Lewd King's Bucket List

The shadows began to wobble.

Ixion leaned back in his chair and watched the darkness beneath the shelves twist like disturbed water. As a faint smile touched his lips, he said:

"My dear Zabaniyah, it isn't like you to be shy."

A few more moments passed before the shadows swelled and stretched along the floor, gathered themselves, and then rose. From the pulp of darkness, Zabaniyah emerged.

Still, she stayed silent.

Ixion sighed as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Well?"

Zabaniyah stared blankly. Her straight black hair fell over her shoulders in a smooth black veil. Amber eye regarded him with its usual eerie calm.

Yet, that was only on the outside of her; on the inside?

'I can never understand him…'

Zabaniyah was supposed to be the one with mute emotions and expressions. So, why was it always so hard to tell what Ixion was thinking? His face looked placid and calm, but his eyes held a world of uncertainty behind them.

Or was she just imagining such a thing?

Failing to decipher the true message of Ixion's gaze, Zabaniyah spoke slowly.

"Because it was necessary."

Ixion's eyebrow rose as he leaned back in his chair.

Perhaps he was thinking the Wanderer of Fate gave her a directive of her own. Or maybe something else. Either way, once again, this face he made was undiscernible.

Ixion chuckled as he stretched his legs.

"Necessary is such a useful word, isn't it? Tyrants adore it. Madmen cherish it. Priests marry themselves to it. But the most tragic follower of the word?"

His lips lowered into a smile.

"Is a necessary villain."

In the simplest terms, Zabaniyah was lost at this tangent. But, like always, meaning hid between the lines that hid between the lines when it came to Ixion.

After all, it was quite hard for a man lying to the world to be honest in turn.

Seeing that she didn't understand, Ixion said plainly.

"To whom was this necessary for?"

He rose from his chair and began to circle her, then added:

"Me? Catatran? Kaldora? Or possibly… yourself?"

Ixion stopped pacing when he stood merely a meter in front of her.

No ripple of unease spread across her face. Her amber eye stayed trained on Ixion, staring deep into the ocean blue. For some reason, the response came slowly.

"Myself."

Zabaniyah braced herself.

She braced herself to face the fury of a man who'd never wronged her. Who'd always been by her side.

A man so caring he'd accept all the hate in the world for the betterment of those he'll never know.

But oddly, Ixion smiled. The corners of his lips flipped up, and a soft look appeared in his eyes. It almost looked like he wanted to cry.

"First, you read 'No Regrets'. Joking with the jester. And now, doing this…?"

Ixion stepped forward and hugged her. His arms wrapped around her back, pulling her body against his.

"I'm glad."

Once again, meaning was lost to the assassin.

Then, Ixion slipped out of the embrace and stepped away. Once he did, his expression slightly soured.

"But, as much as I'm happy and proud of you for finding your own claim in this world… Why was this necessary to you? What did you seek?"

Zabaniyah couldn't stop herself from biting her lip. Not that she even knew what the gesture meant or why she felt inclined to do it.

"To save you."

"Huh? To save me? You'll have to be more specific than that."

"The Chest. I wanted to fill it."

Ixion's eyes widened.

Zabaniyah continued:

"I wanted to stop you from following her words."

Despite her terse reasoning, Ixion was sure to understand. While he himself was hard to decipher, he was quite an intuitive man.

A heavy silence fell between the two as Ixion looked away.

Where his gaze fell was the mural of his great, great, and many more greats, grandfather etched in the ceiling.

"Your own words… I've thought them many times myself. The current Catatran population is roughly 750,000. It would take the deaths of 747,777 to fill the Chest enough to erect a barrier around all of Catatran. Then, we would have finally beaten the Scourge."

Ixion's fist clenched as he looked away from the mural and took a step toward his desk.

"But let me tell you a secret. Or, how about this: let me ask you a question. What do you think the Wanderer of Fate showed me?"

Zabaniyah stared blankly for a moment. She'd remembered the happening. She'd remembered Sloth staring into his eyes one moment, then the next, he had dropped to the floor and began crying and begging.

Begging to have Sloth use him.

Zabaniyah calmly answered.

"The fall of the world. Futility of resistance. All of our deaths."

"Ah, futility! My favorite word. Ha ha! You're correct, I had indeed been shown that. Yet, if that was all I had been shown, then it would make little sense that I'd be moved so much to help destroy the world I cried for, no? I was quite a principled man. The old me would have ignored her and fought desperately against fate to save the world. Or perhaps I would have gone the genocide route. But, alas, we'll never know what I would have done because I was shown more. Much more."

Ixion's expression tightened, and he clenched his jaw tight. He looked both angry and sad.

Then Ixion heaved a long sigh.

"Do you think the way I talk differs from the typicality? Almost like I come from a whole different place? A different world?"

Zabaniyah studied Ixion's melancholic expression. The forlorn expression he always wore when he was alone, but this time it was far darker.

"You talk a little differently, perhaps. Though I don't think I'm the best judge of that."

Ixion smiled as he looked over his desk as if searching for something that wasn't there.

"Ah, you may be right. I guess I'll just get to the point then."

Ixion stopped as he placed his hand on the Noble Path of a True King. He began tracing the contours of the book.

"Alongside the imminent destruction of Kaldora… I was shown memories from different worlds of countless victims of the Scourge. I lived their lives. Living their insignificant victories, their major losses, tender moments ripped asunder. I witnessed it all."

Ixion clicked his tongue, then closed his eyes.

"The life of a man named Obeisant, a hero from Pandora who wanted to save his master; Thane, a regular soldier from Terra who wanted to live; Fold Ghan, a king from Pandora who wanted his nation to be the greatest; Cory Higgins, a simple man from Earth who just wanted peace; Leora Hearthsteel, a warrior with a steel heart from Earth; And many more."

He looked as if he'd been recalling all those memories. Perhaps that was exactly what he'd been doing.

He slowly blinked his eyes open, his gaze fixed on the book in his hand.

"My memory of Ixion may be the dominant one, but all of their memories exist alongside mine. All the memories of what the Scourge had done to them — to me. I've suffered more than any at the hands of the Scourge. I've lost more, worlds more, than any could ever imagine."

He cast a glance over his shoulder at Zabaniyah. An expression of… Zabaniyah didn't know. Was it a look of confusion, pity, sympathy, anger, sadness? All in one?

"I am a man who is many condensed into one. If I defied Sloth by doing what you'd said, then that means all the other lives I've lived will meet their horrible ends. I will only have saved one of the many of myself."

He picked up the book and inspected the faceless cover.

"But, at the sacrifice of this life and Kaldora, I might not save all of my other lives from the Scourge, but some may be spared."

Ixion turned and fully faced his Royal Assassin.

"That is why I act the way I act. That is why I walk the path I walk. I act not for others, as you may think I do; I act for my selves."

He looked her straight in the eye.

"That's not to say I don't have my cares for you all, but love has indeed become quite hard for me to understand with how muddled the concept has become in my mind."

He sighed.

A sigh Zabaniyah would never understand.

"And whatever 'love' is, I don't think I possess enough of it for this body to sacrifice the others."

Zabaniyah watched as a single tear slid out from Ixion's eyes and dropped to the floor.

Who or what that tear was shed for?

Nobody knew.

Not even Ixion himself.