NationStates Jolt Archive


Sympathy for the Dragon (a Morning Star post-a-novel, closed eventual RP)

Liberated New Hope
14-06-2006, 22:05
Long ago, in a happy little kingdom there lived a happy little princess in her happy little castle. Her father, the King, ruled the Kingdom with his Queen and together they were happy, too…

“I don’t see why we’re reading fairy-tails, Professor,” interrupts the serene scene as a book is slammed shut atop the musty library’s table. “What does any of this have to do with Darius… or even The Last Betrayal?”

An elder gentleman, baring sparing white hair and toting slender reading glasses peaks from atop a massive leather-bound text, squinting one eye in the elderly way only an elderly gentleman can convey when displeased with a youth. “Because, Miss Stephens, to understand the Philosopher King or the Last Betrayal you must understand Luciphon…”

“But this story? It’s a children’s rhyme… and translated it doesn’t even rhyme!”

“Do you know nothing of the nature of man, child?!” he scolds across the table, tossing the book to the hardwood surface, the young woman across from him becoming wide eyed and cringing in her seat. “To understand the betrayal you must understand Luciphon," he said, drawing in a breath and composing himself, "and to understand Luciphon you must go back, far back into its beginning… into her childhood.”

Miss Stephens raises one eyebrow incredulously. “Her?”

The older man removes his glasses, moving them down the bottom of his jacket, which he uses to polish the inside. “Beyond that propagandizing garbage you’ve been reading in Bureau textbooks, Luciphon was human. She was a little girl, no different from the one in that ‘fairy tail’ you hold in front of you...” He sits back in his wooden chair, reclining back a bit and looking off into the dark depths of the subterranean library’s ceiling, becoming lost in it as if it were a great black sea. “… no different than you.” Becoming aware, he sits back up in his seat, looking his pupil in the eye. “That storybook, as well as every other sheet of paper in this place, is an artifact from the Betrayal and the years following. You will check your tongue when doubting its relevance."

Humbled, the young woman opened the tome back up to the page from before.

“Now, as we can’t take it with us, you’ll have to read it here, and while you do I’ll find other texts for us to reference. Understood?”

“Yes, professor.”

“Good,” the old man said, walking off into the dark. “Perhaps I’ll make a Historian of the Liberation of you yet, my dear!” he announced as he faded around the corner of one of the ceiling-high book cases, each one surrounded by an aura of must and age.

Twenty-two years of hard study to get into the program and here I sit at the bottom of a library reading fairy tails. she thinks to herself. “Quaint.”

She turns through the pages, glancing illustrations and gaudily decorated script before coming across a full spread covered in the body of a coiled serpent, each scale drawn in horrifying detail, its teeth sitting below two great eyes, staring back at her and into her. She’d have been frightened if the great monster had eyes not been so turned down in sorrow. His teeth, large as they were, hung joylessly amidst a frowning face drowning in its own red tears. The coiled body behind it was wounded, carrying axes, spears, swords; all rupturing the thorned skin, bringing a torrent of red, sputtering blood. There were no knights, or anything really, that it showed had dealt the blows: only the singular dragon, crying.

“Here we are,” the old man pronounces as he lets down another stack of books on the table with a muted thud. “Accounting records, logs, journals…”

“Journals?” the younger lady inquires.

“Guards, servants, anyone and everyone of the period what worked in the Palace and may have seen or heard anything at all.”

“And haven’t you read all of them by now?”

“Some of them, yes,” he responds, picking one up and beginning to page through. “To read all the volumes of this library would take more than my lifetime. Darius gathered everything from his reign into this Dantean pit to ensure the truth would never be lost. If only the Bureaucrats were interested in truth.”

Miss Stephens pretends not to hear the Professors preaching. His disdain for the Historical Bureau seemed justified at times but wore thin on her in the dark, dank depths of the poorly kept archive. By now she had put down the storybook and had moved on to the journals, her favorite part of the program. In what other profession could one be paid to read through other’s personal thoughts and happenings?

There are guards and servants, just as he had said; even an accountant, a gardener, and more than a few translators and military officers; none of which have anything pertinent to say, though all were interesting in their own right. One officer was apparently present during an argument between Darius and Liberator Murphy, though Murphy's title was First Admiral at the time. Something about Achilles and how Murphy didn’t want to “waste resources” protecting it. I suppose hind-site is always 20/20, as far as clichés go, anyway.

Hours pass as the two skim and scan their way through pages of inanity. Miss Stephens becomes excited for a moment at one officer’s mention of actually dancing with Luciphon at a ball, but there is no further contact. She glanced at her watch seeing it was nearly three in the morning.

Sleepy eyed, she looks up to the professor; “Dr. Al-hatin? I have a lecture to attend in a few hours… I think I should be going.”

The old man eyes her again, then exhales. “Finish the last of the journals and I’ll select a few of these accounting logs for you to go over between now and Thursday when we meet again, they’ll be waiting with the librarian for you tomorrow.”

She feels like moaning in frustration, rolling her eyes, and any number of other signs of disagreement, but she holds herself captive. “Alright…” She picks up the last few texts, glancing through them as quickly as she can until the cursive-strung name flashes in front of her eyes: “Luciphon.” She had flipped a few pages forward before it registered in her mind, so she goes back, thumbing through every line until she finds it again.

The whole diary had been in the tone of a young woman, sounding as though she were a girl although Miss Stephens knows the writer to be twenty-three. The line was excited, near panicked.

I was put on the Residence Wing today and I can’t believe I actually talked to Luciphon! She was just as pretty as she is on the Telecomm, and very smart, too. Of course, the daughter of the Guardian should be smart.

Damn Miss Stephens thinks to herself, She stops there? Nothing about the conversation? She flips frantically through the pages. Days go by in the book without any other mention until it finally pops up again, “Luciphon.”

I saw her, Luciphon, again today in the Garden. She had the prettiest white dress I’ve ever seen. Nothing elaborate… she always wears such simple things. I can’t believe I get to work so close to her!

“Have you ever read this one, Professor?” she said, flipping the book’s egger-skin binding up with her wrist so the old man could spy it through his glasses.

“I don’t believe so… why do you ask?”

“Oh nothing… its nothing. I’ve finished, May I go?”

“After you put back your selections, yes, Miss Stevens. I will see you on Thursday, yes?”

“Yes Dr. Al-hatin. Goodnight.”

“Ah, but Good morning Miss Stevens,” he says witfully as she slowly paces away to find the proper place for her stack of books. She carefully puts each one back until she reaches the place for her last solution, that girl's journal. Suspiciously, she looks around and places it in her front coat pocket. In the elevator she quickly pulls it back, continuing to course through the still glossy pages.

We talked again today. I don’t know how I feel. Honored, maybe. She’s nothing like they make her look on telecomm. We spent the whole time talking about the flowers in the garden. She said I could call her Lucy. It's like -- I don't know. Like I'm not just a maid...

Oh… my… What have I found?