Cobalt's Pensieve (Closed)

[Cobalt Smith]

Cobalt sat down in his study with a heavy heart. On his desk was his pensieve, a piece of equipment that he had picked up decades ago in order to remember some of his jobs so that he might pick apart any of his weaknesses and adapt them before any competitors could do so. And that's why he was here today. He was here to delve into the collective memories of many decades, to shift through his own past in order to preserve the future he had with his daughter. Taking a deep breath he plunged into the memories...


--- (Memory One) ---

Cobalt was confessing his sins.

It took him a moment to realise, as a spectator to the memory, that this was a lot earlier than he'd wanted to go. However, he was loathed to pull himself out of the memory. It was a very important part of his life. Taking a seat on one of the pews, Cobalt listen to himself in the confessional.

Cobalt knelt down on the floor of the confessional, his head bowed in prayer and his hands clasped tightly together. So tightly in fact, that his knuckle were white. His head was bowed not only in prayer but so that the priest, looking through the thick wiring, could not look upon him even if he had a mind to,

"Forgive me father for I have sinned..." Cobalt said quietly, his voice strained, "It... it has been f-five days since my last confession..."

The priest shifted in his side of the confessional,

"Speak my child." he told Cobalt calmly, "What sins have you committed?"

There was a long pause, where Cobalt didn't say anything and the Priest didn't pry. After a few moments, Cobalt decided he was ready to speak,

"F-father... I have done something terrible..." he replied faintly, so faintly that the Priest could barely hear it, "Something so terrible... I'm not sure if the Lord can forgive me..."

The Priest didn't miss a beat,

"I assure you, my child, that the Holy Father forgives all if you truly repent." he told Cobalt, much like he'd told many others, "Why do you think it is beyond his capacity to forgive?"

Cobalt looked up at the mesh for the first time in the confession,

"How do you ask your Father to forgive you..." he closed his eyes and looked back at the floor, "When you are unable to forgive yourself?"

The Priest frowned a little bit,

"Tell me your sin my child..." he encouraged gently, "Perhaps I shall be able to tell you if the Holy Father will forgive your actions or thoughts."

Looking at his shaking hands, Cobalt took a deep breath to calm himself. He breathed out slowly,

"Father..." he paused and his voice cracked, "F-father I have taken a life..."

There was a long silence. This time because the Priest was not able to find anything to say initially. After a few moments he gritted his teeth,

"You truly are beyond forgiveness." he stormed out of the confessional, "God will damn you!"

Both Cobalts, the one from the memory and the one watching it, put their heads between their knees and cried.

[Cobalt Smith]

Cobalt sighed as he drifted through many memories, not really paying attention to them. He had thought he'd gotten over his rejection by the Church a long time ago but it seemed that it still effected him. He'd seen people die with a smile on their face because they thought themselves clean and pure in the eyes of the Lord. As he drifted towards another memory, Cobalt was unsure if he could say he could do the same...


--- (Memory Two) ---

As he landed in the memory, Cobalt instantly recognised where he was and he instantly knew that he didn't want to see it. He didn't want to relive it. He'd done it too many times in his dreams to relive it while awake. But he couldn't pull himself out, crying and wallowing in his sorrow earlier had broken his focus and now the memory was starting. He could do nothing but follow his younger self.

Cobalt was running flat out down the corridors of this very secret and very well defended fortress with one goal in mind. He had been given a choice earlier that day. He could betray his sworn mission in life and give an evil man an object of immense power or the man would kill his son. They would kill his baby boy.

He wanted to save his son more than anything in the world but the decision wasn't his to make. He was bound by his promise, he had to protect the object with all of his strength. It was impossible for him to give it up, let alone to a mad man who would only use it for evil. So he had done something he had fought and railed with himself against... he had killed the messenger so that he could not take the object.

After he had struck the man down he had wasted no time in rushing towards the place where he was supposed to collect his son. It was protected by barriers against magical transportation so he had run the distance. For over ten miles, Cobalt ran. To his mind, the sky opening up with heavy rain was an ill omen. A side of the suffering to come.

And here he was.

He was at the military base they had told him to collect his son from once he gave up the object. But the most terrible thing was that it was deserted. There was not a man in sight in the vast underground complex. With every empty room his panic rose.

Was he at the wrong place?

Was he too late?

The last doubt in his mind was the one that struck him the hardest and caused him to push magic into his muscles, giving him added speed but tearing his muscles apart at the same time. Finding a locked door, Cobalt gritted his teeth and burst through it with a blasting curse, ready for anything that could be on the other side...

Or so he thought.

Cobalt scanned the room quickly but his eyes stopped when he looked to the centre of the room. Everything stopped when he looked to the centre of the room. His wand clattered to the ground and his arms began to shake,

"Ah...." he let out a strangled noise as tears welled up in his eyes and spilled over, rolling down his cheeks into two messy streams. He took a shaky step forward and found his legs barely strong enough to support him. But they did and he took a few shaky steps closer. Closer to something that he could barely conceive of but was forced to witness none the less.

For in the middle of the room...

Crucified

Burnt

Was his son.

Cobalt let out another unbearable sound, a gutteral sound of grief and anguish. A sound he'd never before thought he'd have been capable of making. A few feet from the metal cross and the burnt body of his son, Cobalt's legs gave out and he fell to his knees, kicking up ash from the fire's waste as he did so.

But he needed to be closer to his son.

He needed to touch him.

He needed to hold him.

He'd made a promise... he'd told his son that he would always be there to hold him.

To embrace him.

To love him.

Cobalt crawled pitifully to the base of the metal cross, crying weakly as he did so. The tears were streaming down his face, ash and dirt stained his face. He reached out with a shaking hand and touched his son's burnt skin, he touched his foot. The touch seemed to jar him from his state and he let out another cry, struggling to his feet.

Wrapping his arms around his son's waist, Cobalt cried into his son's burnt and bleeding flesh as he pulled. His son came free of the cross and Cobalt collapsed, again, to his knees. Holding his five year old son in his arms, Cobalt cried loudly, not caring if the whole world saw him.

He was broken.

As he knelt there, clinging desperately to his little boy, he was lost.

And he knew it.

He tilted his head back and screamed, a hoarse and terrible sound. It was a challenge from a broken man to his God. It was the question that all fathers asked of God when their sons were taken before their time.

Why.

As he clung to the harsh, burnt, skin of his little boy, Cobalt was reminded of all of the things his son would never do. He would never bring a girlfriend round to meet his father. He would never get married. He would never make Cobalt a loving, spoiling and doting grandfather.

All of the sights he would never see. The sun as it rises over the sea. The sight of a full moon. How the grass looked when it was heavy with dew.

And it was all too much.

Cobalt, who had killed hundreds of men and thought nothing of their lives, was broken by the one life he had tried, and failed, to save.

What good was taking life if he was unable to protect his own son?

His five year old son.

His little boy.

[Cobalt Smith]

And again, Cobalt drifted in his memories, unable to find the will to drag himself out of them, even though they cause him such pain. Even though he felt each one as if it were a knife to his heart. And, yet again, he was pulled into another memory...


--- (Memory Three) ---

The sounds that greeted Cobalt as he landed within the memory brought phantom scents to his nose. He could almost swear he smelt the blood as he heard and beheld the scene before him.

Cobalt had tracked them down.

Every last one of them.

Every cook, every dish-washer, every scout and every soldier.

Everyone who had been present that day, at that place.

He was almost finished.

He strode across the room, a sword in his left hand and his wand in his right. It wasn't clear, even to him, when he'd found the sword. By the ornate design it was clear that it had been a part of some wall collection at some point, probably even earlier this evening. It's silver blade never meant to cut or to pierce a man's flesh and muscle.

But now it was not serving it's original purpose, now it was drenched in blood.

His entire left hand side was dripping with the red fluid, having been his prefered side for killing these... men. If they so could be called men. In his mind they were not men... they were dogs.

Men were arrested for their crimes.

Dogs...

Dogs were put down.

But as he walked into the main hall, so like the one he'd found his son in not days ago, Cobalt could see vengence before him. The last man, the organiser of the entire twisted and sickening affair, was cowering behind a chair of red and gold. As Cobalt approached, his waved his wand brutally.

The doors to the hall slammed shut, the gaps melting together to deny entrance or exit.

The windows turned to steel, the light being shut out immediately.

Bathing the two men in candlight alone.

The man, the cowardly, evil, twisted man who had made the demand for Cobalt's most prized object was cowering before him. He was the reason why his son was dead. He was the reason why Cobalt was empty inside, why all thise killing, all this revenge, had done nothing to fill the void in his heart.

A void left by the death of his only son.

The man fell to his knees, hands clasped in front of him as if in prayer, crying and blubbering pitifully as Cobalt merely advanced slowly,

"P-please!" he cried out weakly as Cobalt reached the chair, standing only a foot or so from the man, "P-please don't kill me! Have mercy!"

Cobalt, who had been mute since the day he'd found his son dead, was stirred to speach for the first time in days. His voice was harsh from lack of use,

"Mercy...?" he questioned, his voice dangerous and low, "You ask me... for mercy?"

The man nodded quickly, whimpering anything he could think of to convince Cobalt to spare his life. Cobalt only caught one such excuse though,

"Please...!" he cried weakly, clutching at straws now, "I-I'm a father!"

If there was one thing wrong to say to Cobalt then it was that. Taking the sword, Cobalt rammed down into the man's shoulder at an angle, knowing that it would pierce straight to his lungs. He seethed at the dying man,

"I..." he growled darkly, "Was a father...!"

Letting go on the sword, Cobalt watched as the man collapsed, the light leaving his eyes as he did so. Not expecting any feeling of accomplishment now that his bloody mission was done, Cobalt was unsurprised when all he felt was an emptiness. Shakily, he took a step forward and fell into the chair, holding his head in his hands.

He closed his eyes tightly.

"I... I wasn't able to save you John..." he whispered, as if his son was beside him, "I am only good for one thing... and that's taking life..."

Scrunching his eyes shut tight, Cobalt was not expecting an answer so when he got one he was, understandably, surprised,

"You shouldn't blame yourself daddy." came the voice of his son, John, "You did the best you could."

Cobalt opened his eyes wide, throwing his hands away for the chance to see his son again. And there he was, see-through and ghostly. He felt forwards off of his chair, tears falling freely as his bottom lip wobbled uncontrollably. John, his five year old son, looked so calm and peaceful,

"J-john!" Cobalt croaked out, reaching for his son. His fingers went straight through him and he cried pitifully, "I... I'm so sorry John...!"

John merely looked at his father with a small, sad smile,

"It's okay daddy... you tried your best." he looked up at the ceiling wistfully, "It's so pretty daddy... the light..."

Cobalt's eyes widened even more. The light was obviously heaven. John had been totally innocent when he died so, of course, he was going to heaven. He was going to leave him here. Cobalt made another frantic grab for his son, falling through his ghostly body as John began to float towards the ceiling, growing fainter as he did so. Cobalt panted as he began to panic,

"NO!" he screamed to the ceiling, to God, "No! You can't take him! You can't take him from me! Not again!"

Cobalt tried to jump and catch his son's foot but his hand went straight through and he landed in a heap on the floor. He curled up into a ball as he watched his son float closer and closer to the ceiling. He reached out with a weak, shaking, hand,

"Not again..." he whispered weakly as he cried, "Please... I beg you... don't take him from me again..."

John, seeing the distress his father was in, did the only thing that he knew always cheered his father up. He smiled happily at his father, waving as he slowly drifted closer to the light,

"Bye bye daddy!" he called out cheerfully, "I love you Daddy! See ya in a while crocodile!"

At these last words, John disappeared in a flash of light. Cobalt, hand still outsretched to where his son's spirit had been, managed a very weak smile,

"See ya later... alligator..." he finished, the tears now slightly happier, "I love you son..."

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