Savage Divinity

A/n: Opening to Nanowrimo...I should be posting every day. Just be warned...the following does not HAVE to make sense. ^^ Read at your own risk.

Savage Divinity
Kavra flopped down next to Asher. "Well, that was interesting," he commented, looking up at his commander.
Asher declined to answer at first, but when Kavra's stare didn't go away, the mostly silent warrior looked down at the soldier. "It might have been interesting, but it isn't over yet. Back on your feet, soldier."
Kavra grumbled but did as he was told. "Where do you get off calling me 'solder'?" the young male asked.
"You don't mind when the other commanders do it."
That earned Asher a snort. "Not every commander is my younger brother."
Asher shook his head. "And where does that affect the relationship between commander and soldier?" he challenged. Kavra had no answer for him. His silence was answer enough. Asher nodded. "See?" he said. "So, hush and stay in line. You shouldn't be out here anyway. I thought I told you to go in."
Kavra shrugged. His fluid movements caught at the eyes, pulling sight away from any unwary enough to be caught. "I guess I'm just lucky enough to not be noticeable when you're in one of your moods," he joked, backing away from the sharp glare his brother gave him. His hands went up. "All right, all right! I'll go in. I'll go in," he laughed as he continued his retreat.
Asher nodded as his brother disappeared into the rest of the fog. He shook his head then. Is this how it'll be forever now? Just the fighting, the warring…will it never be the same?
The factions of Heaven used to be united. They had once been great, and worked together. He could pinpoint almost the exact millennia when things had begun to change. It began with the introduction of those fierce some creatures – the neodemons – the ones bred from humans and hell spawn. He hated them as much as he owed them his existence. Neodemons…the humanoid race that had corrupted his own, changing them from real creatures into not-so-real.
Angels – Vilyte – into Angel-stock, the half-blooded, false angels. He shuddered just thinking about it.
No wonder the Vilyte feel so strongly about having us around, he mused. If even we cannot stand what we are at times, how much worse must it be for a full blood to face living with us?
So that was what had happened, how things had spiraled out of control. The neodemons hadn't been bad at first…they'd even been rather productive. They'd saved the angels' race, at the very least. There hadn't been enough breeding. There hadn't been enough creation to sustain the race.
He hated to think about it, hated to remember what Heaven had come to so long ago. They learned about it in history texts, found files that stored their information, making it easy to access. When Heaven was pure, all they had to worry about was Lucifer. Now, there are so many more dangers. Why do we fight among ourselves?
It seemed a pointless task. Civil war, any war, for the sake of war, was pointless to the extreme. Asher hated it as much as he couldn't admit. He loathed the fact that every day for the past hundred years he had sent out angels – no matter that they were half-blooded! – and let them perish on the field of battle in the name of a cause he deemed greater of importance than their very lives. How fair was that? How fair at all?
It isn't, he mused, his eyes cutting through the fog. But then again, what is fair when it comes to this war? What is fair when the Archangels themselves refuse to step in? What is fair when God has abandoned us and the desertion has set us to war with each other? Nothing is fair anymore. Fair is for the weak minded. Fair is for those with nothing left to strive for. Fair is nothing. Fair can no longer exist.
Would that he were the only one to think that way. Would that he were the only one of the Angel-stock who had taken on the role of a god over his own troops, deciding day by day who lived and who would die. Would that that were the case. It was not.
There were no birds in Heaven, no plants or trees or forest shrubs. There was no life, and the angels themselves were not alive either. There was nothing to be seen for miles, except for the all consuming fog. It watched with eyes that couldn't see and listened with ears that couldn’t hear, but it was always there, always offering protection and concealment for an enemy as well as a friend.
Why are we still battling over this? Asher wondered bleakly. Inside though, he knew the answer to his own question. We are fighting still for the Generals have decreed it to be so. They have chosen one another as enemies and will stop at nothing to eradicate one another from the skies.
He shook his head, a frown crossing his face as he lazed deeper into contemplative thought. The General of Asher's troops, the leader of the Deities heralding from Ten, was Tenascus. The flaming angel was a brilliant white, and one of the only Vilyte to have crossed political borders to side with the Angel-stock. They worshipped him for it.
Then there was Akakios, the vengeful dark angel, shining gold as if to contrast as fully as possible without the aid of black, the differences between him and Tenascus. He couldn't think of anything more different than those two, both Vilyte of the strongest orders, both insanely dedicated to their purposes. And yet the two of them, so very at odds on such a simple decision.
Mingle with the human world once again? Go back and embrace the place the neodemons came from? Or do we abandon them, and let them fend for themselves as they once did millennia past?
So many for, so many against, and now the numbers were dwindling from many and many to many and few and fewer and fewer.
Asher squashed a frustrated sigh. So much to think about. I wonder how long it will be before I will see no more morrows. I wonder how much longer I have before I can no longer fly in the skies.
Because, he knew, and they all knew – that no matter how they worked and fought for what they believed was right, there would be a time somewhere along the line where they would fall in defense of their ideas. Neither side would give up while a single member on the other side drew breath. Asher closed his eyes gently. It wouldn't take much. Maybe a gut hit, an arrow, anything really, and the enemy could dispatch of him.
Such a target, waiting, ripe for the picking – he was just tempting, taunting, teasing. Come get me, he seemed to say. Come find me, and maybe you'll like what you've found enough to die for it.
An arrow whistled out of nowhere.

"I thought you said we were going to wait until after the raid to do anymore song writing!" Reson exclaimed. The redheaded Vilyte growled in annoyance. "I've been waiting all week for you to finish your works, and then you turn about and decide to do me this favor. What a world is it when an Angel can't even trust his most trusted trust-holder, hmn?" he demanded.
The smirking face of Coris the Song Maker changed not one whit. "I suppose you should have thought before hand before asking me to do something so incredibly stupid," he answered swavely. "I mean, it isn't like you couldn't have asked me to wait a little longer to finish things." The self-satisfaction made Reson glare.
"Oh, shush up you crazy rhyming artist," he muttered. "There's something to be said for having sanity on my side of the field."
"You wish," Coris retoreted playfully, reaching out to ruffle Reson's red hair. "Carrot top, there's nothing you can do that I haven't thought about yet. And believe me, probably nothing you can consider doing that I haven't already written a song about. So, try me."
Reson shook his head. "You know I would," the young angel replied, "and you know I'd probably lose, but I sort of need to be getting off – there's something of great importance I'm supposed to be doing right about now."
He seemed to be rather flustered. "What is it?" Coris inquired, leaning away from his harp to focus his full attention of the distraught Reson.
"Um, well, I just…" the redhead trailed off, a furious shade of red blush enhancing his cheeks. "Never mind, just forget I said anything."
"Easier said than done," Coris replied, quirking an eyebrow at the odd response. Usually even if he wasn't feeling all that magnificent, Reson had a retort for just about anything. This lack of response, the fading out and then the reanswering a few moments later – that was just so uncharacteristic of him. Coris didn’t like it. And what the Song Master didn't like, didn't happen.
"Look, I didn't wait because I had an idea."
"What sort of idea?" Reson asked suspiciously, leaning in closer to peer over the top of the papers. "Is it something interesting?"
"Depends how interesting you find the concepts of good and evil."
"Morals?" Reson moaned. "You know I can't stand them, Coris!"
The Song Master chuckled. "I know, I know, but even you should learn an appreciation for the finer arts of almost poetry, Reson. Red hair will only carry you so far before someone will want an intellectual brain beneath that fine mop."
Vilyte Reson scowled. "You're joking."
"I most assuredly am not. Here – take a seat and listen to me, just for a while. We're leaving for the raid soon enough, I promise, but let me take you back a few thousand years. It'll do you good, I think."
The young Vilyte shrugged. "Go ahead then. I know I won't like whatever it is you're set to teach me. I don’t see why we have to keep learning in war anyway."
Coris shook his head. Some things never changed.

The song lesson went quickly. He managed to get in enough to fill the gaps without making it seem like he was forcing words. Reson needed to learn, needed to understand this. The young Vilyte was next in line for the title of General of Sempra should Nemsohiriel have the misfortune to fall the wrong side of a weapons match. Coris was pleased enough with Reson's progress. At least he's beginning to learn the way I'd like him to, the Song Master thought wish some satisfaction. And he's learning how to pay attention, as well. That's good. He'll need that skill somewhere along the line, even if it isn't here and now.
Training the future General to be of Sempra…
I remember when we were all just one big race and no one cared what percentage of blood of the neodemons you had in you. Nostalgia is a wonderful thing. I'm sure there was something I hated about that time, but I can't remember it. His eyes looked up and out, examining the emptiness of the world around him. When he learns, he'll be ready. But now…
The bugles were sounding. They were going off to raid on Ten's Deities. Coris shook his head as he watched Reson change from an apt student to a warrior. The change was incredible to watch – seeing Reson's eyes sharpen and darken, watching the Vilyte take up his shield and sword. They brought out the aristocratic bearing that made Reson a leader unlike any other. They showed why this particular redheaded soldier was revered among his compatriots. They wanted to be like him. They wanted to follow him.
"Are you coming, Coris?" Reson asked, his pause in the tent flap a simple thing, but meaning so much.
The Song Master shook his head. "You'll do just fine without me," he laughed. "Go on, then, Reson. Lead your troops the way they were meant to be led." It didn't matter that Reson was neither General no Commander. He was a leader, and the others all knew it and flocked to him. Whether the command was given or not, the soldiers in Reson's troupe would follow him to whatever end. They believed in him.
Coris watched the redhead disappear out of the tent and sighed. Belief. What a wonderful thing to have in these dark times. I would that it could be rewritten and the differences erased. But then, he knew, even as he was wishing, there had to be someone else, somewhere, making a wish the same, wanting what he wanted, even if it were someone on the other side of the field, wishing that things were better simply because their death tolls were piling up too great.
Whatever it takes, don't let this drag out. End it.

Reson raised his sword. The troupe fell silent, staring up at him. It struck him that he wasn't their true commander, nor their general. He knew though, that these eyes, staring at him, watching his every movement, belonged to Vilyte that trusted him to keep them alive, trusted him even above the trust they were supposed to place in their commander. He was their commander, in their eyes. He was the one they elected to follow without a doubt in their hearts or minds.
Reson spoke, and they listened. He breathed and they listened. He stood silent and they listened, always straining for the slightest hint of his true purpose.
Why do they trust me? he wondered, and not for the first time. Every time he stood here, staring out at the sea of blue and green and gold and silver and rust, he wondered. Why me? Why not someone like Coris, or someone like…
He wanted to know the answer to the question. He didn't want to know, either, because if he did, then it would take away some of his innocence in that direction. To know was to be aware, and to be aware and knowledgeable was to fear. I don't want to know why. He just had to keep repeating it, brainwash himself into one day believing it.
"We're moving out soon." They were listening to him, fixated on his every word. "We'll be leaving very shortly. We are going on a raid."
The chaos was quite interesting to watch. The Vilyte clanged their swords on their shields and screamed as if they were all being murdered at once. The bloodcurdling war cries reverberated around the fog drenched arena, stealing breath that could have been drawn. It was no longer important to breathe. There were bigger, better things awaiting task.
"We will defeat the demons in Sempra! Show them the way that is true and holy – send them back to their netherworld!" he cried.
The rousing cheering that came up after he finished speaking drove him nearly insane with happiness. This was what he lived for, and why he could imagine himself so easily as their commander. He could lead them, could command them. He wanted to, wanted to be responsible for more lives than were put in his hands.
If this were up to me, I could get them all in and out alive. If this were up to me, I'd be able to do this. But it's not, came the cold truth. It's not up to me, and because of that, maybe because of what I'll have to do in return, we will lose someone. It can't be helped.
Yet casualties hurt so much more than just a regular death.
"Demons! Demons! Demons!" The chant went up, Vilyte screaming the accusation to the skies. "Demons! Demons! DEMONS!" Each verse and the volume increased until eardrums could snap under the pressure.
He raised a hand and there was instant hush. "We raid those filthy stock of Sempra," he said softly, confidentially. "And they will hate us for it. They will swear on their worthless lives that they will take back what is theirs, and they will say that one day we will be a mixed race once again, as if God had intended that from the start." His voice was steadily rising, coming up from soft near whisper to a powerful roar. "Is that what you want? Do you want to be anything but pure and clean?" he challenged. "Do you want to know that the blood of corrupted humans floods your veins? That the blood within you came from something spawned in the bowels of hell? No? Then prove it!"
They were feverish with excitement; he could feel it rolling off them in waves. One of them pulled him aside as they were moving out. The fellow was dark of hair, black or nearly, and dressed in pale, pale blue, so pale as to be almost white. "Reson – "
He paused, turning at the sound of his name, coming face to face with this Vilyte who knew his name. "I don't recognize you, soldier," Reson finally settled upon. "You are Vilyte…?"
"Nemsohiriel," the other filled in, extending a hand.
With a jaw dropping nearly to his knees, Reson stared at the extended hand. "Nemsohiriel?" he croaked. "The Nemsohiriel? Our General?" Such a thing should not be possible. "Forgive me, my lord, but what are you doing here?"
Here, of all places – why would the General of all of Sempra be down here, consorting with our lot? He couldn’t help but wonder, and then wonder at his wonderment. After all, why shouldn't a good General be down looking at his troops, checking in to see how they were doing? And yet… No one has ever cared enough to do so for my troops before, and I doubt after they will either. There were a few things that could earn the loyalty or emitity of the troops with relatively little effort. One of them was the fighting. The other was the depth of loyalty you gave in return for loyalty.
The smile Nemsohiriel offered was bleak and sad. "I am here, simply to see what it is about you that has troops abandoning other posts to hear you speak," the Vilyte General answered softly. "And I will confess, I see nothing exceptional about you, Vilyte."
Reson bowed his head. "Of, of course there's nothing special about me!" he protested. "I am a mere soldier, not a general or commander." He wanted to add in that he was unaware himself of why the Vilyte soldiers flocked to him every morning, waiting for his words. He didn't inspire with his words, didn't do any more than simply say what came to mind, no matter how crazy it might sound.
"I think, though," Nemsohiriel continued, his eyes changing course to look over Reson's shoulder, "I think I know why they come to you, and no to their betters." The General sighed, and ran a hand through black hair that dipped down past his waist. "I believe they see you as a godsend yourself. They see you fighting every day with them, risking your life, your limbs, and for nothing more than this cause you believe in. Fanatics, the lot of you." Another smile, less sad, though no less bitter, crossed the Vilyte General's face. "They see you do what their commanders and General cannot. They see you fight. They will believe in you until the end."
It was sound reasoning, Reson decided. The thoughts made sense. They will believe in me, until the end. Even until the ending of the world.
"What do you want me to do about it?" He half expected Nemsohiriel to be upset with this fact, to be furious that the Vilyte who were supposed to be taking orders from their true commanders and General would be coming to him, Reson, a solider of no special order every morning.
Nemsohiriel looked surprised. "What do I want you to do?" the Vilyte General repeated. "Nothing, of course. Well, continue what you are doing, because you inspire. Do not stop on my account. They need someone to look up to and listen to, and if they've chosen you as their savior, it would be wise not to turn them away. Strange things have happened to those who turn away the masses, Vilyte Reson."
The redhead nodded.
"However, if there is one thing I have learned in all my millennia of watching this war unfold, it is this: there is no right in the course war takes." Nemsohiriel's voice was still soft, still delicate, but an inner strength bred of conviction seemed to blossom from his words. "It is not for us to determine who is right and who is dead. It is not left to us to choose those who will inspire. You have a task now, given to you by the others. Their needs should be above your own – one for the thousands. Will you speak to them every morning, every evening? Will you be their light of hope in this bleak time?"
Nemsohiriel, Reson realized, was quite the speaker himself. Motivational words, the tone, everything. But, as he himself had pointed out, the Vilyte General lacked one thing of particular importance – he was not fighting out on the front lines for his life each day. He was the one in the back, chained to his post to keep as many of his kin alive as possible. If I can do this, perhaps I can get out of Coris' lessons, the young Vilyte thought, a tad smugly. I'd have something more important to do than learn of old histories and ballads. With that thought in mind, he bowed his head. "I accept. I will speak for them, whenever you require it of me."
"Then I thank the one abounding that you will do so." The Vilyte General seemed relieved at Reson's acceptance. "I don't know if we would have been able to do this without you."
He felt a swell of pride at the words, though he'd done nothing tremendous to receive them.
"Here, Vilyte Reson – come with me." The order caught Reson off guard, and he followed, wondering what exactly it was the Nemsohiriel wanted of him. Before he knew it, he was in the hall of the Vilyte, staring at marble structures life size times ten. There was carpeting on the floor, a single, long blue rug that extended down the hall for what looked like infinity. Nothing gold corrupted the perfect white and grey marble structure. Simply blues and silver and varying shades of grey, approaching black but never quite there. It was quite stunning.
Reson stared about him until Nemsohiriel's hand on his shoulder brought him back to focus. The Vilyte General's mouth was next to his ear when he spoke. "Here, now, Reson. Every morning, every evening. They will gather to hear you speak to them, to hear how you have survived and lived. Sempra will wait on your words, will expect things of you now."
Such a simple beginning to such splendor? I don't think I want to do this, like this. I don't think I can do this like this. Reson shook his head slowly. "I will speak to your soldiers, Vilyte Nemsohiriel," he stated, voice trembling slightly. The place was affecting his ability to think quite clearly. "However, I will not speak to them here. This is a place reserved for the ones who have made themselves great. I am not great, nor do I ever intend to be. Let me serve you among them. They will have no reason not to listen if I come to them."
Nemsohiriel paused, thoughtful. "I do believe I never considered that eventuality," he finally replied after a long silence. "Is it true then? Is that how you have done it?"
"I've never actively sought out listeners," Reson replied honestly, "but they come to me anyway, and I've heard them ask me to visit them sometimes. If I take them up on a visit and see how each of them is doing…" He left the rest unspoken. Sometimes simple concepts spoke for themselves.
Nemsohiriel nodded. "Then that is what you shall do," the Vilyte General agreed. However, he cast a longing look back at the great marble hall of the Vilyte Commanders and General, as if he wished Reson had not changed his mind about the score so quickly.
Reson himself almost wished he'd acquiesced to the demand and agreed to speak in front of the other Vilyte each morning and evening in the hall. It would have been triumphant, and grand. He would have felt like a master of his own fate, his own destiny, and possibly even theirs. But no more. The redhead shook his head inwardly. I know I wouldn't have wanted to do that. It would have been too much – I am made for the battlefield, not the stage, and I am most at home among my own kind, not locked up with stuffy old Vilyte expecting too much from a young frame.
He was pleased with his decision then, he decided. Nemsohiriel was too, or so he supposed, for the Vilyte General only took him so far as half the way back to his camp before abandoning him. "Take care of yourself, Vilyte Reson," the Vilyte General said in parting. "We will meet again, never you worry. I'll be around to collect you one of these days." And then the dark-haired, mysterious General simply vanished, going off into the designs of mist as if it were insubstantial.
Reson shook his head as he watched him go. I need to get back to Coris', he realized. They're leaving soon on the raid. He hurried, racing through and around the structures that made up the half of Heaven that had been renamed Sempra. Sempra, meaning ever, forever. A claim that they would remain forever and ever. That they would triumph over the multitudinous half-kin, corrupted by mortal and devilish blood.
"Coris, I'm back!" he called, stepping into the tent. The Song Master wasn't there. Curious now, Reson poked around a bit, wondering where the Vilyte might have gotten off to. It isn't like him to just disappear, Reson reasoned. There must be something going on. He frowned and exited the tent, looking around for the Song Master, or any other who could tell him what was going on.
It was just then, as he was leaving that Reson heard the horns begin to sound. Their beautiful, high pitched cries had once been the wakening call for Heaven, telling the residents it was morning, and then each hour growing in chorus. Now though, the horns were bleak instruments of warfare, sounding battle maneuvers and plans, not hours and times for worship. The young Vilyte frowned and disappeared back into the tent, reappearing moments later with his bow and sword strapped firmly on. A quiver hung over his back, held up by two straps, caught at his shoulders, bearing arrows fletched with the remainders of cloud. Wisps of cirrus.
Reson set off then, running as fast as his feet would take him, hunting down the rest of the party he knew would be traveling. He knew the roads as well as any of them, and knew where he would be going. He knew too what he would find, should he be unlucky enough to arrive after the others. They were going on a raid. A raid no longer meant simply stealing for food (Vilyte! Stealing! So absurd notion, yet how true it had become.) but instead killing and then pillaging. They would take over this little place, in the middle of fog and kill its inhabitants.
Reson's fleetness of foot aided him. Thankfully the others weren't all that far ahead. Far by human, by mortal standards, perhaps, but never from a Vilyte's point of view. He let his mind focus on what he would be doing, run through the patterns of the horns once again. The patterns meant the world, and could also mean life or death for those who were interpreting them. It ran long and short, bursts of lively sound like song and twittering like birds. No matter how lively, how lovely, they meant death was coming.
He knew where he would be going. He could reach it in time. He had to reach it in time. The company he was a part of had no one else adept at translating the signals from the horns. They had no one else they could use. Reson raced, sprinted, leaped and dodged, intent on his goal.
So absorbed was he by where he was going, and his final destination, that he ceased to pay attention to where he actually was, and so never noticed when he crossed the border from Sempra into the lands that belonged to the Deities of Ten.

Screaming broke through the silence. Oh, hell fires! Asher thought wildly, dodging away from his post and fumbling for his horn to sound the alarm for the rest of his contingent. This shouldn't have happened – how did they catch us unawares? Where had the sentries been? How had these ruffians gotten past them? Too many questions, not enough time to look for answers.
Asher blew the notes on the horn, hoping that he wasn't going to be too late. Perhaps they had attacked the others first? The thought of possibly losing his brother was a little too much to stomach. He felt he would be violently ill. Instead of giving in to the temptation to simply retch on the ground, the young commander raced off into the fog. He had no idea where he was going, but it hardly mattered. He just needed to be away. Away was safe.
His feet pounded on the insubstantial ground, carrying him farther and farther from the yelling and screaming. It echoed among the clouds, sounding faint the farther he got, though he knew he was still close enough that the sound shouldn't be dampened at all. It was the fog, the clouds, that obscured everything, and made this side of Heaven, the side called Ten, such a strange place for residence. The Angel-stock fit in perfectly here, ready to take themselves and hide in the fog, to die amongst the whiteness as if they'd been lain in sheets of purest white cotton.
It was their dream, or something close to it. They had no dreams now, beyond the moment and its fulfillment.
Asher ran. He let his feet carry him to new distances, to new heights, wondering in his mind the whole while what was going on with his brother, and if the rest of his commander's flock was even still alive. He didn't expect to see anyone, or anything on his journey. He just wanted to escape. That was the most important thing – to live to see another day and when that other day came, to make the most of it. The Vilyte, and the Angel-stock both, they had it in common, whether they would admit to it or not. They both wanted that new day to dawn for them, to rise as the sun stained bleak clouds with red and velvet silver shining.
He ran until he couldn't see anything anymore. He ran until sounds that were muffled had vanished altogether, and still he kept his feet in motion, letting them carry him further away. He needed to escape. The screams, even among the dense fog, he could still feel the screams echoing inside his mind, chasing him down the paths that he tried to escape on.
Screams of dying things, screams of animals and humans and others that were being rendered helpless, torn limb from limb, taken apart and injured and then put back together just to see if it could be done.
Screams… He could hear them.
So he ran, and he ran, and he ran until running wasn't an option anymore and he could only pant harshly and collapse on the ground that was too hard and too soft all at once. His lungs burned. His eyes burned too, littering the ground with newly shed tears, brimming from self pity and hopelessness.