Wherever I May Roam (Mulciber)

[Shouriko]

The Qilin nodded her head as he provided an example of the memories he had from just a small sample of the souls within. If there were multitudes of competing memories, yes, it would be difficult to parse out just one. She believed so fervently that it was possible if only because Mulciber had told her that the memories of this individual came so much more readily than the others. With some coaxing he ought to be able to manage it.

"Well," Qixia began, thinking that she detected some hesitation on Mulciber's part. "You don't have to do this if you don't want to." The petite woman came up to his side and lightly planted a hand on his arm. "If you do, though, you won't be alone because I will be with you."

It was an attempt to reassure Mulciber. Not that Qixia could offer much in way of assistance. The gifts she'd been endowed with as a Qilin were limited. Some she'd barely even put to full use if at all. All the same, she exuded confidence and spoke with conviction, "If this is your purpose, it can be done."

[MadEmperor]

It took him a few moments to build up his courage but he had always known that he would someday have to face the events of that fateful day. There was no better opportunity than the one she offered. Eventually, I he gave her a nod.

"It is this way," he said, leading her to a door next to the central staircase. Pausing for a moment, he picked up a tarnished candelabra and lit it with a match from his pocket. He then opened the door and led her into the dark corridor beyond.

[Shouriko]

The castle had seemed plenty large from the outside. Qixia had very rarely gone into any buildings in dwellings. She'd been able to manage most of her karma manipulations while out and about and at a distance from her target. Aside from the stillness and the chill, the foreboding feeling of the place, she was wide-eyed with wonderment. Rooms and halls and windows and doors and stone! So much stone! The shadows made it feel even larger, the darkness hiding where corners and walls might be, the ceiling largely lost entirely.

"It must have taken a long time to build." She remarked softly. "And there must have been a lot of people here once, just to care for it."

Qixia placed all her faith in Mulciber to know the way. Of course he would. Nevermind that he had been here for hundreds of years, but there were all those souls inside of him. What one didn't know, another must. There were liable to be no secrets that this castle held that he was not aware of. So she padded along at his shoulder, head turning this way and that as she looked about herself and what remained within the castle: inanimate objects and dusts motes and the pair of them.

[MadEmperor]

"Indeed. It was a veritable village unto itself, with everyone having a specific role to play in service to the castle and to House Bloodwood," he answered, mindfully ducking to avoid destroying a spider's web. "And they were glad to serve, for Lord Bloodwood was a kind and generous master who always found the time to treat his servants as people of worth. His true nobility was the reason my namesake vowed to serve and protect him and his family."

It occurred to him that he hadn't mentioned the fact that Mulciber was a dragon as well as the butler, though he supposed that his companion might guess as much from his skull. Surely she had seen a dragon or two in her travels.

[Shouriko]

"If he was so good and so loved..." Qixia began to ask, she paused as her attention was caught by something in the shadows, likely an ornate chair or a tapestry. "...why would anyone want to cast a spell that could kill him and all of everyone else?" For a Qilin, sometimes the world could be very easily simplified, very black and white. What was good, was good. What was bad, was bad. Good could become bad and bad become good, and actions could cross over each other. Yet it was markedly clear that with Mulciber's deep devotion, such evil on someone so good was truly terrible. "Someone noble both in name and being should not be the target of another's ire."

But one more thing was learned by Qixia from her probing questions, "You made a vow, yes, I see now." She stated with reverence. "That must be why you, in particular the you that you are now, are the one who remains." She smiled back at him, admiration in her expression.

[MadEmperor]

Though perplexed by her admiration, Mulciber agreed. "Indeed. A dragon's vow is not made lightly. And his vows live on in me."

His path ended at a door with the symbol of a dragon carved into it with an artist's hand. The small detail revealed that the butler's true nature was known to more than the lord himself, perhaps the entire household. He then opened the door, revealing a modest space, though one with finer furnishings than most servants in the same position. It was far from the opulence of a dragon's hoard, unless one considers that the people he lived among were his hoard.

[Shouriko]

"You're a dragon?" She asked in amazement. Looking at Mulciber afresh, she supposed that there was some resemblance there. Qixia had seen dragons before, different kinds even, but they were very alive with flesh and hide. What Mulciber had was a skull and she'd not seen a dragon skull before. "That makes it all the more clear."

From what Qixia knew of dragons, their vows were like blood oaths or life bonds. They were very serious and important and to break one was dishonorable, either on the part of the dragon or for the one they make such a deep promise to. It was the sort of thing that certainly could transcend death. So Mulciber had both sworn himself to the late Lord of the castle and had unfinished business to see to.

She shuddered briefly, "Let it be justice you are meant to seek and not vengeance." Qixia knew that they were different and that differnce was important.

"Was this your room, Mulciber?" Qixia asked.

[MadEmperor]

"The core of my being indeed lived here," he responded as he stepped inside. "He was offered finer quarters but he wished to not be given special treatment."

His disconnect from his primary soul was difficult to properly explain. As such, he wondered if she grasped the nuance that he was not the same Mulciber. Or could it be that she saw through him to a truth he denied? His namesake had been rendered a victim, his pride and honor tarnished by his failure to keep his vow; anyone would retreat from that pain given the chance. Was that what he was doing?

"Justice, you say? What even is that in this situation? To expel the villain from me, if that is where they reside?"

[Shouriko]

Qixia entered the room headfirst as she leaned in and peered about the room. Her eyes began on one corner and swept about in a counter clockwise direction to the next and the next and the next... If this was 'finer accommodation' as Mulciber had said, she was none the wiser. Qixia had not been on buildings and as such had no comparison. All she could do was trust that he spoke truly.

She stepped into the room slowly and straightened her back. It was a room, alright. The Qilin turned and faced her companion again.

"Justice is righting the balance." She told him plainly. It wasn't exactly so simple as that, how he went about seeking it did matter. "What would your Lord ask of others if they had done wrong? Do as he might ask." Or if the culprit resided within him amongst the myriad of souls, "And if he is a soul, you would expel him and have him face his karma until the evil is cleansed from him in the eternal fires."

Or so Qixia instinctively believed this to be the natural consequence of one who died with bad karma. Only then might they be reborn and given a new life with which to live well and transcend to nirvana.

[MadEmperor]

"For a crime such as that? He wasn't so noble as to allow the fiend to remain a danger to others out of misplaced mercy. But he would likely have investigated non-lethal ways to ensure such a result," Mulciber explained with bittersweet remembrance. Though Lord Bloodwood was quite literally with him in spirit, he missed the relationship he—his namesake had with the man when they were alive.

The entity ran a finger through the dust on the dresser beside the bed. His emotions had kept him from properly maintaining the room. Shameful. He would have to do better should he remain at the keep.

[Shouriko]

"Non-lethal?" Qixia queried, her tone begged for clarification. She could not see how any manipulation of karma could absolve so heavy a sin. All the souls lost. The very ground was tainted from the evil done. She shook her head as she aske what she thougt to be a rhetorical question, "Would that truly be just and fair?"

She did not know everything and yet at the same time, she did know quite a lot. This was one of those things where her instincts told her this was the way. Perhaps, though, this did not have to be done her way. It was to satisfy Mulciber and the many souls that built him, an attempt to put them to rest and allow for Mulciber to move on. There could be another way.

"I am only here for support, Mulciber, mayhap it would be better not to ask how I might accomplish this?" Qixia offered to him. The answer was surely within him somewhere.

[MadEmperor]

The core of his being was a creature of justice himself, but dragons and qilin would naturally have very different ideas of what that looked like. Dragons were predators at heart, and as such, their justice was often seized by tooth, claw, and dragon's breath. So having her balk at the idea of leaving the villain alive was profound.

"You misunderstand. The dragon in me could never show that kind of mercy to one so foul. Not even Eagar Bloodwood, kind to a fault, could. So worry not about misplaced mercy; they will reach your eternal fires one way or another," Mulciber answered, voice full of unwavering resolve.

[Shouriko]

"So..." She asked, "...what do you intend to do?"

Qixia had clearly misconstrued his earlier words. What she had took to be soft, was really perhaps his own way of not presenting his true feelings. Indeed, it would be vengeance of he was liable to fulfill his own dragon instincts. Mulciber deserved far more credit.

"We are in your old room." She turned about the place once more. "What next?"

[MadEmperor]

"Now I try to remember that morning." The entity scanned the room, concentrating on dredging his mind for his namesake's last day. He stepped over to the room's bookshelf. Between two sets of moldering books sat a simple wooden figurine of a dragon, appearing to have been carved by a child. Picking it up, he gently ran his gloved fingers across it.

"He awoke at the same time he always did. And as always, he made himself presentable. However, on that day, he was gripped with a powerful nostalgia for the days when Eagar's children were still just boys, when they incessantly pestered him with questions about what it was like to be a dragon. But those days were gone and they had become men with more important things to attend to than their own senses of wonder."

He looked up from the figure as he returned it to its resting place and headed for the door. "Having made himself ready for the day, he headed out."

[Shouriko]

"Oh, I understand. Should I just... um, yeah, stay out of the way." Unsure of where to be in order to be of as little a hindrance as possible, Qixia shuffled herself into the nearest open corner she could find. Her hands folded together before her and she pressed her lips together, as if doing so would make her quieter still.

She eyed the figure and found that as Mulciber spoke, she too could feel the nostalgia. Qixia nearly broke her silence, but she bit her tongue and kept herself as a quiet observer.

Once Mulciber began to leave the room, she followed after. Gradually her feet lifted off the ground and she flew rather than walked. Wanting to be as quiet as possible so that her companion could focus, it only seemed to be the most practical. Headed out to work, I suspect. Qixia thought to herself.

[MadEmperor]

Mulciber retraced the butler's steps in thoughtful silence, occasionally stopping to mimic one of the many unimportant interactions with the household staff under his leadership.

"Then he stopped by the kitchen to check on the morning preparations," he said as he passed into the room in question. He did a single circuit around the room and exited into the dining room. "There was nothing unusual with the kitchen staff, and the family breakfast was equally uneventful."

[Shouriko]

Qixia followed after Mulciber, paying as much if not more attention to the new surroundings they passed by. Then the kitchen came. It seemed so big! Question upon question filled up her mind until her lips trembled with all she wanted to ask about.

Like how many worked here? How many did they feed? How long did it take to make things? How many fires did they keep? Was it hard work? Did they make tasty food? Why was it called cooking and baking and what was the difference when both resulted in food that was eaten?

She behaved herself and kept quiet. Her head nodded in response. He departed from the kitchen and entered into an even larger and far more grandiose room. Qixia gasped in awe of the size of the table and she covered her mouth immediately. From behind her hands came a muffled whispered, "Sorry."

[MadEmperor]

If he was bothered, he didn't show it. He continued back into the servants' corridor. "After breakfast, he continued his morning inspection..."

The reenactment of the fateful day continued without anything out of the ordinary until his recollection reached that evening. He had become increasingly nostalgic about his previous life throughout the process, often going on some tangent about his rather heartwarming relationship with the family.

There had been a guest that evening. He had been so focused on excluding possible intruders that he had discounted the possibility that the villain had been invited in. Walking back to the front door, he said, "There was a guest that evening. I can't seem to recall her face, but she had arrived with the older son. To everyone's surprise, he introduced her as his betrothed, Morgayne. She was beautiful, sure, but he had never mentioned her before. Such whirlwind courtships are unusual for noble families, yet she won the family over with her charm."

"Mulciber didn't like her," he realized. Why had he not thought of her before that moment? It was if the memory slipped away when not directly engaged.

[Shouriko]

In Mulciber's wake, she followed him. From one room to the next, down this hall and another. His namesake, as he called him, was a very busy fellow! With a great deal of business to tend do!

When he went on and told stories, Qixia found herself smiling. There seemed to be a warmth in his voice that cheered up the empty castle, even if only in a small corner of it. The fondness was palpable and she'd encourage Mulciber to go on if not for the entire purpose of this march through his memories.

Eventually they returned to the way they had first entered the castle. She could sense a shift in her newly met friend. Her head leaned to one side, and because she was aloft, the whole of her began to lean. Although her gaze followed his to the door and she could imagine seeing the very people that Mulciber recalled from the past, there was no one there but she and he.

"No?" Qixia asked. It seemed that they were drawing close to the end. She drifted into Mulciber's view as she probed, "She felt wrong?" She could only assume that the namesake might've had instincts similar to her own.

[MadEmperor]

"She gained their approval far too easily. The fact that I could not remember her until now tells me that he was right; she was not to be trusted," he answered.

He began walking back to the servant's corridor. "In fact, I believe I just remembered something else. She looked different, but she smelled familiar. She smelled like one of the newer maids. The witch had been here for months." Draconic anger rose with each revelation. The strange woman was almost certainly the one who destroyed his world and killed everyone in it.