It was a foggy morning in Darvish, and old man Norn was late in his duties. He had nothing important to do within Darvish itself, not an old ningen like him, but to his family he kept to a fairly strict schedule. Up each morning before the sun so that he could gather water and start breakfast for his son, his wife, and their children. It was the least he could do since they had taken him in two years passed, and he did a lot more as well! Watching the little ones, helping to feed the livestock, gathering firewood – not chopping it, mind, his son wouldn’t let him, but he was permitted to at least carry some into the house when it was needed. Norn did whatever his frail body would allow for his family.

And today, it had failed him! He’d awoken with a start to find that the gray dawn was peaking in through his window! Thankfully no one else was up yet, but he’d groaned at the sight of it, throwing his blanket off and sitting up in his beat. His joints ached and his back creaked. He itched his cheek and winced from the slight tinge of pain. He’d stopped shaving because his hands were becoming too unsteady for it and his beard was growing out for the first time in decades. The white hairs on his chin and cheeks hurt to move around!

Getting dressed, he’d exited the little room at the back of the house that his family had been so gracious as to offer him and stepped outside into the fog, shambling off to grab a bucket so that he could draw water from the well. The mist was thick this morning, as it often got this time of year in the dawn hours. Between now and an hour hence, the sun would cut through and banish the fog, same as it always did, as it crept its way over the Ysgrambull mountains. He’d spent many a morning recently sitting and watching the fog roll down in between the peaks of those mountains these past two years. To him, it always looked like the earth was trying to devour the clouds and those clouds were slipping through its teeth! The thought made him think about how soup slipped through the gaps in his own teeth if he wasn’t careful!

Picking up the bucket as he hustled along, he wondered if he’d have time to see that sight today or if he’d missed his window. He quickly resigned himself to having missed it as he walked around the side of his family’s home and down the dirt road towards the east end of town. Darvish was a small, inconsequential village at the southern feet of the Northern Peaks. It had been cut from the trees and ploughed from the ground over the course of generations and still kept a respectable amount of forest to its south while the north had been worked as much as was possible into meager farm land before the mountains started to slope upwards. It was the sort of place that didn’t see animunculi very often and heard nary a peep about the politics happening in the south, and Norn liked it just fine that way!

Old man Norn was one of the only people awake at this hour just as he was one of the oldest people left in Darvish. In his youth, he’d gotten into the habit of getting up early to cut down trees back when Emperor Gawain had asked for lumber from the north. He’d paid good gems for those trees, too! Norn could still remember the wagons being pulled in with sacks of gems that were distributed for the villagers! Honest pay for honest work, those were the days! He’d liked Emperor Gawain because of that even though that was as close to the man as he’d ever come.

These days there wasn’t as much to like about the Empire and those that ran it. Word had come by Darvish about a month ago that Emperor Gawain’s son, Second Prince Mordred, had named himself Emperor while First Prince Ganymede and Third Prince Bayamon had not liked that very much! Liked it so little they’d started a war, apparently! Norn didn’t know anything about wars. It was the sort of thing that was spoken of in history, back in the days before the Empire was the Empire! It’d all seemed so long ago to him that he barely even had a concept of what war really was, let alone a belief that this so called Struggle of Succession was justified! To him it seemed like a spat between siblings, not unlike what his grandchildren got up to, that could be solved just as easily with a right smack on the bottom!

The younger ningen didn’t seem to think like he did. Ever since the news of Emperor Mordred had reached Darvish, there’d been talked in hushed tones about what they should do about it. Some wanted to head off to Damocles and join the army. Others thought, rightfully so Norn believed, that it was none of their business and that no one should get involved. Hardly anything related to the Empire made its way up here so far north regardless. They can play at their war and leave Darvish well alone! That was what many thought. Some, though, didn’t think they’d have a choice in the matter if it came to fighting. Emperor Mordred might enlist every able body, or roll out great machina that would flatten their homes in pursuit of his brothers! Old man Norn didn’t believe a word of it. No child raised by Emperor Gawain could be so cruel, could they?

The well outside of Darvish peaked its way through the fog at Norn as though greeting him. It seemed to ask where he’d been, what had taken him so long? ‘I know, I know,’ Norn thought to himself, having a conversation with the ring of piled stones rather than continue to think of rumors and speculation. ‘I’m late for breakfast! Gotta get the water so I can start cooking!’

Setting his bucket down on the ground, Norn lowered the well bucket down slowly before hobbling over to the wheel and turning it to get the bucket down to the water below. His ankles were cold from the mist and the morning dew that slobbered against his legs as he dragged his feet along the side of the road. He always made sure to stick to the side, just in case someone came riding down or some machina came rolling through. Norn had learned his lesson a long time ago about being in the road! It only took him throwing himself on his belly once to decide that he’d never be doing that again! He was a ningen of sense, after all, so developing good habits like that had always been his policy. As he stood there, shivering, raising his arms up and down and making his shoulders ached, he berated himself quietly for waking up late all the more. ‘You’d have had time to put on some socks if you hadn’t slept in! Just have to do better tomorrow so you aren’t cold in the morn!’

Getting to the well had been the easy part and he’d gotten there as quickly as he could. Rolling the wheel back up and actually carrying the bucket of the stuff back was going to be the hard part. Norn’d try to hurry back without spilling the bucket, but he knew that he’d have to walk back slowly, stop to switch arms occasionally so that one didn’t get more tired than the other, take special care that his legs didn’t slap against the side of the bucket, and all around that it would take much more time to get back than it had to get there. He hoped that his grandchildren wouldn’t be awake by the time he got there. He always liked waking them up with the smell of his cooking! It made the burning stretch he felt in his back worth it each and every day!

Once the bucket was pulled back up out of the well, Norn reached out and grabbed the wet rope, pulling the sloshing container of water to the rim of the stone well and setting it down there before getting the dry bucket he’d brought and lining it up underneath. With a sigh he’d tip the water over and let it splash down into the second bucket, watching as it defiantly jumped out and landed on the grass before becoming compliant and filling its container again. He took the time to reach down and rub on his back, wincing at the pain he felt. He, like anyone that got up to their sixties, longed for the days when he could do this without feeling any pain whatsoever.

The way back home was slow, as he knew it would be, and by the time he was back within the confines of the town proper the sun had risen high enough that the morning fog was starting to lift up. He could hear the excitable honks of swine and knew that other people had begun to rise like him. Norn was used to hearing the sounds of Darvish waking up right around the time that he was getting finished with his cooking. He must have slept in more than he thought. The children would surely be awake before breakfast was prepared at this rate! ‘Silly old man, you should’ve gone to bed earlier!’ he berated himself. If he couldn’t even do this properly, what good was he to his family?

“Morning, Norn!” someone called out to is right. He looked over to see the smiling face of a man half his age that he regrettably couldn’t recall the name of, smiled back, and raised his calloused hand to wave back to him before continuing on his way.

Something in the air began to stir as old man Norn got closer to home. He couldn’t quite sense it, not at first, but other people began to notice as he passed them by and made his way to his son’s home with little else but breakfast and the smiling faces of his grandchildren on his mind. He looked to his left as someone started to pound on the door of another’s home, briefly wondering what could be worth the trouble this early in the morning. There was no yelling, no calls for fire or beast or injured, so he thought it best to mind his own business and walk on as the door opened and conversation happened he couldn’t hear. ‘It’s not meant for me anyways,’ he thought.

Norn watched as more and more people started going door to door, all racing ahead of him, waking up as many people as they could feasibly bang their fists against doors. How strange it was to Norn that they were otherwise being so quiet! He watched, curiously, as more and more young ningen ran forth to alert others and pretty soon the entire town felt abuzz with people criss-crossing the street and the swine growing ever more restless off in the fog. The old man began to look around with growing concern but no one was paying him any attention. Voices were beginning to be raised. Women and children started peaking out of doors and windows, some stepping outside to join in the growing commotion themselves. Norn’s steps grew slower as he looked around in confusion at this quiet chaos.

“Father!” The voice of his son drove through the confusion like a pick against stone. Old man Norn’s head whipped around and he saw his child quickly walking up to him.

“Oh, Geoba, you’re awake,” Norn noted, trying to ask about what was happening as his son rushed up beside him and placed his hands on his shoulders and interrupted him with his own question.

“Where have you been? Are you alright?”

“Yes, I’m fine, Geoba, I was just getting water for breakfast,” Norn tried to explain but was once again cut off.

“Forget the water! Come with me!” his son urged, wrenching the water pale from his father’s hand and dropping it to the ground before wrapping his arm around Norn’s shoulders and pushing him towards home.

“Geoba! The bucket!”

“Leave it!” the son said, ushering his father towards the front door of their home and opening it for Norn. Inside, Geoba’s wife and two children were sat huddled in the corner of the dining room which the small home opened in on. They looked jarred, eyes still puffy from sleep and being rubbed. “Stay here and look after the family,” Geoba instructed before turning and walking out.

“What is happening? What’s going on?” Norn demanded to know but his son shut the door behind him and didn’t answer. The old man turned to his daughter by marriage and shuffled over to her, kneeling down on the floor in front of her and the children. “What is it? What’s happened?”

“I don’t know,” she replied in earnest. “Geoba woke us up and told us to stay inside. You were just out there, did you see nothing?”

“No, just the morning fog,” Norn said, turning back towards the door. He was old, and getting frail, but if his family was in danger… “Stay here,” he said, grunting as he got back up to his feet.

“No, Geoba said to look after us!” she said, panic setting in.

Norn turned back to her as he reached the door. “I’m just going to step outside, and see what’s happening. I won’t go far!” he promised. “Keep the children safe. If I don’t come back soon, push the table in front of the door.” And then he was gone, stepped out into what was becoming a most unusual morning in Darvish.

***

Knight Colonel Gilford walked ahead of the Supreme General, First Prince Ganymede, leading the way through the morning fog. His feet and calves hurt and his mouth was tight lipped. His arms were behind his back, one wrist held in the opposite gloved hand. He wore the formal, form fitting white clothing of a Knight which he’d taken with him when he fled Damocles with who he believed to be the rightful emperor four months ago. His cape lazed waspishly behind him much like the morning fog. His clothing, along with the Prince’s, had only finished drying some hours before they made their trek through the mountains and were cool against their skin, clean as could be given their circumstances. It was important to keep up appearances in times such as this. That was why he, and the Supreme General, wore their armor beneath their clothing.

They carried no weapons on them as they trod their way down the dirt road headed for Darvish. Prince Ganymede walked in sync with Gilford just behind him. His arms were down at his side and he wore his own set of green, red and brown formal wear. He hadn’t wanted to. The outfit was ridiculous in his opinion, impractical and showy. Gilford had insisted, though, telling him that ‘the appearance of elegance was needed for one of his standing’. He understood the logic but disagreed with it all the same. He was so much more comfortable when he was dressed like any of the other soldiers under his command. Soldiers that he trusted would not fail him in the moments to come.

As the pair of rebels walked down the road they came across someone else approaching them on the opposite side of the fog. They were a young man, no older than eighteen, who was strolling along with a stick in hand, tapping the road in front of them every other step as way of a game to keep his mind occupied at this early hour of the morning. He had been on his way to attend to his chores in a distant field outside of Darvish but stopped when he saw the two strangers in the road. Gilford fixed his cold black gaze on the boy and, as he and Prince Ganymede walked forward, his head turned to stay transfixed on the boy. Ganymede gave the young ningen half a glance himself.

The boy dropped his stick, turned around on the spot, and ran back as fast as he could towards Darvish to let people know what he’d seen! Even this far north, where the reach of the Empire rarely made contact, there could be no mistaking Prince Ganymede and his loyal Knight Gilford. Ganymede thought this was proper. “Should you stop him?” the prince asked curiously.

“No need,” Gilford replied, his eyes returning forward on the road. “He’ll do some of the work for us. I suspect there will be a crowd gathered when he arrive.”

True to his prediction, by the time that Gaymede and Gilford broke through the thinning fog around Darvish, a group of mostly men had gathered in the street. Undaunted, they walked forward until they were nearly abreast with the front of the crowd. There, Gilford, who towered over the man before him by nearly two feet, gave a look as he stood there, straight as an obelisk, which spoke volumes more than his words would have. ‘Move. Or you will be moved.’ A few seconds of solid eye contact was all it took for the young man to falter and step to the side. The others did as well, the crowd splitting open to allow them to walk forward.

Whispers moved through the crowd as the pair strode forward down the street. The prince and the Knight were surrounded but given a wide birth. Gilford looked straight ahead while Ganymede looked around. Both were as silent as the grave were it not for their footsteps and with each passing second that they said nothing the tension grew and the voices rose in pitch.

“What are they doing here?”

“Does Emperor Mordred know?”

“War has come to Darvish…”

“Keep quiet! Keep quiet! Still your tongue!”

“Do they know?”

“What do they want?”

“For all that is good, please…”

One individual was not looking at the Prince and the Knight. He was looking at an older man who, in turn, was looking at him. “I told you to stay behind and watch the family!” the younger spoke harshly.

“Come back inside, please,” Ganymede heard the old man saying as he clutched at the younger’s arm, his son the prince assumed, his wrinkled visage turning paler as his eyes darted between he who he held and they who walked forward towards them.

Gilford stopped and planted himself like a tree on the spot. Ganymede stopped just behind him, still looking around at those he beheld and believed to be his subjects. There were plenty of young men and women here, ningen who could fight. Old men like the one tugging on his son’s arm, who in turn yanked it away, were the exception. Bayamon hadn’t been here yet. The scouts were correct.

Patiently did Gilford wait for Ganymede to speak as they had agreed, and now the prince stepped forward past his Knight. With a gaze that could pierce stone did those he looked upon take a step back. All could sense the danger. They’d heard of the skills of a Knight. Looking around, the prince beheld the anxieties and the uncertainties of strangers he called his people.

“People of the Empire,” he began. “People of Darvish… you look surprised to see us! You recognize me, of course, as your Prince, I trust.” The chuckle he gave was dry as dead leaves as he pointed a gloved finger up to his ginger curls. “It’s the hair, isn’t it? Dead giveaway I imagine. Always is.” Ganymede smiled, looking around at the people gathered around him. No one returned his smile, so he dropped it. He’d tried being cordial, at least. He had no patience to keep the pretense up when there was work to be done.

“You know me, one and all, as First Prince Ganymede,” the prince continued, turning around and slowly stalking his way around in a circle, looking into the face of everyone there. “By rights and tradition, that would be Emperor Ganymede were it not for my choice to become a Knight. An unprecedented decision! A necessary one.”

“Now we are at war!” he said, his voice rising up through what remained of the stillness in the air, his gloved hands clapping together. The smile returned to his lips. “Exciting, isn’t it? The prospect? The idea? War! After all this time! War… although, Darvish has been at war for a bit longer than me and my brothers, hasn’t it?”

Dead silence in reply. Ganymede hadn’t been expecting any.

“Oh, come now! Don’t deny it, don’t be surprised! Even this far north your antics hadn’t gone unnoticed in Damocles, I can assure you. I know! I was one of the Knights keeping track of these… little rebellions around the Empire. Rebellions which had not been dealt with sooner because of my father, Emperor Gawain’s, failing health. But they were noticed.” The smile had vanished from his lips again. Gilford began to scan the crowd with his eyes while the Supreme General put on his show.

“Does it surprise you to learn that a Knight like myself or Knight Gilford here was paying attention? That we were aware of and watching your sedition and withholding? We know that you have not been sending your dues to the Empire. The lumber Darvish is known for, butchered livestock, crops – you’ve been hoarding it for yourself, and worse! You’ve been colluding with other northern settlements who do the same.” Going over it again now reminded Ganymede of when he and Gilford had been first made aware of this issue over a year ago. At the time, his father’s health hadn’t quite yet faltered to the point of being bed ridden. The other Knights believed that tending to the Emperor’s health was of greater import. In their negligence, seeds had been allowed to grow into weeds. He knew the logistics, the numbers were all in his head: Just how much was being withheld from not just the south but all other portions of the Empire, how a lack of lumber here, a missing shipment of crops there, affected so much. Like stones tossed into a lake, the ripples spread over all and created waves. Waves which his brothers were either taking advantage of or continuing to ignore…

Murmuring was breaking out, nervous looks turning into anxious glances, silently or not so silently asking each other what they should do. Knight Gilford remained stoic and still. Ganymede continued to speak to them.

“There’s no use denying it. I know, and as your Prince, and rightful Emperor, I have every right to punish you for it if I so wish,” the red haired prince stated flatly, and this was too much for some! A few turned and ran, pushing their way through the crowd or sprinting away if they were on the edges. They were those who had directly conspired to commit this little treason, a rebellious act that, they had hoped at the time, would ultimately lead to better treatment from the government. Now, though, with the First Prince standing before them, speaking of war and rebellion, they feared something much graver was on the horizon for them.

Ganymede sighed. “Knight Colonel Gilford,” he commanded quietly.

“ADVANCE!” the black eyed Knight bellowed like rolling thunder. In every direction at once came the stomping of footsteps. From out of the fog stepped lines of soldiers, emerging from between buildings, up and down the street in which the crowd stood. Each one of them equipped with spear held high and shield overlapped in a phalanx, marching in unison. Those that tried to run quickly found themselves either skidding to a halt and trying to run in a different direction or, those panicked enough, attempting to break past the shield wall only to be repelled!

“ENCIRCLE!”Gilford ordered but no sooner had the word left his mouth than did a brave young fool rush forward and try to attack the Prince and his Knight! With fist he struck but was intercepted by a blur of white as Gilford side stepped the strike, passed the arm from one hand to the other and strike at his temple with an open palm strike! Another rushed forth and the Knight adjusted the balance of his body onto his back leg and gave a great kick to the stomach of the second would-be combatant before drawing it back and ramming his knee into the gut of the first! Both crumpled to the ground clutching at their abdomens!

A third tried for the Prince himself with a knife who, in turn, displayed his own martial skill by grabbing a hold of the young man’s wrist as he made to slash, whirling beneath his arm and pulling it up behind the assailant’s back, Ganymede wrenching his bent elbow upwards and striking at his wrist to make the young ningen release his weapon so that he could take it from him! With a downward kick to the back of the knee he drove the young man to the ground with a cry of pain and held the knife at the ready as though to plunge into him!

By then the crowd, jittery as boiling water, afraid, was completely surrounded by the soldiers which had been steadily and silently creeping towards Darvish all morning. Some looked out, some looked in. The old man had lost sight of his son who had dashed off with some others before the soldiers came out from the fog. There was screaming to be heard. Gilford was subduing the second assailant with a harsh elbow across the cheek to send him falling to the ground.

“HALT!” Prince Ganymede shouted out, his voice distinct from the booming echo of his Knight. As one the soldiers stopped and stood, awaiting their next order just as they’d been trained to do. Gilford stood back up straight and adjusted his gloves while the prince kept a hold of the man’s wrist who had attacked him, pinning him where he knelt under pain of a broken elbow should he resist. Ganymede looked around at the throng of ningen around him and felt at once vindicated and disappointed. He’d hoped for something a bit more organized than this, frankly, but he would make due.

“Peace! Peace!” he called out, raising his voice and trying to gently coax the crowd of people back into some semblance of quiet. He held the knife up high above his head, turning around to look at people as they clamored about. No one seemed to know where to look between themselves, the soldiers, and those who had tried to fight off the two military nobility. “Quiet now! Hush! Your prince is speaking! Listen to what I have to say!” he urged them all. Slowly they listened, though even when they noticed the soldiers were not intent on slaughtering them this very moment many still mumbled and sobbed in fear and confusion, unsure of how this had all happened so quickly!

“Do not misunderstand my words and reasoning for being here,” the prince started to say but was interrupted by one of the panicking citizens of Darvish.

“We’ve nothing to do with your war! We just want to be left alone!”

“You’re a part of the Empire. Such sentiments are tantamount to treason,” Gilford reminded, glaring at the direction of whoever had spoken. “As is attempting to harm the Prince…” He turned to Ganymede, extending his arm out with his palm open. “Shall I dispatch him, Supreme Commander?” he asked. The crowd cried out, horrified at the prospect of being witness to an execution!

“Not necessary, Knight Gilford,” Ganymede said, wrenching the ningen’s arm upward and making him cry out, leaning forward in a vain attempt to try and find relief. Ganymede lifted his foot from behind his knee and planted it between his shoulders to kick him down to the ground, standing on his back. The knife was still held up high and the prince looked around the crowd to address them. “I did not come here to cause violence and bloodshed! Listen well and we can avoid further harm.”

As a display of his sincerity, Ganymede lifted his foot up off of the young man’s back and stepped aside, letting him rise up and back away. Gilford allowed the other two assailants to join him as Ganymede tucked the blade into his belt for safe keeping.

“As I was saying. Your treason gives me the right to exact punishment, yet that is not my purpose here! My purpose here, is war. To the west,” he explained, pointing off in the general direction of which he spoke, “my brother, Third Prince Bayamon, is subduing rebellious elements in the Wuldrang mountains. According to my scouts, he is adding these elements to his own forces in preparation to attack either me or our brother, Second Prince Mordred. They have been spotted heading east, to here. War is coming, people of Darvish, and you have a choice to make!”

Here the Supreme General paused. What needed to be said next brought him no joy, but it needed to be spoken regardless. He took a breath to steady himself.

“Third Prince Bayamon will sweep through the north, assimilating or crushing any dissidents to his cause. He will offer you a tempting future – to be part of a coalition of nations rather than to be a part of the Empire! His end is to break the Empire apart and to let regions govern themselves as they see fit! He is short sighted and idealistic, as well as brutal, and within a month, maybe two, he will be here and face you with a choice of his own: Join him, or perish.”

“What I offer is different. The Empire must remain united, and yet I understand your reasons for treachery! The Empire has been neglectful of you and others, its resources unfairly distributed. You live in wooden houses and walk on dirt roads when it is within the power of the Empire to improve your lot, ten times over! I would see this become a reality, through military action and repurposing, I would see towns and cities such as Darvish flourish and thrive as never before! I give you this choice: Join me and my claim to become Emperor so that I might see this future realized!”

Here, the lines of soldiers slammed the butts of their spears into the ground in twin booming punctuations. Prince Ganymede stood with his arms spread out wide as though to embrace each and every one of them with the future he spoke of. Slowly, his arm lowered and he reached for the knife.

“Or…”

The Supreme General raised the knife up and every soldier in the phalanxes swiftly brought their spears to bear, two rows of steel fangs for each line that caused the crowd to scream out again. Ganymede waited until the fearful screams had quieted down before finishing.

“I can exercise my right as your sovereign to squash you rebels right now. Choose wisely.”

“You offer us death for withholding lumber and fucking livestock!?” one of the young men blurted out, still holding his stomach.

“We are at war. If you do not join my cause, you will join one of my brothers’. Either Bayamon will give you the same choice ans forcibly assimilate you into his growing horde, or Second Prince Mordred, who has proclaimed himself Emperor, will draft you eventually,” Ganymede explained coldly. He lowered the knife and the soldiers raised their spears once again. The prince walked over to the man and stood in front of him with Gilford following behind as a white shadow. “In comparison to my brothers, I have the smallest army. If I am to be successful in asserting my claim, I will need to conscript those that I can while I still have the chance. We are at war, do you understand? War. You don’t get to decide when it comes for you, it just does. And I am offering you a way out.”

Ganymede looked around and spoke to everyone once more. “Help me defeat my brothers and I assure you the rewards you will reap will be worth the toil. What say you? Submit, or be subdued?”

There was not much more talking after that. Protests and grumblings were either dismissed for later explanations or snuffed out with a brief show of force that ultimately amounted to nothing. When the soldiers were ordered to stand down some were given leave to plunder food and necessities for the marches to come, taking into account the numbers that would be joining their ranks as well. They were expressly forbidden from collecting any valuables, heirlooms, or anything else unnecessary to the cause. No harm was to come to any who did not resist, and those that did were to be subdued rather than killed. Over the coming hours, Gilford and Ganymede negotiated logistics with the people of Darvish, explaining their needs, hearing their concerns, and working as cordially as possible with a people whose homes and town they were occupying. This was a series of conversations that they were going to be having a lot over the coming weeks; it was good practice.

One individual in particular stood out to the Supreme General, though. An old man who came forward looking pale with fright and barely managing not to shake. “We aren’t accepting people of such advanced age for the march, rest assured,” Gilford preemptively informed him with a steely gaze.

“It’s not that, venerable Knight,” the old man replied meekly. “There are children and mothers here, my own family. I do not expect you to rob babes of their mothers to fight in your war, but are you to leave us here as well? To be victimized by one of the other Princes?”

“Those too frail or too young to fight will be left with a small contingency of soldiers who will guard over them after we have gone. Should any sign of Princes Mordred or Bayamon’s forces approach Darvish, they will be spirited away to a safe location to wait until it is safe to return,” Ganymede assured the old man, the look on his face tired.

“I see. I understand, your majesty. I’ll see to my family now, then,” the old man replied meekly, the prince nodding his head to give him leave which he gladly did, shuffling off to go check on his daughter and grandchildren. Shortly thereafter, Ganymede left the confines of Darvish into the hands of his soldiers to sort of the logistics of this brief occupation. He knew that they would only be there for perhaps five or six days before moving on and he was anxious to do so, yet, as he moved out of sight of anyone but Gilford, the prince pressed his back against the wall of someone’s home on the outskirts of town and closed his eyes, taking in a deep breath and letting it out slowly. His heart was still racing.

“Supreme General?” Gilford inquired quietly.

“It’s more difficult than I imagined,” Ganymede said solemnly to his Knight. “I did not enjoy this…”

“I’d be concerned if you did,” the Knight said, stepping over beside the Prince and using his body to shield any sight of the Supreme General so that he might have this moment of weakness in peace. “It is necessary, though.”

“Yes, I know,” Ganymede said, bringing his hand up over his eyes. “I do this out of kindness, but it does not feel kind. It’s for the sake of a better tomorrow, but many of them are likely to die in all of this.”

“They will die serving their rightful Emperor and defending the Empire,” Gilford said coldly. “It is a simple, unfortunate, paradigm shift for them. As you have said, your majesty; we are at war. It is not a kind thing.”

“War…” Ganymede chuckled. “I don’t understand how you can speak of it as if you’ve been a part of one before, Gilford.”

“Mine’s a stomach for this sort of thing. It’s what made me a Knight in the first place. Yours is to rule and rule justly, and to do that, we must conquer the usurpers by what means are available to us.”

“The usurpers,” the prince echoed, lowering his hand and looking to the Knight with a pleading look in his eyes. “They’re still my brothers.”

“Yes, and for the sake of the Empire, they must be stopped. I would advise that you stop seeing them as your brothers, your majesty.”

“You don’t have to tell me again,” Ganymede said, looking up at the sky. Clouds lazily drifted by. The sun was well over the mountains by now and the fog had gone, at least from around Darvish it had.

***

Two soldiers, dressed in imperial war-time garb, dragged the defeated rebel leader over the rocky soil of the Wuldrang mountains. She was conscious still, just barely, and the sound of fire and the screams of ningen and bloodling alike could be heard echoing off of the mountain’s face. She had to face the facts; they’d lost the cause.

For the past four months, ever since the Struggle of Succession, she and those like minded as her had been fighting a guerrilla war against Third Prince Bayamon and his own rebellious forces. At first, she’d found the whole ordeal deeply ironic; that a rebelling Prince should march his forces north west and invade her land just as she’d taken the chance to declare independence from the Empire. She had thought that, surely, a pampered brat who had likely never stepped foot outside of Damocles, couldn’t cut it in the High and the Cold, that within a week they’d be routed by the mountain passes and head back south to go play war elsewhere. She’d abandoned this ideology within a week of Prince Bayamon’s forces assaulting her mountains.

Four bitter months had passed. She and her supporters had fought hard, had spread the Prince’s forces thin as best as they could, taken advantage of the terrain that they were more familiar with, cornered, ambushed, sabotaged them at every turn. It only ever seemed to make their attacks more vicious, making she and hers have to fight harder, longer, more fiercely. Their only hope had been to hold the Prince’s forces to the eastern slopes as best as they could and maintain their own supply lines that ran over the Twins, Fat and Thin they were called, those land bridges that connected the Mainland to Westernmost continent, to outlast them. She’d never expected a contingent of their forces to circle around and cut off access to the Twins!

As the rebel leader was dragged, her knee collided with a large rock and she cried out in pain, her entire leg from the point of impact down going tingly! She grit her teeth, cursed the men who dragged her, cursed the machina that had been used against her! If it wasn’t for those damn war machines, they could have withstood Bayamon’s sieges for a year easily! More than enough time for his brothers to draw him away or beat him themselves, then she could curry favor with whichever Would-Be-Emperor who had done him in, claiming that she and hers had been a large part of why they’d been victorious! Imagining that had brought her plenty of comfort over these past few months.

All she’d really wanted when she declared the West independent from the Empire was to force their hand. To make them renegotiate terms on imports and exports, reduce the number of boys who had to go off and play soldier, that sort of thing! The timing was perfect! Emperor Gawain had just died, there’d been contention between anyone west of the Wuldrang mountains and the throne for ages, whoever claimed the damnable seat would have spent months sending envoys, exchanging letters. That was how all of this was supposed to go, a political stunt to earn better for themselves! She knew it, everyone of her men knew it! It was no great secret that that had been the plan! Then along came this Bayamon twat who ruined everything, fighting them instead of his brothers like he was supposed to. Didn’t he want the damn seat himself!?

Now the shelters that had been set up to house her little rebellion were burning. Cave entrances dug out of the mountain side, small cabins perched on ledges with secret tunnels dug underneath that they’d been using to evade capture and out maneuver the clumsy soldier boys for all of these months. All were burning. Bayamon was making sure to scour every trace of rebellion off of the face of the mountain on which they now stood. He was being thorough, she couldn’t deny that, but it was of no comfort to her admitting this, nor were thoughts of what could have and should have been. The reality was what it was, and she was being dragged off to her death, she had to assume.

Roughly she was dragged before Third Prince Bayamon, who stood looking down at the many fires on the mountainside beneath him. He wore his full military attire, a dark shadow against the light of the flames: black leather armor, his horned and plumed helmet, black cape across his back. His generals stood beside him and were discussing among themselves quietly what to do next now that this battle had been won, what this battle had cost them, she imagined. Despite the pain she was in, she grinned at the thought that this had been a Pyrrhic victory for them. Still holding onto her arms, the soldiers holding onto her gave the imperial salute to their Prince. “Your majesty, we’ve brought the rebel leader to you, as requested,” the one to her left announced.

The moment he spoke up, Prince Bayamon half turned around, as did the generals. The light of the flames of war lit his green eyes up brilliantly like a pair of emerald gems. Prince’s eyes, alright. It seemed fitting that they’d look so expensive. Without a word, Bayamon marched over towards her with purpose, stomping on the ground as he closed the distance between he and her. She sat up as straight as she could in the position she was in, looking him in the eyes as he stepped to her, braced himself, and roundhouse kicked her across the face, the metal solleret slightly warm against her cheek!

The impact made her ears ring and her eyes flash with color, head going limp. Prince Bayamon reached down and grabbed her hair, yanking her face upwards and glaring down at her with such contempt it was a wonder that his gaze didn’t burn like the cave entrances below. “Do you have any idea how much time you’ve wasted making me do all of this!?” Bayamon growled through gritted teeth.

“Nae… been keeping count?” she asked once his words registered, blood oozing out of the side of her mouth. Against his grip, she turned her head and spat on the ground beside him.

He threw her head away. “Let her go,” he commanded and the soldiers obeyed, letting her fall forward and catch herself with her arms. She winced and panted. A stone had stabbed into her palm and broken skin. “Planning on killing me personally?” she asked sardonically, looking up at Bayamon as he lorded over her, a defiant smile on her bloodied lips. “I’m honored.”

“Kill you? Kill you?” Prince Bayamon asked with an equal amount of derision in his tone. “Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you? To be made a martyr to either immediately ignite the western continent against the mainland, or do so eventually after the civil war is over? No, no, no, no! I’m officially done playing your games! Give me your name!”

She sat up on her knees and showed as little pain as possible out of spite. “Why? I’m just another casualty in your war at this point anyways. What’s it to ye?”

“Wrong,” Bayamon refuted plainly, scuffing the ground in front of him to kick away any offensive stones before getting on his knees, then sitting in front of her. This caught the woman off guard.

“What’re ye doin’?”

“Do you see anything to sit on around here? Your name.”

“What’s it matter what my gleaming name is!?”

“Because we’re having a conversation and I want to know!”

“You start all conversations by kicking a lass in the face!?”

“That was for wasting my time and the lives of so many people!” Bayamon roared, slamming his fist into his thigh. “Don’t forget that it was your foolishness that brought us to this point! We could have been talking months ago, but no, you wanted to play war!”

“You invaded our land!” she shrieked back.

“You declared a defection from the Empire! As Prince I’m well within my right to bring you to justice here and now for that offense, but lucky for you, I’m not either of my brothers!”

She spat more blood on the ground in front of them. “Your Empire’s a neglectful slat that don’t see nothing far beyond that precious capital city of yours!” she hurled back at him! “All ye do is take, an’ take, an’ take until there’s naught left but wee boys who get taken and returned years later without knowing what home is! It’s a load of shite!”

“Yes! I agree with you!” Bayamon surprised her again, the wrathful woman leaning back if only an inch. “The Empire’s grown decadent and bloated! It’s antiquated and decrepit! It needs to change!”

“What’re ye doin’?” she asked again, quieter.

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“Talking. Are you listening?”

“I’ve nothin’ more to say to ye, and ye’ve nothin’ to say to me that’ll be worth piss to put out a fire,” she grumbled, wincing as the pain in the side of her face really started to set in. “Ye might as well kill me now, and be done with it. Go off’n’ fight ye brothers now that you’ve had some practice killin’!”

“This is only going to work if you actually listen to me, you deluded, wasteful woman. I don’t like repeating myself, but as I apparently must with you, I’ll say it extremely plainly: I don’t want to kill you, I never did!” Bayamon retorted, speaking slowly and loudly. A reflection of his respect for this woman in this moment.

“Liar! Ye’ve killed so many, taken away so much. Ye did it so callously, casually! And ye expect me to believe you didnae want this? I might be daft, but I’m nae stupid.”

“What exactly did I stand to gain by killing you, your men, hm? What do you imagine the point was?”

“Control, what else?” she snapped back. “You wanted to put us in our place, to remind us that everythin’ on this planet is yours for the rulin’. The same thing your da’ wanted, and his da’ before him.”

“We did send envoys into the West, didn’t we?” Prince Bayamon asked his generals, raising his voice so that they were sure to hear him over the distant screams.

“Of course, your majesty,” one of them responded. “Word was sent to the rebels at the beginning of the campaign, informing them of our desire for peace with them.”

“And how was our envoy replied to?” the Prince asked, looking the rebel woman in the eye as he spoke.

“The terms you sent were rejected, the envoys were beaten, and bade sent back to His Majesty to inform you as such.”

“As if we were supposed to believe that you wanted peace,” the rebel woman snarled, glaring hatefully at the expensive eyes of her conqueror. “That an emperor’s brat wanted to let us go from their grip… Look at how well you took bein’ told no! We were supposed to believe that shite, when this was the result…”

“That’s right. You were. Because I was being honest with you. Candid, even,” Third Prince Bayamon said, the derision oozing off of his tongue. “Mordred or Ganymede might have tried sending more envoys to sue for peace, but I’m not my brothers. When a rebel tells me no after I offer terms of peace, I think it’s only right to stomp them out to prove a point, then try again with those that survived. You didn’t believe me then when I sent messengers to tell you that I agreed with your plight, and that I wanted to help you achieve your goal of political independence, but maybe you’ll believe it now that it’s coming straight from my lips, hm?”

“It was never about wantin’ independence, ya daft twat!” she groaned, pointing an accusing finger at the Prince in black. “We wanted change! We wanted our boys to stop goin’ south and comin’ back and forgettin’ who they are and where they came from! We wanted recognition for our deeds and compensation! We wanted to be taken seriously and not treated as an afterthought from the far end of the world! I only declared independence to make a statement, to get the attention of cunts in power like yourself! I didnae thought…”

“Thought what? That it could come to this? War?” Bayamon asked coldly. “You picked a fight with the most powerful nation on the planet, and you expected anything else to happen? Are you sure you’re not the daft one?”

“Fuck off,” she growled, spitting for a third time. “Just let me die already. Ye can go on fightin’ your brothers like immature toddlers if you want. Leave me my dignity and make it quick.”

“No. Not until we finish talking, and not until I get your name,” Bayamon said flatly, shifting his weight to the left.

“The fuck does it matter if ye have my name?”

“Because you’re a fierce fighter, an annoyingly brilliant tactician. I’d go as far as to call you a warrior in a world that has nearly forgotten what a war even is! Do you know how long it’s been since there was an actual, honest to goodness, war between ningen on this planet?” Bayamon asked, curious to know how well she knew her history. Not that he gave her an opportunity to answer, of course. Safer to assume she didn’t and get to making his point. “Centuries! Longer than living memory, easily! The closest we’ve come was when the Black Isle was being subdued and the Great Three Pronged Bridge was being built! And yet you and your people were able to hold me off for four miserable months! Do you have any idea how impressive that is!? How wasteful it would be to kill you without learning your name?”

She couldn’t help it. The feeling of pride welling up in her chest as the Prince in his black armor praised her people for their skills in fighting. She didn’t know the dates or how long it had been since an actual war had taken place. She was barely even aware of the Black Isle, but if there was one thing she did know, it was her own people, their culture, their way of life. “We’ve held on to the old ways dearly here in the West, tis true. Served us well in kickin’ your sorry arse! ‘Til it didnae, anyway…”

“And for a cause as noble and worthy as independence from a decrepit political institute, masquerading as a superpower while cracks formed at the seams and went ignored! Were you aware that up here in the north, there’s been rebellious sentiments for well over a year?”

She gave a small nod, looking him up and down. “Aye. I heard of other places to the East refusing to send tributes down south to Damocles,” she confirmed. “Seemed well and proper to me eyes at the time.”

“Exactly. My father grew ill, and all attention turned towards him and his well being rather than towards the people in need and suffering the most. Does this not perfectly demonstrate the ineptitude of the Empire, and the necessity for sovereignty to change to those people that actually care about their homes and well being?”

She clammed up and looked at Bayamon. There was a fierceness in his tone. A passion in his words. Slowly she began to accept the idea that this Prince might actually be serious about wanting to grant independent rule to her and her people, but she didn’t believe it just yet. “I dinae understand ye…”

“Why? I’m very easy to understand,” Bayamon retorted. “The Empire has grown fat and lazy. Bloated. Weak. It cannot continue to exist as it does currently, like my brother Mordred wants. Nor can it be reshaped into something better through military might like my brother Ganymede seems to naively think. For the sake of the empire that my father ruled, and for the good of the world, it fundamentally needs to change. It needs neighbors, not subjects, with which to foster growth, prosperity, competition, to fight back stagnation. Progress demands sacrifice, a sacrifice which is long since overdue. And that sacrifice is so very little indeed: the Right to Sovereignty to those lands, like yours, which would truly benefit from it. It’s time for the Empire to shrink, so that, one day, it can grow into something better.”

“Growth of the Empire be damned. I didnae start a rebellion to help your homeland grow.”

“No, you didn’t,” Third Prince Bayamon said, eyes fixated on the beaten woman before him. Studying her. “You didn’t fight us off for months because of some grand, lofty ideals for your slice of the world and others. You’re not fueled by political power or gain… This was personal for you, wasn’t it?”

Her lips were a tight, nearly invisible line.

“What was it you said earlier? ‘Wee boys who are taken and returned’, yes? Not knowing what home is anymore?” The Prince’s eyes were boring holes right through her. She could feel them pierce her very being and she wondered when exactly she’d given away what it was that her enemy was on the cusp of saying. “It was your boys you were fighting for, wasn’t it? You’re a mother. I’ll bet your sons joined the military, didn’t they?”

Silence, save for the crackling of distant fires and the occasional scream. Of victory. Of pain. Hard to tell from this distance.

“My boys…” she breathed, shoulders slumping for but a moment. She regained her composure, stubbornly refusing to show even a bit of physical weakness to the Prince. She glared at him, right in his blue green eyes like the sea on a summer’s day. Like the sea they refused to move at her glare. “My boys were taken, chewed up, and spat back out. They came back changed. Different what I can recall. All they talked about was the Empire,” she spat, “duty, pride… but their eyes were distant. Always looking south, beyond the horizon, like how I’d imagined they’d looked to the north when they thought of home!” She sobbed, unable to hold it back. A quick, deep, shaky breath righted her tone. “The Empire took what was mine and perverted it somehow! Took away the babes I weened and turned them into scarecrows facing a far off field, waiting for crows that’d never come! How could I respect an institution what would do that to a mother’s children!?”

Up to this point, Bayamon’s generals had been quiet during this whole affair. Quietly waiting for their Prince, whom they had placed their bets on reshaping the future into something new and different, hopefully better, to grow tired of this talk with a woman he’d been fighting by proxy of armies for months at a time, and to give the order to have her executed. It’s what they expected. The only path they saw towards a future in which the Empire was broken into several different nation states. A rebel like her couldn’t be allowed to live, surely. Third Prince Bayamon addressed them.

“How many military recruits are pulled in from all corners of the Empire annually?”

They looked at each other, wondering if any of the men beside themselves had ever done the math properly. If they could remember the sums. One brave soul pipped up after a moment; “Annually, the Empire cycles through perhaps a thousand ningen. New recruits brought in for training before their three year term of voluntary military service, the old guard allowed to retire and return to civilian life…” It felt strange saying it out loud like that. They were men of the military themselves, having chosen to make a career out of the profession. The gems were nice to be sure, but most of them – that is generals on all sides – often stuck with the job and rose through the ranks because of personal enjoyment. There were no real enemies to fight with a world united under one banner either directly or hand in hand as allies. Most liked the structure - the reliability - of military life. They were the exceptions, though. Most joined, got the training, did their time, reaped the meager benefits and went on with their lives. Thinking on it, a sum of a thousand was probably inaccurate, but what need had a general had in decades, if not centuries, for an accurate estimation of how many people came and went into military service?

The answer was satisfactory for Bayamon apparently who looked back into the hateful eyes of the woman rebel before him. “A thousand. Every year. From every corner of the Empire. A thousand sons. A thousand daughters. A thousand mothers. A thousand fathers. All coming deeper into the mainland, learning how to be soldiers, and coming home changed. Mothers not recognizing their sons. Sons not recognizing home. And for what? Who are we fighting if not ourselves? What’s the purpose of it all? How could it be so large as to take a thousand every year to continue a pointless cycle when, for all intents and purposes, there are no borders to patrol? No enemies to fight? No wars to be won?”

“There is the risk of civil war…” One of the generals spoke up, stupidly, immediately regretting saying the words the instant they leapt from her lips. She knew it was an excuse that they’d been taught as fact and regurgitated it anyways.

“There’s the Black Isle,” said another, more confidently. While all present had agreed, silently if not overtly, that, until now, the thought of a civil war was hardly a reason to maintain a standing army at one point or another, no one disputed that the Black Isle was worth keeping a vigil over. Even the rebel woman, tens of thousands a miles north, knew of the Black Isle.

“Ah yes, the Black Isle. And tell me, when was the last time that the animunculi let their surveillance slip, and it became necessary for the Imperial Army to march en masse upon those great walls?” the Prince inquired.

There were no answers. Everyone knew that the walls had never been breached. Could never bee breached. The question was moot. Another excuse. More distant, crackling fire.

“I thought so,” the Prince said grimly, his attention turning back to the woman before him. Her cheek was beginning to bloom maroon from where his armored boot had struck her earlier. He didn’t regret the kick but did wish it hadn’t been a necessary outburst. “Listen: We both agree that there is much that needs to be changed about the world in which we live. The Empire cannot stand to be so bloated any longer. The people of the world cannot afford to keep giving their sons to a pointless tradition. We need change. We need growth! I can see the way forward, and I think you can, too.”

The Prince extended a hand forward. She glowered down at it and then up at his face.

“Join me. Help me reshape the maps. Let us make a better tomorrow. Tell me your name.”

“Maewa,” she responded after a time. The rebel took the Prince’s hand, gripped it tightly, was pleased to find his grip matched hers. “Me name is Maewa. But I dinnae see how tis to help ye to know, seeing as I’m a dead ningen regardless.”

“Not if you pledge yourself to my cause right here and now. You and your fellow warriors.”

She scoffed, couldn’t help it, and winced from the pain in her cheek and knee. The tension between them was evaporating and that meant the return of bodily hurt. “Who’s left? We gave this rebellion all that we had, and we couldnae even stop one of ye princely types. Reckon the best of us are burning on the rocks below.”

“We’ve time to rebuild and bolster,” Bayamon insisted, getting to his feet and pulling her up to hers, their hands still entwined together. “Intelligence tells me that my elder brothers are in little better position than we are. Ganymede is recruiting farmers and hoping to make them soldiers, and Mordred has yet to do anything from Damocles as far as we can tell. With your help and guidance up here in the Western Peaks and further north, we’ll have gained an important leg up on my brothers in outpacing them. Generals! Cease all hostilities! Get Maewa something warm to eat and some rest. We’ve got our work cut out for us reorganizing the troops!”

***

First Knight Gawain patrolled the streets of Damocles searching for Emperor Mordred. The Emperor had slipped away while he wasn’t looking, much to his annoyance, and while he wasn’t particularly worried about the idea of any harm coming to the Emperor here in Damocles of all places, his chief concern as First Knight was to make certain that Emperor Mordred remained safe at all times. Most days that meant staying by the Emperor’s side from the moment he woke to the instant he was asleep. However unlikely, they could not discount the possibility of assassination attempts. The Emperor had been told this before.

Yet this warning had not stopped the Emperor from doing what it was he was most likely doing in the past and, if patterns were to be believed, would not be the last time that he saw fit to do so either. This was why Gawain was marching through the streets of Damocles with only a small company of soldiers trailing behind him. He had a good idea of where it was that Emperor Mordred was at.

To be safe, thought, Knight Gawain had sent Second Knight Aimi on the hunt as well, with a larger force of soldiers to cover more ground, a task which he was all too eager to jump upon, and had once again requested that Third Knight Shiun to organize and oversee the search from afar, something which she had reluctantly agreed to again. Her reluctance was for good reason, he felt, because he agreed with her; these hunts for the wayward Emperor were a bothersome distraction, and her energy would be better served elsewhere. Looking at the larger picture. She had machina all over the world at her finger tips, so finding the Emperor was never a task that required too much of her time if she could keep her attention on it without Knight Gawain prodding her over it. Such was why he had a machina on him that would allow him to get in contact with the Third Knight and vice versa.

Damocles was healing. It’d been four months now since the Struggle of Succession, and although the scars from that battle were still visible, repairs were well under way. In every direction one looked, if they looked from on high enough, scaffolding could be seen with new bricks being placed and old ones being reused when possible. Machina being piloted by animunculi were helping to make the devastation much more manageable. From a birds eye view there was still much to be done, but down here at the street level, it was difficult to remember in some parts of the city that a battle had taken place here ever at all. Many of the streets were cleaned away and life had long since resumed as normal for the ningen and bloodlings who called Damocles home.

Knight Gawain scanned the streets as he walked past them with his entourage, certain of where he’d most likely find the Emperor but doing his due diligence all the same. The streets were lined with much foliage and greenery, flowers, bushes, trees, vine plants that were allowed to grow along the fronts and sides of buildings, thus maintaining an equilibrium between carved stone and the rest of the natural world. Where he tread the citizenry would politely bow and step aside for he and the retinue of soldiers following close behind him. They knew and respected him – that is to say, as First Knight, he was a well known figure both politically and militarily. He’d served the previous Emperor for many years loyally, fanatically even some would say. He never minded when such accusations were leveled at him though. A certain amount of fanaticism was expected when one adopted the name of their Emperor as their own. They had been very close, after all, Knight Gawain and Emperor Gawain.

He hoped to, perhaps, one day become just as close with his middle son, Emperor Mordred, and serve him just as loyally as he had done the Princes’ father before them. That hope was what made this ongoing civil war all the more painful for him, though it simultaneously steeled his resolve to serve Mordred. He’d been there beside Emperor Gawain when each of his sons were born, watched them grow and become men, had welcomed Ganymede into the ranks of the Knights and called him comrade despite the disruption to tradition (as well as his own reservations and objections to the notion of First Prince Ganymede joining for all the good it did him. Princes outranked Knights, after all). As a Knight himself, it was that very comradery that had him supporting Emperor Mordred in the first place. He believed in the pledge that Knights gave that stripped them of all previous holds and authority in favor of those gained from Knighthood, and thus held Ganymede to that oath. To him there was no doubt as to who the legitimate heir to the throne was and had been since Ganymede took his pledge: Emperor Mordred belonged beneath the toothed crown.

As he halfheartedly searched the streets for the Emperor (for he believed, still, that he knew exactly where he was), the First Lord Knight turned his dark brown eyes skyward for a moment to contemplate the clouds, and what a beautiful day it was. It was important, he felt, to try and appreciate such tranquil moments in times of war when they presented themselves. For although the citizenry of Damocles, by and large, went about their lives as though war were not upon them, he was disciplined in reminding himself often that they were, in fact, at war. The first war in centuries, exactly how many not even he was sure. He’d long since forgotten the exact number as it was, comparatively, and irrelevant fact next to the duties as First Knight of the Empire. This civil war now was merely taking a deep breath before a plunge into, as of yet, still waters. As he looked up at the clouds, he feared that they would all be boiling before long, and many, including himself, would become changed as a result.

Knight Gawain was an aged ningen of forty five years. His skin was tanned and wrinkled from years and seasons spent out in the sunlight. His hair and beard were sun-bleached brunette in color, a soft caramel in comparison to his eyes, the former thick, wavy, and to his shoulders in length, the latter kept trim and short, his upper lip and cheeks shaved but for twin spires that reached up towards the corners of his mouth. He was armed, as he nearly always was, with a simple yet masterfully crafted bastard sword on his left hip on which his hand rested on the pommel. Other Knights, particularly Fourth Knight Anansi, were known for wielding weapons which reflected their political status, but Gawain had always been a practical ningen above all else; a fact which was reflected in his choice of dress. Not adorned in armor or ceremonial attire, Knight Gawain instead wore a simple short sleeved tunic with a deep V shaped cut in the fabric in the front, a long, ankle length skirt that was cut diagonally upwards away from his feet to about mid calf, both of which were white in color, a belt over both which held his sheath that housed his sword, black, knee-length leather boots, and a bright red shoulder cape pinned to his left shoulder with a steel dragon claw-shaped pendant as the only piece of jewelry on his person.

In comparison, the soldiers with which he trod were ornately dressed! Each of them wore an identical uniform of bright green and white, imperial peace-time colors in the ranks of the military, pressed white shirts and pants, black knee-high boots, emerald green jackets with black cuffs and silver buttons, and black shoulder tassels, the number of strands for which denoted rank, which pinned to them a semicircular cape of green externally and white internally. Upon their heads were tall, cylindrical black caps with short bills to provide shade for their eyes adorned with a singular feather, dyed the same color green as their jackets and capes, which jutted out diagonally backwards from the bill on the left side. In their right hands they cradled spears which were aimed skywards. On their left hips, hooked into their belts, were machina that connected to an earpiece in their left ears via a wire – the same sort that Gawain had gotten from Knight Shiun before leaving on his search – which allowed them to quickly and efficiently communicate with one another with a simple touch of their hand. ‘Wandering Towers’ they were colloquially known as, or ‘Wandering Greens’.

Of course, being rank and file soldiers, they did not have the freedom that the Knight they walked with had in their choice of dress. Knight Gawain imagined that, if they did, they very well might have been dressed as casually as he was. Technically speaking, their green uniforms should have been swapped out for red ones by now. The Lord Knight had made no complaints about the matter to anyone as of yet, though. He understood the lapse in protocol to be that of wishful thinking on someone’s part lower in the chain of command. The war was not here in Damocles just yet (ignoring that it had started in this very city), so what need did city patrol have to don the red and shuck the green? Such thinking was akin to his cloud gazing, he supposed.

Gawain’s thoughts were pulled away from the clouds when one of the soldiers spoke up behind him. “Lord Knight, is that the Emperor?” she asked, drawing his brown eyes from the listless, fluffy clouds down to the street level and looking ahead. Sure enough, standing there among some rubble, surrounded by other civilians, was Emperor Mordred. Knight Gawain let out a small sigh of relief and reached up to his left ear.

“Shiun, Aimi, I’ve located the emperor,” Gawain communicated to his fellow Knights. Aimi was the first to reply, almost immediately, as he released the pressure off of his ear piece.

“Where are you? Is the Emperor safe?”

“Emperor Mordred is well,” Gawain replied. “I’ll be escorting him back to the palace shortly. Call off your searches and return to your previous tasks.”

“Aye, Lord First. The dragon never dies,” Shiun replied.

“The dragon never dies,” Aimi relied.

“The dragon never dies,” Gawain finished, lowering his hand and signaling with it in front of him. “Form a perimeter around the emperor. Watch the streets and roof tops,” Gawain ordered, the soldiers behind him giving a singular boot stomp in reply before rushing past him to do as commanded. Knight Gawain continued his leisurely pace towards Emperor Mordred, who had not traveled more than fifteen minutes from the palace, yet again.

As the soldiers rushed forward around the pile of what was once somebody’s home, now arched with skeletal scaffolding and populated by civilian volunteers, the ordinary people of Damocles looked around by did not panic, stopping what they were doing and standing still, just in case they were in some sort of trouble. They’d been assured that they would not be and foretold that this would likely happen by the emperor himself.

“You’re a little too old to be sneaking off by yourself anymore,” Knight Gawain said to Emperor Mordred as he approached. The Emperor gave his First Knight a sheepish green. Gawain was relieved to confirm, at least, that the crown was neither on the emperor’s head nor sat aside somewhere.

“I wouldn’t have to sneak off if you’d allow me to do as I pleased,” Mordred retorted, bending down and picking up a brick of white stone in both hands, hefting it to the side and passing it to one of his subjects who took it from him silently. Even without the emperor’s memorized face he stood out from this crowd to Gawain because of his style of dress. Mordred had, evidently, not taken the time to slip out of his high quality clothing and into something a bit more conspicuous: he was dressed in bright blues, garments impeccably stitched. His sleeves were rolled up past the elbows and his hands were coated in a layer of brick dust.

“You are the Emperor of the world: there is not a soul alive that can keep you from what you please,” the First Knight reminded his emperor as he watched him work. The ningen around him slowly started to get back to work removing the rubble as well, spurred on by the emperor’s movements and no longer dissuaded by the semicircle of soldiers around them with their backs turned in their direction. “Yet, I seem to have to constantly remind you, that we are at war, and you are much safer in some place like the palace where I, and others, can more easily defend you.”

“You’re free to come along with me on these little incursions,” Mordred countered as he picked up another brick. “If I’m not safest with you at my side, where exactly am I safest?”

“Majesty, we’ve been over this,” Gawain said glumly, hoping to leave it at that and not have to repeat himself. Gawain knew that Mordred knew that, despite his excellent intentions, it simply was not worth the risk at this point in time.

“My capital city is damaged, Lord Knight. Left scarred by my brothers. As neither of them are outside of the city walls, I’d just as soon help my people heal that scar.” Another brick lifted and passed over to his fellow ningen, Mordred needed to adjust his footing as the rubble beneath him shifted.

“There are matters which require your attention, your Majesty,” Gawain pointed out patiently.

“Is the repair of Damocles not important enough a matter for the emperor to see to personally?” Another brick down the line.

“I can assure your Highness that there are plenty of ningen, bloodlings, and animunculi all working on the repair of the city. The Emperor is not needed for this particular task.” Knight Gawain shifted his weight onto his left leg, resting his right hand on top of his left.

“I don’t seem to be of much use in the palace, either! You and the other Knights are practically winning the war without me. I’m of more use to my people here.” Another brick passed from hand to hand.

“Mordred. Please.”

The use of his name caught Emperor Mordred off guard. It had only ever been in private that Knight Gawain, or any of the other Knights for that matter, had used his or his brother’s names informally like that. The grim look on Gawain’s face sealed the deal in his compliance. Mordred let out a heavy sigh, passed a final brick, dusted his hands off, smiled, patted the shoulders of the two closest ningen to him, and walked off the used-to-be-building and past Gawain, back towards the palace. Gawain followed shortly behind and without being ordered the Wandering Towers rushed forward ahead of the Emperor and the First Knight, surrounding them in a protective barrier of green as they made their way up the street.

“A good performance for your subjects, your Majesty,” Gawain complimented quietly.

“As much of a performance as a sincere gesture can be,” Mordred replied, turning his blond head toward the tanned face of his First Knight. “I really would like to be of help to my people here, personally.”

“The reconstruction efforts are your will made manifest. Damocles heals because you say it should,” Gawain reminded him.

“It does the people wonders for their morale to have me with my hands in the dirt with them,” Mordred observed.

“Yes, it does. Those ningen back there will tell others that they were helped – and touched - personally by Emperor Mordred, just as the last group you helped did, and the one before that. The people are pleased with your resolve to personally repair the damage Princes Ganymede and Bayamon wrought, your Majesty, but there are better places for you to be right now,” Gawain reminded. “And besides, it’s my job to keep you safe from assassins – be they from your brothers, or parts unknown. The Trepaneer is still afoot.”

The reminder of the Trepaneer left Mordred in grim silence for a moment. The Trepaneer was a serial killer loose in Damocles who had been at large for a little over three months. Suspected to be a holdout of one of his brother’s military forces who had defected with them but remained in the city for some reason or another, Emperor Mordred had been made aware of the existence of this shadowy figure some weeks ago, he could not remember exactly how many, in a briefing about his personal safety. Efforts were being made by the Wandering Towers to find and apprehend this criminal but had thus far come up with nothing. Not so much as a shred of evidence as to who the killer might be, only the bodies left behind, holes in their skulls where there ought not be any. Truthfully, Mordred hadn’t thought about killers in the dark when he made the (admittedly impulsive) decision to leave the palace and lend a hand in the reconstruction efforts, and in hindsight, that had been foolish of him, he’d freely admit if Knight Gawain were to press him.

“So you’ve news of my brothers, then?” Mordred asked, assuming correctly that this would be the matter which Gawain had wanted to speak with him on. He was eager to speak of anything else other than the Trepaneer – to linger on the possibility that he might have been found by this killer of ningen and bloodling alike.

“Prince Ganymede and his forces were last spotted in Darvish, a small settlement to the north, recruiting civilians to join his forces. Prince Bayamon has succeeded in his campaign to subdue the rebel forces in the Wuldrang mountains just south of the Twins. We’re as of yet unsure if Prince Bayamon is bolstering his forces with survivors or not, but reports tell us that their casualties were minimal during the incursion,” Gawain reported dryly.

Mordred took time to let those statements sink in, looking straight ahead, closed lipped and quiet. “My brothers have been busy,” he said after a moment’s pause. “The bloodling spy network really has done wonders to keep us in the know of their positions.”

“They are all too happy to serve the Emperor in keeping peace and order within the Empire, your Majesty,” Gawain simply stated, his eyes looking back up towards the clouds, trying to enjoy the peace of the moment despite the deliverance of such news.

“You still believe that it would be a mistake to try and attack my brothers now?” Mordred inquired.

“I and Third Knight Shiun believe so, yes,” Gawain said, returning his eyes to the Emperor. “Tactically it would be a bad move to spread our forces thin attacking either one, or both, of your brothers when Bayamon is in a defensible position that his forces have spent the last four months becoming familiar with and the exact location of Ganymede is unknown. We’d be opening ourselves up to unnecessary casualties when your brothers are still scrambling to match your strength. Better to let them come to us and be prepared to move counter to their assaults than to go charging into a butchery or an ambush.”

The waiting was perhaps the worst prat of all of this for Mordred. He’d never thought of himself as ‘impatient’, but the anxiety of this war was testing his belief in that. He understood that this war wasn’t going to be won overnight, that it could continue on for months, or even years, after the actual aggression began. Logically he understood. But these were still his brothers. He still loved them, and hoped that they still felt the same about him, and had no real desire to hurt either one of them. The constant illusion of waiting was grating on his mind, though. Mordred knew that Gawain and the other Knights were organizing and making strategic movements, matters which the Emperor admittedly understood little about in comparison to his brother Ganymede, he knew that things were progressing, even when he wasn’t receiving reports like the one Gawain had just given him.

The trouble was that, to him, it felt as if all of this was happening in slow motion! Each day that passed seemed to be longer and longer, and while he made it a point to attend as many war councils as he could to make decisions, be informed, and defer to Gawain or another Knight in matters which he did not feel qualified to make a ruling on, spending the majority of his time cooped up in the palace with nothing but his imagination, memories, and time had left him feeling antsy. Such was part of the reason why he’d begun sneaking away in the first place to help out in Damocles itself. At least sorting through rubble he was actively doing something. Other than thinking, thinking, thinking…

As the Knight and the Emperor approached the steps leading up to the Imperial Palace Gawain reached out to Knights Shiun and Aimi once more, informing them that they had arrived. Mordred walked ahead as the soldiers cleared the way for him. Gawain wasn’t far behind but was far enough that Mordred could stop and take a look back on Damocles while he waited for the First Knight to match his stride. From this high up it was easy to see all that still needed to be done in order to fix Damocles. If he thought back on it, though, it was easy to see how far it had come as well. Bittersweet was the sight of the city he’d always known in recovery.

“Am I needed for anything immediate?” Emperor Mordred asked as Gawain strode beside him, turning and walking up the stairs himself.

“Not as of now, your highness.”

“Then I will retire to my room for the time being. Please come for me if there is any news about my brothers, or there is something to which I must make a ruling on.” Mordred walked on ahead of Gawain who, satisfied that the Emperor was back within the grounds of the palace, allowed him to stride ahead without complaint.

The walk up the stairs that lead to his room felt as long as the entire trek from where he’d been helping civilians with the rubble to the palace entrance. His legs felt heavy and his steps uncertain as he ascended. As of late, climbing these stairs, which had always seemed such an easy task for him, seemed ever more daunting. The weight of the crown upon his head was weighing him down, or so he supposed, a burden which his father had endured for years. But then, his father had ruled during peace, hadn’t he? Surely the burden had not been as great then as it was now. Emperor Gawain had never had to plan the logistics of a civil war against two of his siblings. Alone on the steps, Emperor Mordred caught himself almost thinking that his circumstances were not fair in comparison to his father’s. He shook his head. He knew better than to compare circumstances or whine about what is or isn’t fair, even in private moments such as these. As a middle child he’d learned long ago that trying to assert yourself based on what was ‘fair’ would get you nowhere.

For how could a middle son compare to the Firstborn, who came into the world first and had a head start on the love and affection of the parents, or to the Baby, the youngest and in the most need of attention and care? Often times growing up he’d had to fight for the attention of his father from both of his brothers as well as those around them. An uphill battle of family dynamics while also learning about the world, his place in it, literature, history, proper manners, grammar, presentation – all of the princely things. How was any of it ever ‘fair’?

Life wasn’t fair, Mordred had learned long ago, and had tried to adjust himself accordingly. He made due when he couldn’t receive attention from his father by seeking it in others. Knight Gawain, for instance, as well as his other tutors, and anyone he could get to pay attention to him. Not even Princes were exempt from the desire to be seen by those around them. So he had tried to endeavor into many things, finding out faster than either of his brothers what did or did not interest him, shaping himself into a more complete person earlier than either, even when they were all still learning about themselves. Learning about the inherent, or lack thereof, fairness of the world was just a small piece of that.

Reaching the room that used to be his father’s and was now his, he shut the doors behind him and pressed his forehead against the door. Out in Damocles, he was able to project the image of a kindly emperor, willing and able to help on the ground level – something that he sincerely wanted to do but was equal parts posturing for his image unfortunately. In war councils, with his Knights beside him, generals around him, and various other military and nobility, he was able to play the part of a leader of armies. To project strength when it was expected of him, to show wisdom in asking for help when he needed to. In private, he allowed himself small moments of weakness such as this. When he was alone he didn’t have to pretend to be anything to anyone else. Not to his brothers, his Knights, the memory of his father. He was free to be a scared little boy, just for a while.

But then again… when was he ever truly alone these days?

“My, oh my! You appear about ready to collapse in on yourself!”

The voice of the feminine thing called out to him from the bed. Emperor Mordred’s eyes shot open and glared at the painted wood in front of him, fingers curling, nails digging needle-thin rakes in the color. She was back, again.

“Please, just leave me alone,” Mordred requested quietly but firmly, speaking to what he suspected was his growing madness made manifest… or worse yet, an actual entity in the room with him.

“Oh, don’t be like that,” the voice purred from the dark. A weight shifted on the mattress and a glowing blue eye pierced him from behind. “Come to bed, darling. Mother will take good care of you…”

Mordred pushed off of the door and whirled around to face the abomination lounging on his bed. She was positioned on her right side, left leg draped over her right, her mountainous hip, buttock, and the line of her crotch in open display in the sunlight. That left arm of hers, coated in layered black chitin that came to an end just at her knuckles and had all of the appearance of some great armored serpent devouring her hand, resting casually against her hip, long, thing fingers with even longer talons tapping her bare skin. Her upper portion was covered by the shadow of his bed’s canopy, but even that could not hide the shimmering blue light of two of her eyes, the other four just as visibly azure yet none so luminous.

“Mhm,” she chuckled from her position, shifting her weight and resting her head by her shoulder. “That’s it. Bring your fire, bring your passion! I welcome all to my bed!” Her long nails trailed over the skin of her thigh down towards her knee, pointing towards her bare foot at the apex.

He stopped. Not hesitation, but a measured response. He still wasn’t sure if this creature was even real and didn’t want to potentially give a figment of his imagination the satisfaction of frustrated rage. He wasn’t a child anymore. Mordred knew better than to throw a tantrum at a voice in the dark. “Leave,” he demanded again, resolute than before.

“But why? I haven’t even told you what I know yet,” she pouted, rolling onto her back. The white half-garment on her right side slid off of her shoulder from which it had been vicariously clinging, her voluptuous breast freely falling out into the open and sagging to the side. Her right knee rose up and might have almost been appealing were it not for the same layered chitin that began at mid-thigh and ran down her leg to her ankle. That armor was almost smooth were it not for the pleated spikes running along the side of her leg.

“I don’t want to hear it,” Mordred told her, marching over towards the vanity and sitting down. Try as he might to not look at her, the thing was still visible in the mirror. He saw in the peripheral of his vision that she rolled over onto her stomach and extended her right arm out towards him, the long, loose sleeve catching on the sheets and rolling up to reveal the bare, perfect arm underneath.

“I think you might. It concerns your brothers,” the thing tempted, placing the emphasis in sing-song. It got Mordred to turn his eyes towards her. The singular black horn on the left side of her head was now in the sun, rising up off of her skull before spiraling down past her jawline.

Emperor Mordred turned around slowly on his seat and full on looked at the thing that played at femininity. She, in turn, rose up off of the bed by pushing her torso up, the one breast hanging at the mercy of the gravity while the other rested caged in black exoskeleton. She shifted to put her eight on her left arm and thus her face was fully moved into the light of the sun. He saw it all. Her small, smiling lips, painted black and white in four quadrants. The circle of sharp fangs which jutted out uselessly from her left cheek, ending in a wet gash of flesh that was no wound and yet lead nowhere. The zipper that ran from her right jaw up diagonally across her face. No ears. No nose. Everything above the zipper a stony porcelain like that of an expensive doll, paper white compared to the pallid off-gray of her skin. There were holes in her perfectly oval face that wound and spun in on themselves like a canyon. Two of them formed the vague shape of eyes from which a round blue light and a slivered slit dwelt and served her as eyes. The other four were very much flesh, two of them entirely without lids. Bloodshot grapes capped with blue irises and wild pupils. One with a lid lazed beneath the horn, never quite looking at anything. The last rested at nearly the apex of her skull, larger than the others. Her hair was a messy chocolate waterfall.

The thing held up her right hand and gestured with white claws to come to her. Mordred obliged, rising from his chair and walking over to sit on the bed with his back to her, hunched over. He didn’t hear her approaching but he felt her body pressing against his back. The juxtaposition of hard and soft, cold and warm, was impossible to ignore, even through his clothing.

“That’s right. Listen to Mother Harlot now…” she whispered in his ear. Her voice was like a melted caramel. Deliciously sweet, warm. Sumptuous. Maternal. Mordred hated the sound of it. Mordred loved the sound of it.

“What is it you know?” he asked as she began to play with his golden hair, plucking a bit of debris out from it and flicking the piece of Damocles across the chamber.

“I know that Bayamon has courted a woman named Maewa, added her and those that survived the battle to his forces. They’ll add more from above Fat and Thin in the coming months,” she hummed, right hand slithering over his shoulder, down his collarbone, down his chest. “I know that Ganymede intends to head south soon, collecting ‘volunteers’ along the way. He will be ready to strike before Bayamon is, but he won’t. Oh, no. The Supreme General is much too smart to do that…”

“Why won’t he strike?” Mordred asked, goosebumps rising on his skin. Her left hand was on his stomach now, dangerously flirting with his bellybutton.

“Because he knows that you’ll be waiting for him!” Mother Harlot whispered matter-of-factly, with no small amount of glee on her tongue. “He’ll try to wait and let Bayamon make the first move, counter your younger brother’s revolt, then draw you out. Make you bleed. A slow death. Painful, but inevitable. He’s in it for the long game… the very long game!”

Mordred sprang up from the bed as he felt her talons pushing into the fabric of his pants. She laughed like a lover sharing a private joke as Mordred broke out into a cold sweat.

“What do my brothers want?” Mordred forced himself to ask through gritted teeth. “What can I do to make them stop this war?”

Mother Harlot smirked, raising her black talons and sultrily waving her index finger from side to side. “Now, now, your majesty. You know the rules: no tell without touch!” she laughed, falling back onto the bed, arms at her side, legs spread. Inviting.

Mordred loathed this creature, now more so than ever. Where it had come from, how it knew the things it knew, how it could come and go from the Imperial Palace as it pleased, he did not know. One day after the Struggle of Succession, she’d simply appeared to him. When he had called for guards she had vanished. When he was alone like this she made herself known. He seldom was finding times when he was truly alone anymore because of her and that bothered him.

But nothing bothered him quite so much as the clarity with which she delivered her news. Without fail, every time, what she predicted had come to pass. Weeks or days after the fact, his Knights would give him news that he had already heard. A solid confirmation of the reality which she espoused. It was infuriating! She never said what it was she wanted, why she was giving him this information. What her game was. All she ever desired of him was his touch, and he was loathed to give it to her. Each time it felt like surrender in some incomprehensible way. Like he was, in fact, losing some important battle which he had no knowledge of. She was poison. Hideous and addicting.

Emperor Mordred climbed onto the bed and on top of her, planting his hand on her exposed breast. She moaned, tilting her head back. Her eyes flared blue, rolled around in lidless sockets, or half closed. Mordred’s stomach turned in disgust. “Tell me what my brothers want so I can end this madness!”

“Ganymede wants to be in charge!” she purred, pushing her chest up against his palm. “He wants to rule because he thinks he knows how. Wants to improve on what his father left behind, same as you. But with a firmness that you simply lack…” Mother Harlot’s bare knee rose up and pushed between Mordred’s legs. The Emperor pulled his hips back, shifting his weight onto his hand consequentially. The abomination gasped!

“Bayamon wants there to be change. He’s tired of being the third wheel brother. Wants to leave his mark on history by changing the course of it forever…” A vibrant pink tongue darted out from between her pied lips in a circular motion. “He wants to be there when nations are born… Separate. Individual. Different. Not like your empire, so uniform and together…”

“He still thinks that’s a possibility?” Mordred asked quietly in disbelief. He rose up off of Mother Harlot and sat beside her right side. He recalled his younger brother’s curiosity about how the world came to be as it is. How he’d pestered his father and tutor for answers. Why was the Empire the Empire? Had there ever been anything else? Could there ever be anything else? He remembered how Bayamon had been told, time and time again, that differing nation-states would only cause conflict between people because of perceived differences which were, ultimately, inconsequential and ephemeral. He remembered, once, one of their tutors had tried to illustrate it with a board game, separating pieces out, explaining that they were on different sides. Demonstrating how their separation created conflicting interests. Mordred remembered later trying to remonstrate this elegant point to Bayamon himself. Bayamon had flipped the board on him even faster than he had their tutor.

He ran his hand through his golden hair, gripped it tight, and felt anger welling up inside of his stomach. He simply could not believe that Bayamon would have started all of this for a reason so idiotic as separate, independent nations! It had been Bayamon who struck the first blows in the Struggle of Succession that had left Damocles and its people as damaged as they were now. Ganymede had merely taken advantage of the confusion and made off like a bandit after being repelled along with his younger brother. All this time, effort, pain: war was raging because of Bayamon’s stubborn belief in independence!?

Mother Harlot’s mouth brought Mordred back to the present moment, her lips enveloping the side of his hand and tongue gently pushing against it. He wrenched his hand back away from her and looked down at her holed face, listening to that painfully sweet laugh of hers as she rolled over onto her back. “Fret not, my dear Emperor. You’ll win in the end! Neither of your brothers has the strength to withstand the power you wield; power that you don’t even know about…”

“I’m well aware of that,” Mordred huffed, leaping up out of bed and cupping his hand, a shiver running up his spine as he wiped the cold saliva onto his clothes.

“Then why are you so tense?” Mother Harlot inquired, sliding silently off of the bed like a shadow and swinging around the emperor to cup his face in her hands. Her half gown hung on her body by the grace of her elbow only. “You will win! Your brothers will fail. The Empire is yours! This should please you, no? Don’t I please you, your majesty?”

No questions without touch. He reached up and placed his hand over hers, turning his head and pecking at her palm. She tittered as though it had been her first kiss ever. “Why are you here? Why are you always here?” he asked quietly. He’d asked before. He’d received no answers. He expected none now. The young emperor distracted himself from what he expected to be an evasive answer by looking at the large, gleaming orb sticking out of her left shoulder, placed beneath volcanic crags which jutted out above it. It was like a sapphire but of a shade of blue that matched the light in her eyes.

“I’m here for what comes after the war with your brothers,” she confessed. It took Mordred a moment to catch it.

His eyes lit up and his face jerked to look at her malformed visage. “What?” he asked, unsure if he’d heard her properly.

Mother Harlot turned away from Mordred and walked over towards the vanity. Tugging open a drawer, she rooted around through some of the finest bits of cosmetic wear in the world as she spoke. “When all of this ends, and it will end. Sooner than you expect, you will have a part to play in what comes after. Don’t blame me! I’m just the messenger. You’ll want to direct your complaints at Mr. Wink.”

“I don’t understand. Who is Mr. Wink?” Mordred asked, watching as Mother Harlot smeared a ruby red paste over her lips. The applied coat of lip varnish was as perfectly placed as it was ruined a moment later when she dragged her thumb over her still wet lips and intentionally smeared it in the direction of the teeth jutting out of the side of her face. She seemed to like it better that way.

“Oh, you wouldn’t believe me if I explained, so I’m not going to,” Mother Harlot said flatly, turning around and offering a sultry smile to the emperor. “Make love to me.”

An offer. A closing statement. Mordred deflated on the spot and knew that he was drawing to the end of his time with her. She was always on the way out when she asked (or demanded, he was never quite sure which it was) that the two of them engage in intercourse. He’d never taken her up on her offer yet but was secretly afraid that one day he might if he grew desperate enough.

“Hm, you’re no fun,” Mother Harlot complained, sauntering past Mordred and heading towards the window on the far end of the room to look out on Damocles. She pulled her half-gown up over her shoulder. It did nothing to hide her backside from view.

“I’d tell you all if you but only fucked me,” she clarified. Something she’d said before. “You’ve no idea the wonders I could show you. I’d make you feel more complete than you’ve ever felt in bed before. Stronger men than you have had me. You can have me, too. I’ll tell you all about Mr. Wink, your brothers, what’s to come for you. Anything you want to hear my dear, sweet Majesty.”

She was pressed against him again. He stood his ground only out or paralytic fear. He gasped as she groped him, felt his weakness there. She chuckled and the sound was like a predator about to feast on captured prey. “Leave,” he whispered.

Mother Harlot released Emperor Mordred and stepped around his bed, holding onto a banister as though just hanging onto it limply and swung around the bedside curtains. She laughed, and she was gone.

Mordred was truly alone now, for a while, and he chose to spend that time weeping on the floor.