The Kindgom of Heaven and Hell

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Faline all but cowered at the back of the great hall. She hated meetings. They were often times full of loud angry men who had a tendency to throw things. This night was no different. The entire village had shown up, despite the raging storm outside. Every man from every family was there, shouting to be heard over the next.
Her father, the Jarl, was seated at the head of it all, one long leg draped over his ornate throne. For a while he remained silent, his eyes not one the villagers, but going from the young woman hiding under one of the tables near the door to her sister who sat on top of it, holding onto a rather heavy broad sword. He shook his head at both of them. 
Oalf sighed heavily and held up a hand to silence the crowd. "I am fully aware of the danger we now face from the outlanders. And I am aware that those who cross our borders are far from human. However, I am not sure if we warrant help from out bordering villages. If we decide to seek help, we will need to go to the king. But...he is a bartering man. I am not sure we have anything he will find worthy enough..."

Faline sighed, clearly not happy with being put off. It seemed everyone did this to her. She'd once thought Lucian was different. "You think I'm stupid, don't you?" She asked him softly. "You think if you give me tea and change the subject I will forget and it will go away." 

"Why would you do that?" Serah asked with a bitter snort. "That girl does not even belong to our family. She is the bastard daughter of the borderland jarl and not even your sister. Why should you care if Lord Death claims her?" 
"Lord Death?" Braun asked, turning his head back toward the ice nymph in confusion.

Lucian did look genuinely offended by those words, no matter how he tried to hide it. "What I think, is that you had a head injury and are ignoring just how lucky you are to be alive at all!"

Cessily was somewhat confused too. "Lord Death?" She snorted. "Aren't you a little old to believe that sort of thing? My sister was sold to the king by our father. Even if we don't share blood, that doesn't change the fact that I love her."

"Lucian, please. I need to explain what I saw." Faline said softly, wishing her head wasn't swimming so that she could sit up and inspect the room more closely. "The book showed me a picture of the skinwalker and his handler. It called him Lord Death. That's the same name my father was using..." 

Serah rolled her eyes. "You are as feather headed as that girl is. She doesn't even see Lord Death is right there. The old man that came in the winter. The man that cleaned the fireplaces in the summer. Come now. Surely you were smart enough to see he was watching her."

"The skin walker answers to no one." Lucian warned. "There is no controlling it, it is always hungry." He added, suddenly seeming rather tired.

"Lots of people watched Faline. Even as a child she was beautiful." Cessily whispered.

"The book opened up to me again, Lucian. It showed me things." Faline rubbed at her foread, watching him as he poured the tea. "It showed me the same thing it did back in the library. I didn't know what it was the first time."

"Come on now, think about it. Do you remember those men? Their eyes?" Serah asked.

Lucian paused and stared down into the tea cup he had been filling for Faline. He knew exactly how she took her tea without even asking. He knew how she liked her toast In a morning. He knew her favourite bath oil and how many strokes she used to brush her hair. "Faline... I won't believe you are a fool, I know you must remember me from since before you came here at your family's request."

Cessily swallowed hard, wishing she didn't remember the golden eyes of just one man. "He always brought her gifts... The special kind that no one else out in the borderlands had ever seen before. Only ever her, never me."

Faline shook her head. She tried to remember but something in the back of her mind kept her from it. "What are you getting at?" She asked him softly. 

"What are you getting at?" Braun asked, echoing the young woman they were speaking of, even if he didn't know it. 
Serah shook her head. "I've said enough." She whispered, the ground beneath them beginning to rumble. "Can't you feel it? He's angry with me. He knows I've told you too much about his brother. He's going to punish me."

"Did anyone ever give you gifts?" He pressed. "Gifts that your sister was always jealous of?"

Cessily stumbled slightly went heg round shook, sending her tumbling into Braun. "We can't leave... No yet." She insisted.

"The old man that I told you about. The story teller." Faline explained. "And the man that cleaned our fireplaces in the summer. Why? My father just said that the young man was just enamored with me because my sister was mean to men." 

"She's got a good point." Braun said softly, resting his hands on her hips. "We need to get as far away from here as possible. I'm afraid he's going to try and close the veil up if we don't, kitten."

Lucian smiled slightly. "Not all men, she was simply chosen for the one she hadn't yet met." He mused. "Faline... I never intended to deceive you, I just..." He sighed and ran his finger through his hair. "I didn't want to have to wait for you to come to me yourself. I had to be near you, even if I couldn't yet have you." Even he knew he wasn't making much sense.

Braun was the only man to have ever gotten this close to Cessily, to have kissed her, laid his eyes upto her bare skin and gotten away with suggesting she needed his help. "Then you go." Cessily reached she she looked up into Braun's face. "Get out before he traps you here too."

"Lucian..." Faline was fairly certain she'd hit her head hard enough to make herself daft. None of what he'd just said made sense. "I have never seen you before that night at the castle. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh no you don't." Braun said gruffly. "You're not about to chase me off so that you can get all the glory for yourself. I'm not going anywhere until you do, kitten." 
Serah rolled her eyes at this. The love shown through a display of hate of disgusting. It was worse than the simple gestures of love her own parents had shown one another. As always, the mere reminder of her parents made her wish she was as dead as they were.

Lucian reached out and took Faline's hand. "Ice always been there, watching you. I was the old man who would tell you stories, the young man in the Summer who cleaned your family's fireplace... And I am not truly king. I made everyone believe I was so I had a way of stealing you away from your father."

"You think everything is about glory." Cessily breathed, though she was smirking slightly. "Can I not give you anything that would get you far away from this place?"

"Then...who are you?" Faline asked. She was sure she already knew but a part of her wanted to him to give her the answer. "How could you look like so many different men? I'm not sure I understand and...what about the true king? Where is he?" 

Braun gave her a wicked grin. "Oh yes. You could give me something." He purred, though he removed his hands from her. "But you'd have to be there to give it to me so I'm afraid that wouldn't work." 
"Please...gods....kill me!" Serah moaned, hitting her head against the trunk of the tree she was sitting against. "I've paid for my sins! This is just torture!"

Lucian smiled, and while it could have been rather wicked, it would seem more like playful to Faline. "Aiding your sister on that little errand I sent her off on, only neither of them know who he truly is."

Cessily didn't seem to care, she was smiling up at Braun with an adoring face that she was t even aware of. "Then I guess we aren't getting, are we?" She breathed, much to Serah's misery no doubt.

"He didn't seem like a king to me. He was like a brute, nothing at all like a king should look. But...it beggs the question. Why? You could have taken me at any time. Why go to all this trouble, Lucian?" Faline asked him. 

"For the love of the ancestors!" Serah shouted. "Get to an inn and get it over with! You are making me want to pull out my own insides!"

"You assume a king is refined and well groomed?" Lucian chuckled. "I didn't wish to steal you against your wishes. Remember when you first came here? And I told you I had no need of a concubine?"

Cessily glanced at Serah over her shoulder before looking up at Braun again. "We tried that... It didn't work out."

"But you asked me to stay and you're avoiding my other questions." Faline pointed out. "Who are you really, Lucian? If you're not an old man or a chimney sweep or even a king then who are you?"

"I would be better off not knowing that." Serah grumbled, rubbing at her head. "But for what it's worth, I'm glad to hear you are miserable. It makes this a bit bearable."

Lucian was quiet as he watched Faline, wondering if the truth would have her laugh in his face, or run screaming from his home. "I believe your father called me... lord Death."

"Oh yes, I am so very miserable. Here, in this beautiful forest, with all the fresh air, clear water..." Cessily snorted with a roll of her eyes. "It must be so hard for you to have out up with it for all this time!"

Faline frowned at this, not sure what to make of his words. "You said my father was insane. That he spoke of things that weren't true. But now you tell me they are? Are you trying to tease me?" She asked, forcing herself to sit up at last. It took her a minute to look at him again. "Lucian, that is not funny." 

Braun had no time to react before a snowball came barreling through the air. It hit Cessily right between the eyes. "You have no idea what I've been putting up with, you little bitch!" Serah hissed, shoving to her feet. The ropes that had tied her to the tree were on the ground as if they had been nothing but playful little streamers all along.

Lucian sighed softly. "I wanted you to think him mad so you would stay with me." He confessed. "But it is true... I'm not entirely human, in the way you perceive human." He added, waiting for Faline to scream at him that she hated his rotten guts and never wanted to see him again.

Cessily hadn't been expecting the snowball, and fell backwards with a heavy thud. For a moment she wasn't entirely certain what had just happened, until she heard Serah's voice. "Just as you have no idea what I have put up with!"

Faline felt more than a little confused by this. She didn't know what to believe. "Can you...show me?" She asked softly, now looking at his hands. She remembered the crystal he'd given her and how it had shown her her sister but she had a feeling there was more to it. "The book. It's a part of you, isn't it?" 

"Oh and what's that? This terrible brute of a man?" Serah spat, grabbing for another snowball. She raised her arm to throw it but Braun grabbed her, tossing her hard against the tree. 
"Try that again and I'll break your neck, nymph." He hissed. "You are starting to get on my nerves."

"It's a part of all my family." Lucian breathed, the first time he had really mentioned his own family. "We each have a part to okay that or events us from simply abusing what it is we are."

Cessily came stalking up to Serah and punched her hard. "You don't get to call him that!" She growled.

"I'm confused." Faline felt more feather brained now than she ever had. She truly felt like she was missing out on something. She was missing a big part of something that was staring her straight in the face. "Lucian...you know I'm not the brightest flower in the bunch. You'll have to start explaining things to me." 

Serah doubled over, groaning softly as she held her stomach. "Why...not? Is it...not true...he's...little better....than an ogre...and you....know it..." 
"Kitten..." Braun caught her hand before she could try and hit the nymph again. This wasn't like either of them. There was a strange new emotion in the air and he wasn't sure he liked it one bit. Something was goading them to these actions. Violence was of little use to them at this juncture.

"I control the flow of souls from this world to the next, wherever that may be." Lucian breathed, certain Faline would now distance herself from him. "A task my little brother sorely craved for himself. I, myself, cannot die. I must watch anyone I dare care for either with age before I am forced to send them to their own afterlife."

Cessily's moss coloured eyes looked up at Braun in frustration as he held her clenched fist within his own. "She cannot say these things to you..." She breathed, the violence seeming so very normal to her.

Faline pulled her knees to her chest, confusion still rooted deep in her frost colored eyes. "So...why are you so interested in me? Why are you following me around if you have to just watch me fade away? That makes very little sense and...you have a brother? Does he treat you badly? Is that why you seem to hate the idea of siblings?" 

Braun smiled down at her. "Why not, little kitten? They are true? Aren't they?" He asked softly, his thumb running over her clenched fingers. "They don't bother me. It's not like I'm being any kinder to her." 
"Not like I should be....smelly bastard!" Serah shouted. She knew she should stop but she couldn't control herself. Her mouth had a mind of it's own. "That horse's ass the Sandman killed smelled better than you do!"

"Doesn't it make you understand just how special you are if I am willing to suffer the pain of losing you for eternity, just to call you my own for one lifetime?" Lucian asked gently. "My brother..." He snorted and shook his head. "Magic used to be everywhere, did you know that? But because of his selfish desire for one soul... A veil was created that trapped all magic in another world."

Cessily's eyes suddenly turned dark and hateful as her gaze snapped over to Serah once more. "You had better be lying, creature!" Had Braun not still been holding her wrist, she would have hit Serah again.

Faline shook her head though she wasn't sure whether she was denying his feelings for her or what he was saying about magic. "I don't believe in magic." She whispered. "I have never seen it. It means nothing to me. And if you are Lord Death then that makes you an outlander. Your people are trying to kill mine. Not love us." 

"I'm not. He did it when he saw how you felt about the brute." Serah snapped, glad she'd found a way to hurt her sister. Braun's grip tightened on Cessily when he saw her reaction. He pulled her closer when he heard the sound of a man's laughter.

Lucian bowed his head,wishing he could take it all back and tell her nothing. "You have never seen magic, because as I said, it no longer exists here within normal people. Only, as you out it... Outlanders, like myself."

Serah had just told Cessily her best, and oldest, friend had been killed all because of her. "Liar!" She shouted, struggling hard against Braun now as he held her. "I'll kill you! I swear to every god out there... I will kill you myself!"

Faline stopped speaking and leaned close to him, the sadness in his eyes tearing at her soul. "I am not that special, Lucian." She whispered, leaning clips to press her lips to his. 

Serah was smiling as she watched her sister. "Oh yes. He slit the beast's throat and tasted his blood. But not before making it scream. Have you ever heard a horse scream, little sister?" 
"That's enough, nymph." Braun warned darkly, his voice dark and angry as he held tight to Cessily.

Lucian's kiss was almost timid, afraid this was Faline's way of saying goodbye. "The truly special people never think they are." He breathed.

The fight seemed to suddenly drain from Cessily, and Braun would feel a warm tear as it dripped off her chin and onto the arms that was holding her tight.