- CHAPTER THREE -
My Father lost. The invincible-, infallible leader of the guard, the "Demon of Regnus" had fallen... to some creature? I wasn't sad. I wasn't anything, really.
***
D'tera watches the doors swing open and has her heart re-broken by the expression across Vicadum's face, watching it slowly melt into misery. Vicadum lowers his eyes to the package D'tera carries. She tiredly raises it to Vicadum, hoping with half of her heart that he can take it, grieve his fallen father and grow from it, while with the other half she wishes she didn't have to show him his father's broken blade, to hide him from the gruesome truth.
Vicadum touches the cloth that wraps around the sword, brushing the tips of his fingers over the lining. He remembers having helped his mother Matrelus weave a thin golden line along how dark red cloak.
"I- I don't know what to say."
D'tera quietly utters, her words nearly overtaken by the sudden cloudburst.
Matrelus makes her way over to the doorway, hands clasping her mouth. She knew it had to be bad news, not having heard from her husband. Still, in disbelief, she asks- "Where… is Diagis…?"
D'tera looks at her with a lost and distanced gaze. "He died… fighting. Diagis fell fighting with something I've never seen before… this "Cythril" creature!" D'tera's eyes glisten as her tone and body rise with every word. "I met him after he managed to take it down. He gave me this and his…" D'tera's throat catches on dry fire-warmed air from inside. "-His parting words for you all." Her eyes dip in sorrow, closing tears from both sides.
Matrelus falls to her knees, wrapping her fingers around D'tera's skirting, Her fingers round off of a large metal plate underneath. The sound of the room begins to buzz. The fire seems to burn brighter for a moment before slipping back into the cobblestone fireplace. THMM THMM THMM. Vientus kicks off the back wall of the room and storms toward the door. Vicadum is just behind his mother and D'tera starts to lose all focus and the world begins to numb.
Vicadum watches as the flame dances across the wick, blown side to side by the light storm taking place among them. D'tera relives the night for Matrelus and Vientus. The humming inside Vicadum begins to scream. Holding the cloaked package tighter now, Vicadum pinches at a fold and pulls away the dense fabrics. Revealing the blade underneath, Vicadum shivers as the metal reflects the cold moonlight off of it.
Diagis' Sword, Wanting, left in this sorry state. Vicadum scans the blade, uncovering more of the dim metal secrets, feeling a whisper of another sense- as if the life of the blade has been severed from its whole. Vicadum looks across its length to see the muddled reflection, a hazy vision of his Mother in hysterics.
She cries at D'tera's feet, and Vientus leans against the wall by the door now, working to break his fingers from the sheer force, by the look of the fists across his chest.
Vicadum's sight begins to pulse. Through the hum and buzz of the surrounding company, only so many words slip through his fugue.
" He wanted - …
to have-...
so that-...
just-...
it-..."
Watching her lips move and eyes blink in slowed movement, Vicadum can't help but become angry. Watching as Vientus sneers across the room and his Mother collapses into a puddle, Vicadum can tell something is changing. Vicadum becomes resolute, suddenly knowing what he must do. His eyes find perfect stillness. Vicadum stands up and frees the sword from the cape, gripping it at both ends, looking down at it and himself in its shinier reflection now.
"I wasn't sad. I wasn't anything, really.
But if I had to be something, I'd say I was disappointed."
Vicadum lets the sword swing pendulum beside his legs as he walks, shambling on. He makes his way over to a chair in the room, one closer to his bedroom. D'tera looks up from the grieving Matrelus and notices him leaving towards his bedroom. He can't hear her, but she calls his name.
"Vicadum? Did you hear me just now?"
She asks, wanting to be sure he understood his father's message. D'tera squints curiously at him, noticing his hold of the naked blade, wielding it as if the hilt were still a part of it. Scared for what happens next, she reaches for Matrelus' hands to loosen their grip. D'tera takes a step aside to make her way to Vicadum, wanting to stop him before anything can be done, quickly stopped by the frantic Mother at her feet.
Vicadum begins to drag the chair from the wall over to his room. Vientus is in his own painful and rageful moment as all of this happens, still leaning against the wall. D'tera can only yell to try and stop Vicadum.
"Hey! Don't!" D'tera nearly cries, Matrelus quickly faces her son, horrified at the implication her brain fabricates.
Vicadum says nothing and does nothing to stop his actions. D'tera rushes to the door, reaching to stop Vicadum before he can make any mistakes. "Would he really-!?" Her mind races.
"Vicadum! Your Father wouldn't want this!" She screams at the closing door.
Vicadum is numb to her pleas and continues on. He slams the door on them and backs the chair up to the handle, jamming it in with a kick to the underside of the seat. the door rumbles with beating from D'tera and Matrelus. Vientus only scoffs and walks out of the house.
Vicadum looks down at the sword, repeating the words over in his head.
"You're Father wouldn't want this? …
Ridiculous. The fallen want for nothing."
Vicadum paces the room, gathering tools and another chair. He starts to prepare himself.
Matrelus is distraught at her wit's end, she begins to fall quiet and fragile, enough to be tapped and shatter. She crawls around, her back to the doorway now, she sits watching a thousand yards off. D'tera continues beating at the door.
Vicadum is ready. Placing the sword on a table, he holds his hand over it, eyeing it up to line it with the edging of the broken and cracked blade. The preparation done around the room was ready. His father's forge hammers are fixed with horseshoe nails to their ends, and a glowing red heated plier is set out over a burning candle.
Diagis' words from some time ago appear in his head.
A memory of a time much less clouded and filled with fear when a father and son could roam the outer kingdom and talk in peace.
"One day, you'll have all of this Vicadum. A sword of your own to protect your friends, your family, and your people."
Diagis rests his hand atop Vicadum's hair.
"My people?"
The young boy turns up to his dad.
"Regnus! All of them, looking at you to protect them, and knowing that you will."
He reassures his boy.
"It sounds scary… what if I can't do it?"
Vicadum looks down at the dirt.
"Your friends will, and the people will."
Diagis relays a message of family and hope.
"I guess I can do it!"
Vicadum's boyish optimism washes over him.
"I don't want you to guess Vicadum. When you know, you will"
Diagis smiles at him.
Vicadum violently shakes his head of Diagis' words. In confusion, he questions his motives. The young man lets out a rough and angered huff, bunching his lips up at his nostrils.
"I know, I will!"
Spitting the words out.
D'tera, on the other side of the door, has slowed down her knocking and is peering through a small crack in the wood. She catches a glimpse of the fixed hammer raised into the air. Blinking in angst as it comes thrashing down in front of him where she couldn't view.
Vicadum lets his frustration loose in one swift blow, managing to break down the table underneath. No cry is let out, no whimper of pain, just a hard breath forced through grit teeth. The fixed nail breaks through Vicadums right hand, passing flesh, muscle, and bone, it continued through to crack the sword's metal.
Vicadum stands tall, looking down at his bloodied hand and the trickling red flow down his sword. He lets it run the length of the blade but stops it by pulling the sword level, it begins to pool.
Not giving himself the chance to fear another staking, he raises the second prepared hammer and runs his hand through. His sword has become him, and he has become the sword. Vicadum falls but keeps himself up only by the blade. His destroyed hand is working its hardest to keep all his weight upright. Using the heated pliers, Vicadum quickly slices off the ends of the nails, and flattens out the cut piece, making removal of the sword a near impossibility. Vicadum has fastened his father's sword to himself, two pikes through the hand and blade, and his destiny forged.
D'tera relieves at Vicadum's decision, but let's flow a flurrying nuisance of thought about his role-to-be in the Kingdom. Vicadum is on a path now, one that will lead through hatred, pain, worry, and anger. Her peace is that along the way, he'll find the friends he's meant to protect and protect with.