FP 100 Prompt Fic Challenge
Who: Adrian Rosier Where: Original Realm When: 2150 years ago Warning: Extreme Violence, description of murders, and the fall of Rosier. Note: Angels and Demons are not biblical or religious in this set up. They are merely races. There is no intention of offense on the part of FP or the authors.
"Bring the prisoner forth." The voice echoed from one end of the hall to the other, while bells rung as the cage was opened.
"Rosier Phenex how do you plead?" The same voice intoned, somewhere behind a light so bright that Phenex could not quite focus.
"Does it matter? You've made up your mind." The man snorted, the chains binding his hands weighing him down far more than his conscience would. "I'm guilty, either way. It's your laws I broke. Laws I never agreed to adhere to."
"Without laws, there would be never ending chaos. All things would break." The voice intoned in that same even timber.
Dree squinted at the light, trying to make out who was his Judge. "Without chaos, there is no change! There is no change! Can't you see that? We are the same today as we've always been! Nothing has changed. We do not die. We do not fade. We do the same thing, every day, without pause. And why? Because thousands and thousands of years ago, we were... told to?"
"Where is the free will?"
"Obviously, you have free will, otherwise you would not have broken our laws." His Judge sounded almost amused.
"We can talk round and round about this, but it won't change anything. What is our purpose?"
"To glory in all--"
"I know that! We hear that every damn day. I want to know what is so fucking glorious about it? What about us? Why do we exist, just to shore up someone else's ego?" He demanded to know. "Our King doesn't even leave his castle. Are you sure he's even still in there?"
"You change the subject, and try to take the focus off your crimes."
"Because I don't want to bow to a King that never comes down from his castle? Because I want to explore change? Because I want to CAUSE change?" Phenex yelled up to the light.
"Because you are selfish, self-centered, and because you have killed in the name of experimentation. You are rebellious and--"
"It wasn't just in the name of experimentation." Phenex denied. "I actually did hate a couple of them." His lips twitched into a smile.
"You seek to deflect this Court from its purpose. You revel in your perversions without conscience. You lie, cheat, steal, and murder without purpose."
"I have the perfect purpose." Phenex argued. "I make my victims feel alive. For the first time, they feel alive. Seconds before I destroy them. And for that, they should be grateful."
"You destroyed your wife and helpmate!" The voice shook with rare anger, and Phenex paused. Ah, figures. His father in law would be the Judge.
"Yes, I did. She destroyed our marriage, first. She was my first victim. You should be proud. Father of the first murder victim in, what? Eight thousand years in this particular realm?" He raised his chin. "It got easier, after her. My second victim of course, was her lover." He chuckled. "Now, now, funny how all Sins are supposed to be equal in your eyes? But, do you speak ill of her? You knew she was cheating on me. Knew it. Did you punish her?"
"You did not ask her to dissolve your union."
"She did not ask me either. Did she tell you that she did? Oh, my. She lied! Imagine that. I lied. I cheated... though not in fidelity. And she did the same. She lied. She cheated. Now, how about stealing? I stole things. What did I steal? Her life? Granted. She stole my goods and trade. Used them for her own gain, knowing that I would not be able to trace it back. Or are you talking about that little 'bauble' of hers? The one I took off her body that night? The one he gave her. I gave it to someone. A random stranger. What need had she of it? Besides, did it just work that what is mine is hers, and what is hers is hers? Was it not to be equal partners? Then I did not steal as you claim."
"You killed her. You took her life, and the life of her companion. You did not stop there."
"She killed my soul." Phenex scoffed.
"You killed it, by acting out."
"No, I did not stop there." Phenex agreed. "I was angry. So, I decided to finish everything that had ever upset me. I started with her, and worked my way down. Then I took the bodies, and watched them. I watched them decay and decompose. I watched them change, change from 'perfection' on the outside, to their true reflection on the inside. They were as rotten inside as they became on the outside. Symmetry. I liked it."
"You are a lost cause." The voice managed to sound mournful.
"I guess I am. Because, I find, that I don't truly care. Destroy me, and be done with it." Phenex held his chained hands up. "Give me... change. Let me be glorious in death. I promise people will celebrate in our King's honor for bringing me to Justice after such an atrocity."
"Unlike you, we do not take joy in what we must do. And no, it would bring you too much pleasure and gratification if we were to just end your existence completely." A new voice, this one of a more feminine timber echoed through the hall. "We have made arrangements for you to be transported to your new home, where you will stay, until you are 'trained' in your new occupation. You desire change? You desire death? You cannot be one of us, and still be those things as well."
"No longer will you belong to the Dominion of the Second Sphere, no longer a member of our illustrious Choir. Nor will you fight for the glory of our King." She pronounced. The Dominion being a large battalion. Soldiers were divided first by Spheres, then by Dominions, then by Choirs. Until Phenex had lost his grip on his sanity, he had been rising rapidly in the ranks and was believed to be in the running for advancement perhaps to the First Sphere! No longer true.
Phenex did not resist as his chain was dragged forward and hooked into a ring on the floor. He was unsure of his punishment, but he felt no fear in facing it. He felt... nothing.
Perhaps a sick sense of fascination, if anything.
The chain was secured and tested as he watched two men step forward. One held what looked to be cutters, and the other a large knife, longer than his arm. But it also bore resemblance to a sword. But was bladed only on one side.
"Rosier Phenex, you have been found guilty of all crimes of which you have been accused. It is our intense displeasure to inform you, that you will be stripped of rank, stripped of citizenship, stripped of identity, and banished from this realm. You will never be allowed to cross our borders again. Never will you see family. May whatever diety you worship have mercy on your soul, because, we can show you none without endangering others. Kneel and accept your punishment."
Phenex was pressed to his knees and his head pushed down. The cutters, were not true cutters, and instead were clamps. They were applied to one of his wings, upon his back and he felt the first real fear and discomfort.
Their wings were the most sensitive area upon their person.
"Is this necessary?" He heard himself ask, in spite his best intention to remain silent at this point.
"You are to be stripped, of your identity." She repeated sullenly.
Before he could ask another question he heard a whoosh of air, and then a scream. His own scream. Pain unlike anything he'd ever felt before coursed through his body, like lightening through his veins making him feel like he was enflamed.
"Feel that which you hath delivered upon your victims, and may you feel such till the end of your days, may they be long and forever more." His ex-father in law's voice rung out.
The clamp fastened onto his other wing and he tried to struggle, feeling the blood pouring down his back from what was left of the other. Another whoosh and he cried out. He prayed that he would pass out, but as his limbs trembled, he was not given such an option as he felt cold fluid poured on top of him.
It smelled much like the wine that they drank on holidays, or when celebrating a victory.
"No! NO! NOOOOOOO!" He struggled with the chain, pulling on it with all his strength. The whoosh of the flame sounded much louder, more like a roar as the fire engulfed him.
He fell back to his knees, trying to roll the flames out, but to no avail. The scent of meat was thick in his nose, and the skin crackled and blackened, with no relief for him. He was not dying. He was not being allowed to die. He yanked at the chain, feeling like a mad dog, trying to escape his bonds, tied to a tree while the fire burned up around him. Burned him.
And always in that bright light, his accusers and Judges stood watching. Watching their punishment take him from the home he'd always know, to some other place.
He cried and begged. Pleading for them to end it, only to have them add more fuel to the fire when it seemed it would flicker out and not finish consuming his flesh and bones.
And still he did not die.
Never came any blessed relief. No silence. No cool soothing balm.
As the first finished burning him, he simply went from one location, to another. Still chained.
In pain, he lay in the darkness, waiting for what was to come next.
"Welcome Fallen One... you're mine now!"
As Phenex peeked up at the man that would 'train' him to be a demon, he glared.