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It was quiet, here.
You could breathe, you could lower your bow and shed your armor.
It was quiet here.
And then, it suddenly wasn’t.
He came careening into you, bouncing off your broad body and hitting the dust with a tumble and hissed swear. You frowned, unwittingly severe as you stared at him. He scrambled to his feet, frantically looking to and fro.
“NEPETA?!”
“She is not here.”, you answered him calmly, “This is purgatory. You’re own personal hell until you find your way to the bubbles.”
He looked at you, aghast.
“It is to give you time to think upon your sins.”
He grit his teeth and growled, “I’ve done nothing wrong, only what was necessary!”
“Oh?”, you asked, quirking an eyebrow, “Is that so.”
He nodded, pulling his glasses off and polishing cracked frames. Dark dust faded from them and he pushed them back on, and froze.
“D-D-D-”
“Darkleer, yes, that is my name.”
The boy dropped to his knees, and you cringed. You reached down, gently catching his arm and pulling him abruptly to his feet.
“Do not take a knee with me, young one.”, you said quietly, “I have done far too much wrong in my time to deserve praise.”
The boy was quiet now, looking down and jittery. You sighed, taking a step back, “Walk with me. Tell me your story.”
He seemed shocked, but nonetheless he did as he was ordered. You shortened your stride for him, watching him speak quickly and softly as he tied his own hair back.
“And then the game happened.”
You nodded.
“And… And I failed.”
You paused.
“Maybe if I hadn’t listened to the mutant we-”
“Don’t.”
He looked at you, blinking at the sharp note of your voice as you looked down at him.
“Blood status is nothing, little one. Regardless of what they tell you, in the end we all die and atone for our deeds.”
The boy puffed up, “That’s fallacy! The hemocaste is there to protect us, to show us our places in our world!”
“The hemocaste is a leash. It is a gag and a blindfold and all manner of subjugation.”, you barked, spooking the young troll, “You are young, you should not be worried of stupid aristocratic ideals! You should have been making friends, you should have been LIVING!”
The smaller blueblood swallowed hard.
“Who was it that killed you?”
“…Makara.”
“A highblood.”
“Yes.”
“According to the hemocaste, you deserved it.”
The young troll flared, angry, “How DARE you!”
“That is the system you propogate. Tell me boy, did you have a moirail?”
“…Yes. I did. The very best of them. An oliveblood, by the name of Nepeta. Nepeta Leijon.”
You gasped, feeling a twinge in your heart and covering your mouth with a hand. Your descendant, he had to be given this bout of irony, looked at you in worry.
“What is it Sir?”
“…The young Disciple. I guarded her after taking the life of the only person she ever loved with her whole heart… Her family line was Leijon, she told me once.”
The boy was quiet.
“That is what I had done. I killed a man, a mutant as red as the sky before a war… Because all he did was speak.”
“He spoke against the Empire.”
“No, he did not.”, you said heavily, “He spoke of peace. He spoke of love and kindness, of brotherhood. That is all. But for a world like ours, for Alternia, it would have been the end of the Tyrian rule. A world built on a different kind of strength.”
He tilted his head at you.
You shook your head, “Child, child, you were taught so very wrong.”
“But…”
“Every lowblood you sneered at was someone’s moirail, someone’s matesprit or kismesis or auspitice.”, you said, kneeling and putting your hands on his shoulders, “They were someone, they were a being as real and true as yourself. Think, child, think what you would do if someone spoke to your moirail as you no doubt did to rustbloods, to redbloods, to those the hemocaste dubbed lower.”
He didn’t answer.
“What good is your strength, colt, if you use it for cruelty? What is the point of being able to carry your fellow trolls in their time of weakness if you instead deign to force them lower? To step on them?”
He blushed.
You shook your head as he looked at you, confused and scared.
“I… I was wrong?”
“We all were. We all were used.”, you told him, “What matters now is how you intend to make it right.”
“I will fight!”
“There is no fight in death.”
The young troll bit his lip. He clenched his fists, anger glimmering in dead eyes as one hand uncurled and touched his throat. You watched him, a smile curling the edge of your lips as he looked to you.
“What if I speak?”, he whispered, “What if instead of channeling my strength through my fists, I channel it through my language?”
“Do not be afraid to howl. Do not be afraid to curse those who curse you, and do not be afraid to say what you truly mean. Do not edit yourself into what others want you to be… I did that, and I destroyed a purer soul than my own and watched her waste away. I killed someone who no doubt forgave me for the murder before I let my arrow fly.”
Equius sat down, and you did as well.
“You are not an idea. you are a being, you breathe and feel and learn. Ideas are immaterial, they are concepts that need a living being to become fact, to be theory and to become the truth… I can see by your eyes, by your steps that you were raised to believe you must submit to others. That you must allow those you thought were above you to belittle you and box you into a set of ideal traits.”
“I… I did not let myself use language considered lewd.”
“With strong emotions come strong words.”
“But I… I am not-”
“You are.”, you reaffirmed, a hand back on the boy’s shoulder as he hung his head, “You are imperfect and you are young and that is nothing to be ashamed of.”
His shoulders shuddered, and your face softened. You let him lean against you, you let his voice be found again, rasped and no longer regimented into overpronounced syllables.
“I-I’m sorry!”
“And as a young apostle told me, in the dark and through an empty smile… You are already forgiven. What matters now is what you will do with that forgiveness.”
“I will… I will speak.”, was the answer, and you nodded as he continued, “I will speak and I will use my strength to help others be heard.”
“And it is this decision that will make all the difference. What is your name?”
“My name is Equius. My name is Equius Zahhak.”
You smiled, and heard the sound of pawfeets and a cheer of “EQUIHISS!”
You turned, and saw her. Her hair dark and soft and her eyes bright once more as she was led by a tiny young thing who barreled into Equius and rolled him twice.
You stood, you walked to her, and she threw her arms around you.
And in the aethermists of the afterworld, two voices from separate ends of time chorused the same thing.
“I forgive you.”