2014-08-13 - Opening Shots: And the Truth Comes Out

2:27 AM-
Majestros sits in his lab, filtering through Terabytes of genetic data, still working to unravel the solution to a certain young girl's "condition." On another console, telemetry from a HALO Corporation space probe that just happens to be in the orbit of Jupiter is watching a comet collide with the far side of the gas-giant. Usually something Majestros would take more interest in, but there are other priorities. Of course, his Kheran mind can run multiple "channels" of information at once, and so other matters occupy his thoughts as well, though they hover barely on the edge of his consciousness.
He's seated in a chair, resting his chin on a fist as he watches simulations of dna sequences assembling together. He shakes his head slightly as the holographic interface tells him that result would probably be fatal, and codes in another round of simulation, changing some of the parameters, inputting the commands with one hand while his eyes turn to the space-probe telemetry for a few moments.
"Hm." He speaks for the first time in 73 hours, and abruptly rises to his feet, leaving the lab and heading up through the headquarters to the room where Charis now sleeps. He pauses in the doorway, watching her a few moments, before speaking again:
"Who killed him?"
Technically, Kheran rarely need to sleep. Not never, certainly-- illness, injury both bring the superhuman race to the gates of slumber. And even though they can go weeks and months, even, without more than simple rest to recharge, some find sleep to be of use-- to reset, so to speak, to have a few hours respite from everything.
In Charis's case, sleep meant hours away from the emotions of others, and, as she had spent so long among humans pretending to be one of them, a way to blend in. So though she did not need to sleep nearly so often as she chose to do so, she takes rest whenever she can.
Her body lies bare beneath the light blankets on the bed in her quarters. The quarters themselves are spartan-- the only decorations being her sword hanging from a pair of hooks in the wall.
So being awoken, unexpectedly, by the voice of Majestros backed by the emotion that drives his question... Charis sits up suddenly, looking ready to roll sideways, perhaps, or leap out of bed. Years of paranoia had ingrained into a habit that was somewhat hard to break. She blinks, adjusting to the light in the hallway behind him, framing him. 
"Come to bed," she says finally. "You haven't slept in weeks, at least."
"Seventeen weeks, three days, and twenty-one hours if you want to be precise." Majestros steps into the room, letting the door close behind him, but doesn't approach the bed, "But that's irrelevant." He notes, "Majestrate was killed with a Clef Blade. You would not be here if Emp and Zannah were not reasonably convinced of your innocence." He folds his hands behind his back, "Zannah and her sisters were accounted for." He tilts his head, "So who then?"
Charis regards him silently for a few moments. "I think this is a conversation better suited to when you are more rested," she says quietly, lounging back on her side, her shoulders and head supported by an arm. She purposely leaves the blankets where they had slid down, her body visible from her hips upward. 
A cheap ploy at seduction perhaps, but she remembered the anguish that had poured from the man when he had pulled his son's body from the wreckage. How unconsolable he had been-- and she had seen what he had become in recent years. More pain, salting that wound, would never help.
"Come to bed, sleep, and we'll discuss it in the morning."
"Charis, I realize that we are a people for whom the passage of time is a far more leisurely thing than others. For whom waiting for days, weeks, even months and years for things is often of little consequence for us." He makes not the slightest move towards the bed, "This is not one of those times."
"Emp has advised that you do not have need to know this information," Charis counters. "That it would perhaps unnecessarily upset you further."
"Besides," she allows herself to fall back onto the pillow, "perhaps I am uncomfortable speaking of this at all without rest, myself." There is a slightly playful lilt there, but its designed to try and calm the irritation she feels from him. 
"Well then, perhaps I will go discuss this with Lord Emp, as he seems to think it "unnecessary" that I know who -killed my son-." Irritation? It's veering towards something a lot more heated than that. "I suspect all involved would rather I hear it from you, however." He waits a couple more moments, and then starts to turn away.
"Majestros." That tone was one he's heard before-- it's not like they hadn't had their share of arguments. And it was a tone that said very clearly that the man /did not/ wish to walk away.
She stares at him for a few moments, sitting up a bit, then sighs. "You're hurting..." she notes. "As much as if the wound was fresh-made." She sounds almost... awed? No, surprised, and slightly saddened. Greatly concerned. "Did you never let even the edges heal, Majestros? Why do you insist on letting your soul bleed constantly, and yet ignoring that it does?"
Majestros pauses, not looking in her direction. He's silent a few moments, possibly pondering denials or other ways to brush aside her concerns. He recognized the futility of it and speaks instead, "He was all I had, Charis. All my hopes...everything I set my mind to achieving...had all been invested in him." He places a hand on the doorframe, but doesn't open the door, "Then he was gone...and all that remained was justice and duty. And in time...only duty. For some, that would be weak succor. At times...it has been stretched thin. But I have deemed it sufficient because there was no other choice beyond wallowing in misery." He glances in her direction now, "And there were...other things...that may well have aggravated the "wound" as you call it."
She stands up and moves to him, sliding her arms around his neck, leaning up to lightly kiss his cheek. "I know," she says quietly. "And if I could do anything to change what happened, I would have." She gives him the slightest frown at the mention of duty, but she lets it pass. Old wounds shouldn't be reopened.
"I blame myself, Majestros, for all of it. Perhaps, after a fashion, he was right... it may not have been my hand that guided the Clef blade, but it was my fault the same." She looks away from Majestros, unable to meet his penetrating gaze.
Majestros' hands rest at her waist, "He fooled us all, Charis. Even after the crash he fought alongside us for centuries before he disappeared." Majestros adds, "We thought him dead...but he's not, is he?" There can be little question of who they're speaking of now. "No, the only thing I question now is...why? He stood to gain much from our plans."
"No," Charis admits softly. "He is not. Three times I've found him, tried to kill him." Frustration and shame lace her tone. "I've failed every time." Her forehead rests against his shoulder.
"Over the years, I've pieced as much as I could together. I believe he had been-- the Terran phrase is 'playing all ends for the center'? I know he had been in contact with Helspont before the crash. I suspect he was also reporting to the Pantheon."
She looks up at him, her expression full of self-loathing. "/I/ brought him in. I brought him into our cabal, championed the creation of his Brotherhood. I gave him the blade..." she trails off. "It's all my fault, and I have yet to make amends."
"The Pantheon..." Majestros sounds...extraordinarily not-surprised by that. "Yes...that would make sense." Majestros shakes his head, "It seems there is enough blame to be spread about. The Pantheon, Helspont, Raven...whoever...they preyed upon our trust, turned it into a weapon against us in more ways than one..." He reaches up to caress her face with a hand, tilting her up to meet his eyes, "Made me doubt -you-. Drove us apart precisely when we needed each other most, and not for the first time." As she would well know. He shakes his head slightly, "It would be foolish and naive to claim that we would never doubt one another again, and all that remained of that naivete in me died with Majestrate, and its' corpse was burned on Khera." He adds "But we can...promise to make the attempt to do...better." And for a man as proud as Majestros, admitting there's room for improvement...actually takes a lot.
Charis closes her eyes, drawing a slow breath. "I did say he should have been ours. Raven did not lie about that-- though I am not sure how he knew. I spoke those words to Zannah, in anger and frustration..." she pauses. "I know I was... distant from you after Majestrate's birth. You were so happy to have a son, and it..." she swallows. "It hurt deeply that I knew I would never give you, in desire and love, what my Sister gave you out of duty and necessity."
She tilts her head to kiss the hand caressing her face lightly. "But you say it was naivete burned away. It wasn't. It's like your heart is almost gone, not just your eyes opened. I..." she shakes her head. "I never doubted you, Majestros. I /knew/ that even if we never were together again, a part of you would always treasure what we had." Her brow furrows. "And I feel it, but it's like what remains is drowning in anger and kept in check by duty."
"I would have been...proud...if you had given me a child, Charis. No less so than I was with Majestrate." He frowns, "And given what came later, it would have been worth it to see the shock and disgust on the High Councillor's faces when they knew. It likely would have cost me my command, but..." He shrugs, then shakes his head, "No...it does no good to dwell on what has passed in that manner. I could spend a century denoting regrets and still have another to go before all had been enumerated." Another admission of the type that most Kherans would never make, even in confidence.
"I am angry. I am bound by duty. I have had little else in these past few millennia. What would you have me do, Charis? Simply forget? You've stalked Raven for five millennia...we both carry the weight of our past."
Charis looks frustrated. She cannot truly argue with him. So she settles for pressing her lips to his, drawing herself closer to him-- expressing in this as best she can what she cannot say. 
Raven's death will go a long way towards healing the wounds of the past, but that alone cannot accomplish it.
Majestros doesn't pull away from that kiss. Indeed his arms do wrap around her and give her a bit of a squeeze for a few moments. There's an...almost-smile on his lips when the kiss finally breaks, "So simply forget, but only for a time, then?"
Charis laughs softly. "I suppose. Or remember... what it was like, before we saw the cracks in the facade and the darkness behind it." She kisses him again lightly. "When we both thought we were invincible, and that we could change our world for the better." 
She extricates herself from his arms and sits back on the bed, lounging back. "When we are done here, and Raven is dead and Helspont with him, we will finally go home, and we /will/ enact the changes we once dreamed of." Her voice grows firmer. "To have stranded us like this, the Pantheon must have feared us. As well they should." She grins. "And perhaps if we are lucky, you will have the chance to destroy the High Chancellor's mind as we should have millenia ago."
Majestros frowns just a bit, starting to pull off his clothing, before noting, "You were right, perhaps we -had- best go to bed." His clothing is gone in quite a short span of time, and he leans down to kiss her before moving to climb onto the bed himself, "Changing our world..." He shakes his head slightly, "Well, Lord Emp and I haven't decided if it's now a very, very, very long-term project, or if we will simply...watch over this world and see to it that they do not make the same mistakes our people did...should they survive that long." He glances away, "We returned to Khera...years ago. It is..." There's a deep spike of near-absolute despair that threatens to bubble up, but it's ruthlessly stamped down, "Worse than we ever would have imagined. Our people have utterly lost their way. We were gone too long...."
Charis looks... taken aback. "What?" she asks, drawing him closer to her and the blankets over them both. The despair... her arms slip around him, her lips press to his, then his cheek and his neck. "Never despair, Majestros. There is nothing in this universe that is impossible. Especially if you and Emp being of the same mind."
"No, perhaps not. But let that be a discussion for another day." Or another Millennia, "There is still much work to be done here, after all." He notes, returning her kiss, pulling her more closely against him. Wait, no, -that- wasn't the kind of work he was talking about, exactly, but from the looks of things it appears he's agreed to let her distract him for at least the remainder of the night.