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*** Note I – A big thank you to those reading, favouring, following and reviewing my fanfic; it really makes me happyyy~ =') You people are awesome, and I hope you enjoy this next chapter~! =D ***
*** Note II – Disclaimer: All canonical work is under the ownership of their respective creators. All fanworks posted are intended for personal, entertainment and non-commercial use. No copyright infringement is intended. *** I only own the following: My OCs, non-canon places; ideas, events, storylines and plots that are my own and not in the original canon; and, my imagination~ :3 ***
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~ 009 – Of Past Laments ~
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"We are products of our past, but we don't have to be prisoners of it."
~ Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life: What On Earth Am I Here For?
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Delicate fingers absentmindedly tapping along his magician's staff, Yunan stood nonchalantly atop the pristine white marble bannisters of the balcony overlooking the hustle and bustle of Remano, the capital of the Reiman Empire; humming to himself until a short doll-like figure gracefully and quietly emerged through rich, crimson curtains flanking the entrance of said balcony.
Stepping into the light with her grand golden magician's staff clinking musically, Scheherazade held this shroud of girlish innocence and otherworldly beauty around her, and the Rukh within the vicinity chirped tranquilly and happily. "What are you still doing here?" she queried in her usual calm, gentle voice wherein owned a commanding undertone.
The man pouted. "So mean. Is that any way to greet a fellow Magi, little one?"
The somewhat ancient woman in a girl's body huffed inaudibly. Her stunning, wavy and thick blonde hair rippled all of the way down to her ankles. "Perhaps if you were not as troublesome and eccentric, then I might take you a little more seriously."
He narrowed his eyes slightly akin to a boy watching his favourite pie being eaten right in front of him. "I'm sorry to hear that my charming qualities are offensive to you," he could not help but murmur with an amused smile.
"Banter aside, I am grateful for your care of Muu Alexius. Although I do thank you for returning him to us, I must ask you to leave. There can only be one Magi in Reim, and that is me," she clipped her final sentence icily.
"Protective as ever, I see," Yunan hummed with a seemingly cheery tone, and his fingers finally ceased their light drumming along his staff. "I shan't be long, I promise you that, but I am curious . . . Are still having dreams about one of your, ah, past incarnations?"
"Barely. I've just dreamed a rather vague one last night for the first time in a year." A frown marred Scheherazade's serene face. "Yes, Yunan, I now believe you about the Rukh and this 'incarnation' business – you can wipe that silly smirk off of your face," she said with subtle irritation.
"You sound troubled by them." Chuckling, his pupils calmly swept the light blue sky. "Don't be."
"How can I not be bothered? I dream of them yet they are too vague; I know nothing of what exactly I'm looking at, and I forget most of them upon waking up! Although . . . There is one image that burns within my mind . . ."
Yunan regarded her with curious brows raised. "And which is this?"
Languidly, her eyelids parted, revealing a pair of bright and sparkling crystalline blue irises. "The body I was in sat in the emperor's throne with said emperor dead by my feet and his soldiers and officials cheering with overwhelming relief and victory . . . It was so blurry; I could not understand . . ." She stopped herself from continuing, for she realized that the Wandering Magi's face turned unreadable, as if he was in deep though or he had realized something. Scheherazade continued; her eyes refusing to leave his face for even one millisecond, "How could this be? A Magi is supposed guide his or her chosen king, not overthrow them and become ruler themselves."
His smile was joyless and his voice was soft. "I am sure that she had her reasons –"
"You know her. You know whose life plagues my dreams," the Magi of Reim stated with surety.
Tittering wearily, Yunan shrugged airily. "Ahh, perhaps I do, perhaps I don't. I don't remember much, to be honest; I have lived for quite the long time, after all."
A lie, the girl thought vehemently. "Who is she?"
He smiled impishly. "And I thought you wanted me to leave? Well, I actually do have to go now. I need to prepare –"
"Yunan, tell me –!"
"Farewell, my Lady!" the bizarre man called out as he leaped into the air and disappeared.
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"My little Ja'far, my assassin who has become quite the paragon of us despite being so young," the head of Parthevia's Assassin's Guild, Shaka, started that day with a sickeningly gleeful yet contemptuous and sharp glare within his eyes, "I am more than pleased with your advancement but I can see within your eyes that you do not wish to complete this test. There is no favouritism found in me – your overwhelming development in your training thus far does not exempt you from anything. All children born to Sham Lash must kill their parents; it is simply the way and I will not tolerate weakness, I will not forgive betrayal. If you will not comply, I shall have no further use of you. Now what will it be? Will you follow commands or shall I now kill you where you stand?"
Insanity was what it was for the silvery white-haired assassin – well, ex-assassin now – at being consumed by all of that malicious energy and the poor, tragic black Rukh as that odd demonic creature proceeded to form afresh; apparently, that was due to the fact that, according to Falan, he was already teetering on the edge of "being Fallen," whatever the fuck that was. But it was within this beast that he became lost within his subconscious of an icy cold and desolate white wasteland; his despairing and crying self wanting the pain to stop and fighting with his hardened self who pretended not to care, demanding that the former just accept their fate as professional killers and continue on with that life. It was also within his subconscious that those weird bird-like things (in which more so resembled butterflies from far away) showed him snippets of his memories, and he had glanced upon these flashes akin to an audience bearing witness to the performance of mesmerizing thespians.
The grey-black-eyed boy was seven years old when he had found out what "children born to Sham Lash" had really meant because, previously, he could not fathom why any parent would subject their child or children to this life whilst knowing that their offspring would have to eventually murder them: Apparently, this organization was so secretive that not even the majority of the nobility were aware of it, which had meant that these little assassins' commoner parents would obviously have no clear inkling of what they were getting themselves into. Ja'far had found out that Shaka would approach poor parents-to-be made poorer and more desperate by the war and would make deals with them: "Offer your child to our Empire. Give them the honour and glory of serving His Imperial Majesty. I assure you that they'll be well-taken care of and I will gift you with enough payment to live decently."
Though there were moments wherein he resented his parents, Ja'far had, strangely enough, never truly despised them. He was not sure if he had ever loved them, either, but he wanted to and he had tried to. Perchance he did and he had not realized it? However, the thing that he was most certainly not confused about was that he did not want his parents to die; he wanted his parents to stop looking so damn sad all of the time, and he wished that if he excelled in his training, then perhaps he would then be able to run away with them. Killing them had been an excruciating blow to the entirety of his existence and what he hated the most about himself regarding that was that he was able to move on almost immediately. Sure, the realization that he himself had killed them stayed within a part of him like a festering wound that would never truly heal, but he was able to compose himself in no time and not dwell on the act further. He had to own that sort of attitude if he was to survive the fetters that were Sham Lash.
Chirping melodically, the Rukh flittered around him lazily, procuring for him yet another memory – one that he held no recollection of and one wherein brought himself with more guilt: His birth, rather, a few days after it from what this snippet of memory looked like. It was highly strange for him to be gazing at something he would naturally hold no remembrance of, but it seemed like his Rukh held recorded reminiscences of his entire life.
"Children born to Sham Lash . . . Can never leave . . . Unbreakable contract only severed by death . . . Bound to the Assassin's Guild, bound to Shaka, bound to the Parthevian underground; every scrap of your body and even your soul are chained to us . . . Unbreakable contract only severed by death."
An animalistic cry resonated out of Ja'far's mouth, and his heightened sense of guilt morphed into a deeper regret whilst the Rukh flashed before him images that would forever stain his consciousness yet simultaneously gifted his chilled heart filled with lies to himself with a peculiar warmth he did not think he deserved: Images of his young father and mother going back on their word in secret; flashes of them hiding his baby self in a woven basket full of tattered cloth and running away with it into the dead of night, only to be caught later by one of Shaka's Assassin Chiefs. It was now no longer a mystery as to why they had regularly looked so remorseful behind their smiling selves whenever he was around and constantly avoiding eye-contact with him as though they had felt unworthy of their offspring's presence; and it was now no wonder that there were always two assassins stationed nearby on guard whenever he was given permission to spend time with his parents.
Every inch of them felt disgusted with themselves at Shaka's offer. They never regretted having me, only having me to give to Sham Lash. They tried to escape with me; they actually cared about me more than they showed . . . They actually loved me . . . Fuck it all, how can I doubt them any more now? Thanks for having me hate myself more – I would've been better off not knowing about this at all!
It was then that the freckled boy became aware of Sinbad's presence; Sinbad, that irritatingly charismatic show-off who was too confident for his own damn good. He had seen Ja'far's heart and his true self hidden within the struggle of the depths of his mindscape; how dare he observe his memories like this?! And how the hell was he able to do it?
Yet, to his shock (and a most grateful shock at that), Sinbad never went the "I understand how you feel" route; rather, he candidly expressed that he could never truly understand every single thing of what Ja'far had gone through his entire life thus far. Sinbad did not care about his past, only the here and now and what the boy secretly desired, what his heart and soul craved. Sinbad no longer gazed upon him with eyes of pity as he had done so in that Imuchakk's house, he was staring fixedly at him with a kind determination to help him; to claim him as a comrade and treasured subordinate and stating so resolutely that he would become the boy's new way of life, that he will most certainly offer him a place to belong to and that he would no longer have to lie to himself and suffer in silence.
"Come, Ja'far," the older boy continued. "That is your name, isn't it? Ja'far?" He took both of the younger's small shoulders. "Join me. You said you wanted to, right? Don't let your past define you; don't let it consume you, fight it and grow. Become better. You can do it."
And even though Sinbad could not understand him fully, Ja'far can see, within those warm and sun-like orbs of his, that the youth had most certainly understood sorrow.
It was inexplicable, fathomless, and yet within the deepest crevices of his being, Ja'far's spirit understood; weeping with such profound joy at its' sudden freedom, at the opportunity to be born anew. He abruptly no longer felt locked up; the innate ability to continuously lie to himself and endure such harshness else he would die slowly began to dissipate. He was experiencing what he had been secretly craving his entire life, something he was initially guilty for desiring given his lengthy trail of blood notwithstanding being still only a child, and especially at the fact the he had ended the lives of both his mother and father at only the tender age of six out of desperation to survive.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but I'll now live the way I want. I'll live with the freedom you two tried yet failed to give me.
Daring to feel hope and this want of a better future absent anything related to Sham Lash . . . Ja'far welcomed this wholeheartedly as he stared with glimmering eyes and his lips half-parted right into the pupils of the boy who had just saved him, and not only him, but his close and older companions – twenty-three-year-old Mahad and seventeen-year-old Vittel – as well.
Joining or being birthed into Sham Lash was an unbreakable contract wherein one can only be freed from if they died? Ha! Ja'far and his two assassins had just discovered another way out, a way that will give them better lives and to help heal their bodies, minds and souls over time. The thought of soon being able to truly experience life's joys away from Sham Lash brought Ja'far with an excitement he had never felt before.
And so the Rukh dispersed; he felt Sinbad's hand still grasped around his arm; and through half-lidded eyes, he discerned his worried companions, that golden rich boy, the giant man with the red horn-spear, the dog-resembling Djinn, and an exhausted and smiling Sinbad.
And for the first time in his life, the little ex-assassin willingly bowed before a person whom he would gladly call "King."
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*** After Note I – Feel free to drop a review and let me know what you think~! :D ***
*** After Note II – Not gonna lie, delving into Ja'far's past brought me to a dark place. Poor kid. *gives Ja'far 100 hugs* :'( Aaaaaand regarding the scene between the two old-as-fuck Magi: I intend to explore more of the reincarnation element that I've decided to play around with for this story later on. ***
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Guest: Glad to hear it! And hehehe, yeah, it's so fun writing their interactions. xD Thanks very much and have a great week~ :D
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