Back to Created and Consumed: Ch 2 Pt 1

“She was alone when I found her! She attacked me!” he protested, “She shot me with my own weapon. She’s a no good wretch! Denied me, out and out denied me!”

An uproar of argument erupted from the stands and I saw Ado clench his fists, “A wretch would have allowed you to have your way with her!” Ado yelled, “You entered a superior officer’s quarters uninvited and attempted to make away with his property. You blatantly disregarded the privacy of the residency and damaged its contents…” he looked around to the mass of Covenant, “… now if that isn’t a crime then I have seriously misread the Covenant’s code of honour.”

“Enough!” Prophet Truth ordered, Morta looked away from the stands and Ado, obviously pleased with himself, resumed his kneel before the overbearing Hierarchs. Truth rubbed his temple and sighed. “This is obviously a matter of privacy, one which has been violated. General Mortumee, you should definitely know better.”

Mercy then addressed the Council with open arms, “Fellow Covenant, these arguments between warriors… they cannot continue. They are pointless and if they proceed to become an issue within the Covenant we will be forced to resort to barbaric measures such as containing insolence and executing violators…”

I huffed at this, as if the Covenant didn’t already resort to barbarity. Keeping females underground for breeding purposes was proof enough to falsify Mercy’s statement.

“Zealot Mortumee,” Truth addressed my protector, “You have become the victim of a crime. You were only keeping this female for a later event, correct?” Ado bowed in agreement, “Very well… Zealot Ado Morutmee, you are hereby dismissed from trial.”

“What of Eia?” Ado pressed.

“She very nearly perished, so your Medic has informed me.” He turned, “Eia.” He softly asked.

I looked up in acknowledgement.

“You are to return…” I held my breath, please not the under realms of the City, anywhere but there, “… to your place in the Chambers.” My heart sank, I shook my head.

“Prophet Truth! Please!” I begged, “I can be useful, I swear! I’ll do anything to serve the Covenant, just please, not there!” I was not kneeling; I was on both knees, weeping.

“I see you have a voice after all…” Truth observed, “You are a broken spirit, Eia. How could you possibly be useful?”

“I’ll fight.” I looked up to him, “I’ll fight for the Covenant. I’ll fight for the Journey.”

“This war has no place for a female warrior!” Regret exclaimed, “It is sacrilege and heresy to even think of it!”

“I believe in the Great Journey! There is no heresy in my heart!” I yelled, “Given the chance I would take a life for the Covenant! If you send me down there I will be unable to serve you or the Covenant! I will refuse to give children for your war, and others will follow suit!” I pointed to the floor, “Down there are potential warriors! Thousands!”

“The children of the Covenant, yes…” Truth concluded and turned away. Ado dragged at my arm but I was not finished. I walked up two steps.

“No! Not the children! The ones who bear them! There are courageous females down there! You are blind Prophets! Blind!” I screamed, “Those females down there have endured more than ANY of these warriors up here could imagine, THEY are the true warriors of the Covenant! They are more than worthy of the Great Journey!” I was furious and frightened all at the same moment, “I refuse your sentence, Prophets. I will not return to the under realms of the Holy City!”

The Chamber was silent; my voice had come back as an echo.

Truth looked back to me and three Honour Guard staffs were raised to my neck, he waved them down, “What is your name?” he asked, “Who named you?”

“I answer to the name, ‘Eia’ until my true identity is found…”

“Warriors have names; female…” he seemed satisfied by this comment, “You do not have a name.” he folded his arms and looked down to me, “To serve the Covenant, you require identity, a name… but seeing as you do not have one…” he turned away again.

The Council was silent; I walked right up to Truth, feeling the entire Covenant body inhale nervously, “Then award me a name…”

Truth considered me for a moment, grinned, then addressed the Council, “Brothers, this here, this female, is a prime example of courage and faith!” his voice resonated through the Sanctum, “She has endured physical torture, she bears battle scars already, she possesses no items of value at all yet she fights to protect which is dear to her! Tell me brothers; have we been so blind that the tears shed for our Covenant were ignored?”

I listened and watched Prophet Truth; his arms were open to the Covenant, addressing them as one. There were a few Sangheili close by negotiating the matter and already there were a couple more nodding.

He looked down to me, “She will become a great warrior for the Covenant…” he said soothingly, never had I heard Prophet Truth speak so sincerely to another before, I forced myself into a steep bow, “Eia…” looked up and took in each detail of his face, “I leave you in the care of this Zealot. I trust that you and Ado are already acquainted?” I nodded. The other two Prophets remained silent.

“Prophets.” I addressed them and they all cocked their heads to listen in unison, “My name… what is it?”

Truth inclined his head and made a sweeping gesture over to Ado, “I believe Zealot Ado can help you in that respect, Eia.”

I blinked.

“You are dismissed…”

With exhausted relief, I bowed again. The sleek metal floor of the City had never looked so pleasant before, nothing could dampen my spirit now.

“Oh, and Eia?”

I again looked up.

“I suggest you train hard if you intend for your fellow females to see the light of the stars again.” I had no chance to respond, he had descended in the grav-lift before I could form words.

Beside me, as the Council filed out of the Sanctum, Ado sighed, “What?” I asked. He said nothing as he led me from the chamber and back to his dwelling.
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“Ado speak to me, you haven’t said a thing since we left the Sanctum…”

He seated himself quietly and looked gravely at me.

“What?” I demanded; feeling alienated all over again. I folded myself into a seat opposite him and looked at him.

“You did something very dangerous today…” he said shortly.

“I know I did, and it worked, didn’t it?” I replied, I hadn’t expected praise but he could have refrained from scolding me at least.

“Eia, nobody faces the Prophets, ever, it is a road that leads to Heresy. The Prophets disapprove of rebellion…”

“So you’re saying I should have just rolled over and taken Truth’s judgement?” I laughed, “Please tell me you’re kidding…”

Ado looked at directly at me and shook his head, “His name is ‘Prophet of Truth’… Eia, please understand, you were very close to being murdered today; I only just managed to revive you. And then you thank me by pulling a stunt like that. It was completely irrational and stupid.”

“So. You would have gone with Truth’s…”

“Prophet of Truth…” he corrected again. I growled softly.

“… you would have gone with his decision to banish me again then?”

“I never said that. I would never support such an act…”

“You wouldn’t like it, no, but you would sit by and watch while Truth shoved me back in that hole they call a residency. Don’t worry, I completely understand what you mean, Ado.” I said sarcastically.

“His name is ‘Prophet of Truth’…”

“To hell with his name, Ado!” I stood and paced the room, furiously kneading my fists into my folded arms, “A name is nothing, it’s a title, a right of birth.” I began to let my fury bubble to the surface, “Warriors require a name to fight for their people. Oh, how interesting. I don’t have a name, but I am fighting for my people. Damn I must be a Heretic!”

“Eia, please.” He begged, rubbing his temple. He was mentally exhausted.

I was outraged that someone who claimed to care for me had wished me to return to the depths of the lower City levels. “Whatever…” I muttered and delivered a final scathing glare at Ado. I turned and retreated to the crib which Ado had given me, kicking aside fresh robes which had been placed at the foot of the bed for me to wear.
I crossly pulled on the fabric and fastened the band around my waist to keep the material from coming apart, and then upon seeing Ado resting his head back on his seat, I walked to my bunk to rest also. On the cushion I saw a similar diskette to the one Ado had previously shown me. There was a note attached to it:

Eia,
I believe this may hold more answers to your queries, I found this while you were in the ward, recovering from your accident. It is another information diskette, constructed by Prophet Sanctuary, himself. I figure, since you know this Prophet more than I seem to, he meant this to be passed on to your hands.

I hope you find what you’re looking for.

Ado

I saw another outlet in the wall; this one had a screen on the left hand side and it flashed when I pressed some digits. I remembered the sequence Ado had used before. Top-left, middle-bottom, centre, bottom-right, centre, top-left. The screen flickered once then displayed a menu, I pressed the disk into the slot which had now presented itself and it was swallowed with a quiet zip. I watched the screen come into life. Displayed was the face of Prophet Sanctuary, smiling the same way he had when I was a child.

“I take it that Ado has found you, young one…” he smiled, “he is quite the loyal one. I suppose you have a fair few questions about your history, quite possibly you have forgotten who you are and where you came from, what you’re doing in Ado’s care and what the future holds. This I can partially answer for you.” It was a video recording of my oldest friend; it couldn’t have been made long after I was taken away, he looked just as I had remembered him. “Your name is Zyrra Jiserraphira; you were born into my care by sheer accident. I found you upon the steps of my chamber when you were no more than a week old. I took you into my ward and raised you with the other Sangheili children. They were all male of course and on their way to becoming commanders, warriors, pilots and marksmen, you on the other hand, could not be kept quiet from the Council. You were found and taken from my care. I could do nothing.” His face saddened and I reached out to touch a falling tear only to see it dissolve into the air, “I longed for you to become a warrior like your brothers, Jurdo and Doxo were always letting you into their games and I momentarily forgot your gender. You acted so naturally like a male that I started to believe that you actually were. This continued until I was brought back from my fantasy, when you were of the age, you did not become handsome, you became beautiful; your brothers noticed this and questioned me. When I explained that they had in fact, not another younger brother, but a sister, they began to drift from you; eventually they left for their training. I doubt that they’ll even remember you now.”

“I had brothers?” I asked the holographic image.

To my surprise the question was answered, “You weren’t directly related to Jurdo or Doxo; they too were found, along with seventy eight other Sangheili children, over one hundred Unggoy babies, hoards of Yanm’ee larvae, and those who had been caring for you, a roost of Kig-Yar which had been cast out by the Covenant.” I almost collapsed, how could so many newborn and not-yet-born Covenant be collected so densely and not be detected by motion trackers? “Of course I took them in; I couldn’t leave the poor Kig-Yar to care for you all alone. I decided to take the role of the ‘surrogate mother’ for these children, though, the Yanm’ee larvae primarily cared for themselves and were recruited by the Covenant almost immediately. Their natural ability to adapt and grow independently rendered me useless to their development. The Unggoy, though, they became attached. You could probably detect which of the Unggoy were raised in my care; they learned their courage came from within, not from those who led them.”

I yearned for Prophet Sanctuary to tell me more, more of my siblings, more of my past, “What of sisters? Did I have sisters?”

“You were the only Sangheili female; you weren’t found with the children I rescued from the Kig-Yar. I don’t know where you came from before that day, I’m sorry, Zyrra.”

“Will I ever find you again, Prophet Sanctuary?” I asked in the hope that he would reveal his location.

“I require you to train, work hard and become one of the Council. I cannot tell you where I am at present, it is far too dangerous and I cannot place you in more danger than you are now. Ado is a fine warrior and he will care for you, I chose him especially for this task because I knew that he would not fail me. Zyrra, if there is one thing to remember, it is this…” a holographic hand reached out and touched my shoulder, I felt it, holographic images cannot make one feel, I realised it was Ado gripping my shoulder, “… you always have a place, remember where that is and you’ll never be lost. Until we meet, Zyrra, farewell.”

The screen blackened and the disk ejected from the wall. I stood silently for a moment until Ado squeezed my shoulder again. I blinked, “He was my mother… my father… why did he not see me? Why did he not try to get me out?” I whispered to him. I could feel the sting of tears beginning in my eyes again.

“He cared for you, Zyrra. He didn’t want to send you down there.” Ado soothed, “He was shipped from the City when he was found to be fostering Covenant children. He fought to have you saved…”

“Saved?” I asked.

“You were to be executed, that was the original sentence, his punishment for keeping you…” Ado replied, “I was serving as a maintenance Gudili at the time and heard the whispers on the COM channels while repairing them one afternoon.
Never had I heard Prophet Truth so furious, he was outraged that a Prophet had shown more than a formal relationship toward another of the Covenant.”

I silenced again, turned from the wall and sat on the edge of the bed.

“Zyrra?”

I looked to him.

“I will train you. It is my duty.”

I nodded.

“It will be difficult…”

I nodded a second time.

“Are you prepared?”

“I have been prepared my whole life. I have always been equipped to be a warrior. I was raised as a male for the first twelve Cycles of my life and even back then I could exchange blows with the best of my siblings.” I looked at him, “Do you really think your question needs an answer?”

Onward to Created and Consumed: Ch 3 Pt 1