“Just what the hell do you think you’re doing Tybalt? Do you think my family’s just some whore for you to plow?! Do you think I’m going to take this lying down!?” bellowed Brutus Maddoc.

Red in the face, his breath coming out of him as heavy, laborious pants.

The two other men at the table simply watched, one with cold eyes, and the other with merry eyes.

The cold eyed one, said nothing and the merry eyed one just tutted, pretending to look sympathetic and aggrieved.

“Brother Brutus, we three Wardens of Garland shouldn’t be fighting amongst ourselves…”

“Bullshit! Don’t try to fuck me and then call me Brother!” bellowed Brutus. His voice echoing through the massive room.

“ Whoresons, craven whoresons, all of you. If you want to declare war then fucking declare war!” said Brutus. As he stood and angrily swept everything that was on the table in front of him onto floor.

Dashing the crystal chalices to pieces and splashing expensive wine onto the expensive carpeting.

Merry eyed Tybalt Agrona, current head of House Agrona, feigned sadness. His acting was amaetur and half hearted, like the japes of dive bar bard.  His glee still shining through and showing in his voice.

“Come now brother, no need to bring out such harsh words.” said Tybalt.

“Tch...Let him say whatever he wants. My only question is just who the hell he thinks he is, yelling in front of our Queen like that. What are trying at, dear Brutus?! Are you trying to rebel?!” sneered Cold Eyed Basir Batbayar, the current head of the Batbayar family.

All three men, stopped what they were doing and turned towards the pedestal where the silver-wood throne of Garland sat. With its sleeping Queen, dreaming fitful dreams. Her small body, wrapped in silvered silk, and the oversized crown slipping past her ears. Oppressively dangling from her neck like a collar.

The moment passed and the three lords of Garland looked away from their pet monarch. Brutus glared daggers at the other two. Feeling enraged, infuriated by the injustice and his own helplessness.

Basir and Tybalt glared right back, haughty and imperious. Sure of their position. Teeth bared. Smiling like sharks that had caught the scent of blood in the water.

*****

Sometimes it was hard to guess if men were simple individuals masquerading in complexity, or complex forums masquerading as simple, singular entities.

There were times, whether it was birth, death, or orgasm, where a man’s entire being could be summarized with just one or two words.

******

You could sum up Basir and Tybalt with words like greed and sardonicism. You could sum up Brutus with pride and defeat.

All three men knew that in just a few second’s time blood would be shed. The two who sat together at one end of the table already knew their side would win. The one that sat alone on the other end already knew his side would lose.

It was all just a matter of letting that other shoe drop.

Brutus felt his tusks tingle as he called on the boar-kin blood that flowed through his veins. Drawing on the lycanthropic abilities that all Maddoc possessed to some degree or the other. His body growing larger, hairier and more muscular as he forced himself to change in a half-beast existence.

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Basir and Tybalt merely watched, expecting exactly this scene. Yellow lightning crackled across Basir's knuckles, while thick white smoke began to issue from out Tybalt’ nostrils. They too, were drawing on  the power of their bloodlines and their peak foundation layer cultivations.

In no time at all, they would fall on each other and at least one person if not two, would be dead. Brutus’ hand drifted to his axe, they would not strike him down while he was unarmed, but he could not fight without his weapon and the time for talks were long over.  

He gripped the handle of his axe and was just about to draw it when…

******

*Slam!*

The doors to the throne room were blown open and like the sea flowing through broken floodgates, there came a tide. A tide that literally knocked the weaker servants off their feet.

A great deep wave of aura and blood lust, strong enough to make even the ruler layer guards within the throne room and the three foundation layer lords themselves feel faint.

The sound of footsteps traveling across the checkerboard floor of the throne room, was softly thunderous. Deafening, if only because the air ignored all other sounds as it strained to listen.

Four figures strode through the room, the lead was a dark haired, dark skinned beauty. Wearing a beatific and untroubled expression, seeming unconcerned with the chaos they’d caused as they crossed the length of the room.

A female...no,  a male, prettier than most women could ever dream to be. Pretty to the point of being slightly sickening, slightly unnerving, slightly eerie. Like a china doll all grown up. Like a store mannequin come to life.

Like a dream that was slowly but surely turning into a nightmare.  All her...no... his features straining towards something that briefly kissed the threshold of perfection and immediately veered into the uncanny valley.

Behind the stranger, was a dandy, a princely figure with blue hair, wearing duster, his chin kissed an even coating of blue bramble, a nine o’clock shadow that almost seemed like it was on purpose.

On the man’s back was a sword, with a blade that was slightly taller than he was. Seeming to pulse like a heartbeat. Giving off an aura like it was a living thing. An existence with sentience.

Seeming to sip the aether in the room in the same way a sommelier would sip wine. Tasting it, and all the people and objects that the aether had passed through. Reading its history and its future.

Seeming to mull it all over as it continued to watch...to watch, the happenings of the room. To watch everything and everyone with unseen eyes that seemed eager and excited over the thought of drawing blood.

Besides the princely swordsman, there two other figures that walked behind the pretty monster. Two beauties, true beauties, that weren’t just alien horrors wearing a dazzling facade.

One beauty was cold, raven haired and dress and rich black and white robes. Her look unconcerned and slight disdainful. The other was a giantess, a tall fiery haired amazonian, a barbarian from the hinterlands.

Bronze skinned,  looking like a living statue, looking like the most beautiful thing that had ever been made by the fires of a forge. Her eyes seeming to blaze with an earnest fire. Her look and gaze as stony and grim as a mountain peak.

The thing that lead the little group the inhuman beauty, stopped before the throne and bow and when it bowed it was  like the whole world bowed with it. The one’s behind him bowed and all those who watched felt awkward not doing the same.

It was like the sky had lowered itself, it felt like the room had shrunk. Before anyone knew it, everyone else had taken a knee. Falling as one. Swept up in the pacing the otherworldly existences before them.

The stranger spoke, his voice mellow and melodious. Pleasant to the ear, but strangely, starkly, flat. Empty of any kind of tone,  inflection, or emotion.

“I told you I’d  come. I told I was real.” said the stranger.

There was a start and a stirring, the sounds of jingling jewelry and swishing silk. The sleeping queen slowly opened her eyes, the drugged haze seeming to be stripped from them by the hungry depths of the stranger’s aura.

Young Queen Isodel gazed at the man who knelt in front of her, expression awed, and slightly hopeful.

“Are you real? Or is this another dream.”

The man stood, somehow making the act seem like a feat of grace and athleticism, like the move of a dancer. He leaned forwards taking his forefinger and his thumb and giving the Queen of Garland a pinch on her cheek.

“Ow!? That hurt?”

She rubbed, it tearing up, in pain and happiness.

“And...and...if you’re real does that mean that the promise you made was real too?”

The beautiful man nodded.

Then he stepped forwards tucked the young queen under his arm and was swallowed up by the mouth of a colossal beast that emerged from nowhere. The creature’s head crashing through rooftop of the palace.

The man was consumed whole, along with his cadre of followers.

Brutus, Basir and Tybalt watched as the jaws closed around the group and the queen of Garland, who seemed not at all afraid to find herself in the mouth of some manner of monster.

The stranger looked right at Brutus and nodded.

“I guess I’ll be seeing you, Uncle.”

In the end the castle was ruined, nearly torn in two as a fair portion of it was swallowed by the beast when it swallowed the strange group of impossibly powerful kidnappers.

Brutus the only, possible connection to the incident was briefly tossed into a dungeon before being hurriedly pulled out again, Though surprisingly enough it was by the men of Batbayar and Agrona, instead of his own people.

The Three lords of Garland went their separate ways and the Lesser Kingdom of Garland was in upheaval over its kidnapped Queen and its new King.