11 Bottles

Raphael set down the bottle, the sixth in what was a line of eleven half-sized bottles of whiskey he had set up after ordering them. He sat alone, the bar some dank place in the lowest levels of Dam-Torsad, a place where only the lowest in Amarrian society would go. Despite the odd glances he got as a True Amarrian in this shithole, he felt as if he belonged here, here on the bottom.

“So...why can't we all make this work? Why do I have to choose? Ni Kunni...my ancestry...well, they didn't have to choose. They had plural marriages.”

The words haunted his mind, not letting go of it, chasing him from one bottle to the next. Both!?! He thought, unable to even fathom the idea. He took another long drink, finishing it off. His mind raced, trying to think of why. Why she couldn’t choose, why she demanded such from him.

Eran Mintor. Once a proud General in the Tribal Liberation front; now a groveling shadow of a man. He had given up everything to be with Shalee after she seduced him. He then realized his mistake and tried to get everything back. He mouthed off on the Intergalactic Summit. He repaired the TLF ships, once even doing it when they were firing upon Shalee herself.

Raphael Saint. A common-born Amarrian who had joined up with Praetoria Imperialis Excubitores shortly after becoming a capsuleer. He had met Shalee within its ranks, and had been flying beside her on the battlefield ever since. The worst thing she faulted him for was walking away from her to clear his head after she had told him she had spending her days at Zenton’s place while he was gone.

Raphael couldn’t even begin to see where he was on the losing side of that argument, and he poured every detail in his mind, trying to make sense of it all. He couldn’t figure it out, and in his desperation, he turned to someone he thought he wouldn’t ask for help from again.

“Lord…” he mumbled, his voice slow, his speech slurred slightly. He frowned, almost as if he was having second thoughts before he continued. He opened and gulped the seventh bottle down, as if needing some courage for the conversation ahead.

“What….what’s wrong with me? He betrayed her, and yet she cannot give him up, but has shrugged me off so many times before….”

He ran over all the times since he got back that she had given up on him. The night he got back when she gave him back the wedding ring. The night in the Basilica that she told him to find someone else. All the times that told him to give up and leave. Yet, she had told him she loved him.

“What’s he done that’s so goddamn special?” He asked, his voice filled more with sorrow than anger.

Saint ran over everything. Eran had given up his home, his friends, his beliefs, everything for Shalee. He did not try to give them up for long, however. Yet, she must see this as his show of love. But Saint had been serving God and Empire from day one.

“What am I supposed to do? I did not have to give up everything to be with her, is that why I’ve lost? Because I’ve been fighting beside her since I met her?” Saint frowned and took a long drink from the seventh bottle, realizing that he was now being penalized for starting out on her side instead of joining it later.

“So that’s it…” he says, resignation sinking in. “I lose because I’ve always been there….instead of having to drop everything to come running…”

Raphael began drinking from the eighth bottle again, not taking it from his lips until it was empty. Maybe this was his chance. His sacrifice of everything. He’d already sacrificed his dignity and his public image by chasing after her even when she left him for a Brutor, things very important to any Amarrian. So many sacrifices made, yet unseen. Those had been made, however, for her. To have her return to him….and him alone.

“Both…” he uttered. There could never be a ‘both’ situation. One cannot love two people with all their heart. He’d be sacrificing everything about who he was and what he stood for if he entered into this ‘plural marriage,’ and for what? Half of her heart? To be nothing but one of a pair, a ready replacement available in case of the loss of the other.

The ninth bottle was already halfway finished, his thoughts becoming less clear as the alcohol finally began to catch up with the rapid pace he’d been drinking it. It was beginning to hit his system in force.

He hadn’t worked this hard, ignored all the advice people had given him, to settle for this. Eran had agreed readily, but he was nothing. His grief over what he had done, both to himself and to Shalee, shattered the once proud man, and now he would agree to anything in order to have Shalee even look at him. He had said it himself.

”I've lost everything....everything but her, Raphael.....of course I'm going to cling onto her ankles until I'm dragged to death.”

That wasn’t love. That was obsession. Eran was close to becoming another Garst, though thankfully for Shalee, nowhere near as diabolical. When Raphael had pointed it out to him, Eran had gone quiet. Raphael loved Shalee, but he did not have a dangerous obsession for her. He’d rather not have her at all than seen her shared between two.

He let out a long sigh after he had finished the tenth bottle. His unwillingness to see Shalee become such meant that Eran would ‘win.’ He just couldn’t stand to see Shalee become such. He’d sacrifice his chance to have her to see her remain faithful to one. To see her loyal to one God, one Empire, and one man.

He took the eleventh bottle, determined to finish it before everything caught up to him and hopefully erased the memories of the night. He’d sacrifice his chance with her to see her remain pure. Yet one more unnoticed sacrifice.