* * * He was in a small apartment. Poorly lighted, with minuscule windows and little in the way of advanced technology from what he could see. Zharn looked down. He seemed to be sitting on a chair. Or to be more accurate, tied to one. "I thought you were dead," he spoke to the Sangheili standing in the doorway. Ahkrin stepped out of the shadows, and stared down at Zharn coldly. He wore a dark woollen coat which almost touched his feet and a small pentagon hung around his neck. The Shadow of the Relic's symbol. Tatoos lined his bare arms, none of them pleasant or subtle. "You hoped," Ahkrin thought to correct, laughing without any joy in his voice. Zharn shook his head. "Don't be absurd. Why am I tied up?" Ahkrin stared down at the ropes binding him to the wooden chair, and then looked back into his eyes. Zharn stared straight back. His old friend's eyes had never been warm, but now they were like glaciers. Devoid of happiness or hope. "Someone who did not feel your father's death was the end of his punishment took out a contract on your life. I am the assassin hired." Zharn smiled lazily. "Well, that is fortunate. I am glad-- ... wait, before, you said the drink was poison. That was...?" "Me," Ahkrin agreed, folding his arms. "I fully intended to carry out the contract, old friend." Zharn was aghast. He stared down at the floor, and then looked back up. "Why?" was all he could muster. "You let him die," Ahkrin answered, his voice catching. "You were there, right there, and you let him die!" "My father?" Zharn demanded. "I had no choice! What could I have done?" "Anything!" Ahkrin roared angrily, making a fist. Suddenly Zharn's world exploded in pain as the fist connected with his face, evoking an audible snap as bones broke. Blood splattered the wall to the right of him. "He was all I had! The only one who ever saw past the failings of my family and... and you let him die!" "Ahkrin, my grief is tantamount to yours," Zharn told his once-friend. Ahkrin grew angry again then, and seized Zharn by the throat with a roughened hand. His grip was tight. "You may have been his son by blood, but I was his son in every other respect. You two were never close. I--" "Left," Zharn interjected softly, struggling to get the word out through Ahkrin's grip, which immediately relaxed a little. "You left, Ahkrin. And you broke his heart." Tears sprang into Ahkrin's eyes, and he shook his head defiantly. "I did it for him. My presence brought shame to him. And it worked, did it not? Months after I left, he finally made shipmaster. What he always had dreamed of." "But he wasn't happy," Zharn objected in that same soft tone, ignoring the pain and realising Ahkrin's was greater. "He could have been Supreme Commander, and he still would not have been happy without you by his side." With that, Ahkrin let go of Zharn and stumbled back a few steps. His head collapsed into his bloody hands, and he sank to the ground, staring at empty space with unseeing, tear-shedding eyes. "I never even was able to say goodbye," Ahkrin muttered quietly in a haunted tone. "I hurried back as soon as I heard... but I was a day too late. Yet you were here, and you let him die." "You didn't let me die," Zharn remarked, referring to how Ahkrin had seized his own bottle of poison from his hands earlier and thrown it to the ground. Ahkrin laughed that same emotionless laugh, shrugging. "I should have, but I couldn't. Just like I can't kill you now despite every synapse in my mind screaming at me to do so." "... we're brothers, Ahkrin," Zharn insisted with a sad smile. Ahkrin looked up. "Don't say that. We haven't been brothers for four years. You're a soldier now. I'm an assassin, and our father's body was thrown out into the vacuum as a heretic." "I never said we were the most functional of families," Zharn laughed softly. That invoked a smile from Ahkrin, however slight. "What now?" he finally asked after a minute of silence. "You could untie me," Zharn suggested. Ahkrin stared at the ropes for a few moments, before nodding. * * * A new dawn was rising on [i]Placid Enrichment.[/i] It reached over the towering skyscrapers of the colossal base-carrier, and cast a warm, hopeful glow upon the station. Ahkrin and Zharn stood outside together on the roof of his rented apartment shoulder by shoulder, looking at the rising. The former's chest rose and fell, and he spoke. "I am sorry for last night, brother." Zharn looked sideways at him, and shook his head. "It is of no matter. I would have done the same." "You still should. I was gone for four years, Zharn. Gone when he needed me. When you needed me." "But you're here now. Unless you plan to return to the Relic?" Ahkrin looked down with disgust at the pentagon hanging from his neck, and with a rough movement tore it away and cast it down from the roof far down past the towering complexes of apartments in this area of the station. "I shared none of their beliefs. The money was good, that's all." "You must have killed many innocents," Zharn finally brought up. Ahkrin looked away. "Probably. I did not look into the details of my contracts too closely. But you have killed many innocents yourself, Zharn. The only difference is that you did it in war." [i]True,[/i] Zharn realised with a sickening clarity, sighing. "What will you do?" he asked. "I know not," answered Ahkrin coolly. "I have nothing and no one." "That's not so. You will always have me, Ahkrin... the army can always use a Sangheili of your talents. Why not join? I will make sure we are posted in the same lance." "The [i]Covenant[/i]?" Ahkrin asked with a mocking laugh. "The Covenant killed our father, Zharn." "No," Zharn disagreed. "The Covenant was our father's life. It was zealous old men in ornate uniforms who killed our father." "Things should change," Ahkrin swore angrily. "You have not studied history as extensively as I, Zharn. The Covenant never used to be like this. Once it stood for something. Once it had a purpose. Now the promise of the sacred rings is merely a tool of manipulation for the hierarchs and their ilk to control the masses." "It will not last," Zharn retorted. "People are unhappy. There is a storm coming, Ahkrin. It may take years or decades to form, but when it finally arrives I want us both to be in the eye. Perhaps we can save others too." "How moral," Ahkrin laughed bitingly, the word 'moral' coming out of his mouth as if he were unfamiliar with it. "You are right, though. Then it shall be as you say, my brother. I will join the Covenant army... may the Forerunners have mercy on us both." "We don't need Forerunners. We have each other, my friend. And I pity any who stand in our way." The sun fully broke over the tops of the buildings, and the city stirred to life. Zharn and Ahkrin grasped each other's wrists tightly. A new day had come. ==**== [i]PRESENT DAY, 9th Age of Reclamation. March of Righteousness.[/i] "I am sorry to have made you relive all that," Orpheus finally spoke when Zharn finished his tale. A few tears had welled up in the corner of his eye. "The past is as it is," Zharn replied. "There is no sense in hiding from it. Although sometimes Ahkrin when I'm with you and hearing your complaining I do wish you'd simply let me drink the poison." "I have your tea here," Ahkrin joked. "Your wish could easily be fufilled." Zharn rolled his eyes, and looked up at the clock. One hour until sunrise. Once again, a new dawn would come. Perhaps his last. "I have changed my mind, Orpheus. We shall spar some more. An hour from now, my fate will be decided. And we shall either step safely into the eye of the storm, or be cast out in [Edited on 07.06.2011 3:23 AM PDT]