Out of Character:
Closed to Mr Veritas, esq.


The co-leader of the Brotherhood of the Castigars was tired. Since their liberation of Whitevale, Shinsou's and Storm's grip had tightened around their new organization and yet with each passing day the resistance against the change grew. Just under a third of their forces had slipped through their fingers in a couple of months. Osiris was so worn out from ducking, diving and fighting that his eyelids felt heavier than iron and when the waves of exhaustion swept over him, they threatened to pull the Telgradian down into an abyss of sleep. Beneath the long, unkempt bangs of chestnut hair, sodden eyes of gold glared out into the center of the room. The object of his ire before him, Osiris had been looking forward to this very much.

It was time to play his part.

There came a stressed groaning from the supports of his chair as Osiris sat his cloaked body further back into the upholstery. In the sultry air of his Whitevale office, a place one could only reach through either invitation or detention, a bloodied and beaten man was forced to his knees. The only communication was the gesture of a cold steel spear being pressed to his neck and a firm leather boot locking against his shoulder blade. Shinsou smiled an unseen smirk, when most ironically the situation held little to smile about.

"What is your name?"

The man looked up through a mass of blooded, knotted white hair. He had remembered that voice. It was the usurper Shinsou Vaan Osiris. He noticed, rather to his surprise, that his sword hadn’t been taken from him and still swung and clattered around his waist underneath his filthy greatcoat. He allowed himself a moment of satisfaction, knowing that the significance of it would at that very moment be irritating to one of Whitevale's new lords, whom without the smile-mask as a restraint would have dived from his ill gotten throne to tear it from him.

"That depends," droned the weary warrior, altering the pitch and intonation of his voice not once from the first word to the last. “Do you want my real name or the name that the Brotherhood you stole bestowed on me?”

The Telgradian huffed in the way only greatly powerful, self-absorbed leaders can do. He loved to hear this answer and felt more and more sure of himself every time its verse was sung flatly and in such dull tone by one of the Ducos insurrectionists.

"Tell me, please. How many of your number do you believe have knelt where you now kneel? I have heard this kind of reply dozens of times. Your name is Ramsey Mthandria, son of Ducos. Don’t fool yourself into thinking I know nothing of you. It insults the image I grudgingly bear of you..."

Ramsey sank once more with a disenchanted breath. He seemed to collapse entirely inside, not exactly at the words of his tormentor, but more at the implications of his question. Shinsou was right. Many of Ducos's men would have knelt here, or somewhere much less civilized. Oh how he begged now to be in some soaking wet, dark cell. How he begged to be away from this de-facto throne room of this new Brotherhood and its occupants. He pleaded in his mind for the thud of a heavy baton across his shoulder or face, the lash of a barbed whip upon his naked back; anything but this. It didn't draw this hateful spew of truth that began to surge into his consciousness. The truth did not make one truly see that hope was, in fact, nowhere in sight, but that it was truly, truly lost. He summoned some strength to talk, if only in order not to be silenced.

"I am. My father named me. My mother was killed in one of your raids not long ago. You know this, and therefore know that I do not lie. Had I lied or told the truth, in any case, what difference would it make?"

Some shape came to his voice as Ramsey posed his question for the Telgradian, who appeared to be devoid of any expression of emotion at all. He raised a chalice to his disheveled face. Ramsey was unsure if his captor was actually consuming the contents it or simply using it as a device to antagonize him further.

"None whatsoever,” Came Shinsou's reply, “My mind is on more pressing matters than your family history. I want to know where your father is. The Brotherhood Council is now past-tense, as will soon be all that you and the rest of your insignificant rebellion cling to. Do yourself a favor and save yourself before its too late."

Shinsou stopped, and sat forward in his creaking, straining chair. Ramsey said nothing, spitting to his right.

"Defiant to the end? So be it. Stay on this course, however, and you'll be conveying a message to your father via the hangman's noose. If Ducos and his men do not surrender to the Brotherhood, then whatever they have salvaged from the wreckage of your former empire will be razed. Choose not to lie to yourself, Ramsey Mthandria, and accept that you will not be able save yourself or any of your people unless we deem it so. I could have you killed at a moment of my choosing and you could do nothing, and I am but one of two lords of Whitevale. So, i'm going to give you one last opportunity to think about your...situation."

The Telgradian looked at Ramsey's defiant form with false, cowing eyes, as if appealing greatly to him, but the retort, predictably, came in the form of another wad of spit. His patience exhausted, Shinsou's fingers clicked. A prayer for the broken was answered at last as the heavy oak butt of the spear struck the back of Ramsey’s head, the force knocking his face into the thin carpet at his knees. The Telgradian, defiantly, whisked a hand in the air to order the warrior to be removed, with no hope of tracing his journey from the premises of the Whitevale complex. He beckoned for Ramsey's sword, inspecting it with interest as it was passed to him, whilst the guards dragged the limp body off into the intestines of the headquarters.

Shinsou lolled his head back as the guards vacated the office, his weight forcing the chair to creak loudly once more. He was pleased with his little performance. The Telgradian was always so tired now, worn down by the relentlessness of Ducos's resistance, and perhaps his recent behavior in dealing with the rebellion signified that the end of his tether had finally been found.

With a wave of his hand, he summoned one of his handmaidens to his side.

"Tell Veritas we've captured that little shit, Ramsey. I think its time we made a statement of intent. Tell him he'll be swinging at dawn."