silence, everyone dumbfounded by Balor's direct threat to their very lives. A brutally grim, bleak reality befell those within this crowd, the king's "join or die" mentality very lucid and without exception.
Balor's pained eyes full of conviction and rancor, darting precisely through the crowd like bullets. His careful fingers then let go of the shattered remnants of Momus' gladius, not even watching them as they fell haplessly downwards. The once proud blade now laid broken in the dirt, the true symbol that Balor wished to convey.
The very solemn king made his final statement to his people, a declaration of war upon those who would seek to betray him and his sister. After a moment or two, the peerless emperor then turned his back to the crowd. He began walking away, fading from the funeral scene.
Everyone watched him disappear, leaving without another word or a proper farewell. Caerus watched as Balor walked on by him without a face, so completely soulless and without humanity. The speaker then swiftly pulled his face toward the crowd, his face frightened as his stomach sank. "..***-that concludes the ceremony," Caerus nervously declared. "A-as the representative of Governanti, I-I thank you for your attendance. You are free to leave at your leisure..."
It didn't take long for that message to be read perfectly clear, nobody wasting any time when it came to getting out of there as orderly but as hastily as possible. The bewildered, astonished crowd dispersed before those who represented the Imperial Kingdom of Governanti. The glowing, blue eyes of each member of the Loyal Knights pierced the crowd, making sure that there was nothing suspicious going on.
Bodies dashed off at the speed of sound, some removing their hoods as they emerged upon the courtyard. The atmosphere was very clamorous, everyone tautly talking about what they had just witnessed. The funeral ending on a far darker, more harsher note than anyone ever anticipated. The way their king appeared, the tone in which he spoke...
Encased inside this massive, white-clothed oyster, a pair of pearly robes fleeing the scene. Telvern and Elliott stood side-by-side once more, attempting as all others to escape this field of madness. They came into the courtyard, the message left by Balor still very slow to sink in.
"Hmm..." Telvern pondered momentarily, being left rather oddly at the end. "I expected Balor's fall soon to come, but I didn't anticipate it to be so hard. It's rather astounding how rapidly he's changed."
"It's hardly so," Elliott responded. "this is but a taste of the heinous power that he's been keen on displaying on a daily basis. It seems that all bastions of normalcy have faded from this country..."
The furtive genius' thoughts continued to lash at him even as Elliott's voice emitted his words, thinking about the situation as a whole. Not just of the funeral scene it seemed, but of Elliott as well. There was still the matter of whether or not Telvern could trust him, could believe he was an ally.
If one thing aided Elliott's cause, it's that Telvern could tell that the nobleman outright disliked the king he had sworn to serve. It was quite evident that Elliott harbored ill-will toward Balor, but was that truly enough to sway the genius? No, Telvern concluded, there simply wasn't enough. For all he knew, Elliott could be a master of this craft, artfully playing the genius like a fiddle.
"It is evident as to why this was an event meant only for the eyes of the nobility..." believed Telvern, still juggling all other thoughts in his head.
Elliott nodded his head. "Indeed," he affirmed. "It seems that the true purpose of this event was to announce a demand of compliance of the nobility of this country. The funeral setting was merely a facade to this thinly-veiled threat; they never intended to give Lord Momus the proper departure that he deserves."
"This was most certainly not to the knowledge of some," the genius mentioned, making sure this fact was pointed out. "Lucia was in the black as the rest of us, appearing quite distraught once Balor's plan was unveiled."
"And yet she made no attempts to stop her dear brother," the nobleman returned. "Lucia's distress is but a passing emotion -- her allegiance will always lie with her brother, regardless of his senseless actions. One might find similar loyalty in a dog."
"I suppose so," Telvern replied as he then crossed his arms. "...Momus had the absolutely perfect position to fit the dagger, to succeed in his usurpation. He had the title, the wealth, the power, and the name... And yet, somehow he managed only failure. The people will hear tell of this, believing it a direct reflection of Balor's ability. I suspect then that Momus' name will become a weapon of deterrence, one Balor may deploy should he feel a need to 'inspire' his people if they begin to stray."
"Yes," Elliott concurred. "Momus is but another casualty for the sake of Balor's machinations, and I regret to say that more are likely."
In this moment, the genius retreated back into his own mind. His right hand pulled out from his crossed arms, going under the excessively long hood and clinching his chin. His mind lost of all grip upon reality, reliving the funeral moment-by-moment. The memory of it replaying over and over like footage, the genius analyzed every second of it.
Telvern was a tad troubled by its sights and sounds, of the moments of Balor's very crushing and precise threats to his people. It had only been about four years since Telvern's last true visit to this city, and it wasn't like this at all. More specifically, Balor wasn't like this at all. No, he was a completely different person back then.
"It is rather unusual though," the genius expressed in a soft tone in the midst of his thought. "Balor always spoke so highly of his people, would always respect and honor them. He'd never resort to such vulgar tactics, at least not against members of his own kind. No, he resented such behavior, thought it cowardly."
"The Balor who dares to threaten the nobility of Governanti is little more of a shell of his former self," declared the nobleman beside Telvern. "There are many who believe that he has fallen ill to madness, and that his thoughts are consumed with paranoid fantasies of traitors. Whatever has taken hold of him has all but erased the one we once knew as prince and replaced him with a tyrant."
Telvern's head rose back up, his hand falling back down to his side. "Yes, so it seems," Telvern agreed, his tone rather lowly and hushed.
As the genius lifted up his head, he took notice of their path. They were still in the middle of this moving body, but such a following was scheduled to die very soon. They quietly rode this tidal wave of milky-white, walking past the gates into the castle grounds and those knights from before. They poured out into the streets, watching as many among this crowd departed.
As the morning sun cascaded down upon them, their feet began stomping down upon the adamas streets of the nobility district. They found buildings that made a clear statement aligned along these streets, becoming a corrupt bureaucrat if those walls could talk. But still, each person in this crowd carried with them the air of the funeral; a grave, dispiriting mass.
It grew unusually silent, probably the longest time these nobles had ever went without blathering about their wealth. It was a gratifying moment for Telvern, allowing him to work out this puzzle of thought without useless, distracting dribble pulling him out of his state of clarity like a rope tied around his neck.
But it didn't take long for the furtive genius to come out from under his shell, but this was of his own volition. His brown eyes pulled in front of him, seeing an alleyway just off to his right. He very suddenly and sharply turned into it, swooping in quickly but slyly. Though any ordinary person would miss it, Elliott had predicted this turn off.
The nobleman fell into this alleyway as well, following just behind Telvern's step. The transition so smooth and clean that not a soul noticed it, not even suspected it. They were now largely cut off from the public eye, being given this shelter. It was within this moment that Telvern finally felt comfort with removing this rather annoying hood, pulling it back behind his head.
Elliott was left rather intrigued by Telvern's choice of action here, seeing as he chose
now
to remove his hood. Nevertheless, the curious nobleman mimicked the genius, removing the hood. Their faces now back within the view of each other, standing just in front of the other. Telvern looked down with dread upon the troublesome robe his body was dressed with, knowing it was time to engage in one last battle with it.
He began the painful, grueling process of removing it... The battle picked up in earnest, the showdown of a lifetime. He pulled his arms up the robe's sleeves, pushing down his torso. It was a intense, arduous strife, the genius appearing like a man fighting for his life after being swallowed alive by a large, white boa.
Before this fight, Elliott just briskly fell down his robe with the utmost ease. Viewing as Telvern's struggle turned into a spectacle, Elliott very neatly began folding up his robe into a nice, orderly square. What a war this was, just watching it was absolutely exhausting. "Please do take your time," Elliott jokingly permitted, making light of Telvern's struggle once more.
And akin to the past, Telvern welcomed this comment with his arms held shut. He ripped the robes off the moment the nobleman's joke came to his ear, finally being rid of that plight. Having killed the accursed albino beast, Telvern handed over its silky-smooth skin to Elliott in a frustrated manner. The nobleman accepted this, taking the haplessly handled robe into his care. He brushed it off, removing any dirt and wrinkles that would tarnish its glistering, flawless look.
Once it was back to being perfect, Elliott folded it up into a pleasant, tidy square that was the exact same shape and size as the previous. He gently cradled both robes in his right hand, pinning them between his hand and the side of his right thigh. Now that all that business came and passed, the moment came.
All guises and personas were removed, turning to each other like men about to do war. Their eyes colliding, Telvern's steely, stoic glare versus Elliott's calm, composed stare..."You know, I find it curious that you chose to return from the ashes to attend a funeral, of all things," Elliott confessed his inquiry without fear, aiming straight for the genius as the nobleman flashed a very brief, light smile. "...And you didn't even bring formal attire."
The nobleman's tone quite playful as he spoke the final part of his words, trading his short-lived smile for his level-headed, collected face. He watched on as Telvern thoroughly absorbed the situation until there was nothing left, seeing him collect his thoughts. Telvern appeared unfazed by Elliott's declaration, even if it implied he had arisen from death.
"Yes, well..." replied Telvern with a slight pause. "The facts surrounding the circumstances of Momus' death have been muddled by no end of gum-flapping and useless speculation. Surely you can understand my desire to distinct fact from fiction, to confirm all the rumours with my own eyes."
Elliott then shook his head. "I hold little concern over your endeavors to find the truth, Telvern," he rejected Telvern's reply in an acute tone of voice. "I'd much rather know why you, of all people, would choose to fake your own death and vanish into the night."
Telvern stood purposely frigid, his facial expression without any change despite Elliott's words. Although the nobleman didn't see a direct change upon the furtive genius, he did detect a slight change in the atmosphere surrounding him.
