Chapter Text
No one quite understands them anymore.
This comes as no surprise. After all, few understood Zariel when she went by another name. But the Commander, who had also gone by another name, understood. They stood side by side as Solar with a dream of peace.
Not peace for themselves, of course not. Others should exist peacefully. They are higher beings that burn with anger bright and righteous. The kind of anger that reshapes planes and arranges their turns in optimal order.
It was Asmodeus that once said: "There are two sides in this eternal struggle, one light and the other dark. You might find evil’s works reprehensible, yet to those whose hearts belong to corruption, good deeds are equally deplorable. Understand, there is no redemption, only treason against the side you were born to serve."
Yet so many on their lofty seats on the higher planes call themselves good without serving it. The Commander is no such treasonous creature. They built their seat in the hells as a stronghold of good against the push and pull of lawful and chaotic evil. The fiends can be commended on their loyalty to evildoings, at least. If the gods will not do good works their progeny will, by the Commander's law and solemn Oath.
They can serve no other purpose. Not while the Pact Primeval and Zariel's bargain holds their souls in escrow.
And so the Solar who would become the Commander applied to Ao, as the gods themselves have disrespected their own positions. Therefore, they must supply those who will.
The Commander understood that it would be difficult to spare these aasimar from treason. After all, the Scourge receive much of their nature from their Gods, and Ao, the overseer of balance, would not decree differently no matter how compelling the entreaty. Nurture must redouble its efforts to teach them Good Works and remaining faithful to them. Nurture must teach them their role in cosmic balance and subjugation. The role the Blind Judge abandoned must be filled. And to that end, the Commander will seize nuture. The Commander will raise the godling heroes who will teach these fiends the true meaning of hell.
But one soldier strays. It happens, from time to time. The Commander attends such matters very seriously.
From the holes of their white-gold mask, the Commander peers down upon the Scourge of the Moon — the one who selfishly calls themself Tav instead of soldier — and recognizes the failure of nuture. The Commander's favorite soldier had understood Good, once. But the soldier's time among the mortals has muddled the lesson. The soldier stands not in front of them but at their side.
The lesson will be taught once more. And if it cannot be taught, the obstacle will be removed.
For now, the Commander occupies their seat. The Scourge in question kneels before them, and beyond the soldier's bowed shoulders red and yellow light flickers among the skyline of their open observation deck. Despite the uniform the Commander always knows exactly which soldier awaits their attention. The soldiers' auras are visible to one with truesight, and the Commander has memorized each one. It was necessary to cultivate the units perfectly. Balance at the smallest levels leads to balance overall. The Protector called Llyr's stormlike aura, courtesy of Talos, necessitated a calming effect like the one this Scourge holds. Especially given the soldier's insistence on associating so closely with the Scourge of War. An association that has become dangerous in Moon Scourge's absence.
"Please continue where you concluded during our last meeting, Scourge," the Commander says, taking up the meal ration left on the small table beside their seat. Likely the Scourge of Torm, dutifully ensuring that they receive their fair share.
The Scourge nods and begins to speak. The soldier's celestial betrays more emotion than it intends, though the speech comes somewhat roughly. Perhaps soldier's voicebox had been injured in combat.
It's no matter. Overcoming such difficulties is good practice for the Scourge, after soldier's indulgent time in Faerun.
As the Commander partakes of sustinence, the Scourge speaks of goblin creatures and the trouble they caused for the tiefling refugees of Elturel. Scourge should have simply wiped them out alone. In the presence of soldier, mortals should not have had to exercise the capabilities that the Scourge regarded so highly in their tale.
The Commander knows that they speak the truth. After all, the Commander will know if Scourge speaks a lie. And Scourge is well aware that if they fail to convey the events of their quest faithfully, the Commander will have no choice but to punish the mortals they brought with them. The Commander made as much clear in their first meeting after soldier's return.
That the Commander intends to eliminate those mortals regardless, Scourge does not have to know. It is for the greater good, that those who disturb the order are cut down. Sacrifice these few to save the many. Sacrifice these few to keep this camp in line. Sacrifice these few to show the Scourge of the Moon that hope is a thing unfit for creatures of higher purpose.
*
Only because of her unscheduled venture in Faerun can Lae’zel identify the buzzing sound. Back then, the disquieting racket hummed lower and gentler than the cry of her grinding wheel. But it had piqued Gale's interest. Lae'zel thought him indolent at the time. After all, the wizard reacted with far less enthusiasm when Lae'zel offered to teach him the combat forms he had openly admired. Yet for these creatures called bees, he exhibited an excitement he typically reserved for magic items to aid what Lae’zel had once thought to be a most unusual manner of digestion. And so their march toward an overgrown village slowed and detoured into the forest overgrowth beneath the bridge. It was just as well, with Tav suffering the after effects of a curse from the Crypt that the others had insisted on exploring. Nobody had insisted on bringing the one called Withers to camp, but the skeleton cared little for their opinions. Lae’zel would have complained more if that undead was partaking of their scavenged rations.
Trawling through the forest did bring them closer to the source of the mysterious humming. More familiar with the wilderness of Faerun than most of them, Wyll located the hive. His careful hands parted some tree branches, revealing a golden sack appended to the tree, slick with something unnameable and unappealing. There is little honor in thieving. Until that moment, she thought Gale felt simlarly. But it seemed that indolent wizards make exception for a thing called honey. Honey for cakes and for marinating otherwise tough cuts of meat. Lae’zel did not wish to taste it or signal approval of this weak, Faerunian inability to masticate properly. The tiny, buzzing creatures and their exoskeletons reminded her of Neogi, if the spider-like slavers and plunderers clung to trees and sluiced strange liquid.
She had tried it, in the end. Mostly to silence Gale, lest his overly garrulous nature attract more enemies. It didn’t work. As she ate, he spoke at great length about different types of honey, its role in tenderization, the importance of controlling temperature when using it, flavor depth and moisture retention. Only because he spoke so long, she ate seconds and thirds as Tav all but licked the bread pan clean. Perhaps, too, she came to associate the sound of buzzing with flavorful meats and sweet, sticky cakes under Selune’s Tears. And — just a little — it staved off her longing to be up there among them.
But somehow she does not think the bees of Faerun have returned to offer them a much needed sweetness among all that stings here in Avernus. She can’t see through the thick, low hanging smog that muddles the path to the Emporium they seek. The sound seems to draw closer nonetheless.
“Shit,” Maris tenses in front of her on the mount, looking around — no, listening carefully. “I was hoping to avoid them until we reached the Emporium.”
“What, precisely, is them?” Lae’zel puts a hand on the hilt of her greatsword, ready for the buzzing them.
"The hellwasps!" Gale chimes in eagerly. “If they'll lead us to some infernal honey, it would make for some fascinating alchemy. Or quite the hot dessert for the soldiers…”
The thought doesn't mitigate Maris's vigilant concern in the slightest. “They’ll lead us there all right —”
This time, a loud, indignant yelp splits the air. Wyll is typically better mannered than to shout in the middle of someone's explanation. Battle is upon them!
“Wyll!” Not in the least bit excited about honey anymore, Gale follows up with a spell chant instead of further useless yelling. Good. She recognizes the beginnings of a Hold Monster and also recognizes when the spell fizzles the moment before release. "I can't see them anymore."
Lae’zel grunts with annoyance, squinting to scan the interfering smog. The buzzing encompasses them too utterly for her hearing to parse what her eyes cannot see. How predictable that Wyll Ravengard would pick the most inopportune time to stop talking.
After longer than she'd like, her straining ears catch an inconvenienced, "This isn't good." An understatement, considering how distant he sounds amid the infernal din.
Lae'zel isn't the only one that catches what's more a complaint than a cry for help.
“I am going after him,” Karlach cuts off all their thought with the intent declaration and guides her infernal Nightmare mount into a plunging drop through the ashen clouds and beyond Lae'zel's sight.
There's little more annoying than when her people dare leave her sight.
“Drop below,” Lae’zel commands. Aella the Pegasus isn't her mount to control, but none of them can abide a seizure of their own. It is too late to wish they hadn't abided leaving one of their own behind. As much as she'd like to, she cannot blame Tav for her current inability to see him.
“Get ready to fight,” Maris says. Unnecessary, Lae'zel has been ready since the moment they left their camp at the river of blood. She fully intends on sending these infernal creatures to join it. “They’ll swarm us — more fodder for their young.”
“Just how large are these so-called Hellwasps,” Lae’zel says, mostly for the sake of knowing how broadly to arc her severing silver.
“We encountered them when we first arrived in Avernus,” Gale says. Chk, it would have been more helpful had he said as much from the start. “Approximately the size of our Pegasus friends but with a smaller wingspan.”
“So they already have a taste for you.” Maris curses in the discordant screech she's come to identify as Celestial. As promised, Aella the Pegasus hastily descends, cutting through the smoke with a clearly practiced manuever and splaying their wings — as broad as the Pegasus is long — to catch the sharp plummet before they drop lower than just below the smog cover.
The view confirms what she's known since the start; they are surrounded. At least thirty creatures, like bees if the little dessert-making insects grew to the size of ogres, buzz their futile threats between her and the one carrying a struggling Wyll Ravengard toward a massive structure.
Wyll is attempting to cast. But cast what? Last she knew, the warlock couldn't fly. And even if he could manage his clever portal spell while aloft in such a way, landing on Karlach's close pursuit at this speed would be impossible and the ground would hardly be safer. What was brimstone dust and reddish dirt is slick with a gooey, steaming substance. Here and now, she vows not to try anything that Gale might try to make with it.
Ahead across the hazy, bug-speckled plain, the intended destination of the Blade-stealing wasp is clear. It is a little like the construction on Faerun that Gale had called a hive. If a hive emerged from the depths of a nightmare. Or in this case, the hells themselves. Enormous and orange-yellow, a flying lumpen structure clings not to a tree but to many broadly wrought infernal iron chains keeping it tethered to the honey-drowned earth. She can’t imagine how it flies. Once she draws closer with Maris on Pegasus back, she doesn’t have to imagine.
Aella the Pegasus is a deft mount, surpassing the wasps speed even as they take a few stings for the trouble. Even her thighs ache for the holding on to the muscled mount straining beneath them. Now she notices that the Hellwasps' construction is a strange design, hexagonal and vaguely papery looking, held together by a honey so hot as to release steam here in Avernus and…
…And pieces of celestials. Whatever the insect-like fiends could salvage, likely. Hair, feathers, disembodied wings, these things must lend bouyance to what more resembles a floating graveyard than a home. Faces, too, stare unseeing from the comb like flies caught in sap. Despite their dead eyes and slack, open mouths, the bodies continue to writhe. A false impression of life given by whatever moves them. If they are aasimar that can die, they are the ones called children. Or they predate the strangeness of their contract-mandated immortality.
“Good gods, they’re still alive up there,” Gale says with horror.
She intends to correct Gale — these aasimar do not draw breath — but then her eyes make it up there. At the very top of the hive there is someone alive. Someone with broad, battered wings thick with ash. Their bare skin drips with too much honey for Lae'zel to discern more at this distance.
At least, unable to discern anything more than that the weaponless celestial looks quite ready to smite them where they fly.
“The Soldier of Joy,” Maris says mournfully. "Lost in the same combat that Sun Scourge was punished for defending two clerics who had gone too far out after a retreat order. Soldier wouldn't say what happened to them…probably out of fear the punishment would be doubled. It looks like soldier went after the clerics' bodies to prevent…"
To prevent what they're seeing now. The children they failed to defend used to spawn more noisy devil-bugs. It seemed that all the soldier accomplished was getting themselves trapped. Maris doesn’t seem surprised by this. Lae'zel isn't either, with a moment to think on it. A soldier with no one to protect is useless. In that light, giving chase to protect the corpses of their children from desecration is an understandable act of grief.
"Why keep flying at all?" Astarion asks. She doesn't have to turn to the mount he shares with Shadowheart to hear the revulsion in his voice. A relatable sentiment. The more she hears about the incident that resulted in the sale of this Arjun, the more she believes this Commander no longer deserves to possess their spine.
Stirring the long, thick braid of dark curls against Lae'zel's armor with a shake of her head, Maris says, "Not by choice, I imagine. There's a controlling element in the honey. As long as soldier is covered in it and the Queen lives, they are a puppet."
That explains the aggression, which is becoming increasingly apparent as the soldier fights in their chains and screeches over the Hellwasp buzzing. The Pegasi flinch for the agony in the call. Maris urges Aella onward with the kind of battle cry that promises to not let this horror stand.
How, exactly, they will consider when they have their entire party gathered and united in purpose. The path between their group and the Hellwasp that Wyll is menacing with his rapier swarms with enemies. One heavy lash at a time, Lae'zel starts the repetitive business of culling them. Wings first seems like the most efficient approach. It's a little satisfying, to have one fall flightless from her blade and stick helplessly into their own honey.
Gale strikes harder, sending out a vicious bolt of lightning that scatters the insects out of a line. One or two plummet to the slickened brimstone. The rest must have dodged some of the blow. They don't dodge the Many Targets arrow that Astarion fires, felling three already weakened by the spell. Shadowheart follows it up with the bright motes of her Spirit Guardians called to surround where she and Astarion fight on the fast-flying Bora.
“I’ll make a path,” she says, her white braid whipping behind her. It blends in with the white wings of the Pegasus she rides. Her eyes burn green and bright over the handsome scar that slices across her nose, and Lae’zel’s appetite for battle and love rise in tandem.
At least until she realizes how far her wife has blazed ahead on Pegasus back.
“Do not go so far ahead, if you're going to leave stragglers for my blade,” Lae’zel declares to Shadowheart as her silver wrecks a decapitation on a crippled insect. After her admittedly disturbing conversation with Halsin about Hydras, it's always a little relieving to see a creature rendered to corpse once its head rolls.
Shadowheart raises her shield to block a stinger coming for Bora the Pegasus. As Astarion ducks more closely behind her to let one of its sword talons glance off the shield instead of his shoulder, she says, "If you don't let the stragglers hold you back, we won't have a problem."
Well beyond goaded, Lae'zel lowers her greatsword for a moment. A moment is all she needs to throw a handaxe into the bulbous eye of the creature crawling all over her wife.
"I had that one," Astarion gripes.
"As you say on Faerun, the one who snoozes is an utter failure."
"I am quite certain that's not how the saying goes!"
Typical istik fussiness. Ignoring Gale, she takes up her blade in time to chop off a stinger thrust toward Aella. The hellwasp shrieks in agony. Its noise motivates her to finish it off with a heavy slash at the narrow point where its abdomen and thorax meet. There is some similarity to neogi anatomy after all.
This all seems quite doable. She's considering whether or not they're close enough to begin using her flying boots when Maris says, “Excellent, I’ll leave Aella to you, then.”
Lae’zel has never directed a Pegasus. Yet she finds herself about to, as Maris dives off her mount, shooting straight down with a silvered longsword brandished in each gloved hand. The ranger must know some kind of spell. But no verbals or somatics follow. A softer light than the pollution of Avernus blooms on her back, heralding the long unfurl of wings. Her wings harken to the strong sprawl of a gull built to tread the choppy air over a choppier ocean for long stretches of time and endure fierce weather. Wings not unlike Llyr’s, the parent that Maris cannot claim outwardly. Claiming such a thing hardly seems necessary…
Yet the warmth of the egg they rescued from the Creche called to her. Admittedly, it moved something inside her to see Shadowheart reunited with her family long thought lost. Her mother, confused but unshakeable in her love. Her father, built of the same steel that keeps Shadowheart still irritatingly ahead of her, straight spined and moving through the wasps.
The infernal shrieks of the creatures that Shadowheart fells burns her heart with pride.
“Come,” Lae’zel bids Aella. She knows little about how to control a mount. Including Quuthos, the red dragon that brought her so away from Faerun’s shores, she can count her riding experiences on one hand. Yet, she wishes to prove herself worthy of a red dragon partner of her own. Let Aella judge her worth.
On the might of her wings, Maris surprises a hellwasp from below. A whirling swing of each blade bisects the creature cleanly in two. Not bad, but a silvered sword is no Silver Sword.
Lae'zel grins with all her teeth and encourages the Pegasus onward, “Your Maris will not defeat us in might.” The ranger flies fast indeed, ducking and weaving through the air and wielding blades as needed. But her aim seems to be to catch up to the wasp holding Wyll rather than cut them to shreds.
Karlach is almost upon the grappled Wyll. From the back of her Nightmare — a large, black horse with a mane of fire that needs no wings to run upon the air — Karlach wields her tentacles fearsomely. Every hellwasp she strikes goes completely still with paralysis and hurtles out of the air. The ones that crash to the ground fail to get up again.
But there are still plenty for Lae'zel. And for Wyll himself, who on arriving the massive, lumpen hive, stabs straight though the head of the hellwasp holding him with a muttered spell. He drops with the fiend, but he’s close enough to the hive to drive his rapier into it mid fall. Though he slides down the side with his weapon ripping through the outer comb, he digs his feet into the thick layer of honey dripping down the side and catches himself.
Wyll, the benevolent menace that he is, finds a handhold on the hive to stab into it again. In doing so, he becomes the target of every wasp in the vicinity. But he's ready with his frost armor. The first three hellwasps that attack him die instantly and fall frozen from the sky. Naturally, the rest of them momentarily hesitate to attack them.
Gale finds opportunity in that hesitation. This time an orb of bitter cold no bigger than a skipping stone flies from the wizard's hands. In the air it distorts and erupts, dropping and subsequently culling five of the large creatures where they hovered with menace. They must be weak to ice.
Astarion catches onto this, too, and fires an ice arrow into one of the wasps intent on Wyll. The sharp grin he wears when the creature all but erupts into shards falls quickly. “Where in the hells do you think you’re going?”
Because Wyll isn’t awaiting rescue. Wyll is continuing to carve his way inside the papery hive with Karlach fiercely fighting to keep the Hellwasps behind him at bay.
“That Protector Aasimar is alive,” Wyll says, words forged in his steely determination to leave none behind. He liked it as little as she did, leaving Tav at the Garrison. “We can’t just leave them like this.”
“I’m coming with you,” Karlach projects.
“No,” Wyll spills more honey and terrible, papery gunk littered with feathers and sinew to fight his way inside. “What do you think will happen once the Queen goes down?”
“It’ll fall,” Maris beheads a hellwasp. “Once the Queen can’t control the Soldier of Joy or the ones inside, it’ll fall.”
Wyll nods seriously. Likely, he knew all that they had already discussed about these creatures. Blade of Avernus, indeed. “Karlach, you’re the only one that can keep this thing steady after we take the source of flight.”
Lae’zel feels the slew of Karlach’s infernal curses in her mind. Karlach loathes this as much as Lae'zel loathes when the others fight in front of her rather than behind. And so Lae’zel endures the annoyed twinge in her mind. But Wyll speaks sense. Only one with great endurance and mental fortitude could suspend something of this size for the amount of time it would take for everyone to escape.
“What do you mean the ones inside?” Shadowheart calls from above, where her Spirit Guardians keep them safe enough to have this little conference.
“No time, I’ll explain on the way,” Maris widens the hole with a sweeping motion of her two longswords.
“I’ll help Karlach,” Gale decides. “I don’t have telekinesis prepared, mind you, but there will be more to it than that.”
“I suppose that leaves me with little choice,” Astarion sighs and shudders when his booted feet stick into the honey when he leaps. “Disgusting,” he pulls a foot up, watching the long thread of infernal slick follow his boot.
“I’ll come with you,” Shadowheart says, patting Bora and dismounting without complaint. “You might need me, depending on what you find.”
Lae'zel is about to announce her own intent to accompany and leave Gale and Karlach to watch the mounts when a shrill victory cry splits the air. It's the only warning they have before a long, fast-moving shadow is upon them. On instinct, Lae'zel springs off Aella, her silver greatsword held forward to catch the blow that would otherwise hit them all.
Though the soldier hadn't broken free, they had freed one of the immensely heavy loops of chain securing the nest to the ground. And that's what Lae'zel parries. The force of it knocks her viciously back. If not for Aella's quick adjustment to catch her against their flank, she would have been swatted well into the hive.
Lae’zel grits her teeth. She wants to venture inside with her party, of course she does, but if something isn't done to occupy the celestial sword making trouble up top, neither Karlach nor Gale will be able to concentrate on their task. And of their group, only her and Maris are outfitted to go toe-to-toe with such an enemy.
"Lae'zel!" she hears Shadowheart cry out in concern.
"Chk." Just who does her wife think she is? "I will take care of this," Lae'zel declares as she pulls herself back up onto Aella, not about to let another such blow strike at her people. "And defend your mount beside. Go!"
Shadowheart doesn't like it. Her jaw clenches stubbornly, like she wants to argue but she nods anyway. They don't have time, and she knows what must be done. And she also knows what Lae'zel does not say. Despite her might and determination, there is no winning a battle against a deathless one. Only enduring until her companions act. Only a faith that she will not be betrayed, either by their intent or level of skill.
“Now, Aella,” Lae’zel growls, clenching her still tattooed hand on the pommel of her greatsword. Fear of betrayal will not stop her here. She will fight without hesitation, leaving her exposed back to her companions. They are behind her, as she prefers. “I promised we would not be outdone by your rider.”
The Pegasus whinnies in answer, a few heavy wingbeats taking them upward upon the nest. To her surprise, Bora follows instead of to where Gale and Karlach defend a pocket from the thinned out hive population to keep the bulk from fighting in the interior and prepare to keep the structure from falling witht heir friends inside.
“Go to them,” with a jerk of her head, Lae’zel tries to communicate with the now riderless Bora, who understands her but tosses their white-maned head stubbornly back at her.
Every time they rode a Pegasus, Lae’zel rode behind. Now she regrets not asking the Ranger more about their idiosyncrasies. Especially when as she flies up to confront the fiend-driven Soldier of Joy, Bora continues to follow her into greater danger. They had ridden together for some time…but Lae’zel had ridden behind Shadowheart. Surely the mount didn’t remember her.
Or perhaps she’s wrong about that, because Bora doesn’t accept her protection. Lighter for their lack of rider, Bora soars ahead and brings their hooves down heavily upon a hellwasp in their way. The Pegasi wear no armor but are not in the business of fleeing when their friends do battle.
“Why does everyone insist on standing in front of me?” Lae’zel huffs with irritation. The animals are as frustrating as the people. Nonetheless she will fulfill her duty. With Bora pushing the Hellwasps out of the way, Lae’zel draws her greatsword out mercilessly to meet them as they fly askew off their flanks and hooves. It makes short work of the ones that dare block the path between her and the howling celestial soldier.
In this, the Pegasi do not interfere. Aella carries her high above the the chained Hellwasp nest. Lae’zel activates her flying boots and looks down into the eyes of the Soldier of Joy. Even through the sticky amber they shine a pure, piercing blue, sharp enough to cut straight through into her fondest memories. If this changes anything for the Soldier of Joy, it does not show on their pale face. It drips with honey and contorts with a rage that belongs not to the soldier but to the hive.
With incredible strength, the Soldier of Joy swings the massive length of chain up to meet her daring plunge through the smoggy Avernus air. Lae’zel uses the force of free-fall to parry what would have been a nasty blow, for the radiance and fire gleaming off the infernal iron loops. What power belongs to the soldier and what power belongs to the fiends controlling them, Lae’zel can’t say. She just knows that she must hold them here.
For all she parried it, the blow does knock her back, sending her into a reeling backflip. But she knows well enough by now how to manage herself in the air. She catches herself with a tensed core and fights back to the Soldier of Joy with all the speed her boots will allow.
As she does, the Pegasi circle around the hive, ensuring that none of the Hellwasps interrupt the one on one. Good. This isn’t the sort of opponent Lae’zel can afford to split her focus on. The Soldier of Joy is tall, shapely, and utterly naked beneath the layer of honey that coats their pale skin and massive wings. Though too filthy to discern the color, the wings are lighter than their tangled blue-black hair, which sticks to their face as they strike out again with the chain, this time swooping low and with brutal speed. Lae’zel flies over it, turning in the air to land a blow to the soldier’s muscled right arm. It hits, she knows it hits, but the Soldier barely seems shaken. Is it the mind control, or are the soldiers of the garrison just that strong?
Perhaps a bit of both. Lae’zel grins and stomps through the honey toward the Soldier of Joy. This fight is going to be far more than she expected.
*
The Commander passes an hour listening to the Scourge's wandering tale of Faerun. It detours often to describe meaningless things, such as the taste of roasted meat, the kiss of sunlight, the sound of the wind passing through the trees. It is not what the Commander cares to hear. Then after the soldier finally describes the battle against the goblins to ensure the safe passage of tieflings from Elturel — a worthy cause — the soldier sang at far greater length of a party. But they sang not of victory, justice, or subjugation.
Together song, bright song, alive song — the same manner of songs that grated on the Commander's ears as they listened to the mortals' feast below from the balcony of their seat. Because of this wayward soldier, the mortals try to coddle their Garrison with cooked food and false expectations.
The soldier of Torm had brought them some to try as well. But the Commander had no use for the taste of hope.
“The name Tav." The Commander wrinkles their nose beneath the mask. If only it were merely the name to blame for the corruption of their once-favorite soldier. “It was not awarded to you.”
The Scourge of the Moon hesitates but continues to look obediently down at the silver floor. “It was not, Commander.”
“How, then, did you come to receive it.”
The Commander hears the stuttering inhale of breath. The soldier is as obvious as ever. “…I took it, Commander. From a letter that I found." The hesitation leaves soldier's voice, and they say with greater force. "I took it and named myself.”
Shameful. The Commander will endeavor to teach them better.
“Dispose of it,” the Commander says gently. This soldier served them so well, once, singing the others into sweet submission. They could do so again, return to the fold. “You were not honored by your mortals, you were coddled by them.”
The Scourge of the Moon looks up at the Commander. The singular brightness of their stare is disappointing. It's same spark spark of anger they dared to bring to this holy place, to their own Commander. The Scourge of the Moon did not used to see the Commander with the blazing eyes that a sword should only ever show a fiend.
“I was coddled by them,” the Scourge says, shamelessly. “Yes, I was weak. I remain weak, in some ways. But Commander, did you not teach us to rely on each other’s strengths here at the garrison?”
The soldier has twisted the lessons of their training to suit something so base as their own desires. How selfish Moon Scourge has become in their absence from the Garrison.
“You may rely on the strength of your fellow soldiers and on the strength of my hands and mercy,” the Commander says, a sharp edge finding their voice. The soldier of the Moon has well earned it. “But not on mortals. Mortals are to be protected. Mortals are weak —”
“No,” Moon Scourge interrupts, their tone finding a discordant thread of sound. The soldier continues kneeling but there is no respect, only steel beyond a mask of white gold. “They are the ones with the strength to decide. I cannot speak for all mortals, but my friends are not the kind of people that like anyone to fight too far in front of them."
Disgusting. If the meal ration had any of the flavor that Moon Scourge described so eagerly, the Commander would be unable to continue eating it. “You are dismissed, Tav.”
The Commander ensures that the soldier calling themself Tav hears the insult in the name. If the soldier uses such an indulgent thing to shield their self-serving hopes, the Commander will beat it down into the brimstone. They did not wish to instruct the Scourge of the Moon the hard way, but the Commander has not been left with such an option.
And that was the Scourge's choice, not theirs. This is what happens, when one ill-equipped to decide does the deciding.
The Commander is silent as the Scourge of the Moon retreats, taking those damning eyes back down into the Garrison. And then to the fiends where they belong. Unit ten will take the field tonight.
But first, the Commander beckons with a motion.
“Enter, Scourge of Shadow,” the Commander bids. Unnecessary, they realize. The shadow of a soldier had slinked in as the moon waned in their attention. As this particular soldier obeys well, the Commander will not comment. They, too, can indulge their lessers.
The long, slight figure draped in rote white takes a respectful knee and looks only at the floors of holy silver.
“Intercept the mortals on their way back from the Wandering Emporium,” the Commander commands. It is what they were made to do. “They are under no circumstances to return to this place.”
There will be no parties rife with food and spoiling. Greed will not infect this Garrison. Neither will hope.
The Scourge of Shadow obeys with a nod. Good. At least one of their soldiers remembers what they were made to do.