Peligia, a word whispered in the ancient libraries, historians with comparative tales almost as grandiose as that of the lost city of Atlantis, except for one key difference: I have been there.
Unknown Location, Unknown System, Unknown Territory
Darien woke up alone, the cold chill still brisk in the air as he sat up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, feeling his stiff muscles and raw nerves protest. He did his best to ignore them, moving slowly to pull the pile of clothes over to him as he slipped on his shirt, listening to the crack of thunder somewhere in the distance.
Dressed, he shuffled across to the door, each step slow and deliberate, his head reeling. Catching himself before he could fall over, he closed his eyes, fighting to keep his balance, his head resting against the spongy texture of the wall.
It felt, beneath his hand, like wood left to decay too long, like he could put too much weight on it and tear off the damp fibres, and yet it supported his weight easily. He opened his eyes as he shuffled onwards, out into the small dining room Edward had adapted into a makeshift kitchen. Naturally there was no milk anywhere to be seen, but there was a case of some noxiously sugary soda.
"Near omnipotent beings need their sugar," Darien murmured, pulling his arms about him to ward out the damp chill. Feeling more of his strength returning, he crossed and looked out into the hall.
Typically, that was no help; stairs up, slope down. More mushrooms providing light sitting in little carved niches or set in little paper lanterns, the kind picked up in a dollar store back on earth, little Chinese characters painted all over them.
He smiled. For a house, it was certainly typical of Elias... Edward, Darien had to keep reminding himself. It was so easy to just close his eyes and loose himself in a memory, but Edward wasn't his Elias... was he?
He chose to go up, coughing again as he climbed, stopping at the large round door standing ajar. He leaned around, looking into the small workshop, a worn wooden table pushed out with a chair behind it like a desk, empty bookshelves around lit by plenty of potted mushrooms. Long vines hanging down from the ceiling had sprouted leaves, turning towards the soft mushroom light, giving the room a serenely natural feel that made Darien smile. After the stark and sterile life aboard the Excalibur, the oneness with nature seemed a nice respite.
He noted the spiral stone steps, set into the walls continuing up, and he followed them, eventually passing out of another door and onto what had to be the mushroom cap.
The rain was falling heavily, soaking him to the skin in seconds, the pale clouds and fog drifting through a forest of twisted mushrooms and trees. He felt the trickle of rain down his neck as he stood for a long moment simply staring out at the place, an echo of birds somewhere in the rainforest cawing for attention despite the dismal weather.
His eyes travelled through the tall conifer trees, towards a dark shape poking though amidst them. Stones that stood like the skeletal remains. Signs of the former inhabitants of the mushrooms? Yet it didn't appear like their construction at all. The academic in him was curious, and he walked to a set of broad and ropey vines that wound down towards the ground, nervously climbing down, picking his way as best he could, knowing that his balance wasn't what it used to be.
He didn't like that feeling. Knowing that he was steadily loosing the capabilities that he had once had. He'd run down perverts and drug dealers working for TER-SEC, trying to keep in the best physical shape he could so that he could be good at his job.
Too good, that had been his problem.
His hand strayed up to the badge again, and from there up to the Knight's Cross at his throat. He shook his head, knowing that he had to adapt and he nodded to himself, feeling the wet hair plaster down across his forehead, rivulets of water running down his face as he found the ground, setting off towards the ruins.
The underbrush was light, densely packed mud, littered with pine needles. He slipped only once, fighting to stay upright as he pulled himself around a tree and stopped.
He was on the edge of the forest, looking down into what had once been a city. The ruined plazas sank into the ground, cut into the rock containing beautifully carved building fronts. Yet the stonework crumbled with decay as vines overran the masonry, poking through cracks and covering fallen frescos.
He coughed again, shivering in the cold and damp, holding onto the tree for support as he looked beyond the concentric plazas and at the ruins he had seen from the mushroom tower, tall and imposing dark ruins of a crystal structure, ancient and familiar to his eyes. That same crystal had shown up across the galaxy, aboard the Excalibur, in the Polian shard weapon, the Propylons and in VonGrippen's mausoleum.
Peligian Crystal.
He struggled down from the rise, entering the forgotten city, his mind working through it. Behind him he left evidence of one civilization, and he was passing the round sunken plazas of a second, heading for the ruins of a third. It was astounding, there in that one place three different races had chosen to establish settlements, and judging by the evidence of the decay, settled at different eras.
He mounted broad flat steps, ascending towards the final set of ruins, looking up at the crumbled spires, reaching out to run his hand over the flat crystal surface, stepping back in wonderment at the glowing script that flowed up it, changing sigils and hieroglyphs that rotated at different rates cutting off where the stones were broken.
He stepped back, pushing his damp hair away from his eyes, feeling the rain hammer down around him. Casting his eyes about him, he crossed to a small carved dais with a flat black altar stone, studying it intently as he ran his fingers over the single inlaid octagonal recess.
He knelt beside it, staring closer. Wherever he was, it was important...
He stopped as his foot nudged another broken piece of crystal, this one lighting up with a sigil that didn't rotate or change. The black crystal glowing a deep red with the winged sword that adorned the cover of the Peligian Diary.
He picked it up, brushing the water that beaded upon it, and stared at it.
The metallic clanking was a sound ominously familiar, and Darien's head snapped up. The distinctive sound of Polian powered armour.
Darien swore as around a large cluster of stones the Polian warrior marched, its cloak billowing back as the rain sizzled and hissed off of liquid hot armour plates.
A dark creature, seeming as if forged from the pit of hell itself, clanked back a step, as if surprised to see the lone, bedraggled human there, standing in the rain, a black stone clutched to his chest.
Darien knew hesitation was death. He dived for cover.
The staff bolts smashed into the stonework behind where he had stood, the Polian clanking around again. Enraged demands in the Polian language squelched out, as another set of blasts impacted into the stones.
The injured Highlord crouched behind a fallen pillar, cursing that he was unarmed, cursing the whole damn Polian race and their fanatical hatred of humanity. The problem was, it was a wholly justified hatred, and that pissed Darien off the most.
He broke from his cover, leaping down from the dais on the far side of the Polian warrior, slipping in the mud as he ran, sprinting like a jackrabbit from cover to cover trying to get away. Staff blasts nipped at his heels as the warrior attempted to anticipate his zigzags and gun him down.
He jumped another patch of debris, hurdling it, feeling every muscle in his body contract and rebel against the sudden physical activity, a twist as his legs turned, and he went crashing to the wet stones in a heap.
He heard the steady hissing of the rain on the molten armour, felt the Polian closing on him, its staff falling to its hand with a deadly clank. He was going to die, in the rain, unarmed.
"Every god-damn time I step foot on a god-damn planet unarmed!" He tried to reach for something, anything that he could use as a weapon, and his hands closed over the flat stone he had picked up from the altar. Pulling it to him, he rolled over as the Polian raised his staff, Darien holding the stone out trying to ward off the blow that never came.
It stood frozen in place, its armoured helm tilted slightly to the side, its staff weapon lowered, its finger on the actuator that would incinerate Darien where he lay, the stone between them, sigil outwards, shining a blue green in the dim light.
"What?" Darien demanded, opening his eyes, frowning at the mechanized death that stood before him, feeling the claw marks on his face burning.
The 'devil' undulated with every breath, his armour rising and falling as he stood, staring back at Darien, raising the staff again as if contemplating firing, and again hesitating.
Darien stood, keeping the crystal outstretched. "What is it?" He demanded, turning to look at the winged sword, and then back at the Polian warrior.
The Polian's staff weapon snapped up as the being rested it against his shoulder, his third arm extending, the metal gauntlet reaching out to tap the sigil on the stone, saying something in Polian, before he turned and marched away. The staff weapon rang as it fell to the stones with each step.
"That was..."
"Unbelievably lucky." Edward snapped, sounding annoyed.
Darien blinked and looked up at the young Prince picking his way over the stones and debris. He stopped, pulling his soaked hair back from his annoyed blue eyes. "You were supposed to be in bed." He accused.
"Where is this place?" Darien demanded, looking at the young man.
"I told you, I..."
"Stop," Darien said, shaking his head, "You brought me here for a reason, so give up the pretences. You had me unleash Lex Talionis, why? You brought me here, why? The Polian almost killed me but didn't, why?"
Edward folded his arms, looking uneasy, shifting from foot to foot, "I-I..."
"If you really are who you claim to be," Darien yelled through the rain, "You'd answer me!"
"Darien..." Edward shivered, his chin sinking to his chest, "I love you more than anything... You have to believe that."
"Answer my questions!" Darien demanded angrily, "Stop playing fucking VonGrippen, Immortal Emperor, Kardiac... mind games." He crossed the stone square and grabbed the front of Edward's sodden shirt, and pulled him towards him roughly, "You're Matthew Fucking Elias, my Matty... mine...!" He felt the well of emotions inside him, the pain and anguish of loss, coupled with the physical abuses he'd suffered at the hands of Lex Talionis as well as the shaking tremors that were tearing his life apart, "For fuck's sake, tell me what is going on!"
Edward looked up, a sadness in his eyes as he pulled his arms tighter about his lean frame, his eyes pleading with Darien. "I had you unleash Lex Talionis, because I knew there were things that you could never do that had to be done. Things... terrible things..." He quivered, "I brought you here to show you where you had to go. A-" His voice hitched, a tear rolling down his face as he scrubbed it away with the back of his hand, "And..." He coughed and straightened up, "Th-the Polian said 'mark of the Peacekeeper', it was what my - Edward's - g-grandfather wore, a sacred oath with the Polians that those who bear the m-mark won't..."
"This stone is ancient," Darien said, his eyes angry, lifting the crystal, "How the hell can it be his symbol?"
"I-I don't know..." Edward said shaking his head, "I swear I don't know... I am not omniscient, I know things, I see things, I can go places. I don't know everything, I'm not that powerful... you have to believe me. I'm not that strong..."
"I want the man I fell in love with back," Darien snarled, "Give him back! Whatever you are... whatever you've become, you must have the power to do that."
"It's me..." Edward insisted, crying openly now, "It's me, Darien... me... please..."
Darien drew back coldly, "You've been manipulating me, using me like... like a pawn for your own ends. That's not love... that's..."
"I'm sorry," Edward snapped, "I'm sorry that you can't see past the end of your own damn nose. I'm sorry that you don't seem to realize that there is more to the universe than just you and what you want. More to it than what I want..." His voice faltered, struggling to find the right words, "B-but I have to protect you, and... and if that means I have to lie to you, if that means I have to manipulate you, then I am going to do it. I'll do whatever I have to do to keep you safe." He stopped, his shoulders sagging dejectedly, "Darien...?"
Darien swallowed, sighing. "What, Matty?"
"Tell me you love me." Edward said, his voice impossibly small sounding so much like Elias.
"You lied to me." Darien replied tiredly.
"I never..."
"You didn't tell me things with the intent of misleading me. That's a lie." Darien set his jaw tightly, still angry.
"I lied to you, then," Edward said, sitting down on the edge of a pile of stones, looking forlorn and bedraggled, "But I did it to try to help you. The spirit of the lie was good..."
"A lie is never good," Darien knelt and put a hand on Edward's knee, "I'm having a hard time with all of this..."
"You're not the only one," Edward murmured huffily, "I have to put up with your bitching."
Darien's eyebrows shot up. "Huh?"
"You think you're the only one suffering here?" Edward said, his eyes wide a slight hint of a goofy smile on his face, "Shut up and stop being such an asshole!"
Darien laughed. "You're insane."
"And you love me!" Edward replied, folding his arms and stating it matter-of-factly.
"I..." Darien shrugged waggling his eyebrows, his anger easing, "I'm an asshole."
"Who loves me!" Edward demanded a hint of mirth in his voice.
"I am an asshole who loves you." Darien said with an exaggerated sigh, still confused, feeling like a part of him was cheating on the man he loved with... The man he loved, "I just... I don't like being manipulated..."
"Darien," Edward said, reaching out to tough the scars on his cheek, "We're all being manipulated in one way or another, you just need to open your eyes to see that. The point is, how do you stop it?"
"I could find a new boyfriend," Darien joked.
"That's it," Edward replied grumpily, "you're cut off."
"From what?" Darien blinked.
"What do you think?" Edward folded his arms and narrowed his eyes determinedly.
"But we haven't... not since... the change." Darien shrugged, "So cutting me off isn't much of a threat."
"Fine," Edward grumbled, "No Christmas card this year."
"I think I'll cope..." Darien replied, looking down at the stone with the glowing sigil upon it, "This... this symbol means the peacekeeper?"
"Pax Defende," Edward nodded, "Those who wear it are committed to peace. My..." He paused again. "I'm sorry, I'm two different people at the same time, this is hard you know... Granddad used to wear it; he made a promise to the Polians that anyone wearing it would bear them no harm. In return, the Polian Elders made each of their warriors swear to never harm anyone wearing it... or in your case, carrying it."
"That's... useful." Darien remarked.
"See, you got upset and you bitched me out for no good reason," Edward huffed again, "I swear, Darien Taine, you're a major pain in the ass."
"...who loves you." Darien smiled, "Thank you... for manipulating me... I think."
"Oh, shut up." Edward snapped, "I'm cold, I'm wet. And my boyfriend's a dork."
"What's a dork?" Darien asked, helping Edward up, motioning back towards the mushrooms.
"I don't know," Edward admitted, "One of the old me things. That side of me seems to think it fits you."
"Edward's a bastard." Darien chided, smiling tightly.
"Yeah, but we both think you look good naked," Edward shrugged, "I personally think you do at any rate, not that I have ever seen another man... but I have... Uggh this is so confusing!"
"Stop... stop that," Darien said, shaking his head, "I'm still not comfortable thinking about that."
"You're a roller coaster," Edward nudged him, "Everything's good one minute, then you're back dwelling on it the next." He sighed, "You've always been like that, stubbornly mixed up, ever since I met you."
Darien put his arm around Edward, coughing again before he drew him against him. "Just... let me figure this out in my head, okay? Look, until I met you love wasn't high on my list, and with the Morality code, falling in love with a guy was the last thought on my mind." He sighed. "And given my background, the chances of falling in love with a male construct, even smaller. To lose that... and then find out that my boyfriend is the next incarnation of the Immortal Emperor..."
"Umm," Edward held up a finger, pausing Darien, "I'm not actually a reincarnation of the Immortal Emperor, I'm technically a reincarnation of his heir..."
"You're splitting hairs." Darien replied.
"No, I'm trying to not lie to you by forgetting to tell you stuff..." Edward beamed his sapphire blue eyes glinting mischievously, "'Cause you're anal retentive about that stuff."
"What I am trying to say," Darien said, pausing to turn Edward towards him, picking at his hair and adjusting the rumpled grey shirt Edward was wearing, "Is that I need some time to..."
"No," Edward replied, "What you need is..." he kissed him, firmly, determinedly, lips pressing against Darien's and moving slightly.
Darien blinked in surprise, relaxing into the kiss, his arms wrapping around Edward's shoulders fingers, brushing a soft, cold ear. "You know," Darien said, pulling back, "The Polians are probably watching and being highly confused."
"Love... it's something they don't understand," Edward said, sadly, "A memory to them, forgotten in their past." He wiped the rain from Darien's forehead, "I don't want you to forget it too."
"I can't forget it," Darien said, holding Edward by the hips, feeling the rain slapping down, hard, fat droplets that pounded the trees and mushrooms around them. He stared for a long time into Edward's eyes before closing his own and resting his tired head against the nape of the younger man's neck.
"We could just stay here," Edward said softly, "F-forget about everything and... and let the universe get on with it..."
"Stay here forever, on your magic mushroom in the sky?" Darien murmured, his lips brushing Edward's soft, warm skin tenderly, "You know the mushroom's on the ground, right?"
"Yeah, but the ground's not on the ground." Edward fired back.
Darien leaned back. "You're making no sense again."
"Right, omission-lie-thing," Edward gave a frustrated little sigh, "this is gonna be a bitch to explain. Come on, and..." he pointed to the stone in Darien's hand, "Don't drop that, the moment you do they're gonna shoot you."
"I promise not to drop my 'get out of death free' card." Darien vowed.
"Come on then," Edward called, "This is actually... kinda cool." He set off, leading Darien through the forest, staying a foot or two in front, picking his way with care, ensuring to take the easiest path so that Darien could keep up with him, pausing every so often to help him over difficult terrain.
"Here..." Edward said, stepping out of the tree line.
"Where..." Darien immediately stepped back from the edge, gasping at the rolling clouds sweeping past, realizing what he had thought was fog earlier had been the island - there was no other way to describe it - passing through a cloudbank.
"I told you it was in the sky," Edward said triumphantly.
Darien shook his head. "This is... amazing."
"Not really that amazing, they had floating islands in the Dread Pirate Fayd comic books..." He grinned, "The one where he had to escape the evil President Hayes's clone that tried to take over Earth, and ended up bringing everyone to..."
Darien shook his head. "I read it, one of my favourites." He sat down tiredly on the edge of the island, staring out across the cloud tops, amazed at the raw and savage beauty of seeing a thunderstorm from above.
Edward sat down beside him, leaning into the crook of his arm, as the two simply sat staring out. Sharing a quiet moment together, aware of, but ignoring the alien presence watching from the dark forest behind them.