Guided by Ambition (CANCELLED) (A Songs of War AU Fanfic)

Some Catching Up to Do

Enneas Nestoris was not a good fisherman, but that's what kept him alive for now.

He didn't allow himself; the younger, more ambitious Enneas in his heart, to go back to his workaholic obsessions, his previous ambitions, his previous life. Enneas was a man who could infiltrate a crime syndicate for twenty years unspotted, feeding information to its rivals as he continued to be treated like a prized dog. That Enneas, left to rot at a backwater village, would always find his way back to his old work, taking up jobs that had caused his runaway life in the first place.

Those tasks, if not abandoned, would be the death of him now. His life now had a greater value, given that there was someone who was deeply attached to him--

Yet, the humble life of a fisherman was nothing short of details to be obsessed over; and Enneas found himself grounded in reality again. Perhaps he was so morbidly curious about dissecting oceanic creatures, or he would find ways to scramble the signal of his fishing vessel, while he looked awestruck at the ever-expanding sea. He was grateful too, grateful there was so much he could do with his new profession.

However, his thoughts had always lingered on his life in the five syndicates, and they never planned to leave him alone. Enneas hated that feeling. The blood he spilt was already flooding him, reaching up to the level of his chin, his mouth filled with the scent of blood.

When he was still in Hyperion City, he almost drowned within his duties when he got entangled with the internal power skirmish--

Among the shoreline of Tikath, a boy was playing on the beach with his stuffed toy-- his only friend. It was the only toy that survived their runaway life. The others were either left at their old home or were forgotten in the haste of packing up. A remnant of Achillean's past life.

For a while, back when he just arrived at Tikath with his dad, he would love the quiet, fisher's life, the spanning beaches and the small docks. But as months turned into years, and years slowly nearing a decade, the spanning beaches turned into miles of boredom and plainness, the docks into tell-tale signs of stagnation. It was becoming boring for an inquisitive mind like Achillean.

He wanted to have a real life, a life filled with bustling sounds and bright lights and seemingly endless opportunities, a life of technology. But his dad took it away from him. Now they're stuck here instead.

As those thoughts crossed his mind, the air around him rumbled and cracked. It was unlike the noise the engine of a ship would make or the thunder which seldom plagued his homestead.

This sound was oddly familiar to him-- Achillean tried to recall where he heard the noise from. Then he remembered-- it was the nostalgic rumble of a land-speeder: a common phenomenon near his old place, where he would hear it during the midnight street races--

When his eyes trailed towards the direction of that noise, he saw a glimpse of black and red.

Enneas muttered a curse word under his breath as he strode towards a device near the doorway. It was old and was clearly dug out from the trash (or fished up from the sea), but the man managed with what he had on the rural land. With a few clicks and typing, he then turned a dial, which focused the rigged cameras. His eyes were squinting at the monochrome footage while a million calculations ran through his brain. He squeezed his eyes shut, shutting away what the arrival of that land-speeder meant.

A syndicate-owned speeder was approaching his homestead.

The man knew who it belonged to because he had spent so much time near that speeder that he would've considered it as his. Then he breathed in, accepting that his humble, fishing life on Tikath was finally over. But this time, he would not greet the syndicate with open arms. Not again.