“You’re too hard on yourself. It takes a strong man to rule a collective.” She thought back to A’ronn and how he operated his division. “Strength in all aspects. Intelligence, fairness, strategy, empathy. I know you possess at least some of those in great supply.”
Nicholai chuckled, the sound dim. “I do love my people, Umbriel. But I think the moment I froze Southeastern, I loved myself just a little bit more. It was selfishness that pulled the crown on my Chronometer that day ... and it continues to be selfishness that refuses to undo it.”
“That seems unlike you,” Umbriel offered. “Can I ask why you did it? Why you froze Southeastern?”
The Time Father stared ahead, a blank look plastered to him. Kazuaki and the crew already familiarized themselves with his reasoning. It was only fair Umbriel knew too. “If I unfreeze Southeastern,” he clarified, “Lilac will die.”
He didn’t need to explain who the name belonged to. Umbriel was a perceptive woman. The way he spoke her name, though it was brief, left little doubt in her mind. Lilac was the keeper of Nicholai’s heart. She was the little light his eyes caught every time he lost himself in thought. She was the blood in his body that powered him forward through his pitfalls. She was his reason. His strength and his weakness all rolled into one. Despite the invisible dagger that plunged into her chest, Umbriel smiled, for love, no matter how jagged, was always a beautiful thing to behold.
“You must think that’s pretty gutless of me, aye? Damning countless people to spare one life? A life I’m not even sure I can save?” Nicholai asked though he did not turn to gauge her reaction.
Umbriel shifted to follow his gaze out to the city. “Love makes fools of us all,” she said. “But I’d rather be a fool than a lone wolf.”
The corner of Nicholai’s lip tugged into a small grin. “Yeah. Me too.”
The Earth Mother smiled. She nestled her chin into her forearm. “Then I’ll sit with you,” she said, finding peace in her proximity with the Time Father, “so you’re not alone.”
✽ ✽ ✽
Kazuaki’s eye felt weird under the bandage. That metal plate became a part of him, in a literal and figurative sense. He felt naked without it. The fear of exposing his eye to someone he cared about was something he was unfamiliar with. Kazuaki did not enjoy feeling fear. It was a filthy, useless emotion.
Blood soaked through the material, despite Elowyn’s best efforts. It was hard for her to tend to the injuries left in his skull without vision. Everything she did, she did with her eyes closed, lest she risked falling victim to the nightmares Kazuaki’s eye infected onlookers with. It was not just a risk for her, but Kazuaki and the plan. If he cleansed his soul too soon, their entire strategy would be useless.
He didn’t get too far down the hall from Elowyn’s room before Rennington, Revi, Brack, Penn, and Granite rounded a corner, stopping him in his tracks. Granite’s dog was not far behind, wagging its tail as it sniffed one of Aggi’s vases. It lifted its leg to relieve itself on the artifact. Granite rolled his eyes and pulled a rag out of his pocket before lowering himself to his knees.
Rennington blinked, watching Granite clean up the beast’s mess before he redirected his attention to Kazuaki. “Captain,” he started, holding two shot glasses in his hands, “we’ve got a bone to pick with you.”
Kazuaki stared at Granite before raising a confused eye to Rennington. “Better make it quick, gentlemen. I told Aggi I’d help his engineers make the final repairs on that flying machine.”
Rennington grinned. He shoved one of the full shot glasses into Kazuaki’s hands. “Well, I told Mr. Normandy you wouldn’t be attending, because you’re about to get so damn shit-faced you wouldn’t be of much use around heavy machinery.”
The captain grasped the offering, feeling some of it spill over the top and onto his hand. He looked to each of his men, assessing their faces. Duty called him to the mission, but after spending time with Elowyn, he knew what they wanted. What they needed. If closure came at the bottom of a bottle, so be it. It was his final moments with them. Best to leave them with a positive memory. He lifted his hand with a smirk. “Cheers, mates.”
The men clanked their glasses together and made short work of the alcohol they pilfered from Aggi Normandy’s kitchen. Rennington pulled several small bottles out from his boots and topped off everyone’s glass. He poured two for Granite since cleaning his dog's urine preoccupied him during the first round. “Join us in the library, Captain?” Rennington grinned. “Perfect place to continue our soiree. The place is feckin’ huge. Books everywhere. Bartholomew would have a raging boner if he laid eyes on it, that’s for sure.”
Kazuaki tried to contain his amusement. He threw back the second shot, exhaled, and nodded. “Lead the way, Rennington.”
The men adjourned to Aggi’s library, each finding seats in the Western Time Father’s fancy, upholstered chairs. Liquor flowed like rivers as they reminisced. Laughter echoed off the walls. A few candelabras found the floor after some of Brack’s more boisterous storytelling. Not once did they talk about Kazuaki’s impending doom. It was the perfect send-off.
The hours that crept by turned the liquor to slow poison in their veins. The relief it brought with it was as welcoming as it was intoxicating. Brack laid on the floor, trying in vain to reattach a broken piece of a candelabra to its base. “This feckin’ thing’s not sticking,” he whined, trying to will the delicate metal to fuse back together on its own.
“Just put it in that vase, Aggi will, Aggi can buy another one,” Rennington muttered, waving a drunk hand toward a container in the corner of the room.
“Why’s this guy have so many vases?” Penn reclined into a resting position in the chair he possessed. “What’s he got to hide, anyway? That’s what you do with vases, you, you hide things in them.”
Revi arched a brow from his spot on the floor. “C’mon now, Aggi’s been real accommodating.” He rolled over, not at all agile in his movements and grabbed the nearby vase to peer inside it. “Besides, he must not have much to hide, ‘cause this one’s got nothing in it.”
Brack paused. His face grew alarmed. He abandoned his effort to repair the broken candelabra. “Give me the vase, give me the vase—”
Far too inebriated to hand the vase to Brack, Revi tipped it on its side and rolled it over. Brack seized it with expedience and filled it with the contents of his stomach.
“Shit,” Revi wrinkled his nose in disgust. “It’s got something in it now.”
Granite’s dog prodded over, sticking its head in the vase after Brack finished vomiting. It tried and failed to eat the discharge, unable to get its ears past the mouth of the ornamental pot. Granite, still sober despite having drunk as much as everyone else, appeared relieved. Though the beast ate some unpleasant things in its lifetime, Granite did not want to picture Brack’s vomit on its tongue when he allowed the dog to lick his face.
“Look, look, look,” Penn waved a finger at Brack, trying and failing to point at the man. He laughed. “Here we are, trying not to spill our guts in front of the captain, and Brack’s, well, he’s, he’s quite well failed with that one, aye?” He laughed more, as if his joke was the most hilarious thing he ever heard.
The crew joined in his chuckles, but only because it was odd seeing Penn engage in laughter. He was a stoic guy. Alcohol drowned his usual social reservations and left a witty, albeit graceless man in its place. The others loved it when drunk Penn appeared.
Kazuaki grinned. Though he was not as far gone as the others, he wasn’t sober. The captain floated somewhere in the middle of complete oblivion and having some wits about him. It was a luxury he hadn’t enjoyed in a long time. “That’s what this is, then?” he asked, though he knew from the beginning. “Alcohol and ... a pre-funeral, of sorts?”
Rennington sat up and belched. He ran his hands through his hair, leaving them at the back of his head as he found Kazuaki. “Aye, we made a drinking game out of it too. Every time you think to say something mushy t
o the captain,” he clumsily poured and held up another shot, “you take a drink.”
Kazuaki watched as Rennington slammed his poison and tried to set it down on a table that wasn’t there. The glass fell to the ground and Rennington peered over his chair’s arm, staring at it as if contemplating how it got there. A short laugh escaped the captain as he gazed at all the drunkards who filled the room. “Gods alive, you five sure are the sentimental sort.”
“Especially Granite,” Brack said, waving an open bottle of booze in the giant man’s direction. He shook his head. “Look at him. Pathetic. Can’t even hide his pain.”
Granite looked the same as he always did, save for the slow arrival of an irritated expression he directed toward the Rabbit.
Rennington, still staring at the glass he dropped on the floor, finally tore his gaze away from it and looked to Kazuaki. “You—you just sit there and enjoy it,” he murmured, slumping down to allow his chair to eat him. “You ... I didn’t get to do this for Iani. Iani. Iani would have loved this. I don’t get to say his name much anymore. Iani.”
The room grew silent. Brack crawled across the floor to Rennington with a bottle in his hand and climbed his chair. He stuck the open whiskey's neck into the Platt’s brother’s mouth, and though he spilled most on Aggi’s floor on the way over, he lifted it. “Shh, shh, shh ... there, there.”
Rennington swatted it away when the sting of the alcohol burned his tongue. That, tempered with the rotting smell coming from Brack’s mouth, caused him to cough most out onto his pants and Aggi’s upholstery. His gaze dwelled on the soiled areas, his face dripping in shock. “Gentlemen ... we ... we have not been great right now. To Aggi.”
“I don’t know, he seemed pretty understanding when, when we told him we were kidnapping the captain for the night,” Revi slurred, pressing his back against the wall for support.
“Yeah,” Penn looked to Rennington, “didn’t he say to help ourselves to whatever we wanted?”
Rennington blinked. It took all his mental willpower to remember the moment which took place earlier that day. “Yeah, yes. I mean, he offered us a bottle ... that’s ... that’s the same as offering the whole kitchen though, right? Penn, you’re a cook, you know kitchen things, was he offering us the kitchen?”
Penn nodded. “Yeah, I mean, there’s no other way to misconstrue that.”
“Aggi’s a good guy,” Revi slid from his place on the wall to the floor. He laid there, unbothered. “I think I’ll visit him after the revolution is over. He’s a good guy.”
“Here I thought you’d go and give that Miss Catty a visit first,” Penn grinned and threw a cork at Revi.
The cork hit him in the chest and rolled off onto the floor. “Belay that,” Revi muttered, lethargic as he stared at the ornate ceiling.
“You visit Aggi all you want,” Brack said, looking over to Kazuaki. “I’m gonna visit me the Captain. I’ll march right up to Mimir’s well and say, ‘Oi! Let—let Cappy come out, you weird, demony feck!’”
Kazuaki arched a brow. “So much for a peaceful afterlife.”
“Hey!” Rennington shouted, leaning forward with such haste he almost fell from his chair. “Hey,” he began again, lowering his voice too much, “we’re going to find a way to get you out of there, Captain. Also, Brack said the ‘M’ word, and as our previous drinking rules dictate, he must now drink an entire bottle by himself.”
Kazuaki glanced at Brack and a look of concern crossed his face. “I don’t think he needs any more. His liver’s not as strong as his breath.”
Brack rubbed his stomach as he glanced over to the vase. “Don’t worry ‘bout me, Cap, I made more room.”
“Captain,” Rennington pointed an index finger at him, “I meant what I said. We’ll get you out of that shit of a lesser god’s afterlife. That’s a Platts promise, mate.”
Kazuaki smirked and took another swig. “I appreciate the sentiment, gentlemen. But I made my bed. And I doubt I’ll have the ability to crawl in and out of the realm of the dead as Mimir does. He’s a lesser god, after all.”
“Yeah,” Rennington replied, “but you’re feckin’ Captain Kazuaki Hidataka.”
The captain nodded as he sank back into his chair. He eyed each of them with a smirk. “Your gods-damned right about that.”
The crew raised their glasses though a few were empty. Most of the alcohol found a place in their bloodstreams, but they did not want to pass up the opportunity to celebrate the captain. As they engaged in riotous cheers, Kazuaki sank his fingers deep into the fabric of his chair. It was the perfect send-off before his afterlife with Mimir.
He couldn’t help but think about what Umbriel said about the lesser god. Though the monster lived a thousand more lifetimes than Kazuaki ever had to, both were intimately familiar with the trials immortality brought to a soul. Mimir was mankind's creation, forgotten by those who birthed him, forever living with that wavering hatred for people. The captain knew the wavering hatred well too. Time afforded him the horrors of witnessing mankind’s darkness, again and again, paving the way for an unending dislike for humanity to flourish.
Mimir remained trapped at the bottom of his well. The ship trapped Kazuaki at sea, where Panagea forgot him, except in the form of terrifying children’s nursery rhymes. No wonder the creature was crazy. It was a miracle he wasn’t crazy. The captain frowned. He was two sunsets away from having to endure the demon for the rest of his afterlife. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad ...
They seemed to have more in common than he first thought.
✽ ✽ ✽
Succumbing to the alcohol’s effects, Revi, Brack, Penn, and Rennington passed out long ago. Granite and Kazuaki, inebriated but still possessing basic motor skills, hauled the four men off to their rooms. Elowyn took the time to be sure they were all on their stomachs. She admitted to the captain she’d make the occasional check to be sure they didn’t choke in their sleep.
Granite and his mongrel retired to their room. An entire distillery couldn’t incapacitate the man, but he enjoyed enough to relax his muscles and lull him into a deep sleep. Kazuaki had no interest in rest.
He paced the halls of Aggi Normandy’s home, his hands behind his back as he walked without hurry, investigating room after room. He wasn’t sure what he searched for, but he felt compelled to go on one last treasure hunt.
His legs carried him to a formal dining hall, likely where Aggi hosted large gatherings for his political agendas. The ceilings were high, chandeliers hanging from the tops with grandeur. Aggi’s residence was stunning. Though it could not compete with the excessive architecture of Darjal’s church in Avadon, it boasted a magnificence he did not see in a lot of other places.
Kazuaki slid his calloused hands along the smooth walls as he walked. He noted every minuscule feeling. The coolness of the wall on his fingertips. The way his boots echoed in the large, open room. The thick smell of whiskey every time he exhaled. He closed his eye. A strange smile found its way to his face. These were the thoughts of a man on death row. He’d never delighted in small details before. He loved it.
After opening his eye again, he saw it. An exquisite phonograph waited for him across the room. Ornate and elegant, with its shimmering horn sprawled outward in grace, it called to him. Kazuaki obeyed the siren and traipsed toward it. He spotted the circular disc that sat on top. The device was a testament to Aggi’s status. If one had enough money for a phonograph, their choice was limited to the model that played wax cylinders. Kazuaki never saw a model like this before. It was the cutting edge of music technology. It didn’t matter what was on the disc. He needed to hear it. Music didn’t grace his ears in a long time. Only what Rennington, Elowyn, and Bermuda played on the ship. What he would give to hear her play her clavichord again. The phonograph would have to satisfy that longing.
After winding the crank and adjusting the needle, Kazuaki stood back. Pre-recorded music flowed from the device. Every scratch and crackle from the imperfect machine ignited him from th
e inside. The sound of the instruments, the voice of a female soprano ... it was glorious, all amplified by the freedom afforded to him in the booze that washed through his veins. Kazuaki lost himself so much in the music, he didn’t even hear the footsteps behind him. It took a tap on his shoulder to get his attention.
Kazuaki spun, finding himself face to face with the last person in the world he thought he’d see. “Bermuda,” he breathed, his liquored up heart betrayed him as it picked up its pace.
“Captain,” Bermuda started, but wrinkled her nose, as the strong scent of alcohol wafted from his body. “I see you’ve been drinking.”
“The crew, they ...” He trailed off, unsure what to say. If only he had all his wits about him, he could have presented himself better. “They wanted to celebrate, before ...”
“Your death,” she finished, sliding her arms around herself as if the words made her cold.
Kazuaki said nothing. He shrugged a single shoulder in a modest agreement.
Bermuda’s eyes fell to the floor, but she forced them back to Kazuaki’s face. “You promised me you weren’t going anywhere. ‘Cross your heart and hope to die’. That’s what you said.”
“Yes,” Kazuaki let out a breath he didn’t realize he held. “I did say that, didn’t I?”
Bermuda stared at him, unforgiving. The music spilled out of the phonograph in the background. “How could you do this, Kazuaki? How could you do this to me?”
“Bermuda,” Kazuaki started, the alcohol in his body making a puppet out of him, as he reached his hand out toward her cheek. He stopped just short of touching her and fought to regain control of himself. “I’m not trying to do anything to you; I’m trying to do it for you. Live your life. In a better place.”
“Oh, yes,” she replied with sarcasm, “Kazuaki, I know I don’t have the best track record of gracefully accepting death. I’m trying my best here. That’s why I couldn’t even stand the sight of your face this week.” She felt the heat radiate from the hand he suspended so close to her skin. “You preach of doing this for me, but you of all people should know this is the last thing in the world I want.”
The Panagea Tales Box Set Page 44