Judas Burns Bright

No one can hear you scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. One must have discerning ears, indeed, to hear such a tiny screech among that black sea of wailing gods. Thrown from their heavenly spheres, they brighten the cosmos. Spacers know such a truth. But there are scores of people throughout every galaxy that view these gods as nothing but twinkling lights - or “stars” as the Milkywayers call them.

Royce the Red was one such a Milkywayer. He believed that there was nothing beyond the skies except burning balls of gas. Royce was the name given to him by his mother. “The Red” he earned from his fiery hair and patchy beard - that and the labors of his hands, bloody and crimson their work - Red and laborded hands rewarded with a Judas Consequence.

“Why couldn’t they call me Patchy Royce?” he thought, hurtling closer to his destination. “Why Royce the Red?” he wondered - wondered on his moniker, which shall no doubt flow from lips, forever coupled with curses. Yes, he wondered about the name flowing hot, and whipped by angry tongues. And they wondered why he thought not of the flowing of blood onto his hands under the watchful eyes of the howling titans above.

“Maybe the chair would have been better,” he snorted as he neared the final destination. In his hands, he clutched a hose. Strapped to his back was the vessel he traveled in.

“Why not have a mech do this?” he muttered.

“ATONEMENT,” answers the vessel.

“I wasn’t askin’ you!” shouts Royce, swinging a fist behind his head against the inner wall of the vessel. As he connects, a shooting pain in the back of his head. Then he remembered. The vessel he traveled in was no satchel, but a piece of him now.

“ARRIVAL IMMINENT, ROYCE THE RED.”

“Patchy Royce.”

“NOT RECOGNIZED.”

“Call me Patchy Royce, scrap heap or - or I don’t go out there!”

“FAREWELL, ROYCE THE RED. MAY YOU FIND ATONEMENT.”

Before Royce could hurl a curse, the poor excuse for a cockpit proved itself to be a turntable and within a few a blink, Royce found himself nearly blinded by his target.

“I’ll be burnt to a crisp before I ever reach that thing. Yeah… should have taken the chair.” he managed to think before his thoughts turned to mush. Royce felt his brain boiling. Or was it his ears? His vision cleared as he felt his flesh charr within his suit. It was a being - furled and keening.

“DRAIN THE STAR,” spoke the vessel.

A humming came from the hose in Royce’s hand. He had chosen The Judas Consequence rather than face a trial. He did not know what he signed on for, but he had no choice, now.

Slowly, slowly, he pressed the hose close to the burning body, as Royce, himself, became one. As he looked at the vessel fused to his back, he recognized something. He remembered reading about oil tanker trucks - big canisters of fuel that they would haul on wheels. “Fuel,” he thought as what he once imagined was a ball of gas dimmed ever so slightly.

As it dimmed, the screams dimmed with it. “A death in silence,” chuckled Rory’s subconscious, “what a fitting end to a roaring life.”

But this was not the end - though Royce will have wished it so in days to come.

As cotton is braided before it is made a wick for flame, so too was Royce the Red prepared, unknowingly, to house a great flame.

In a blink, The titan’s finger found lodging on Royce’s forehead. This tongue of flame tasted the murderer’s thoughts. It tasted his loves, his losses, his fumbles and follies, but most of all, it tasted his rages.

And the being found itself finally loving what it tasted.

And so Royce the Red, gifted a Judas Consequence, was now gifted a blazing visage. The celestial body that was once in front of him poured into his tiny, mortal mind. Rory’s charred, blackened skin cooled as his head erupted as one might see a volcano, cracking the shielding on his suit.

Rory could breathe, by some miracle. Or some curse. Rory could scream, too. And he did, joining the infinite chorus. His mind was blank. Nothing but pain. And he looked out from his prison - yes, prison - and saw himself from a prison of flame.

And he cried out in recognition.

“FUELING COMPLETE,” droned the vessel. The body that once held the one who wished to be called Patchy Royce began to putter off, away from its living fueling station back towards its home - back towards its home with an unwelcome guest.

As we drift away from this Milkywayer “star,” we learn that this tale is not the saga of Royce the Red. No, it is about the being that left Royce the Red trapped in its pyre of a body.

It is a tale of a heretic god and why all things burn.