Ekological Chimera
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Chapter 26 - Friendly chat
🕑 Added 2024-09-20 18:38:56 +0000 UTCThe Custodian sat on a chair, reading through a newly made dictionary, the only illumination provided by a lit torch set attached to the dungeon’s wall. Her chair sat in the middle of one of the underground corridors that ran through the Temple’s dungeon, facing a reinforced door. A dishevelled, but healthy-looking man stared at her through the opened slit in the door, while sitting on his cot, his brown eyes tired. He was of average height, though you could not tell from his slouched posture. His head sported messy black hair and his square face was covered in stubble. He wore a grey robe, identical to a servant’s garments.
“This word, democracy,” Serana said, speaking in English, “Can you expand upon it?”
The man tried to school his features, but intrigue was clearly not part of his skill set, resulting in a somewhat constipated expression. His current disposition was still quite the improvement from their first chat, however. Once he understood that the Custodian wasn’t about to kill him and only wished to ask trivial questions, his mood had noticeably improved. Especially since he had been left alone for a few days. That had been hours ago.
“Uh, of course, it means a state ruled by its people,” He said, voice tired.
Serana stared at him for a moment, watching him squirm, before deciding to explain. Not everyone could be as competent as Aisac, “Yes, but how? You’ve told me that there are hundreds of billions of you. Surely you do not all gather together and argue every time there is an issue?”
The man stared at her blankly for a few seconds before speaking, “Representatives, mostly. The people vote for representatives that they favour and those make the decisions.”
The Custodian absorbed his words in silence. What a strange, easily exploitable system. It was unfortunate that there was likely little she could do from Eigos, but the knowledge would be useful eventually.
She looked the man over. He was slouched, his eyes half closed, but there was also a hint of exasperation. She judged him worn enough for more important questions.
“Interesting. Is that why you were fighting amongst yourself, a disagreement between these representatives?”
The man scoffed, “No, of course not. It’s..” He paused, thinking, “Like a noble trying to usurp a king?”
Serana quirked an eyebrow, “A rebellion you mean?”
The man had the decency to look embarrassed, “Uh, yeah.”
A rebellion, yet by all accounts it was his side that fired the first shot. There was certainly more to the story, but Serana didn’t want the prisoner to think too much about what they were talking about.
“That is certainly unfortunate. Does your Republic follow any Gods?”
The man blinked at the yet another abrupt topic change, before scratching his scraggly beard, “There are a few religions, though they are not very prominent outside of Terra. It’s not something I’m familiar with much.”
The Custodian suppressed a frown. This was a very delicate topic, something she had reserved for the very end. The chance that the prisoner would realize that their friendly chat had been turned into an interrogation was high when something of such great importance was discussed.
Yet he answered casually while giving a non-answer.
“Terra is your capital world, correct?”
He nodded while one of his hands played with the straw of his bed.
“What do you know of these religions?”
The prisoner scratched his head, “I was born on… uh, an agricultural world. We call it Dawn. See, while crops can be grown in space, it is not cost-efficient, much better for it to be grown on planet and-”
Serana watched impassively as the man babbled. He had done so before, it was not anything remarkable, starved for conversation as he was. Still, an inkling of suspicion formed.
“…so Dawn was colonized a few of centuries back and-”
“The religions?” Serana interrupted.
“Ah, right, sorry. I got a bit carried away,” He chuckled awkwardly, “Um, so what I was trying to say, is that Dawn is one of the tertiary colonies, meaning it was colonized from secondary colonies, which themselves came from the primaries, the so called core worlds,” He paused, “That’s uhh, obvious too I guess.”
The man sped up a little under her stare, “Anyway, the primaries were colonised from Terra itself during the First Expansion. While our worlds are relatively well-connected, Terran religions didn’t truly make it past the primaries.”
Serana blinked, “You don’t know?”
“I know some things!” The man defended himself, “It’s just, that religions only really figure in ancient Terran history and I never paid much attention to that.”
“I see.”
The Custodian didn’t see, but she was fairly certain the man was being genuine. The only conclusion she could come to was that the Republic’s God or Gods were confined to Terra. This in itself would not be strange, since Eternity was rather similar, but the apparent lack of any sort of involvement outside of Terra was odd, even if there was a plethora of possible explanations. She doubted the prisoner would be of much help with figuring out this particular mystery.
Even though the lack of concrete information rankled, this could nonetheless be seen as great news. At first, she had thought the Terrans were secretive of any patron they might have. Understandable, when they were far outside its protection. Now the picture became clearer. She’d have to verify with the other prisoners, but if this one spoke truly, then the Republic had no divinity supporting its expansion. Whatever or whoever was on Terra was of no importance, considering the distances involved. Even a God would hesitate to travel so far, especially with how rooted in their capital world the Republic’s supposed divinity seemed to be.
Perhaps there was nothing, even. That their religions would survive for so long without any backing seemed unlikely, but Serana knew that her people had once done something similar, even if she could barely recall any details now. A great opportunity, should such prove true in the Republic.
As these thoughts ran through her mind, the prisoner began to grow uncomfortable under her gaze.
“Well?” Serana spoke.
He blinked, “Well what?”
She suppressed a another sigh, “What are those ‘some things’ you speak of?”
“Ah, right, sorry. I’ve never been a good conversationalist, you know. Right, right, religions. Uh, let me think, it’s been a while since I’ve heard this,” He paused, thinking for a moment, before continuing, “There used to be many different ones with many different gods, before a few religions worshipping the same God in different ways mostly took over. Those are the ones I spoke of earlier, still present on Terra and the Primaries. The more distant colonies usually have less organized and more spiritual beliefs, if they have any.”
He scratched his nose, “That’s pretty much it. I might remember more, but as I said, religion was never something I was interested in.”
As he spoke, Serana grew pensive. What the prisoner described could pretty much be applied to Eigos as well. Had she not worked hard to maintain unity amongst the Church, she had little doubt that there would be other groups claiming to worship Eternity in different, 'better' ways. After all, a few had popped up here or there over the years. Had Eternity not seen fit to make Serana Her Custodian, the situation on Terra would very likely be a near exact match to Eigos.
The man began to fidget, but Serana paid him no mind. She had no more questions to ask for now in any case.
If nothing else, the prisoner's story made the likelihood of some sort of divinity existing on Terra higher.
She couldn’t help but wonder how a clash between such giants would look. Would there even be anything of Eigos left by the end?
An acceptable way for her immortal life to end, certainly.
The prisoner mustered his courage and spoke up, bringing her out of her thoughts, “Hey, what’s been happening out there? You’ll be able to exchange me soon, right?”
Serana turned her cold eyes back to the man. Truthfully, she was not even certain whether the Terran’s even knew she had taken prisoners.
“Your kind has yet to return, but rest assured, I have little want to waste resources on captives.”
The man let out a sigh of relief, “That’s good. Not that it’s bad here,” He chuckled awkwardly again, “I’d just rather, uh, return to my people. Hopefully, they’ll come back soon.”
“I hope so as well.”
