Chapter Text
“We can put all of our fighting behind us. I propose a trade. You give me Saparata and the Commonwealth gives you Knight Arcturus.”
“Arty for Saps? I mean, where would this happen?”
“We have Arcturus with us, now. We captured him yesterday.”
Part of Saparata knew it was over right then. Schpood nearly lunged over the table at the sentence, eyes going wide and mouth stretching into something far too sharp to be a smile, and even the Westhelm soldiers looked interested, Spyder’s teeth baring into a snarl and Skipolo’s hand tightening on the pommel of his sword, while Bardun and Le Kura sucked in breaths. Betrayal against the Emperor was betrayal against them all, in the end, and they had all been wanting to see Arcturus’s blood spattered across the coliseum’s sand for months, ever since he first fled following the revelation of his identity. The only person who was, ostensibly, on Westhelm’s side and didn’t look interested was TurnTapp and Saparata could only tell that because the dictator had turned to look at Saparata the second the words were said.
Like he had already guessed the outcome too.
Saparata’s nails bit into his palms as he sat stock still in the chair he had been provided, pressed against the wall and no cover to hide a weapon of any kind.
Schpood might have invited him to Westhelm, might have taken him to the other leaders and helped him share his story, but Saparata knew the Emperor had never really trusted him. Hell, he might not have ever trusted his story.
“You have him?” Schpood barked out, hands on the table between him and the Commonwealth’s diplomats, and Zekor nodded just a little too quickly to be gracious.
He knew he had the Emperor as well.
Saparata couldn’t breathe.
He didn’t want to die. Especially not for a crime he didn’t commit.
“Schpood,” he whispered out, voice just loud enough to travel, and Spyder’s eyes met his. The second in command had the same resignation in his eyes that TurnTapp did. “Don’t do this.”
He didn’t even know if the Emperor was listening to him. He hadn’t looked away from Zekor, after all.
“We can give him to you right now, to face your justice in the coliseum.” Zekor leaned forward and Saparata felt nauseous at the hunger in the man’s eyes, hunger he knew was directed at him even as Zekor kept Schpood’s gaze. “All you need to do is give us Saparata. Let him face our justice.”
“I didn’t kill them,” Saparata croaked out futilely.
The only people who looked at him were some of the Commonwealth’s diplomats and there was nothing but hatred in their gazes.
“No tricks?” Schpood asked and Saparata withered, eyes already flicking around for possible exits, even as he stayed frozen in the chair. The meeting hall was specially designed to have few exits, to prevent assassination attempts, and the only way out were the main doors which had both Westhelm soldiers and Commonwelth soldiers guarding each side, and the windows, which were covered by glass Saparata would have to break. Plus, they were several stories about the ground.
He swallowed roughly.
“No tricks,” Zekor confirmed. “We understand that Westhelm and the Commonwealth have had some… disagreements in the past, but this is the chance for us both to do right by our nations. To create a bridge that has been burned.” He extended a hand, palm up, to Schpood. “A trade, a life for a life. A criminal for a criminal.”
Schpood finally drew back at that, rising to his full height as his jaw worked. His eyes slid over to Saparata’s and the Pandoran native tried to convey all his pleading and innocence in a single gaze as their gazes met, tightening his grip on the Ish Idol he held in his fingers. He had prayed quite a lot in the past couple of months, probably more than he ever had in the past couple of years, but he figured he had the right, with everything that was going wrong.
He offered up another prayer to the God as he stared at the Emperor that would decide his fate, mouth dry and without incense as he begged the universe for one more chance. He knew the God had been looking out for him, how else would he have escaped the initial trap and backlash, then the failed trial, then Pandora itself? How else would he have talked himself into trusting the Covenant, talked himself out of suicide, talked Schpood into trusting him in the first place?
He knew Ish was watching him but would now be the time that the God looked away?
“Schpood,” he breathed out again and the Emperor’s jaw locked. His eyes moved to Spyder, then TurnTapp, then back to Zekor.
The Commonwealth diplomat hadn’t moved. Placid smile, hand palm up.
Bloodlust in his eyes.
But only Saparata could see it. Like he had been the only one to see Madness in Fluixon’s and Greed in Timebomb’s.
Softness in TurnTapp’s.
Please Ish. Don’t let them do this to me.
The Idol was cold in his fingers and the rosary beads, slippery.
Schpood looked out the window, no doubt only seeing the night sky but maybe imagining Arcturus beyond it, just within his grasp.
“Fine,” the Emperor said sharply and Saparata was out of his seat in an instant.
“No!”
He didn’t want to die.
He didn’t want to die.
“Wonderful,” Zekor hissed out, standing as well, and Saparata recoiled, wrapping the rosary beads thrice around his neck until the Idol rested just above his heart as he backed up, like he had done when the blood cooled on his floor and when the shouts of triumph echoed through the courthouse.
It had felt warm against his skin then, a silent promise that even if Saparata was alone, there was a God who controlled luck and life and maybe Saparata had managed to gain his favor by all the incense he burned and the prayers he offered, but now it was nothing but cool stone pressing against a heart beating too fast.
“Schpood, please!”
There was more shouting than just his, TurnTapp had stood up at the same time that Saparata had, eyes hard as flint, and Spyder was turning to his Emperor with the want for justice and mercy warring in his eyes, but Saparata only had thoughts for the Commonwealth soldiers coming at him. He backed up, slamming quickly into the wall behind him, and panic filled his throat with its spicy sweetness.
“Zekor-!” Saparata started but then there was a hand on his throat and he shoved, trying to dive out of the way of the grasping hands going for his limbs. He nearly tripped over his own feet, white cloak spinning around him as he stumbled, and a hand grabbed his braid, yanking him back a step. He yelped in pain, in panic, and someone wrapped their fingers around his wrist, twisting the arm behind him. “Please, Zekor, I didn’t kill them!”
A hand on his throat, pulling him back up and pressing him against a chest.
Another hand around his other arm, fingers tightening into the upper muscle.
He thrashed, but he knew it was useless.
He had never been strong. He was fast, he was lithe and dexterous, but he had never been strong. He relied on distance to win his battles, when he was forced into fighting. On strategy, on quickness.
He had none of that now.
The Idol banged against his chest as he fought.
It felt like just a chunk of polished stone.
“Please,” he whispered, forced to meet Zekor’s eyes as he twisted uselessly in the grips of the Commonwealth soldiers. He couldn’t see exactly who it was that held him, maybe Joshunyek, but it didn’t matter in the end, if they didn’t let go of him.
“I told you,” Zekor spat, stopping a foot or two from where Saparata was pinned, glaring at him with all the hatred in the world. “I would see you punished for all the deaths you perpetrated.”
“I didn’t KILL THEM!!”
No one was listening to him.
Of course they weren’t.
No one had listened to him in that courtroom, even as he gave them names. Thomas had been allowed to remain standing at the prosecution, lips twisted into a smile only Saparata could see. Fluixon had been allowed to remain at the banister, surrounded by the Luminarans who refused to believe they were standing by the man who had killed their leader.
At the time, Saparata had thought 3Below was the force behind Fluixon, because surely his best friend hadn’t decided to betray him under his own power, but he knew better now.
3Below had just been another victim.
Just like Saparata.
Betrayed by the same man, doomed to the same fate. Saparata had managed to escape that fate for a little while, a couple months of running and hiding and fearing but he should have known it would catch up with him eventually.
“Take your criminal quickly,” Schpood instructed and Saparata snapped his head around to stare at the Emperor. Schpood had his back to him, glaring out the window again, and TurnTapp was sitting back down, Spyder’s hand on one shoulder and Skipolo at his other side. The dictator looked furious, hands curled into fists on top of the table, and Saparata was hit with the reminder that even when he thought TurnTapp was betraying him, he never doubted that the dictator had believed him. He had just thought it a moral dilemma at the time with the power struggles happening all over Yggdrasil.
But they were in Westhelm. And TurnTapp had no claim over Saparata anymore, not since the Pandoran ran away and then accepted Westhelm’s protections.
Ish, Saparata was a fool.
“Schpood-!” Saparata yelled, trying a last-ditch effort to both yank himself out of the Commonwealth’s hold and to plead to the Emperor who had protected him for months, but Schpood wouldn’t look at him. Didn’t even twitch.
Spyder wouldn’t meet his gaze either.
Zekor’s tone switched on a dime. “Of course.” The diplomat placed a hand over his heart, bowing slightly to the Emperor. “Arcturus is outside with the rest of our companions. If you would like to come see him…?”
The Emperor didn’t turn to look. “Spyder, Bardun, go with Diplomat Zekor to confirm his words. And then take the captive to the coliseum, we can arrange his match for tomorrow morning.”
Schpood wouldn’t even look at him. Wouldn’t look at what he was doing.
Saparata often tried not to dwell on anger. It was exhausting and distracting, and grudges just wore down people like water in a canyon, so he often let himself be angry for a minute or two before letting it go. Fluixon’s betrayal had been one of the hardest things to let go he’d ever had to face and part of him was sure he hadn’t actually like he lied to himself that he had, but in this moment, he was faced with similar, aching sharpness that came from having an outstretched hand and heart stomped on.
Saparata glared at the Emperor’s back through gritted teeth and narrowed eyes.
Coward.
At least Fluixon had the decency to look at me as he betrayed me to the wolves.
“Yes, Emperor,” Spyder said flatly, moving from TurnTapp’s side as Le Kura took his spot, and everyone could hear the lack of emotion in his voice. The fact that not everyone agreed with what Schpood was doing wasn’t even comforting to Saparata as he felt the Commonwealth soldiers start to drag him from the room. He dug his heels into the ground, trying desperately to squirm out of their grasps, but there was no give from the hands on his arms, on his neck, and their weapons flashed in the corner of his eyes, another stark reminder of his own powerless state.
Would they kill him there, right on Westhelm grounds? Would they go further, out into the wildness where no one would hear Saparata’s last words except them and the birds? Would they bring him all the way back to the Commonwealth, to the Gauntlet to execute him like they had first tried in the aftermath of the trial?
He didn’t know which option was worse. Dying in a place that had become something like home, dying alone with no one but his executioners, or dying at a stage that he had tried so desperately to escape from.
Each option made his stomach swoop and tears bead in his eyes.
“Zekor,” he gasped out again as the soldiers dragged him out the main hallway, keeping his eyes fixed on the diplomat in front of him and specifically not looking at the soldiers whom he had gotten to know by name in the past months as they watched him get dragged out, the Emperor’s second-in-command and Senator of Diplomacy following behind with clear apathy to what was happening. So none of the soldiers would get any ideas like saving Saparata. “Please, you have to listen to me!” He inhaled in pain as one of the hands around his wrists twisted agonizingly and he squeezed his eyes shut again for a second before forcing them back open. He tripped over his own feet, biting down on his tongue as he struggled to keep up with the pace the Commonwealth soldiers were setting.
“Our leaders tried to listen to you,” Zekor hissed over his shoulder, teeth bared and hatred smoldering in his eyes from the brief glimpse Saparata got. “They accepted your meeting request and they died for it.”
“It wasn’t me!” Saparata felt like he was going to start sobbing. The past few weeks had been spent doing nothing but going over the painful details of the betrayal leveled against him over and over again for each new civilization they visited, tripping over his words as he revealed the gaping, bleeding wound in his heart time and time again so people could consider whether or not they wanted to help. The only boon, the only soothing balm to that ache had been the fact that most of the people he talked to believed him, unlike Schpood, and being faced with such blatant hatred for what he was saying was enough to rip all of that healing straight off, leaving him bleeding and broken again. “It was Fluixon! Fluixon and Thomas and the rest of their group!”
Why wouldn’t anyone just listen to him? He felt like he was shouting into the void, except even that would be better because he wasn’t expecting a reply from the void. No words to hurt him.
“Why on Pandora would Fluixon kill his own leader? Kill seven other leaders who had nothing to do with Luminara and their business at all?” Zekor scoffed as he spoke and Saparata gritted his teeth, swallowing down his nausea and fear to form his words into something that would maybe, maybe do something.
“Why on Pandora would I kill any of the leaders?! I was the Mediator, the neutral party! There’s no reason for me to commit mass murder!” Was he going insane? There was no way Fluixon had this many people this wrapped around his finger. Yes, it had been nearly half a year since Saparata fled Pandora, that was half a year for Fluixon to poison and preach and lie, but surely, surely. “Zekor, I was friends with most of the leaders! Korulein-!”
Bringing up the fallen leader had been a mistake.
Zekor whipped around so fast that Saparata reeled slightly, trying to recoil backwards even though there was nowhere to go. “Don’t you speak of her!” Zekor spat at him, hands in shaking fists at his sides as he glowered at Saparata. “You have no right to speak of her, don’t dirty her name with your mouth! She trusted you and you murdered her and I will see you suffer for it!” The diplomat looked like he was considering strangling Saparata right there, right in the entrance hall to Westhelm’s capital building and Saparata could only stare helplessly at him before Zekor turned again, leading all of them into the cold night.
The remaining Commonwealth forces, only a few more soldiers, looked up as the group exited, standing down at the foot of the stairs. Saparata could only just see a man who wore different colors than them standing in the middle of the group, and he assumed that was Knight Arcturus. He had never met the man, though he felt a strange kinship with him in that moment. Two pawns to be traded back and forth between greater nations.
Though, he was pretty sure that there was actual evidence that Arcturus was guilty, but maybe he was in the same position as Saparata. Falsely accused and with no one to stand for him.
“Did negotiations succeed?” A man from the Commonwealth stepped forward as the group made their way down the stairs, Saparata being forced to focus quite heavily on not falling, and Zekor made a pleased sound that made Saparata sick.
“Of course,” Zekor all but purred, turning back after a second to direct his attention to Spyder and Bardun. “Gentlemen, your traitor.” Two of the Commonwealth soldiers that stayed around him pushed Arcturus forward, the chains that were wrapped around his wrists and ankles jangling, and Saparata saw the glower on the man’s face as he met Spyder’s gaze, getting a similar reaction back in return.
“You were actually telling the truth,” Bardun noted, sounding slightly surprised, and Zekor made a noise of offense.
“We would not lie to your Emperor, not for something as important as this.”
Spyder raised a hand, gesturing two soldiers forward from their place behind him, and they grabbed Arcturus by either of his arms, starting to escort him off. “Good,” Spyder said, looking back at Zekor. “I’m sure our relations would have been even worse should you have tried to pull something like that.” His eyes drifted further, landing on Saparata for a second, but the Pandoran couldn’t really bring himself to look at the second-in-command.
There was really no saving him now. Unless Schpood intended to double-cross the Commonwealth and take Saparata back once he had Arcturus in his grasp, which he had made no indication of even to his own second-in-command, Saparata’s fate was sealed.
He would be executed for crimes he didn’t commit.
While Fluixon got away with everything.
“What are you planning to do with Saparata?”
That, though, was enough to pull Saparata out of his somewhat spiral and he blinked unevenly, finally actually making eye contact with Spyder at the question. He didn’t understand why the Westhelm native was asking, Zekor had made it pretty clear back in the meeting, and from the sound of confusion Zekor made, he was confused as well.
“He is going to be executed for the murders of Pandora’s leaders,” the diplomat said with a flick of his wrist and Saparata whimpered in pain as he was abruptly dragged back even more, being released from the soldiers’ grips and landing in a heap on the hard ground beneath him. He only got a second to pant in confusion before there were hands on his body again, pulling his wrists behind his back and another hand holding his head by the hair to keep him still. Cold metal wrapped around his wrists, a copy of what he had seen on Arcturus, and he bit down on his own tongue to swallow the cries that were trying to escape from the back of his throat. “We made this incredibly clear. The Commonwealth, and all of Pandora, have been searching for him for months, ever since he fled from his original execution.”
Zekor shifted, chin up, visible in just the corner of Saparata’s eyeline as he hung his head, and he couldn’t even see Spyder or Bardun anymore, vision blocked by boots in front of him. Still, he heard Zekor’s follow up question.
“Why are you asking?”
A hand landed on his leg and Saparata flinched violently, not expecting the action, and he whimpered again, strangled and quiet, as shackles were affixed to his ankles as well.
Guess the Commonwealth really didn’t want a repeat of six months ago.
He wouldn’t be able to run at all like he was.
“It is not my place to say, nor will this influence anything, but I find it hard to believe that the man I’ve witnessed the past five months is capable of one murder, much less eight.” Spyder’s voice rang strong and Saparata found himself momentarily breathless as he stared down at the ground, his Idol catching a glimpse of light from one of the stars and reflecting it back at him.
He hadn’t been expecting…
“What does that mean?” Clearly, Zekor hadn’t been expecting it either, as his voice shifted back into the hostile tone he had mostly reserved for Saparata himself and Spyder made a single, solitary hum, voice drifting like he had already turned and started to walk away.
“It means: I would look closely at where you’re getting your information from. Speaking as someone who’s been betrayed before and witnessed the betrayal of another. The smoothest talkers always have the most to hide.”
Zekor seemed to have no reply and for a moment, there was only the sound of Spyder’s and Bardun’s boots crunching against the brittle ground as they walked away. The lights from the lanterns cast stretching shadows on the ground that danced in the corners of Saparata’s vision and the boots that surrounded him didn’t move either, like they were all frozen for a moment by Spyder’s parting words.
Saparata was similarly frozen.
He knew Schpood hadn’t believed him, or perhaps, hadn’t allowed himself to believe him, and he had thought that Spyder was much the same but-
“He finds it hard to be around you,” Spyder had told him one day, about two months into his stay and after another failed talk with Schpood. “You remind him of Owo. Painfully.”
Maybe he had reminded Spyder of Owo too. Maybe Spyder hadn’t wanted to watch another friend die. Watch another friend be assassinated by factors out of their control.
Then-
“Let’s go,” Zekor said harshly, turning back around to face the Commonwealth diplomats and soldiers. “There’s no need to linger here.”
Saparata couldn’t even find it in him to be surprised as he was hauled up, nearly overbalancing and falling back over as he adjusted to the chains, only to be stopped by the hands on his upper arms. He doubted anything would be able to dissuade Zekor at that point.
This hunt for Saparata was clearly all he had left.
Still, Saparata had to try.
He didn’t want to die.
He didn’t want Fluixon to win.
“Zekor,” he rasped but Zekor glared at him with such intensity that Saparata snapped his mouth back shut.
“Quiet,” Zekor snapped. “Or I’ll gag you too.”
Saparata decided not to take the risk.
Swallowing roughly, he stumbled along with the Commonwealth soldiers as they headed out of Westhelm, wanting to close his eyes in a final ditch attempt to keep the burgeoning tears from escaping but also knowing that he needed his sight if he was going to get through this with minimal injuries.
Though, really, what were injuries in the face of death?
Zekor led the pack, hands at the sides and still minutely shaking with anger. The soldiers surrounded the diplomats, except for the two that a tight grip on Saparata within the middle of the pack, and something lurched within Saparata as they passed the gates, officially leaving Westhelm’s capital. As rocky as the start of his relationship with Westhelm had been, they had sheltered him for the past five months, never treating him less than an honored guest. Schpood listened to him, allowing him to actually speak instead of cutting him off or trying to twist him around in questions, and after a while, he had arranged for meetings, for an attempt of progress to be made. He had pulled TurnTapp to guard him during their trips out, had allowed him free range of Westhelm’s entire city and lands, and never seemed to even consider the bounty that was still on Saparata’s head.
Saparata had even fooled himself into believing, near the end, that Schpood had actually started to believe his story.
But maybe, this was how it was always doomed to end.
Schpood had been searching for Knight Arcturus even longer than he had been sheltering Saparata. He had originally brought Saparata to Westhelm’s capital in order to get back at the Commonwealth for sheltering Knight Arcturus.
Saparata’s story in Westhelm had been forever connected to Arcturus’s out in the wilderness.
It was fitting then, that his story would end when Arcturus’s did.
Even Saparata wasn’t naïve enough to believe that Schpood would give Arcturus a fair fight. The builder’s actions had led to Owo’s death, probably one of the only people in the world that Schpood had cared about, truly and utterly.
Of course, Schpood couldn’t miss the chance to murder the man that had betrayed him.
Even for Saparata.
The former Mediator looked up as they headed down the road.
They were headed for the docks.
The stars were shockingly beautiful that night.
Maybe Ish was still looking over him, even if all his God could do was give him beautiful final moments.
The Idol bumped against his chest as he walked.
The prayer he offered was silent.
He hoped Ish would give him a good reincarnation, once he joined the people of the dead. A good next life, where he would never be betrayed or hunted or executed.
Where he could make a home on an archipelago, with a garden and a few friends to hold close.
A certain friend to hold close.
A bird shrieked and Saparata forced his gaze back down to the path, swiping his tongue over dry lips. Against his will, he felt a hot tear squeeze it way out of his eye and slide down his cheek, and he bit down on the inside of his mouth, desperately trying to swallow the crying that was shivering its way up his throat.
He didn’t want to die.
He missed Jophiel. And Cass. He missed his life before, when he could greet those around him with a smile and a laugh, when the only thing on the horizon line for him was the occasional meeting when he would be called in as the Mediator.
Ish damn it all, he missed Fluixon. He missed the friend he used to have, from boys to teenagers to young men. Who hadn’t ever let anything get between them, not Fluixon’s rise to Vice President or Saparata’s anointment as the Mediator.
How many times had he dreamed of the years before the border had suddenly fallen, of those hazy, beautiful days that seemed to last forever? When he could spend afternoons in his home with Fluixon and Thomas and the rest and not see the betrayal that they would later commit. How many times had he hallucinated Cass’s laughter, Johpiel’s teasing tone? Even if they had become a little more distant after his anointment, it would be bad form for the Mediator to be seen as any form of biased to any of the civilizations, they had still been his childhood friends. Still been his life.
All of them had been.
Now Jophiel was dead, Cass believed him a traitor and mass murderer, and Fluixon had arranged his death.
On the water, the moon was a shivering, blurry mess.
It reminded him of himself.
Lanterns dotted around the docks illuminated three medium sized boats lashed to one of the platforms, sides decorated with the sigil of the Commonwealth. A solider stood up from within one of them, face too deep in shadow for Saparata to make out any features, and Zekor crossed to him, the rest following easily. Saparata tripped slightly on the wooden boards, cringing in pain as the soldier’s grips on him didn’t relent in the slightest.
He was sure he would have bruises all up and down in his arms in the morning, purple fingers making a macabre painting on his pale skin.
If he even survived to morning.
It was looking like he might, they were seemingly taking him back to Pandora to execute him instead of doing it at Yggdrasil but-
But-
But-
Saparata could feel his breathing start to pick up.
There were boats. Boats that they would get into. Boats that would take them back to Pandora, back to his home, back to the place where everyone thought he was a murderer, back to the place where people had been murdered, back to the place where there was blood soaking into the ground, back to the place where Fluixon had smiled so gently at him at the start of the trial, back to the place where Sitzkrieg and the others had blamed him for Korulein’s murder as they built a courthouse to condemn him in, back to the place where he had been chased and chased and chased and chased, back to the place that he had once found his faith in, back to the place where he had held Jophiel’s body and sobbed, back to the place where Fluixon had pressed a hand to his back and sent him stumbling to Tricolor to try and regain order, back to the place-
Back to the place-
Back to the place-
Back to the place-
Back to the place-
BACK TO THE PLACE—
He would rather die on Westhelm grounds.
Please, let him die on Westhelm grounds.
He hadn’t realized he had started struggling until Zekor was turning back to look at him.
“No!” He gasped out, shaking his head desperately and squirming in the soldiers’ grips, cool metal rattling around him. “No, no, no, no-!”
Fluixon was waiting on Pandora.
Cass was waiting on Pandora.
Jophiel’s corpse was waiting on Pandora.
3Below’s, Korulein’s, Alke’s corpses were waiting on Pandora.
The Sword of Damocles hovering over his head was waiting on Pandora.
“No, Zekor-!”
Saparata was panicking. That was never a good look, wrapping words up in cotton and drowning logic in salted water, but he couldn’t help it, he couldn’t help it, it was too much too much, he hadn’t killed them he hadn’t killed them he hadn’t killed them-!
“Shut him up.”
The leather tasted like defeat in his mouth.
Please.
Please.
He doubted even his God was listening to him now.
A pained hiss escaped his throat as he was shoved to the floor of the boat, knees scraping the rough wood and causing tiny pinpricks of red to bloom on his white garments. He closed his eyes, chest heaving as he leaned against the side of the vessel, pressed into the corner where it would no doubt be easy to keep an eye on him. He dug his teeth into the leather pulled between them, eyes watering from the pain of the ties tangled in his braided hair, though he was sure that the braid was now fraying and dirty.
His chest was shuddering, but he didn’t want to cry in front of the Commonwealth. He refused to.
They had taken enough from him; they would not take his dignity too.
Are you happy, Fluixon?
Is this what you wanted?
Me, hunted down and treated like a criminal?
I’m sure if you knew all this was happening, it would make your damn day.
The wood next to him shifted, creaking slightly, and Saparata cracked his eyes open, lifting his chin to look at the person above him. Zekor glared down at him, taking a seat on the bench right next to the restrained Pandoran, and Saparata didn’t even have the energy to get mad about that fact.
Why won’t you just kill me now? Why drag this all out?
Saparata knew why, of course he did, he had humiliated them by escaping from his execution, but why couldn’t they just-?
Darkness abruptly fell over his vision, even darker than the night had already been, and he yelped in surprise and panic.
It took him only a minute to realize what had happened.
They had blindfolded him as well.
They really weren’t taking any chances.
Shaking, he squeezed his eyes shut behind the blindfold, whispering out a silent, desperate prayer in his head that felt wrong to do without his fingers wrapped around his Idol. The boat underneath him rocked as they shoved off, creaking under the weight of the people, and Saparata found that even thump of that very Idol against his chest felt like nothing more than another dour sign to his death, the smooth stone hard and calloused against his chest through his shirt. He could only be grateful that the soldiers hadn’t taken it from him, but he was pretty sure that was because none of them knew he had it.
The fact that he was faithful had never been a secret, per se, but only a few people truly knew how deep it had gone.
How lost Pandora’s Mediator was in a dead religion.
A religion that hadn’t saved him in the end. That wouldn’t save him now.
Ish, Fluixon was even starting to infiltrate his thoughts.
Taking another shuddering breath, he leaned deeper into the wooden wall, digging the tips of his fingers into the rough material. A tear slid out his eyes despite his best efforts, soaking the blindfold wrapped around them, and he bit down on his tongue hard enough to bleed.
He never thought that his story would have ended like this.
Though, he would have a lot of time to ponder it.
Unable to do anything else as they sailed back to the place that would spell his death.