The Forgotten Zodiac

"Yes, I think he'll be fine, especially now that I've gotten that fire out of him. It seems to be what attracted that...thing," she answered, watching as Welk stirred slightly against Werr, whimpering as he clung to his best friend. Seria stroked one of his ears gently, then said "You alright, Werr? I mean, I understand the poison has to suck, but..." She turned her bright blue eyes up at him. "...how are you?"

Werr blinked at Seria, then sighed. "Worried. Scared. There's a lot of words that describe it, but...none of them really...words fall short sometimes." He looked back down at Welk. "I don't care about the magic poison. It...doesn't do too much. I mean, if Allie could fix it, great, but...we didn't get a chance to take any of the poison back with us, so...it's still there..."

Seria looked down for a moment, then shifted closer and gently hugged Werr, being careful not to disturb Welk in the process. Pressed so close together, Werr easily felt the slight flutter of movement beneath the taunt skin of her belly. She ran her fingers through his hair, smiling at him. "You have the right to worry, but...you shouldn't. We're going to make sure everything turns out okay. Trust us, Werr. And if not us...then just him." She played with one of Welk's ears and he hardly even stirred other than a small sigh.

"Yeah." Werr sighed, resting his head against Welk's. He shifted so that he could lay Welk down, and moved to his own bed across from Welk's. "I should get some rest. Thanks, Seria." He smiled slightly. Then he remembered Cynyr. In the dungeons. He felt a cold shiver run down his spine as he curled up in bed, silently wishing that Lexi would wake up. She hadn't since they had arrived here...

She nodded, smiling away, then said "You sleep. I'll go back to my room and wait for Cynyr to get home too. Dunno why he didn't come back with you all, but he must've had reasons." Another shiver down Werr's spine. Seria still didn't know, and she walked out of the room the same.

Welk whimpered as soon as Werr left his side, curling up in a feeble ball.

"Sure," Werr said, turning his back to the rest of the room and facing the walls. He closed his eyes, letting another shiver pass through him.

"This is highly inconvenient. My apologies about your floor, Riordan." Veros was pacing in Ink's room, watching as the mental human swung about on the pipes above them. "I require some time to think...but that in itself is extremely difficult due to the racket this poor fellow is making."

"You should have taken the little girl. She would've been easier to manage."

"Not so! That child is a Pheonix Strider in the making. I can't inhabit something of that power...in my current state, she would destroy me and not even know what she was doing." Veros tutted. "This was much safer...unfortunately, that means I no longer have control over those striders. Not while she's around."

"What is a strider?" Ink questioned.

"A creature that hails from a world much like ours, but...ruined. A different planet of sorts, in which the depravity of the Titan Neathor was victorious in conquering. On this planet, instead of humans, there exist the Striders. The Pheonix Strider is the strongest of these, having the power of a strider but the consciousness and sentience of humans. Albeit driven mad with pain...they are creatures to be feared. A group of merely twenty of their weakest can tear a rift between dimensions and bring forth more of themselves. Or they can convert any human they come across into one of them...simply by injecting a liquid extracted from their own skulls. How they arrived here is beyond my knowledge as of now. It could be that the ex-god Malice had something to do with it...he did have a bit of a fit a few years back, now that I think of it. And then there was the matter of Neathor himself getting killed..." Veros went right back to pacing, frowning deeply.

"Do you not like the other titans?" Ink blinked at him, hanging upside-down from the pipes above.

"I absolutely despise them. The universe as a whole is mostly divided by the Titans' powers. We each had a planet of our own. The Lich to the furthest from our star, a frozen wasteland full of emptiness and hollow misery. And the closest to this world is Shibalba, a planet ruled by the Titan Jeth. It is overgrown with bugs and all manner of filth. Unfortunately, there were only so many planets in this solar system...weaker titans like myself were forced to fight over what was left. One got what you call the moon. The rest of us waged war for this land not long after the creation of beasts. The Goddess was furious at us, naturally; she, the creator of us all, had determined that this world was hers. Not ours for the taking. Yet still, we fought, until the age of the fairies was brought about. The Goddess had mercy on us; we were trapped in the Temple of Stars, most of our bodies destroyed or otherwise disposed of. Reduced to nothing but spirits held in place by spells and fairy magic. I have no doubts that my bretheren are running amok elsewhere. Which is why I aim for what I do."

"I thought you wanted to take over when we're in Kaislun." Ink tilted his head slightly to the side.

Veros laughed. "Yes. Precisely. The fairies are dead, and the Goddess has been silent for centuries. It is quite simple...I shall rule all that I can before my brothers. The people of Alastor, the masses of Storaph, the armies and slaves, workers and everything in between. It shall be mine. And the people of Gossain have been instrumental to this. But my rise to power is yet incomplete, thanks to that filthy girl...now I have to think of a second plan. But humans are untrustworthy. My inability to peer into a human soul is a severe problem at the moment. There's no way to tell who is truly fit for the spell, and who is just filth...but perhaps I don't need my old form anymore..."

Riordan listened intently to Veros speak, then said "So much to take in...gah, so tired..." He rubbed his eyes, feeling the mark on the back of his neck. When his fingers brushed the tattooed skin there, he suddenly decided to tell Ink about it and what it meant for him.

In that instant, he decided to tell his brother the truth.

Later, of course. When Veros wasn't around to hear.

Ink seemed to keep up just fine. "So...Neathor already has his own planet. Why was he here?"

"Because he hates what he's created. Simple as that. He wanted some place to start fresh on...this was ages ago, really. Striders are hardy by nature. They strive for survival of their race, most of all. Without something commanding them, they will literally ravage entire cities and convert a mindless army for themselves." Veros seated himself on apparently air, though the keen eye could see some shimmering substance beneath him. Obviously magic. 

"So the Striders got here somehow...do you want to get rid of them?"

"Yes. They don't belong on this world. If I am to rule it, then eliminating the unworthy should be my first act. I--" He stopped, the magic seat beneath him giving way. He fell on his backside with an 'oomph', and sat there for a few seconds in astonishment at himself. "Honestly...you'd think he'd know when to give up. If you'll both excuse me, I need to go chain my ankle to the wall so this walking corpse doesn't wander off." He snorted, shaking his head as he moved to the door. "Oh, and Riordan...you should get some rest soon."

Riordan gave a small twitch at Veros' words, watching as he walked out. He then turned his attention to Ink, watching as his brother fiddled around in his own way. Riordan closed his eyes quietly, rubbing his temples. Why was he so darn tired? He didn't understand, but was too exhausted to care. All he wanted was to go fall unconscious in his bed, with Valley by his side...

Ink dropped down from the pipes above, sliding down the rope near the wall. He skipped over to his hammock, smiling. "I'm free! I'm very happy about this. I was worried because Veros sounds sick in that body, but..." He grinned. "The other part of me doesn't care because I'm free! He's very restricting and he made my head hurt a lot. But I don't gotta worry about that ooooone bit anymore."

Riordan shook his head slightly to clear it, saying "He shouldn't have that body...there's something weird about it..." He rubbed his neck again, then looked up at Ink and spoke slowly.

"Ink...there's something I'd like to tell you. I don't know how it'll affect things, or if anything will chance, but...I won't blame you if you do act on this. There's...a mark on the back of my neck. It's a brand of sorts. It signifies that you, as the older brother, should have control over me." His tone turned darker. "They didn't have to put it on me, when we were born. Mother and father...they still believed in the old traditions. But they still loved you more than me. Always, and it confused me when they told me what I had to do to you. Keep you locked up and sealed away, while I took the throne before you. I didn't know why, and I still don't know. All I do understand is that it was never you that they didn't want; it was me."

Ink stared at Riordan for a long moment, tilting his head to the side a bit. "That's not true. You're smart. You can think about important things, a-and...you're very nice to me already, there's no reason I should order you around. I can't...I can't be king. I can't be responsible for...an entire kingdom...you've let this place to greatness, Riordan. Just because I was born first doesn't mean you're below me. Just because I was born first...doesn't mean I'm any good to anyone. I know how you look at me, when you think I'm not watching. You know it too. I'm not good. Especially with Veros gone...I'm not good for anything or anyone, and that's why I'm locked up here, because people would hate me!"

"People wouldn't hate you!" Riordan exclaimed, standing up in his chair to face his older brother properly. "Our parents certainly didn't. But...I suppose you're right." He scratched the back of his neck again, then said "I just...felt like you should know, okay? It's been bugging me for a while, and if anyone should know, it's you." He looked away, his gaze pointedly blank.

"Okay. Well, I don't have any orders to give you, nor do I want to give you orders." Ink pouted, looking away with tears in his eyes. "I...I can't even paint right...it's all just splotches of color and the only thing normal looking was Veros' doing." He crossed his arms and curled up in his hammock. "And...and the voices are back. Veros kept the voices away, but now they're back and my head hurts..."

Riordan blinked at his sibling, then suddenly moved forward, completely without pausing to think, and hugged his sibling. The move was utterly unexpected, and he spoke quietly.

"Don't let them in. They're not you. You're stronger than me, Ink. You can keep them out. I know you can."

He lifted his head, blinked, realized what he was doing, and immediately gave an embarrassed blush and moved backwards, saying quickly "I-I'll go," as he turned to leave.

Ink was trembling slightly as Riordan left, and as the king walked up the stairs, he could hear crying from the insane one's room.

Nate opened his eyes. His eyes. Not Veros'. He looked down at himself, immediately noticing that his wrists were shackled and chained to the back wall of a prison cell.

"Greetings." Zex offered quietly. "You may already know what's going on..."

"Kinda hard not to notice when a Titan is attempting to smother your soul." Nate muttered, and flinched as another painful blow was delivered. "Release me."

"Absolutely not. What would you do? Run home and arrive just in time for Veros to take command again? Only to have him wreak havoc on your home and family, as punishment for your refusal to accept his control? I will do no such thing."

Nate blinked at him, then sighed through his nose. "He doesn't belong inside me. He doesn't..." He flinched again.

"I'm aware of that. But...I'd rather keep the casualties to a minimum." Zex said solemnly.

Footsteps signaled Riordan's approach, and he wandered in, looking a tad unaware of his own surroundings. "Ah." He looked up with a small sound upon note of Zex and Nate, giving the dragonian an extremely wary look, clearly thinking him to still be Veros. "Wrong way," he commented, turning to head back out.

"Wrong way my left foot!" Nate hissed at him. "Stop right there and tell me who you are! This is partly your fault, you know. Now I'm the one dealing with a Titan...have you no honor? Turn around and tell your captive what's going on!"

"My apologies, your highness. He's far from...tame." Zex said quietly, his eyed the chains keeping Nate in place, wondering if they would hold. The Dragonian was clearly made of more than just brute strength, but he didn't seem the type to ignore muscular training.

"Shut up!" Riordan growled at Nate, folding his arms angrily. "I didn't tell him to infest you! I didn't know he was going to do that! You can't tell me I have no honor when all of this is slowly turning worse and worse around me! A pet dragonian with an attitude wasn't what I wanted, you can be certain of that."

"Pet? Pet?! I'll tear you limb from limb, you monstrosity, don't you dare belittle me like that!" Nate strained against the chains, baring his teeth. "Highness or not, you don't own me." He relaxed slightly, though his glare didn't go away. "What did you want, then? Did Veros promise you riches or fame or glory? Did he give you his word that you could keep on ruling your people while the rest of the planet falls under his reign? Tell me." He hissed dangerously. "Tell me so I can tell you that you're the king of fools and you deserve every inch of fire that's going to hail down on you because I'm here."

"Would you like me to gag him, your highness?" Zex asked quietly. He didn't like this man at all. He was a friend of Luna, but...no, that didn't matter. Nate...Zex decided that he hated Nate.