Momo gagged, clawing her fingers around her throat. A tinny, metallic flavor melted across her tongue. Blood. Nausea overcame her as she hit the platform. In the small window of vision that remained, she could see Slythorn angrily leap from the stage and disappear past the crowds, shoving people aside as she vanished into the woods.

“Wait,” Momo moaned hoarsely, her trembling hand reaching out towards the woman.

I have so many questions.

But Nia was gone. Another shadow in the dense thickets of trees.

It wasn’t long before the medics were upon her. Cupping her jaw and applying soothing gel; Momo was immediately carried onto a cot and transported into yet another tent, the cheers and chants of the rabid audience following her all the way to the zip-up flap of the tent’s entrance.

For some, shouting was not enough; eager groupies tried to shove their hands and feet into the tent like wild animals, but the Dance School’s hired detachment of security paladins – burly, not-to-be-messed-with sort of men and women with long white beards and shaved bald heads – shooed them away like meager rats and lizards. The fans retreated, but Momo could still hear their calls and melodious shouts, led, of course, by an inconsolable Grimli.

“Quite a ruckus you’ve caused,” the White Mage from earlier commented dryly, giving Momo an impressed smirk. “Bruda hasn’t seen an upset like this in quite a few seasons now.”

“That’s the understatement of the century, Marjorie. I’ve been working this recital for three seasons in a row and I’ve yet to have fans try and tear down my tarp,” another mage added, his face puffy and red as he secured the wall of the tent. “This is just madness. Next season will be even worse once they hear about the outcome of this one. A queen, goddamnit. Couldn't you have been something usually-unusual, like a prince or a dance-happy dwarf?”

Momo would have laughed, but to laugh in her current state probably would have meant decapitation. The gash in her neck was deep, and even breathing was a laborious task. She settled on an awkward smile as the chief medic lowered her into the bed and began to inspect her injury.

“You have scar tissue in this exact same place already,” the chief medic noted curiously, thumbing under her chin “Are you a fan of getting your neck split open, your highness?”

Momo bit her lip in embarrassment, her skin tingling at the memory. Despite intellectually knowing better, she couldn't help but smile a little bit. That was where Sumire nearly slotted my head off. She forced herself to frown. I really shouldn’t be smiling about that.

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Momo said, her voice hoarse. “I just keep walking into other people’s knives, that’s all.”

The medic laughed, paging through his clipboard. “You’re a funny one. Especially for a queen. I thought it was a rule of law that royalty had to be cold and rather stupid when it came to humor. Not you, though. Then again, I never thought I’d be operating on a queen at a dance competition. Apothecary school doesn’t prepare you for situations like these.”

He took out a small reflex hammer and tested her knee. It swung upwards automatically, nearly kicking the scraggly mustache off of his face. He didn’t flinch – simply humming as he went about testing the other knee, then her thigh, which luckily did not come alive. He seemed concerned about this fact.

“Do you have any previous ter-mi-nal ailments?”

“Like, diseases?”

“Sure. Or long-term magical poisoning.”

Momo's stomach dipped. I didn’t realize that was a thing I could get. “Not that I know of, no.”

He hummed, testing her thigh again. It remained as thoroughly unresponsive as a thigh tended to be.

“Well, if your thigh continues to do that – as in, nothing – you might want to have it checked out,” he said. “An unmoving thighmicular muscle is a principal symptom of magically-induced poisoning.”

“I don’t think my thigh has ever not done that, sir,” Momo said. “As in, done anything other than nothing. Except when I move it around when I walk. Then it does move. But it doesn’t have any kind of mind of its own, is all I’m trying to say. I feel stupider the more I try to describe this.”

He nodded slowly, wrestling his fingers through his scraggly beard in concern.

“Might be a vitamin deficiency of some kind, then…” he trailed off, paging through his notes for a couple seconds until he came up empty. “Oh well. Like I said, they don’t prepare you in apothecary school for half the rattles and shakes of real life. Sometimes thighs don’t have reflexes, and that’s just that.”

“I can imagine,” Momo sympathized, despite not having a clue. “My college didn’t prepare me for this kind of thing either. Being a queen, fighting to the death, any of it, really.”

“Oh yeah?” the medic tipped his eyebrow up. “Where’d you go to school? Anywhere I’d know?”

“Nah,” Momo said, wincing as she heaved herself upwards. “It’s a little far from here.”

—

After a few stitches and a lot of questions about her medical history that Momo couldn’t answer, the mages and medics certified her well enough to stumble back out into the world. The security paladins ushered her through the crowds and she felt like a proper celebrity – like Rihanna on her way to the Met Gala, only Momo was dressed more appropriately to be plopped into an open grave.

Her white hair was nearly muddied brunette and knotted to all hell, sitting in a low bun that resembled an abandoned bird’s nest. She was eternally grateful for Alois’s lack of iPhones, or else she was certain she’d end up on the front page of the Mekna Gazette looking like a pizza that got tossed around in a delivery bag.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

“O’Momo, O’Momo, Great Shimmier of Hips,

You Danced Into Our Life

And Left Our Hearts Smashed to Bits!”

Of course, what Alois lacked in cell phones, it made up for in embarrassing bards.

“Please be quiet, Grimli,” Momo begged softly, pulling the dwarf aside as she made it to the perimeter of the crowd. Spotting the dwarf, a security paladin looked at her as if to say is he bothering you, ma’am? But Momo shook her head solemnly no, so he backed off.

“Oh, Momo, we were all terribly worried about you,” he said, sighing dramatically. “But on the bright side, my writer’s block is completely gone. I was so derailed by my grief that the words just came flooding out like little boats lost at sea. Ah – see, even when I don’t mean to speak poetry, it comes flowing out of my lips like a fated breeze!”

Momo grimaced. Maybe I should just leave him here.

Of course, being Momo, she did not. She took him and her belongings back to the Dance School, stood under a hot, blistering shower, and hunted down the most remote studio room she could find, lounging around in just her bathrobe as she reviewed her Ruler System to see the outcome of the victory.

Entire Continent – De Jure Holding

Control Rating: 15%

Projected Control Rating in 10 Days: 35%

Momo grinned, a burst of glee hitting her chest. I did it. It would take some time for the news of her victory to travel by mouth throughout the continent, but once it did, she would be in a much better position than she started. A resounding 35% control rating of the entire continent.

As the warmth of her success trailed off, a question brewed in her mind.

“Wait, does this continent not… have a name?” she asked the parchment. “I’ve never heard anyone use it. It’s always Jarva this, Jarva that…”

The ink on the page whirled around.

The name of this continent was formerly Aloysius, named after the Hero of legend, but when Jarva came into power, he made it Law that it would be referred to simply as Jarva’s Empire, Jarva’s Kingdom, or the Kingdom of Jarvirium, etc.

“Wow, what a pompous asshole,” Momo said.

The text swirled once more.

Would you like to review the historical record of this event? As a Ruler, you can review documents that live within your holding’s libraries. This includes all decrees from previous rulers.

“Um… Yes. Sure.”

This was the official declaration the people of Aloysius when King Jarva changed the name:

Greetings citizens,

I come to you with an important decree.

I view it as rather stupid and overcomplicated that both our entire world (Alois) and this realm that I rule (Aloysius) should both be named after the same Hero. I figure it this way – a heroic figure deserves one namesake, surely, but two? There are simply too many heroes for this to be the case. We don’t have enough land or enough weapons, and certainly not enough concepts, for each important figure to have two lofty things named after him or herself.

And, to be really and truly blunt, it is a matter of acoustics. Does it not bother your ears like it bothers mine to think that we live on the continent of Aloysius, within the world of Alois? How can our Kingdom truly rise to greatness if we are barely differentiated from the world with which we live in? If anything, Kyros should be the one we name our lands after, not a mere mortal man.

As such, I will be changing the name of this continent to Jarva’s Kingdom, or Kyros’s Kingdom Ruled by Jarva, or other such synonyms, for the sake of simplicity and understanding. Any and all comments and complaints about this change can be directed to my correctional offices, as that is where you will remain if you have comments or complaints.

Dearest regards,

The Office Of The King

“Wow,” Momo said dryly, reading it back a few times. “That was simultaneously both informative and incredibly annoying.”

He must be like a Level 200 Demagogue, Momo thought. As much as it pained her to admit, she could probably learn a lot from reviewing his other decrees. He had a way of putting the most idiotic and atrocious ideas in the most palatable and persuasive means possible.

Shoving the parchment aside, she made a mental note to reverse this decree in her free time one of these days. She couldn’t have people referring to the land as Jarva’s. That would be terrible for her campaign. Now, something like Morgana’s Mortal Empire upon Alois – that just rolled right off the tongue, did it not?

—

With her bags packed and her resident bard busy finishing up his last bag of carnival snacks, Momo headed for the carriage stables. They’d take another carriage over to Snowdrop Village, where Grimli hoped they could find a capable mechanic to fix up his vehicle. Then, he claimed, they could travel the rest of the campaign trail in a quarter of the time – by the sheer visceral power of dwarven engineering!

“I hope you weren’t meaning to leave without saying goodbye, Momo.”

Biscuit – and thus Momo – jumped in surprise when she heard Devola’s voice behind her. She turned her head to find the woman leaning on the side of the carriage, twirling an envelope in her hand.

“Oh, um, of course not,” Momo lied.

In fact, Momo had meant to leave without saying goodbye. They were already running late for their next stop, and knowing Devola, she’d just get Momo involved in something that would delay their travels further. It was one of her prime qualities, really.

“Don’t worry, I’m not insulted,” she said, strolling up to Momo. “You wouldn’t be the first to up and leave me in the past few days.”

Trent. A pit of regret sat low in Momo’s gut. She had nearly forgotten about him.

“We’ll find him,” Momo assured her. “If he really did run off with the Holy Resistance, I’m sure I’ll be running into him soon. I’ll get him safely back here, pinky-promise.”

She extended a pinky. Devola eyed it peculiarly.

“I don’t require your pinky, Momo. You can keep it. But I am touched that you would offer me a sacrificial limb.”

Momo quickly put her pinky aside.

“Right, well,” Momo swallowed. “Will you be okay here? Without him?”

“Oh, I’ll manage. I’d leave my post to look for him myself, but I learned long ago that one must not chase students. If they are truly dedicated to the practice, they will learn from their mistakes and return in time,” she said. “But I will worry, of course. I always do.”

She gave Momo a sad smile. Momo felt like hugging her, but didn’t.

Sensing Momo’s apprehension, Devola reached out instead, pulling her into a surprisingly soft embrace. A sense of safety and calm washed over her, but it left Momo with an oddly hollow, misplaced sort of warmth; she found herself wishing the hug was from someone else. She wasn’t sure who, exactly.

When they parted, Devola caressed Momo’s hand, placing the envelope there.

“It’s from a friend at Bruda’s rehabilitation center,” she said, smirking. “I recently closed down the facility – it was mostly falsely imprisoned necromancers, who would have guessed – but one resident in particular wanted to write to you. I trust you’ll know what to do with it.”

Momo looked at her with confusion. Before she could ask who that particular resident was, Devola was off, walking like a ghostly ballerina back towards the city that had become her new home.

In place of an answer, Momo looked down at the envelope. In the corner of it was a signature, written gracefully in blood red.

Duchess Lione Baumfreund