[HQ Ignorance] Scene 169 : Rikku's Quest

[Lev Lafayette]

In many ways, Rikku was used to being alone. A Godlearner from another
age, kept hundreds of years in near-stasis in their Castle of Purple
Shadows, where he received the dreams from their lands of Luathela, mad
and disturbing dreams, dreams of fear and foreboding of the future,
dreams of sadness and pain of the times past. So often, dreams of his
brother, who now inhabits these times as Can Shu, "Exarch and Glory of
Ignorance", conquering the world through with his army, and his the
Black Lotus dust. How has he stayed alive for all these years? How
different things would have been if had never taken that quest to those
Dreamlands, so many centuries ago! 

But now he was here, with this strange group and their quest across
Genertela to collect the weapons of Talor's Fellowship. And now Rikku
was one of the bearers of one the weapons, the Axe of transformation.
Rikku looked at his hands, or where they should be, invisible stumps
now, chopped off from the Axe itself. And yet, he could still feel
them, and he could feel their grasp on the handle of the Axe. Rikku
marvelled at the transformation, how he used the Axe, and through his
willpower alone, created the ability and feeling where his old hands,
once scarred and burned by his brother. He wondered whether he could
use the Axe somehow to transform the Walking Castle into a giant flying
machine, like the Godlearners in time's past would make in the great
city of Zazistor,  that could strike against the Chaos Dragon. Of
course, the castle would be only a speck in the dragon's eye. He
doubted it could really do anything.

There was the tell-tale crack of a twig of wood underfoot, and Rikku
turned on his heel, raising the Axe aloft, his eyes alert and the stump
of one hand outstretched preparing to unleash magicks. His gaze was not
softend by the sight coming of none other than Kurix, the old name of
his brother, missing all the spendlor of his exotic outfit that he wore
as Exarch Can Shu and dressed in the rather simple clothes of the
wizard and scholar that he knew and despised all those centuries ago.

A sneering smile was directed to Rikku. "Brother dearest, surely you
can lower your Axe in front of me. No need for such sibling rivalries
here. You are lost, so very lost, and I have found you, and I'm here to
help you. I like the new hands, or the lack of them. I do apologise for
that unfortunate accident. In those days, I didn't know my own power."

Cocking his head to one side, he leaned and whispered menancingly,
"Maybe I still don't".