There was darkness.
Darkness and pain.
Within that darkness, Zara felt herself slowly rising. The darkness felt cold and unfamiliar. Not at all like the darkness of sleep, but a darkness that seemed to be trying to pull her down and suffocate her.
She hovered in the dark for a long time before it began to fade. With it came pain. She felt as if her body had been ground to a paste and reformed. Zara tried to slowly survey herself to understand the extent of her wounds, but it was all too much. Everything felt like a wound or injury in this state.
Her eyes remained closed, and she forced herself to remain calm. It wouldn't do to alert the others to her presence. So she tried to regulate her breathing and stop herself from hyperventilating.
With inexorable slowness, she finally began to look across her body. She was used to simply feeling around with her mist. However, there was none. Her entire body had been drained to not even the barest sliver. That wasn't a surprise.
Her chest ached from the numerous blows she had sustained. Zara guessed that her ribs were all screwed up. It was likely that one of them was broken. Normally, her mist would have been hard at work repairing the damage, but there wasn't any. She wasn't completely out of luck, though. Her body was still far stronger and heartier than a normal person. A broken rib would have incapacitated any other person, but if she had enough time, the injury would start to heal even without mist.
She shifted ever so slightly, and her wrists clinked ominously against the ground. That wasn't a surprise either. The manacles seemed to be of Gearborn make based on the feeling she got from wearing them. It was hard to find manacles strong enough for someone like her as well.
Her side suddenly rippled with pain as it connected with the hard earth. Zara barely suppressed a groan and steadied herself for a minute.
Just breathe.
She could smell blood even without opening her eyes. Her side would be in bad shape; she knew. If there was anything that stopped her from fighting, it would be that. It had been nearly enough to take her down completely during her fight with the robot.
All in all, her situation was not the greatest. Trapped alone…completely alone, even Iris wasn't with her. It was disconcerting to exist without her presence, but Zara knew she was safer away from the gearborn. Who knew what machinations they had to eliminate a spirit like Iris?
Quiet voices reached her ears a moment later. There was no more time to contemplate her woes, it seemed. She slowly opened her eyes and took a glance around. Her eyes still held the strength that the rest of her body lacked. Even in the barely lit cavern, she could make out her surroundings well enough. The voices seemed to be echoing towards her from a nearby corridor. They'd be here in a few seconds.
The bars caging her in were nearly two inches thick. They were designed specifically to combat her strength or others like her. Still, she guessed that if she had enough time, she could bend one of the bars. However, that was assuming she was at full strength, which she most certainly wasn't
Zara briefly considered what was going on with the fort. The last thing she remembered was the order by the gearborn to level the place. It had to have happened already, so had there been any survivors? She suspected so, but wouldn't get her hopes up.
Two figures stepped into the room, and she was able to identify them at once. One was of smaller stature, and she recognized him as the healer from her battle with the pirates. In front of him stood the Pirate King. His gaze rested on her for a moment before a smile took his face. That wasn't ominous at all.
"You've finally awakened. I was worried that the damage they had done to you would have been permanent." he looked down at her with a look of concern.
Zara didn't bother to hide her disgust. "I could say the same about you. But there wasn't much to expect in the first place."
The man responded with the ever-so-slight narrowing of his eyes, "You know. This definitely suits you…you and all of you foolish Valencians. Everything about your empire hinged on this moment, and you didn't even realize."
Zara didn't respond, but simply studied the monster that had killed so many of her friends. She wanted to scrape the smirk off his face, but settled for remaining stoic. There was no point in allowing him to rile her up more.
He frowned slightly at her lack of an outburst and continued, "You've lost, Zara. Admit it. As we speak, my men hunt down the survivors from your fort. They'll be captured within the week. The gearborn will complete their tests soon enough, and then the real project begins."
She narrowed her eyes. "What test?"
"Oh, it's nothing that I could bother understanding. This is only the first part of Valencia's inevitable fall."
Zara was beginning to piece together a theory in her mind, and she didn't like where it was going. The gearborn had clearly come to the island for a reason. That was blatantly obvious. However, up until this moment, their intentions had never really been clear.
Now though?
"You realize you're not just betraying Valencia but all of humanity as you do this. You'll allow them to enter our seas and pillage just as they did before. Only there will be nothing holding them back this time."
He sighed, "Maybe I've just seen the truth of their power."
"That's bullshit."
"Is it, though? The gearborn are returning, and they are stronger than they were before, while we stagnated. When this conflict inevitably picks back up, Valencia will fall, and all the other seas along with it."
"You think us so weak?" She sniffed. "Your loss, I guess."
"I don't think… I know!
You know, Valencia has always hated pirates. Granted, it isn't without merit. Many of us are monsters, I won't deny that. To you, we're nothing more than thieves, murderers, criminals… traitors. Men who place their own desires above all else. You see this and mistake it for the whole.
Your greatest mistake isn't hating pirates. It's believing you understand us.
For all your pride, for all your power, you know frighteningly little about Avelon… despite it lying in the waters right beyond your very shores. You fear what you think we are, but have never stopped to ask yourself what we have become.
One day, that ignorance will cost you far more than your hatred ever could."
"Avelon? Your home?" Zara had noticed how long the Pirate King had begun rambling. The more information she could glean about the pirates' mysterious kingdom, the better.
The Pirate King scoffed, "Gen, slit your throat."
Before Zara had time to so much as flinch, a blade whisked from the man's belt, and he cleanly severed it across his own neck. Red blood gushed from the wound as the man collapsed to the ground. Zara stared at the fallen body, watching the life force drain from the man.
"Enough demonstration, Gen. Heal yourself already."
The man glowed, and his wound suddenly closed. The blood flow stopped, and soon only a long, jagged scar remained; after a few moments, that too, began to fade. Zara simply stared, watching the man push himself up and stand tall behind the Pirate King.
The Pirate King gave a faint smile and turned to her. "Well, Zara. I think you have seen quite clearly the difference between our two peoples. We may live in Valencia, but we are no more Valencian than the source of your hair."
She flinched back, knowing the man had struck a chord. In truth, her hair was not native to Valencia. It was from Stormvale. She had inherited it from her mom, along with her purple mist. The rest of her may have been Valencian like her dad, but that didn't matter, did it? She was Valencian because that's what she believed in.
"I'm still confused about what this demonstration is supposed to show. Your men are willing to even kill themselves in your service. That is precisely what is wrong with you, pirates. You all live in the hierarchy and are too scared to step out of line lest you die. That is no good thing. On the contrary."
"Is it though? Tell me, Zara, what happens when your men are forced to stand against an armada that never tires… never falters… never knows fear? What becomes of your men when the sea itself splits apart to condemn them? Or when they are forced to face monsters made of steel?"
The smile on his face slowly spread into a cruel grin. "Zara, Zara, Zara."
"You may think badly of our society and way of life. You call us savage and uncivilized. Perhaps in times of peace you'd be right."
His eyes grew dark and cold; all bits of humor dropped away.
"Peace is a luxury this world can no longer afford. When the tides turn, your civilized kingdoms will crumble before the waves. We did not become what we are because we lacked morality. We became what we are because morality is a privilege given to those who believe tomorrow is guaranteed."
He took another step forward.
"You call us pirates."
His smile returned with all the ferocity of a serpent preparing to strike.
"I call us the only people preparing to survive. When the sea comes to claim the rest of you… when the tides of iron encroach on your lands… it will be us that remain standing, while you sit at the bottom of a barren sea."
"That's a lot of bravado coming from the man who got bested by a kid."
The man scoffed, "I grew impatient with myself and let my ego get the best of me."
"That had nothing to do with ego… Though I do know you have plenty of that. You ran like a chicken when the gearborn called. Exactly what you commend your society for is what you yourself do to the tin cans."
"Precisely, we learned it from them, of course."
Zara could only stare at the man. For once, she wasn't sure what to say. She had thought the man sane, but what he spoke of was lunacy. The act that he had just shown was a simple, callous disregard for his followers. Following the Gearborn ideals? She couldn't stomach the thought.
Despite the war waged against the robots, they still understood frighteningly little about the robots' motives. They seemed to be under the impression that the subjection of humanity was of the utmost priority. But why? Their entire hierarchy was built on defeating humanity.
So for another human to claim that this was how their society ran made her blood run cold.
"You're a fool."
The Pirate King raised an eyebrow. "And you're in a cage. Who's the bigger fool?"
"You trust the gearborn. What could be more foolish than that?"
His eyes narrowed. "Who said anything about trust?"
The sounds of boots stomping turned all their gazes to the door. It wasn't the sound of human footsteps, but the sound of iron or stone. A group of shadows appeared in the doorway before a group of robots entered the chamber.
Zara eyed them wearily, but remained silent. They weren't the same group of powerhouses that had occupied their leader. These were gearborn of the plain variety. The type that would be a challenge to humans without any sea mastery. However, in a group as large as this one, they could be a threat to even those of Silas's rank.
They fought exactly how the blasted pirate had shown after all. They didn't care if they were destroyed, just as long as a human joined them in the grave.
Their glowing eyes flicked across the room before landing on the Pirate King and his subordinate. The Pirate King didn't quake under the gaze like a lesser. He instead held their gaze for a moment before kneeling to the ground. The other pirate, Gen, followed suit only a moment later.
The gearborn didn't move toward them, but seemed to convene to themselves quietly in the corner. Zara watched them wearily, expecting at any moment for them to approach. She certainly had a lot of information they would like her to spill. It was only a matter of time before the torture began in earnest. However, for the moment, they seemed content to remain on their side of the chamber.
That left the pirates kneeling for a while. Despite the cowering posture they held, the Pirate King slowly turned his head to face her. He still kept it low to be undetectable, but he gave her a sly smile.
Then he mouthed, "All empires fall, even those made of steel."