Sorry for the-- wait, you mean it's only been a week since the last chapter? Blasphemy! [b]Part 29 - Parted Reunion[/b] "--so they had the perfect ambush; the element of surprise, position, numbers and I [i]still[/i] knocked them all on their sorry behinds," Hem chuckled as he regaled Sorran with a war story. Sorran laughed, throwing back another drink. He'd long since lapsed into drunkenness and was currently doing his best to make the headache he would have come dawn even worse. "You've had quite the interesting life, my friend," Sorran slurred whilst the bartender poured another glass of Eayn finest for him. The tavern they were in was one Hem was familiar with, and the Unggoy who owned it had greeted him warmly with a first name. It wasn't a very large establishment, with only a few dozen sat around the various tables. The décor was homely, with the furniture and flooring made from actual wood, a material seldom used in the Covenant. "A full life," Hem agreed heartily, also trying his hardest to drink himself into oblivion. "No regrets." "I'm full of them," Sorran muttered darkly into his drink, swirling a finger through the slightly translucent liquid. Hem patted him affectionately on the shoulder, leaning forward clumsily. "For there to be regrets, my dear boy, there must be ill ramifications in the long-term. And until you're my age, you don't know what long term is," he rasped, tripping over a few of his words. Sorran nodded along absently, not truly taking in what Hem was saying but appreciating the sentiment all the same. "Perhaps you're right. Perhaps we're all right," Sorran blabbered, throwing back another shot. "Maybe there is no wrong, and we're all just viewing things in our own--" He was suddenly cut off as a Sangheili sat at the bar suddenly toppled to the floor with a loud thump, his drink soon following and drenching the floor. At first everyone assumed he'd merely passed out through drinking too much, and returned back to their own business. Then he started frothing at the mouth and his complexion turned white. "Gods!" the Jiralhanae next to him uttered, jumping back. Slowly the patrons of the bar rose up, forming a loosely clustered circle around the Sangheili, who seemed to be undergoing a seizure. The Unggoy who owned the establishment pushed them out of the way, examining the Sangheili closely. "Is anyone here a physician?" he shouted. No one answered. Time ticked by as the Sangheili continued to buck and toss about. Finally, someone spoke. "I uh... believe a San 'Shyuum staying at my guest residence may be a physician. He just arrived yesterday. I'll go get him!" a kig-yar squawked up, wrapping a coat around himself and rushing out the tavern into the cold night of High Charity. Hem stood up to grimly examine the dying Sangheili on the ground. He reached for the fallen mug of hard light, and brought it up to his nose, sniffing delicately. "Poison," he declared, and a wave of trepidation swept across the circle of Covenant clustered around the man on the ground, who the Unggoy had covered with a coat. The Sangheili was clawing at the ground now, flecks of blood paining the corners of his jaw. He turned to the Unggoy. "What drink is this?" "Uhm," the Unggoy thought hard, staring at the droplets on the floor uneasily. "It looks like Palmokian bitter. I could swear he didn't order that..." Hem blinked, and looked back at his table and the drink on it, reading the label on the bottle he had purchased. "Did he order a Balacho lager?" "If I remember correctly, yes," the bartender recalled, nodding. Hem grimaced, shakily sitting back down to the nearly incoherent Sorran, who was still staring at the Sangheili throwing a fit upon the wooden floor. "That poison was meant for me," Hem murmured quietly. "I ordered Palmokian bitter. We must have mixed up our drinks, he and I," he told Sorran, pointing at the unfortunate Sangheili on the ground. "Well, he has a better chance than I would. A poison like that would finish someone my age instantly." "We should leave," Sorran slurred, managing to think straight through the alcohol. Hem nodded, throwing down the visor of his Honour Guard helm and grabbing his stave, standing up. Sorran did likewise. No one noticed as they stumbled their way uncertainly towards the exit of the tavern, leaving the scene behind. Before they could reach the the door, it span open and a hunched figure shuffled in, followed by a leaner one. The San 'Shyuum was incredibly old, Sorran could see that much immediately. Older than Restraint, even. And yet amazingly he was walking without the aid of a gravity belt. Despite his age and hunched figure, he still commanded a powerful presence as all eyes in the tavern turned towards him. Hem and Sorran moved out of the way to let them past. "Where is he?" the San 'Shyuum demanded, and the crowd parted to offer him a few of the poisoned Sangheili who had been unlucky enough to drink that which was intended for Hem. "We think it's poison," the Unggoy interjected, and the San 'Shyuum frowned at him sharply, edging towards him. "I can see that! Please intubate that Sangheili for me, my dear," he said with juxtaposed kindness to his companion, who nodded before fishing around in her medical bag. Sorran and Hem wove their way past the two healers, reaching for the door. Then Sorran was stopped in his tracks, as the female Sangheili accompanying the San 'Shyuum physician spoke. "He doesn't seem to absorbed too much, Minister," she observed in a voice Sorran had dreamed about restlessly for months. He turned slowly, looking back with trepidation. "True enough. Perhaps there is hope for this boy-- will you all move out of my way?!" the San 'Shyuum yelled. Sorran was moving towards the female Sangheili, and when she turned he saw her face and let out a gasp. "Savara--" he began to utterly joyfully, before feeling a rough hand grab him by the shoulder and pull him back. Savara looked up in his direction with a small look of surprise on her face, but the two Honour Guards had already left the tavern. Outside in the night, Sorran was struggling with Hem. "Hem, that's Savara in there!" he shouted blindly, trying in vain to push away the other Sangheili. Although old, Hem was still far stronger than him and Sorran was restrained easily. He grabbed Sorran's jaw and struck him a blow across the face. "And if you reveal yourself to her now, you are both dead!" he bellowed, pulling Sorran away. "You're a dead heretic, Sorran." "But--" Sorran protested weakly, his thoughts still hazy from the drink. Hem shook his head resolutely. "If you love her, Sorran, you will not ruin her life by bringing her into this!" he hissed. "Like you ruined mine?" Sorran demanded angrily, pounding against Hem's armour. The other Sangheili laughed. "You were to be put to death!" he told him sternly, still dragging him away. A few passers-by stared at them curiously, but knew better than to interfere with the Guard. "Perhaps it would have been overturned. And even if it hadn't, far better to be dead than be shouldered with [i]your[/i] burden![/i]" he retorted angrily. Hem laughed again, sharply. "You don't mean that, Sorran. I know you, and you would accept far worse fates than this if it meant you could keep breathing. Now, I know this is hard, to leave the woman you love. But it will not be this way forever. One day, the truth will be revealed--" "To hell with the truth!" Sorran decired, through tears now. "Does it truly matter if the sacred rings are weapons of destruction? They're scattered throughout the galaxy; they could be destroyed for all we know! We will never find a single trace of them!" "We will," Hem remarked sadly, still holding Sorran tightly in an iron-grip. "And when we do, the only person who will be able to stop every zealot in this Covenant from killing us all will be you, Sorran." Finally, Sorran stopped struggling and instead went limp, weeping. Hem embraced him tightly, grabbing his shoulder reassuringly. "I never asked for this," Sorran protested pitifully. Hem sighed, guiding his young friend back home. "True Sangheili never ask for grandeur, Sorran. It is thrust upon them, and it's what they [i]do[/i] with this eminence that can change the world forever." [Edited on 04.15.2011 7:19 PM PDT]