Brotherhood Bar-Talks

[Zelot]

Miguel took another sip of his whiskey, letting the warm liqueur roll across the back of his tongue and slowly burn it's way down his throat. The pain felt good, he thought, one of the only things he could feel anymore..pain, and hatred.

"Juan, Ever since the Rhineland war, that last stand, and....and...Pedro" Miguel whispered, reliving the day, as he had every day since. "He gave the ultimate sacrifice, but he was selfish, he did what was easy, for him. He got to the opportunity to leave on his terms... but he left the rest of us here, empty, without his council to guide us."

Pedro Alonso had finally come out of the storeroom, noticing Elder Lucendez, and Miguel and the looks on their faces, he decided he had not found what he had gone to the storeroom to find, placed the bottle of whiskey on the bar in front of Miguel, and headed back to the storeroom.

Miguel picked up the bottle, pulling the cork stopper out of the mouth, he caught a whiff of the liqueur, a complex combination of sweet and bitter, a perfect drink for The Brotherhood he thought to himself. He held up the bottle to Juan, in a half-hearted offer, knowing the odds of his old friend partaking were slim. Juan Lucendez usually didn't drink, saving it for special occasions and council meetings, although now that Gentile had disappeared, Miguel suspected the amount of drinking during council meeting would decrease.

" I don't think any of us were ready for Pedro to be gone... I know I wasn't, and even now, I don't know how I feel anymore. All I know anymore is anger and pain, I go out and defend Crete on a daily basis, I come home, and I feel no satisfaction in that anymore, I just hate them. Everyday the weight becomes heavier..everyday since that bastard left us."

Sephardi looked back down at the drink, taking the glass to his lips, and then returning it to the bar. He turned around on his stool, looking at the dark interior of the bar, a thin layer of grime coating everything. The light streamed in erratically through the streaks of dirt on the window panes. An air of stagnation hung over the room like a nebula.

"You know Juan, I am jealous of you, you seem to be so balanced. You can think about these things with a perspective I cannot even qualify. I am a warrior, it's all I know, and that all that was ever important, but now, all this politics, diplomacy and bureaucracy, it confounds me, I go into it like it is a battle, but that just gives me that hate, but for my own people, I don't sleep anymore Juan, I can't, every time I close my eyes, every ship I have destroyed, every life I have ended, flashes against my eyelids, my imagination creates a life for each one, a family and friends, a web of people from who's lives, I have ripped a piece from, just as Pedro was ripped from us."

Juan looked as if he was seeing Miguel for the first time, as if this was a man he had never known. Miguel felt a chill run threw his body, as though by verbalizing his feelings to someone else, the fire had been tamed, but he could still feel it inside of him, the glowing embers, waiting for the slightest fuel, to reignite, and and consume him.

"Juan, hermano, I truly don't know how to go on, I don't sleep, I don't eat, I drink to much." As if to punctuate his comment, Miguel finished the whiskey in his glass, and poured another from the bottle, still sitting on the dusty bar. "When Pedro came to my families home all those years ago, He gave me a cause and a family, but now, I'm not so clear on those things. When Sonja and Ivan had that stir, all I wanted was to stand by him, show him that as much as he had given up for us, we would give up for him, I wanted a just cause, a fight I could be proud of, a noble deed to offset all the pain and loss I have caused. Even now, I fight for the Brotherhood, and would gladly give my life for it, but I honestly don't know what it means anymore, I have lost sight of what it is we are fighting for, and ultimately, in the end, what it means to be a member of The Brotherhood."

Miguel sat their, trying to come to terms with truths of what he had just reveled to Juan, many of the things that he said, he hadn't even though about, before he had said them, but every word rang true, burning against Miguel's soul, reigniting the fire inside him. He looked down to his drink again, taking two large gulps, taking a moment to think about the burning as the liqueur burned it's way down to his belly, stoking the embers, feeding the fire.

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