Durance and Liberation

[The Great Wyrm]

The mess hall of the Draconigena was a simple affair, as befitted the ship itself. Most of the space was taken up by the table in the middle. Long and metallic, the craftmanship on it was kindly described as rushed. A more accurate descriptor might have been shabby. The thickness of the surface seemed to be thicker at some points than others, and despite the apperance of being a smooth surface, a number of subtle indentions in it resulted in a decidedly uneven platform to put items on. One end pointed towards the hatch door, and the other end faced what some might jokingly refer to as the kitchen. Around it, similarly simple and poorly crafted stools sat. At the moment, only two of the stools were occupied. As was his wont, The Great Wyrm had claimed the end chair facing the hatch door. Liliane had plopped herself upon one about in the middle, close enough to the Captain to be able to hear him clearly, but far enough to give them both the space they preferred.

The Draconigena Nauarchus had smirked silently to himself at the disappointment on Liliane's face when she had discovered there to be only a substandard sonic shower in place of the more luxurious water one modern life accustomed people to. Personally, he thought both him and Set deserved medals for being able to cobble such a piece of technology together from nothing but scraps and oddments found among the ruins. Still, it appeared to have been sufficient, because Liliane had promptly locked herself in there for a number of hours, though not before extracting a promise from him to answer her question from earlier. Minutes ago, still trying to untangle her hair, she'd arrived in the mess and once again asked him how. The answer had not changed from when Set had asked him, and he now sat, hood pulled up once more, watching her. Despite her ability to control her reactions, even the most stoic of individuals was bound to react in some fashion to the tale he'd just told. It was a long moment after he was done before she spoke again, trying to phrase her words delicately. Eventually, she gave up and decided the frank approach would be best.

"You've lost it completely, haven't you." It was not a question, but rather delivered as a statement of disbelief. "I don't believe it." Despite that declaration, however, she -did- believe it. She had experienced the effects of his new trick first hand...But what he spoke of broke beyond all her boundaries and beliefs of what she thought she knew of the Real world. The ghost of a smirk crosses his features for just a split second, almost too fast to notice if one was not watching for it.

"That is, of course, your right. To believe me, or not. As a wise old woman once said, I guess you're just going to have to make up your own damn mind." He does smirk, if only slightly, at that. "Irregardless of if you choose to believe it or not, however, it -is- what happened."

Again, she watched him for a long moment as her mind wrapped itself around this new revelation. If she had returned at his bidding, under his command, assisting his whims, this new power he possed meant one of two things. Either their position was better than she had initially considered, or her position was one of much greater danger than she had anticipated. Great knowledge and power were often coupled with insanity. Still she had commited herself to this course.

"And where do we go from here? Who else have you contacted?"

"As many as I could. I have heard...rumors of many that I had thought lost stirring from their depths. The ripples in the Dream seem to be ever expanding....I might need to consult with the Oracle to make sense of it all...As to where next..." Here he smiles that grimace-smile of his again. "The Draconigena shall set course for home. There are matters in Styx that require my personal attention. But that's not what you asked, is it?" His chuckle is gravelly and low.

"No," she says with a grin and a quirked brow. "Not exactly."

He pauses, collecting his thoughts, staring at a spot over and to the side, silent for several long seconds.

"The answer is the same, I suppose. Home. For despite my journeys, and despite the miles that have passed beneath my feet....The Dream is still a home to me, for it is where my family, in the broadest sense, is. I am...compelled to return there, to watch, to guide, to destroy if necessary. There is -so- much left undone.....Balances to settle. Debts to pay. Minds to free, both red and blue...both circuit and grey.....Set's initial assessment says the Lyra should be patched up on...Monday, by the Matrix clock. Some time around 7 PM EST. Those that wish to find me would do well to look in Club Coderise. Please be sure to disseminate that as widely as possible. I am -so- looking forward to their reactions...."

He laughs again, and the sound echoes throughout the ancient ship. Though it was a chilling sound, she found she had to smile. Standing, she tied her hair in a loose knot at the nape, giving up on detangling it for now. She paced slowly, considering, her head tilted toward the ground thoughtfully.

"Back to business then, for the most part, is it? I have made some initial contact within the Matrix. They say the Advocates are dead."

She stopped, once again gauging him, this time watching for -his- reaction. It comes in the form of a smirk, slow and deeply amused, his right eye glinting with silent laughter.

"Do they now? Well, they said the same about us, didn't they? You'd have thought they would have learned by now.....Nothing here is quite what it appears to be."

How true Liliane was finding that statement held on terrifying levels. She was no longer certain this was The Great Wyrm she had once known and trusted. He was the same, but different.

"No, it never is." She agrees with a thoughtful pause, still looking at him as she asks her next question. "Why now? Why this time, after so long? Simply because you finally could, or is there some greater purpose you have perceived and are not telling me?"

He turned away, staring into the middle distance again, weighing his answer, framing it in his mind. Sensing the weight behind his next words, she moved closer, taking a seat at the long table at his side.

"I....have Seen much....So many things that could go so wrong....I do not know if I can help...if I can salvage any of it....but before all else, I am Human. I could -not- sit idly by and let what may be be. There is another way....One that I will strive for until my truly final departure from this world, and perhaps beyond even that. They have forgotten how to be Strong. How to be Proud. How to be Wise."

"They...?" She queried quietly.

"The rest of our kind. The Freeborn and the Podbred alike. They no longer remember what it is to be Free and True and Real." He spits out, somewhere between anger and bitterness. There is a pause before he speaks again, his words quiet and full of intent. "I am The Great Wyrm. If I am not Free, or Wise, I am Strong and Proud and _Real._ I will -show- them. I will teach them their lessons anew."

She grinned wide at him, a knee pulled to her chest and chin rested upon it.

"I hope you are succesful. You certainly reminded me." Her voice was softer, less guarded. It was rare anyone saw the human side of the Draconigena Nauarchus, and it was the most human thing she had ever heard from him. It revived her, gave her hope, and for a moment she forgot the terrible power he posesed, the frightening monster he could be. Instead she saw the man that he was. "I look forward to it."

[SiegesMorraeon]

Sieges's uneven steps could practically be heard all over communications central, housed in what had been the priests' house at Rennes-Le-Chateau; the prosthetic leg which the freeborn of Outpost Segur had found for her was an inch too long and she was still acclimating to her new condition. With her remaining arm, she adjusted the folds of her red cloak to fall over the empty right sleeve of her black shirt as she approached one of the jack-in chairs.

Merrill, seated at the operator's console looked up, a concerned furrow folding in between his brows. "Are you venturing into the world within the world so soon? You sojourned there for hours last night and the doctor said you need to keep active in order to continue your rehabilitation."

"I can't stay cooped up here in the Real: I have a feeling some old scores, or at least one of them, is going to be settled very soon," she said, seating herself in one of the chairs.

He rose from his seat and approached her. "If you must enter that world, I will enter it with you, the better to protect you."

She smiled at him gratefully, but said, "Merrill, you've only reached your tenth neural-kinetic spike. I'd be the one covering your skinny toushe the whole time, if it came to that. But... well, I could use the moral support."

He smiled with relief, then signalled to one of the communications techs, who approached and prepared first Sieges, then her brother for jacking in...


They emerged in the loading area. Sieges called to the operator to load her personal arsenal. Merrill stepped back, nearly tripping on the hem of the coal-colored Prophet duster he had recently acquired, as a rack of sub-machineguns, knives and pistols rolled into their space. She took up a pair of FM-13SKs, her best sub-machineguns and slipped them into the foldspace of her pockets, before strapping a Lancet to her left thigh where she could quickly reach it.

"Reminds you of mom's collection, non?" she asked.

"It would put me in mind of it more were there several fine swords as well," he said, his gaze turning distant and thoughtful for a moment.

She smirked. "That can be arranged." She called the operator again, and a second stand, bearing a medieval broadsword, appeared beside them. She took up the sword and slipped it into the sheath attached to a belt that lay below it on the stand, then strapped the sword to her her hips so that the sword hung behind her back, the hilt close to her right hand.

Merrill gazed on the weapon, his eyes growing concerned. "Will you use that this night, my sister?"

"Probably not, but we're going all out tonight," she said, turning to a table that appeared behind her, on which lay several rosewood cases. She took up one containing an antique rose-style compass and strapped the instrument to her belt, then reached into another case and took out a silver cross on a short chain, which she hung about her slim neck, so that it hung over the yoke of the red shirt with a grey vest that encased her slender torso. Summoning a wardrobe, she selected her Demon Army trenchcoat and settled it's reassuringly heavy crimson leather folds about her shoulders before selecting some clothing to be added to the foldspace of the pockets, items to be activated in case things came to blows.

Merrill looked to the phone on the far end of the table. "Shall we enter now?"

"One more thing," Siege said, calling the operator. "Hey, make sure the provisions are in the car: It's probably just a stop-gap, but every little bit counts." She closed the cellphone, and regarded Merrill's mildly panicked face with a smirk. "Don't worry, it has nothing to do with Morraeon: she's still sleeping off last night. You'll see what it is."

"You have become a master of creating unnecessary anxious anticipation, sister," Merrill said. "But shall I gird up as you have?"

"I'd suggest you bring a book or your guitar: I don't want you meddling in the affairs of dragons and fallen archangels. Someone might think you look crunchy and taste good with ketchup."

He laughed, but even that did not cover the way his eyes suddenly screwed up with pain and began to water. "As did a drinker of blood I encountered whilst working for our liege lord on the night before last," he jested, further covering the way he had winced.

"Tell me you managed to get away from her before she tried anything funny," Sieges said, half-joking, half-serious.

"She had fed her full before I had arrived, which put me out of immediate danger," he said, laughing and putting a hand to the side of his throat.

Sieges reached for the phone and dialled a number for Sai Kung Central....


They entered International just as the sun sank behind McLane Tower, the sky a rainbow of colors quickly starting to fade. Sieges paused to gaze on them but for a moment before reaching into her pocket for the ring of keys there and leading the way through the back streets to the alley door of a teahouse, the very one where she had spoken with Austrian the night before last. Letting herself in, she held the door open for her brother to enter, then let it swing shut behind them as she fitted the key to the lock on what looked like a storage closet to her brother's eyes. She glanced up at him, noting the look in his eyes that suggested he was thinking of another closet that led to more than just a storage space.

"Further up and further in," she said, opening the door. They stepped into a white hallway, leading past a line of doors to one that glowed a little differently from the rest. She fitted another key into the lock and opened it onto a magnificent hall, goffered ceilings and crystal chandeliers above, parquetted floors beneath their feet.

Merrill paused, gazing around him in awe and delight, nearly letting the guitar case slung on his shoulder slip off. "Such splendor... I chose well when I chose our liege lord's service."

"It gets better," she said, and led the way to the garage behind the Chateau. A serving man was taking the cover off a silver Bentley as they entered, and another unlocked the doors, dropping something in the rear seat. Sieges approached the vehicle, slipping a twenty dollar bill to each Exile, then climbed into the back seat. Merrill regarded her with puzzlement for a moment.

"My license expired before I was unplugged: I looked up yours; it's still on the books, oddly enough," she said, reaching into the case beside her, taking out a wallet containing several identification cards. Forgeries, but very accurate ones, which she handed across the seat to him as he climbed into the driver's seat and set his guitar case on the passenger's seat. He took the wallet and slipped it into his breast pocket, then pulled the door shut and started the motor.

As he started to pull out of the garage and into the traffic of Hampton Green, the dashboard navigation system chimed in, "Turn right." Merrill glanced at it and peered at Sieges in the rearview mirror. "I meant to ask, would you be guiding our way, Madame le Nautonnier?"

"I could, if you'd rather that I did," she said. "I had Gormanz send our route to the garage crew this morning."

"I would well appreciate that, unless you would rather compose your thoughts before the meeting," he said.

"Nah, it helps me keep from getting too frazzled before it even happens," she said. She directed him to head north, then eastward, driving along the perimeter of the district, untill they came to a parking garage near Baldwin Commons. Merrill pulled in there, parking on the third level before killing the motor and turning to his sister.

"Are you most certain you do not wish me to accompany you?" he asked.

She opened the rear door, getting out and resettling the folds of her red leather coat over her sword. "Absolutely. It's a date with destiny that I have to make myself, I'm afraid. One last thing, though." She reached back into the rear seat and took up the case that had sat beside her, and held it out to him, open to reveal that it was a picnic-style cooler containing a pair of ice packs. "If your forehead starts to burn, use these."

"I hope I shan't need them, but should they prove necessary, I shall use them gladly," he said, taking the cooler. "Go forth with blessings."

"I'll need them from every god imaginable," she said. With that, she took off her black fedora, and strode away, pushing a piece of hair out of her eyes before resettling the hat and setting off into the gathering night.

He took up the guitar beside him and strummed a few preparatory chords, tuning it before playing a contemplative piece of music from the score for an anime dealing with vampires and a clashing organizations that hunted the troublesome of their kind.

He hardly played the piece through twice before his forehead began to catch fire...