Questions, Khorvash

(September 9th, 2006, about 1am)

He'd been the one to lead them where Nikolas' directions went, since he knew the city best beyond Nikolas. It was a bit of a hike, but with the mix of alcohol and adrenaline in their systems, Mamoru was sure the others didn't really feel it. Well, he wasn't certain on... what had he said his name was again, Khorvash? He looked back over his shoulder as they climbed out of the rickety elevator, stomach turning at the sight of silver-pale hair. The prince ignored the sensation of sickness, blaming it on his own adrenaline-high rather than figuring it would be anything else.

The key stuck in the lock when he first shoved it in, and it took some wiggling and a shove to get the door to open, but once inside they were greeted by a somewhat-neat studio apartment. Everything was dark, greens and browns and blues with the occasional reds. All the colors featured in the plaid print on the two couches, one arranged in such a way that Mamoru was fairly certain it was a foldout. Nikolas either slept on that or the futon being used as a combination-chair and room-divider, breaking up the large open space.

His few bruises had already attended to themselves on the walk, so he quick-healed the black eye Zacharie was sporting and ignored Johannes' stared complaint as his power flashed through the two of them, taking care of the rest of their bruises before handing each a water he had filched from Nikolas' fridge. His fellow Levretts were left talking on the smaller of the two plaid couches as he closed the bathroom door behind the supposedly named Khorvash and hitched himself onto the lip of the small basin sink, staring down at the larger man perched on the edge of the bathtub.

As a room, the dimensions of the bathroom were quite awful for the two of them, let alone Nikolas in here alone. Barely enough room for the toilet in here with them. He reached out a hand, balancing himself on the mirror as he leaned down to touch Khorvash's hand, his power zipping down familiar-yet-not passageways, healing the surface bruises that had come up. Mamoru went to lean back and he felt it. Ceneric was on the rise.

It wasn't that he despised Ceneric, precisely. They just often had very varied opinions on certain subjects (Mars verses Rei, to name the major one), and he had gotten good over the years at blocking the Silver Millennium man from taking over their body, keep things better for everyone that way, what with Ceneric's sometimes too 'high and mighty' opinions on art or literature or even just regular daily life tasks, like getting food. A cold day in hell was how he often referred to the date for when Mamoru seceded power, even for a short time, of his body to Ceneric. In the end it was his body, and he had gotten in trouble enough for things that he had not done in his body, so if he had any control he was damn sure preventing Ceneric from insulting anyone or doing something stupid.

This was different, he could feel it. This was needed, in a way he couldn't pinpoint, so after a stern warning to behave and not do anything rash, Mamoru allowed it.
"Cheveyo," Ceneric-Mamoru looked at his eldest brother with wounded eyes. It was like he was a child again, discovering that his Kerecapa could make mistakes, but a thousand, a million, infinite times worse.
"Why? Why did you betray me?" The words were low pitched, to not catch the attention of equally-sensitive ears outside the bathrooom. He sounded like a bewildered younger brother, shocked and appalled at seeing something his hero-worshiped elder did. This was not a prince talking to his guard, yet. Not quite.
"Why did you betray us? Brother, why?"

The memories. Guh. The memories!

It was during times like these that Khorvash remembered why he was a drunkard.

He didn't know how the simple act of remembering something, even if it were an entire lifetime, could be this painful.

It all started when the brawl began. Just the sight of the men fighting, one of them shouting about a woman named Sariah, had Khorvash moving. Without realizing what his hands were doing, he was suddenly in the midst of the brawl, protecting these men from the others. Even if he was an inherent drunk, he was still able to fight. And yet, his hands were using moves that he'd never once learned before growing up. They were foreign to him. And yet, somehow, they were as familiar as his mother's cooking.

And then one of them called his name. But it wasn't Khorvash, it was Cheveyo. And that was when the pain came.

It was all of a sudden, on the walk to wherever the other men were leading him - they could have been robbers and murderers and he wouldn't have known - when a blinding light hit his temple. He didn't know how he was able to stay afloat. The others probably thought he was stumbling form the alcohol, but Khorvash, who couldn't have been more familiar to intoxication, was sure that wasn't it.

But then the memories hit.

It was just flashes. An Earth filled with woods. A resplendent castle. A man he looked up to and protected at the same time. Then a strange, ethereal girl. Happy faces. But then, he wasn't happy. He was in pain. In shock. In horror. He was building plans of a revolution, and yet, his hands shook as he drew them out. Death. An Earth falling to ruin. Then he was somewhere different, following the man he protected, only he wasn't aiming at protecting him anymore. A battle. Pain. Another strike. A last breath. A realization of what he had done. Dread. Remorse. He was overtaken by it.

He found himself in a small, brightly-lit apartment. How he came to himself and what he had been doing along the way there, Khorvash wasn't sure, but the familiar faces of the other men were somehow reassuring to him. It was strange, how each time he looked at them, a lower, more powerful voice spoke different names form the ones he was given. Zoisite. Jadeite. Nephrite. Endymion.

The other man, supplied with the name Endymion, followed him into a bathroom. If it could be called that. It was such a small space. Khorvash, with his delusions and fear and drunkenness, was feeling claustrophobic. He wanted away from this place. He wanted to flee back to his apartment like a child, hide under his covers, and wake up with a hangover to signify that this had all been a dream.

"Why did you betray us? Brother, why?"

Flashes. The strange memories returned, and soon Khor's body was his own no longer. Another soul stirred within him, stretching out his limbs, looking through his eyes. Such pain. It was as if this new being which had taken over Khorvash's body knew devastation that Khorvash could never even dream of. At once, the present incarnation faded to the back, pushed back, deafened. As if not even he could hear the words about to leave his own lips.

The new man spoke, his voice cracking. Whether it was from pain or reluctance wasn't evident, but it was obvious it almost hurt to get the words out.

"I... didn't have the protection the others did..." he started lamely, his voice broken, his eyes not quite pleading but close. "The enemy... They sought my weaknesses and exploited them. They used my suspicion of the Moon against me, turning what was only a possibility into a reality in my head. Once they had reached into my mind..." He simply stopped speaking, looking at the linoleum floor beneath his feet. "What is in the past is in the past," he said simply, regaining his control over his voice, making it stronger, firmer. He knew he had no power against his liege, but he was exercising what little he had for himself.

"It is a new age," he said at last, his voice betraying his finality.

Ceneric could hardly stand to listen. It wasn't, he couldn't, just no. This was not the man he had grown up admiring, who had helped him learn to read and climb trees. This was not the boy who had chastised him for trying to sneak out of the castle grounds, then showed him the correct way to sneak out, so that he wasn't caught. This wasn't the brother that had come to his rescue when Cen had been surrounded by a group of town boys, and scared them off with merely a look despite being younger than them. No, this was an impostor.

"No." It was said softly, the barest echo of a childish hiccup-and-sniffle of keeping away tears. "No, Ker. That's not good enough. That's no excuse." The prince stared his elder brother down. His supposed elder brother. Perhaps his brother hadn't been reborn. Except... he responded to his soul name, so he had to have been reborn.

"You always told me that no matter what, no matter what you would believe in me. Was that a lie? Were you lying to me from the moment we met? Were you, Ker?" Ceneric took in a breath, fingers circling around the new rip in Mamoru's jeans. At least he had Neza and Drys and Xip. At least he had them. Even Drys, for all that monster had done when in his flesh, had never renounced him, not willingly.

It was obvious that his words didn't sit well with his prince. Kunzite sighed, not sure how he should react. If he could take back all of his actions in the last life, he would have, but that was impossible now. All he was able to do presently was to sit and regret his decisions of the past. Nothing could change the way things had gone before, least of all him.

He stared at his liege with the intensity of his emotion, but said nothing till all the words had escaped the man's lips. It was obvious even to his present incarnation, stumbling around in the back of his mind like an old drunk, that things were incredibly tense. The prince had every right to judge him now. After all, he had proven his worth when he caused the man to breathe his last. Whether or not he was under the control and skewed perceptions of the Dark Kingdom was neither here nor there; it was no excuse for the way he had acted toward the man. He had sworn his oath to the royal family when he was but a child, and though the words rang true at the time, he had come to break every one of his vows.

"You always told me that no matter what, no matter what you would believe in me. Was that a lie? Were you lying to me from the moment we met? Were you, Ker?"

He wanted to remain silent, to act as if the past had never happened, but since he was this man's murderer, since he had turned his back on everything he had held higher than himself, he owed him the answers. To turn away from him and ignore the questions would be an even greater insult to this man whom he had befriended when they were but children.

"I was fully honest in my oath," Kunzite answered, his voice ringing with his sincerity. "Our friendship was not something that could be flushed away in a light breeze." He sighed before returning to the subject at hand. "What do you want me to say? That I'm sorry? I am, but I do not know if it would change the tides between us. When I fully returned to myself, I regretted every action I had ever committed against you, but what you prefer to do with that information is yours to choose. If you wish to cut off my head now, as you used to treat traitors in the past, I would be a willing victim."

He stared. It was all he could do, stare. Ceneric stared and breathed, waiting. Listening, like Ker had taught him to, to stay still and listen. He'd always wanted to get up and run around and play during lessons, happier when they snuck out and had adventures than staying inside listening to boring lectures. His body betrayed him, his knee bobbing up and down under his hand.

The prince of Earth stared down his servant, his bodyguard, his brother. He tried to regulate his breathing, to keep calm. A hastily hitched-in breath betrayed him. For all that had happened, for all that had been done... no. It wasn't, he couldn't. No. He was not his father.
Mamoru commented something to him, words that Cen initially wanted to refuse to think on, then realized were all too true.
"No," the word tore itself out of his throat. "No, you will not die, not for this. Not for something that I too am guilty of. The mindgames of Beryl and Metallia are hard, so hard to resist." Ceneric lunged forward, body careful as he seized his taller brother in a hug. No falling into the so called bath tub.
"I missed you, Ker. So much."

He was prepared for the man to order one of the other Shitennou to cut off his head. It would be cruel irony if Nephrite would have to be the one. But if that were the case, Kunzite would kneel down like a man and fling his arms wide, just as he would be expected to have done.

Death did not scare him. It never had, really. Before, he pretended that nothing had frightened him. He pretended he was the bravest man Earth had yet seen. But all of those misguided delusions had come crashing down around his shoulders when the Dark Kingdom absorbed him into their midst. That, he knew, was real fear. But death... death was so easy in comparison.

And then, quite suddenly, forgiveness was his. It was not something he had believed his liege would administer, but he spoke as if he understood his transgressions and knew it was not an easy action to resist. And, at once, he was being hugged by the shorter man.

The breath that left Kunzite was ragged and empty. He had not expected this. He had not deserved it. He was normally the silent, standoffish type, the one who gave advice not because he offered it but because others demanded it. And now, strangely enough, he was standing there, fighting emotion as it surged within his chest. He choked back the tears he would never admit to having and tried to keep himself from teetering around in the small bathroom. He could not believe the forgiveness of his liege... It was something that moved him to the very fiber of his being.

When they stood apart, Kunzite cleared his throat. "I... I missed you as well," he said hoarsely, smiling slightly. He recalled when they were children and how Ceneric would mess up in all his teenage rebellions. Even though he had been assigned to protect his Prince with his life, that did not mean he would stand idly by and let the man get himself into trouble doing ridiculous things in order to have a bit of fun.

It didn't feel like home, Mamoru noted as Ceneric retreated back into his mind. It didn't feel like home in the way hugging Usako did, or one of the girls. Not that way, no. It was a different feeling of home, but still home. Like hugging Zach had been earlier today, or Johannes, or hell, fighting side by side with Nikolas. A familiarity, a comfort, a home-ness that was unlike what he had with Usako or the girls, but unmistakably a feeling of home.

He let the tears fall that Ceneric wouldn't, idly wiping them away with the heel of his hand before shoving his glasses back into place. The Japanese man had learned through his fiancee that it was okay to cry. Better to cry and let it out then hold it in and have it fester. Not, he expected, that the man in front of him would hold it against him, or he had best not. Just because Mamoru didn't know this Khorvash fellow didn't mean he was unaware of how Kerecapa was. Ker wouldn't have said anything about it. If Khorvash did, he'd probably have Zach and Johannes and Nikolas to deal with anyway. Mamoru didn't pity him if it came to that. He should damn well be allowed to cry.

"C'mon, I'll introduce you to Zach-kun and Johannes-kun. Xip and Drys. They're roommates, go to Harvard with me." He led the other man back into the main part of the last of his brothers' apartment, noting the time. Hours until Nikolas got back, but they would be fine. Plenty to talk about.