: The sentinels guided the oblong across the dock and down to another
: unfinished structure still being shaped as they watched. Constructor
: machines like spiders spun hardening cocoons of metal around slowly
: ascending frameworks. Then Riser understood. From below the rock and sand
: out of the Ark's deepest foundation, a massive tomb was being prepared. A
: void had already been cleared to receive the coffin. Sentinels dragged it
: to the edge of the void, a strange grave at a place where there was no
: real dirt, no real planet, and latched into the waiting frame. The oblong
: coffin's blue lines flowed outward spreading into the confining struts.
: Riser puffed out his cheeks and looked up at his tall companion.
: Bornstellar was observing the ceremony with a grey, grim face. Hard to
: read. All Forerunner fighters looked grey and grim to the Florian.
: ------------When all was ready, Bornstellar raised his arms to address the
: tomb. "Ancilla 05032 of the designation Mendicant Bias, you have
: colluded with the greatest enemy of the Mantle." A deep voice issued
: from the coffin and was amplified across the platform, echoing from the
: ship, the dock, the tomb, even now being given its final touches,
: <THOSE WHO PASS JUDGEMENT SHOULD FIRST JUDGE THEMSELVES.> The voice
: now echoed off far bluffs and canyons, "Judge themselves, judge
: themselves..."
: "A sin to fight a sin," said Bornsteallar, "a lesser evil to
: fight a greater one. That is the choice I was forced to make, you had no
: such excuse, you brought matters to this point."
: <WHY WAS I SPARED THEN?>
: "You are brought here to be sentenced. You have not been immediately
: destroyed because you may yet be needed. Your intinmate knowledge of the
: Flood makes you valuable should they return, but we can never trust you,
: never again allow you any latitude. You will be entombed here. Your
: processes locked, frozen into a single thought for all eternity:
: absolution. Should you be needed you will be reawakened, should there be
: no need you will be buried here until the end of living time."
: <THEN I WILL SERVE, AS A MONUMENT TO YOUR SINS. THAT IS WHAT YOU WISH
: FOR.>
: Bornstellar shook his head, "I wish only for the Mantle to be
: upheld"
: <I AM PENITENT, I KNOW THAT WHAT I HAVE DONE CAN NOT BE FORGIVEN. I WILL
: ACCEPT MY STASIS WITH GRACE, AND AWAIT A TIME WHERE I MIGHT REDEEM
: MYSELF.>
: "Aya, so shall it be," said Bornstellar.
: ------------He reached out to a pylon, spread his hand accross the controls
: as they appeared and closed his fist. The constructors finished their webs
: and sealed themselves into the tomb's fabric. Mendicant Bias's coffin was
: locked in place. The entire structure dropped slowly below the ground into
: the void and the foundation metal, its blue lines pulsing more and more
: slowly. <ONE THOUGHT FOR ALL ETERNITY,> said Mendicant Bias. His
: tone sounded almost wistful. Now the lights were fading, flickering, going
: dark. <ATTONMENT.> The tomb turned as black as night. The machine's
: final words spread accross the false desert and echoed moments later from
: the false mountains. Bornstellar, Riser, Trial, Chant, and all the rest
: watched silently as the rest of Mendicant Bias, locked in eternal exile,
: was covered by sand.
: Ark - Sand - Tomb - Hype - <3
I am excited, I've wanted to face MB since I first learned about his character.
