Fable - Ask Proctors of the Academy

[Mars Pallatrix]

"What is that?" Mars Pallatrix asked, knowing full well that the bottle that had just been put in front of him was a variety of liquor.

It was late, just past midnight, and in a few hours, the slumbering bodies within the castle would begin to stir as they went about their morning routines. A candle, its wick burned down almost to the base, sat in front of him. Mars was three-fourths done with a book, but as his old companion had hobbled into his office, he had closed it.

The veteran Proctor held the bottle's label under the flickering light, turning the bottle in his grasp to inspect the detailed glasswork.

"Orujo. This is expensive," he flatly remarked. "And contraband."

Nary a drop of alcohol would have ever been found in the Academy's walls before. Apprentices had no way of acquiring any. None at all. Proctors, however, did, but the punishment was severe if they were caught. As times changed, so did restrictions. It wasn't uncommon for Proctors to sip on wine during the evening. A bottle of premium liquor from a hostile country, though? Out of the question.

Mars hadn't ever been one to drink much. He let out a quiet sigh, set the bottle down on his desk, and gently pushed it across the lacquered mahogany towards Arne.

"What do you want?"

 

[Arne]

Arne scoffed. "Contraband?"

The very thought was utterly ludicrous. He had lived his life with more freedom than most of his brothers. His tasks sent him far away, and throughout them he had lived a life that even the Nobility would have been envious of.

A fact that he had made sure to rub in some of their faces.

"Who exactly is going to stop us?" He offered. "The Headmaster? Those gangly little shits calling themselves Proctors?"

The old Dreadlord shook his head, leaning back in the chair with a creak of ancient wood. "No, I don't think so."

"I could have torn this place apart when we were seventeen and they would have struggled to stop me. Now?" He chuckled.

"Now they'd be dust." With a gesture of his finger the bottle went sliding back towards Mars. "I want to say hello to an old friend."

He told Mars, his voice softening slightly. "And try to understand this new world I've walked into."

 

[Mars Pallatrix]

Mars' features did not stir. As was the custom between the two men, Arne did most of the talking, and Mars the listening.

"What is there to understand?" Mars caught the sliding bottle. Pop. He set the cork down on the desk and lifted the bottle's neck to his nose. It smelled like alcohol. He sighed again and put the bottle down. Leaning down, Mars opened a drawer under the desk and, from it, pulled two glasses. Courtesy of a senior Proctor, who had been dismissed from the Academy for his political opinions. The former First hasn't gotten around to cleaning it out yet. He set the glasses down and poured the bottle's amber contents out into them. "We do as ordered, as we always have."

Mars pushed Arne his glass and took the other into his hand. The two men shared the first drink in silence, and the veteran Proctor's stoicism finally cracked as he grimaced.

"They will lose their edge," he said, clearing his throat. "Those children. They will throw the Apprentices into the same dangers we faced, but they will not be ready for them."

 

[Arne]

Arne swirled the brown liquor within the glass, his lips thinning for a moment as he peered over the glass and towards his old friend.

Mars and He had faced the worst of the worst. Through the decades they had fought Ogres, monsters, and the dregs of men. It had seemed simple on the battlefield. Their time at the Academy had never been pleasant, never been kind.

Their treatment had perhaps not been the worst, but it had been in keeping with how the Academy had always been.

Beatings. Starvation. Being locked away.

Even with all of this power Arne hadn't been able to keep himself from such things. Even with his own abilities Mars hadn't been able to keep himself from the lashes of their Proctors. It had been the way of things. Cruel, evil even, but it had kept them alive.

There was no arguing that. "No."

Arne agreed quietly.

"They will not be ready." He frowned for a moment, looking at the glass. Then slowly he tipped it to his lips and took a drink. "Do you remember what Proctor Illwen used to say?"

The old Dreadlord asked softly. "About our blood spilled in the courtyard?"

He chuckled ruefully.

"Old Bastard said every drop spilled now will be one saved later." Slowly Arne shook his head. "They wouldn't understand that, Mars. They're soft. Normal. Human."

A small amount of disdain touched his voice. "How could a guardsmen understand what we are? What we need?"

Slowly he shook his head. "They will ruin us."

 

[Mars Pallatrix]

"Every drop spilled now will be one saved later," Mars said in time with his friend.

Of course, he remembered.

"Recently, an Apprentice put another in the infirmary during grappling lessons. Large lad threw his opponent down and broke his shoulder. Then beat him on the ground." Venom rising in Mars' tone, the Proctor leaned forward in his seat. "His punishment? A prohibition from sparring. Arne!"

A rarity among rarities: Mars Pallatrix displaying frustration.

With a deep breath, he caught himself and reclined.

"Vel Anir has broken the surface of open waters, and as it draws its first breath, sharks circle underneath. Soon, they will smell blood."

Mars traced the glass' rim with a fingertip.

"How many Dreadlords died during the fighting? How many more after the fact? How many more forced to their villas, or wherever else? Only to be replaced by... glorified guardsmen." Mars dismissively waved a hand and shook his head. Then, in the quiet that fell between them, he took another drink.

 

[Evangeline]

Clack-clack, clack! Clack-clack, clack!

If there was one thing Evangeline was uncertain of, it was whether she'd adjust to walking with this bloody cane or to this new role in life first. Part of her had never pictured herself back here in this once-miserable place, yet somehow she felt that making it better than what she'd been subjected to was now her duty.

The truth, to her, was that the Academy had never been a place of learning before. It was an asylum in reverse. A place where the innocent were taken and made into broken, psychotic, fragments of people. The ghosts of that former path still bore their marks upon the students from time to time, it seemed.

A necessary evil, some had called it. That the most venerable proctors still had tenure at this school was said to be a matter of practicality, that the Academy would be starved of competent instructors if they were removed. She understood that outlook, truly she did. It was the consequences of that decision that she abhorred.

That was why she marched now, so purposefully, towards the office of one senior proctor, that infamous Mars Pallatrix. There was an obvious conflict of ideologies between the old loyalists and new blood like herself. That, at least, was what she had convinced herself of. Mars had summoned her, for gods knew what reason. If he expected her to be passive about it, he was mistaken.

The days of Vel Anir's infighting were done...but she'd have words with Pallatrix over some of his more surly practices. He may have lightened his grip at his superiors' behest, but there was much pressing at boundaries on his part and Evangeline was neither blind nor a fool.

It was as she approached the office that she overheard, however muffled, that united citing of an old mantra:
"Every drop spilled now will be one saved later."
Evangeline felt her temper flare briefly, and she hadn'teven entered the office proper yet. Tired old thinking, and the type she would aim to prove wrong in her time here. It was time to barge in.

Her cane came to rest upon the office floor with a thud.. Immediately her eyes took in the contents of the room: Pallatrix himself, joined by...the veteran, Arne? The open bottle of alcohol and the glasses holding its contents didn't slip her notice, either. That, at least, was forgivable.

"Gentlemen..." She breathed, doing her best to push back her irritation and give off her usual air of prim properness. "I beg pardon at my intrusion, but I believe there was something you wanted to discuss, Proctor Pallatrix?"

 

[Arne]

Arne shook his head as Mars spoke, lips thinning. The thought of someone being prevented from sparring was utterly foreign. They were supposed to be building soldiers, warriors. If they'd wanted to punish the lad they should have made him fight wooden blocks bare handed until his knuckles bled.

It would have been a lesson.

Wasting energy on an already downed foe was pointless. If the idiot wanted to expend his strength then he could have done it on a block of wood instead of another student. Another resource that would now need days, if not weeks to properly heal.

Arne had never understood the way of thinking that some Proctors had. There had always been beatings, Injuries, but it had never made much sense when things were taken too far. Pain for pains sake was pointless, and putting someone in the infirmary was a detriment to their understanding. Better to keep them on the field, better to keep them where they could still learn. "They've put out the scroll."

The Dreadlord said quietly.

"But we will have to decide what to write o-" Arne let the words die on his tongue as the rattle of a lock echoed out in the room.

A door was thrown open, and Arne's head turned. Inside stepped Evangeline, the new Proctor whom he had seen fight the initiate today. He did not know much about her, given that she'd graduated from the academy near a decade and a half after him. He'd been away far too long to know all his brothers and sisters. A fact which he'd lamented, and intended to correct with Mars tonight.

His lips perked up in an amused smile, the glass in his hand swung to his lips as he took a deep draught of his drink. Arne said nothing as the woman spoke, only glancing towards Mars.

 

[Mars Pallatrix]

The door, a proper relic, scraped against the floor as it had swung open. This, like the desk's clutter left behind by Mars' predecessor, was something that also needed tending.

While Arne smiled, Mars' features remained unstirred. He rarely presented a change in expression, save for slight quirks in his eyes and mouth.

The former First caught his old friend's glance, and as his gaze returned to Evangeline, he blinked once.

"Arne, Proctor D'Amour." Arne Kellmir needed no introduction.

The three killers sat in silence until Mars spoke again. All the while, with eyes that simmered with a vile intensity, he closely studied the woman.

"Do you drink?"

 

[Evangeline]

How anticlimactic. While there might have still been some degree of tension hanging in the air, somehow Evangeline didn't quite know what sort of reception she'd receive at her intrusion. While the presence of the Arne Kellmir was certainly throwing her for a bit of a loop, she supposed she should have gathered that Mars would meet her with his usual cold glare and deadpan. Oh well.

Evangeline let out a small sigh. Mars made no attempt to introduce Kellmir, but that was fine; any Dreadlord worth their salt that didn't know who he was had probably lived in another century. She spared a glance down at the old veteran's missing leg, gripped the handle of her cane, and silently entertained the thought that the two of them had something slightly in common. Perhaps the Academy was simply where Vel Anir sent its handicapped heroes to wither away out of public view.

"Do you drink?"

"As a matter of fact, I do." She replied. There was a time in her life where she would've likely turned her nose up at the idea, perhaps even scorned Mars for doing so himself. Nowadays, however...well, in any case, perhaps building rapport here was the best tactic. There was nothing to be gained from being immediately confrontational.

 

[Mars Pallatrix]

"Good."

Mars shifted in his seat to bend down and produce a third glass from the desk and placed it on a suitably vacant space on the desktop.

"Sit."

Meanwhile, Arne filled Evangeline's glass, smiling all the while.

 

[Arne]

For a few seconds Arne remained quiet, pushing the glass towards Evangeline.

He glanced briefly over towards his friend. The two of them had not worked side by side for nigh on a decade. Before that though they had been as brothers. More than once the two of them had saved the others life. Mars was one of the few Dreadlords that Arne trusted, one of the few whom he knew had the same desire as he did.

The smile on his face never wavered, but finally he spoke. "I was hoping you could answer some questions for me."

He began.

"I was in Cerak when the Revolution happened." As well as near eight months after. By the time he'd returned everything had already changed. "I want to know what happened."

Arne said plainly. "Mars told me some, and I picked up the...basics, but our old senses aren't so good at discerning the details anymore."

The Dreadlord said, that same jovial expression still on his face.

 

[Evangeline]

The former Second Level pursed her lips momentarily before accepting both the seat and the drink. She wasn't a fan of this feeling - both that she was at a disadvantage, being between a pair of former First Levels who likely both would've opposed the revolution given the chance, and that she suddenly felt like she was on trial. Evangeline raised the glass to her face and sniffed at its contents. Strong. Some kind of whiskey, it seemed. Maybe it would take the edge off.

Eva supped at the drink and hissed as it burned her senses. Strong indeed, though not intolerable. She glanced at the smiling veteran to her left.
"One could go on, Proctor Kellmir." She replied, idly swirling the contents of her glass around. "What picture would you like me to paint? How our fair city burned that night? How what must have been hundreds of civilians died needlessly, and how thousands more were injured? Perhaps you'd like to hear of how many of the Archons died, some valiantly and others pitifully?"

She wasn't a fool. Whether it be now or another time, she was certain they'd ask her to justify her choices on that day, to know why she sided with the revolutionaries. She was more than willing to answer them that, of course, but there was some satisfaction in trying to make them feel uncomfortable before then, to put them on the defensive even if it was only an inkling.
"Or maybe you'd simply like to know of how, well..." She paused, lifting her cane from her lap with her free hand briefly before letting it rest again. She was, after all, well aware of Arne's disfigurement. "...how I came to this."

Not an ounce of regret showed on her countenance. Only a calm composure behind cold, ice-blue eyes.

 

[Arne]

There wasn't an ounce of hesitation to Arne, not a single drip. His expression was placid, calm. There wasn't any amount of grandstanding that seemed to affect him, not after all of these years.

Not after everything he'd been through.

"I don't care about any of that." He replied simply. "I'm not friend of the people."

Nor had he ever claimed to be. "I'm not a ally to the Houses. Most other Dreadlords are nothing to me. I've always despised the Archons, all save for Naja anyway. She's always been a good lass."

A small chuckle escaped his throat, fingers seizing the bottle and pouring himself another drink. The liquid seemed to slosh about, splashing over the rim of the glass and casting a bit onto the table.

"I asked for what happened, girl." Arne bit off. "Not a story. Not a painting. The truth."

He paused for a second, the continued. "Your truth."

"How did this happen?" Arne grimaced, as if he still could not understand. "Why have we bowed to weakness and compliance?"

If they had overthrown the houses, why had they become so weak? As his words rang within the room, the ground seemed to quake. The building itself softly shaking as if a force pressed in upon it.

 

[Evangeline]

"I asked for what happened, girl."

That inflection made Eva's jaw set. Arne's attitude was a bitter reminder of exactly why she had never been eager to come back to this wretched place. The old proctors really hadn't changed. At all.

One thing was funny, however: while Mars rarely showed any hint of emotion beyond stern stoicism, a veritable stone wall of a poker face, Arne was the opposite. His jovial smile was a thin veneer and he was quick to snap into indignation. In fact, Evangeline could physically feel his temper; she imagined that anyone in the wing could. Was he really about to crush a whole section of the Academy if he didn't hear an answer he liked? How childish.

"'What happened?'" She parroted back, icy eyes and voice still calm as ever. "So it's a history lesson you're after? I feel you'd be better off asking Zana Vjollca or Talus Morid, but I'll do my very best, old man."

The younger proctor took a draw of her drink and folded her right leg across the left, staring daggers at Arne, unwilling to show him any sign of fear.
"What happened is that Vel Anir's guardsmen grew sick of the rotting, bloated husk that commanded them. A great many Dreadlords, some who I imagine men like you raised, tired of their shackles and broke their conditioning. They staged a coup, backed by Two Great Houses. In spite of being vastly outnumbered by the Dreadlords you must certainly feel were 'stronger,' the rebels won. Your loyalists lost. And here we are."
Evangeline offered a wide gesture to the room, the contents of her glass sloshing side to side. Plain and simple. Matter of fact.

"As for how? I don't consider myself a betting woman, Proctor Kellmir, but if I had to wager then I'd say that the loyalists were weak. It was precisely because of how men and women of your ilk ran things that let it become that way, because strength is not always as you define it."
Pointed words, but without malice behind them. Arne wanted a clear and concise answer to what happened and how, not how she really felt. She gave him the truth, raw and unfiltered. She chose not to mention the one thing she felt they had in common, however, not yet. She didn't agree with this new system either, not exactly.

"That is 'my truth.' The truth."

 

[Mars Pallatrix]

"O Piteous King, rage! Take up your arms, straining every sinew 'til the marrow shivers. Turn thy brow upon the horizon and cry! Victory!" Mars turned the glass where it sat on his desk, his gaze idling over his unfinished drink. "Vinicius Peroxes spoke those words to the First King Cinira Anireth, who had just beheaded the great warrior-king of the savannah tribes, concluding their duel to the death. Vel Anir was built on that spot.

There was no real point in telling the story, which only a few well-read individuals knew.

"Do you revel in your victory of ideologies, D'Amour? I do not blame you for it. The young ought to relish their victories.

A loyalist sat to one side and a revolutionary on the other. It seems Mars was the only pragmatist.

"For over a millennium, our order has served as our nation's backbone. The Quatreville. The Wildwood Rebellion. The Century of Red. Victory, victory, victory."

There has always been a fraying in Vel Anir. Now, the seam was fully split.

"Soon, we as a nation will be tested. Without that backbone..." Mars finally looked up to Arne. His gaze switched and settled on Evangeline. "... we will fail."

 

[Arne]

Arne leaned back in his chair, glancing between Evangeline and Mars. "Well."

He took another small sip.

"I never was much of a fan of the leadership." A small chuckled escaped him, remembering the conversations he and Mars had decades ago. Even then the Houses had seemed...petty, broken.

In truth he did not disagree with the idea of getting rid of them. In fact that was probably the one good thing about this. The problem was that they had taken a system that was rife with inefficiencies, infighting, and cross purposes...then somehow made it worse.

For the first time since Evangeline had entered the room, Arne frowned.

"I don't care about the Revolution." He told her truthfully. "I don't care about the Houses or Talus Morid and Zana Vjo-whatever."

His hand waved. "I care about Vel Anir. The city. The Nation. The people."

A small amount of heat entered his voice.

"We were weak because we were constantly pulled in seven different directions. We were weak because of petty games and discord. They pulled us apart, separated us, threw us against one another like rabid dogs." Made to see each other as enemies and rivals. "Want to know why your Revolution won? Unity. Your 'friends' came together, fought under a single banner, with a single purpose. Guard, Dreadlord, Noble. It didn't matter. You all wanted the same thing."

"I could almost praise them for it." Almost.

For a few seconds he paused, as if to think, then continued. "But."

Arne shook his head.

"They put in place a leadership more divided than the last." One that Evangeline did not agree with either, a fact that he could see within her. "One that united us, sure."

He meant the Dreadlords of course. "But is slowly taking away what we are. What makes us great, better."

Arne looked to Mars, his head shaking. The two agreed on that, if nothing else.

"I never much liked how things were done here, I'm not a monster. Things like the box..." He could still remember that tiny black crate, the heat of the sun, how scorched his flesh had been after they'd finally let him out. "Take it. Burn it and never let the memory return."

"But barring a student from fighting for sending someone to the infirmary during a sparring match?" Arne made a disgusted face. Even if the boy had gone over the top, been a bit too enthused in the after, it didn't matter. It was part of what they were supposed to do. They were Dreadlords. Soldiers. Weapons.

The backbone of Vel Anir. What had allowed them to survive for so long.

"We're Dreadlords for Kress' sake!" Arne lamented. "If they want us to be Elbion then why even bother with this place? Just send the students north. They'd do it better than we will."

 

[Evangeline]

Evangeline sat in silence as the two older Dreadlords shared their own thoughts, their worries with each other and with her. This was...strange. She began to realize, as they each delved deeper into drink and dialogue alike, that they weren't approaching this from a place of hostility, but of concern. Maybe, just maybe...these old bastards weren't so different from her after all.

This was a lot of information to take in and process all at once. There was much to consider and much to respond to. She emptied her first glass and set it on the desk, letting a sigh escape her once again.

"I care about Vel Anir. The city. The Nation. The people."
"Without that backbone...we will fail."

"Do you think that's what I wanted in all this? Weakness? Failure? Do you think I sleep at night, Mars, with a smug grin on my face because of any ideological victory?" She asked and asked again with a shake of her head and a pinch to the bridge of her nose.

"And Arne...I don't like what's become of our leadership either. I worked for a decade to see a Vel Anir united under one banner, the right banner. Even as Zana and Talus dreamed up their new republic, I pleaded with them to make the right choice, to put someone worthy in charge." She explained, memories of the others' dismissal still fresh, still painful. Her fingers tightened around her cane, wringing at the sheath. "In the end I fought, knowing that the outcome wouldn't be what Vel Anir needs, what it deserves. Not because I believed in it, but because I was promised it would be better."

Her gaze shifted from the floor to Arne.
"But this is where I cannot bend. Here. With this school." She gestured to the floor with a pointed finger, then to Arne. "You say you aren't a monster, you say you wish to discard 'the box,' but you have no idea the infection that pervades this place."

An exasperated hand rubbed the Second Level's face as she paused before she reached for the bottle of whiskey. For the first time, her composure was starting to wear thin.
"We are Dreadlords, we are meant to be more than human, but this place has been producing broken subhumans for decades, Arne, decades! Do you think that the box is the cruelest thing the Academy has used on its students? That punishments like that have been considered extreme?"

Glass now full, she raised it to her lips and took a long drink and winced. The floodgates were truly down now, and her compeers were about to get a full look into what Evangeline knew.
"In my time alone I witnessed near constant beatings, lashings, starvings, every cruel and unusual form of torture you can imagine. There was a girl, younger than me, who had her hallucination magic reflected upon her until she developed a mental illness. And they weaponized that."

Her brow furrowed. Her teeth grit. A dark memory caused phantom pain in her jaw and a lithe hand rubbed across it, fruitlessly.
"Do you know what a pear of anguish is, Arne? Do you know that the proctors here have used them on students?" Her eyes cast a glare that could have rivalled Mars', even for all his practice. "For gods' sakes, there's a girl in Mars' own bloody class who had chemicals poured on her eyes and was permanently blinded. How is that making our students stronger, how?"

She was bitter. Tired. Disgusted. She hated thinking about these things.
"I won't even begin to go into how the students treat each other, it's nearly as bad if not worse."
She had endured it once, refused to break and become a violent, sociopathic worm like so many others that graduated along side her. She had hated her peers for so long, yet now...now she felt pity. Regret. She dreaded that she had not done more, that she hadn't been able to do more until now.

Evangeline hadn't realized that her volume had been steadily increasing as her rant carried on, her posture on her chair becoming ever more forward. She sighed deeply and leaned back, rubbing a temple with her free hand.
"Look...I'm not saying that I think a time-out from sparring for injuring another student is appropriate. But we have a chance to make this Academy, this nation, a place that is both strong and noble, one not built on the backs of the suffering of children. Don't we owe it to them to try something different?"

 

[Mars Pallatrix]

Mars leaned back in his chair. Good grief, they'd done it now. They'd touched a sore spot, and that sent Evangeline off the handle. Unfortunately, this reminded him of Lea, who would talk and talk and talk. Not many things reminded Mars of the deceased woman, and he made it a point not to remember her.

"These things," Mars rested the back of his head against his chair and looked up at the ceiling. It had been a long day, with all the new arrivals and last-minute schedule changes. "these petty cruelties - they will be worked on. We have been wrong in several aspects. On that, we agree." His face wore the disgust he felt. Old Proctors like Felwin had been overzealous in this regard and had been the direct cause of several Apprentice deaths. He hadn't been the only one.

Even in front of only his peers, Mars could only drop his image for a few moments. Then, he sat back up and let out a heavy sigh.

"To an extent, they must suffer. The training must be hard. It must be grueling. They must be broken," he raised a hand to halt Evangeline, who rose at this, "to a degree. If they cannot bear the weight of this Academy, they will undoubtedly crumble under the weight of an entire nation."

 

[Arne]

"You don't have to tell me how cruel this place can be." Arne said flatly, his voice stern, his expression for the first time becoming utterly serious.

His own time here had not been pleasant.

In those days it had not been any more cruel than in Evangeline's time. There was always a certain level that the Proctors of each age had strove to hit. That was a simple fact of who they were, what lessons they had offered. He remembered the tortures, the mutilitations that had fallen upon his comrades.

He had witnessed those horrors, and experienced them himself.

Arne's own experience had not been unique, but certainly niche. He had been powerful from the get go, his magic strong enough to shake the earth. Some Proctors had utterly despised him, hated him for what he represented. He had stood above them in a way, a reflection of their own failures as Dreadlords.

The punishments for that crime still marred his body. They had tried to sunder him, break him down and make him into a malleable little puppet.

Only the opposite had come to fruition. "This place, what we do, it's important."

He said quietly after Mars finished.

"There is a reason that we exist, Evangeline." He glanced towards Mars. "And that reason still prevails."

He frowned. "We don't have to torture them. We don't have to abuse them. But we do have to prepare them."

 

[Evangeline]

For the first time, if only to an extent, Evangeline and the elder proctors were in agreement. She hadn't really expected either of them to relent. That both of them seemed to show--what was that, a modicum of remorse? Remorse for the atrocities that the Academy had carried out on these children...well, it was unexpected, to say the least.

Yet, what perhaps she hadn't thought much about in her years since graduating from this place, was the line. Where did they draw the line? How soft could the Academy be on its students before they were doing a disservice to them? The last thing Evangeline wanted was for the children she taught to die...but she could never justify turning them into monsters, either.

"Difficult, yes. Grueling, perhaps, but..." Evangeline murmured. Both Arne and Mars talked sense.

"We don't have to torture them. We don't have to abuse them. But we do have to prepare them."
Truly, these men were full of surprises. Evangeline inhaled, then exhaled, her composure returning.
"That is all that I ask." She breathed, much softer now than she'd been during her rant. "I know what we're doing is important. I know they need to be prepared. I swear to you both I will do all in my power to make sure they succeed. But I will not let any more of them turn into monsters."

Perhaps it was the alcohol now coursing her veins, but Eva's attitude had noticeably softened by now. While she still held conviction in her heart, she was coming to understand that she'd misjudged her elders.

 

[Mars Pallatrix]

Mars, who'd hardly sipped on his drink except the first with Arne, brought the glass up to his lips.

"Monsters," he quietly echoed as he set his glass down. "What is a monster to you, D'Amour?"

Then he looked at her, that baleful glare of his burning a hole through the woman as they did best.

"You think the children that leave this Academy are monsters? Or perhaps the Archons?" Mars canted his head and raised a brow at his old comrade but kept his gaze on Evangeline, "Arne? Perhaps even myself?"

There was an eerie stillness as quiet fell over the three of them, and Mars reclined in his seat, closely studying the two newly anointed Proctors in front of him.

"Mewling cubs," he growled, "The lot of us. There are things in this world that hold power you could not hope to fathom."

 

[Arne]

"Not you Mars." Arne jested. "You're too enigmatic to be a true monster."

More than once he'd heard himself called as such. After Telthem, after Greshik he could never argue such points. Still, it had seen amusing even then.

There was no doubt in his mind that he had pushed the precipices of horrors. That he had done what many other Dreadlords would have considered beyond the line. Yet each time he had stepped forward Arne had considered the consequences.

Had known the why, and the future of what he chose.

"Sometimes, Eva." Arne said quietly. "Sometimes a man is not enough. Sometimes a woman is not enough. Sometimes we are not enough."

He frowned. "The way we were trained was..."

Arne shook his head.

"They have to be more. Better." He knew the way to that wasn't beatings, wasn't torture. But it was on the same line. Parallel. "They have to defend Vel Anir. Even after all of this..."

His hand waved slowly. "Even if most don't understand."

 

[Evangeline]

"What is a monster to you, D'Amour?"

"You know what I meant, Mars." Evangeline hissed back. "I am well aware of the horrors that occupy this world. My blade met with the demons of Vel Istra. The two of you might be my seniors but I am no less baptized in the blood and madness of Arethil."

That had irked her. These two had started to understand her position, but they still weren't getting it. Did they think she was some naïve apprentice herself? No, she didn't believe that, but pride was something that coursed the veins of most Dreadlords, second only to blood.

"I refer to those who have graduated from this place that would have otherwise rotted their days away in an asylum had they not borne the title of 'Dreadlord.'" She asserted firmly, her voice quick to fall back into its usual calm. She looked to Arne as if to answer him. "They are not better. They will not defend Vel Anir. They will be its ruin, should we keep adding to the horrors this world presents rather than culling them."

 

[Mars Pallatrix]

"Hm," he thoughtfully hummed. So she claimed to understand that dark terrors of old lurked in the shadows, but what Mars could not understand was the stance she took despite that knowledge. What would defend Anir? Gallant knights that wield fantastic powers? Or perhaps picturesque heroes straight out of fairytales?

Get real.

"Time," Mars said flatly, "is what we require."

Of course, there was never enough time.

"Duty compels us to forge a path towards the future. Go us forth to our work today so that Vel Anir may prosper tomorrow."

 

[Arne]

Arne knew that things would change. He had known that things had to change.

That was a fact of this place.

He knew exactly what Eva was talking about. There weremore than a few students whom he could recall that had ended up as little more than broken husks. Others who had thrived, and still others who had become worst monsters than the Proctors had ever been.

The latter category had always been his least favorite. The men and women who embraced what the Proctors had tried to make them into. Those who would slaughtered without question, those who would follow even the most depraved command.

A few of them had become Archons. "Things are different now."

Arne said slowly, both to Mars and Eva.

"But neither can we ignore the past." He looked at his empty glass. "The failures...the successes...and everything in between."