In order to catch a break, she would take long walks in the forest and say she was out berry picking. She would pick and eat the best ones sitting under her favorite cherry blossom, and bring home the small sour ones for her husband. Wanting to spend more time away from home, the woman decides to take a different turn than usual. Something was drawing her there. 

Behind the most beautiful blueberry bush, she notices a glimmer behind the leaves. Peering through the branches, she finds a sword. A shining silver sword. She gasps in wonder and astonishment. The handle is majestically bejeweled with ruby and turquoise and emerald, all of her favorites. Suddenly, an idea rattles her brain, it rattes her brain in such a wonderful way she’s never felt pleasure like that before. 

The woman has a whole new glow upon her face, as she skips gallantly all the way home. She is the most excited she’s been to walk through those doors in a very long time. 

“Hello my dear!” she squeaks into the house. 

“Aren’t you cheery?” She hears her husband yell to her from the upstairs. 

She hears her husband begin to make his way to the staircase, as she hides to the side of them, perfectly hidden by the wall. Step. Step. Step. Closer, closer, and closer. Her husband turns the corner, she jumps up and pierces the sword straight through his stomach. Release. My god she hasn’t felt this good in ages.. His body falls to the ground, and she disposes of him properly. This is a new beginning, she thinks to herself. 

She makes her way back up to the doors of her home, grinning ear to ear in complete bliss. She turns the handle, opens the door, and there he is.

“I see I know how you really feel.”

As truth is used on lies

To separate the false from fact

We answer, do or die

Do what you must and muster your strength

For death is a constant purity

For both rotting filth and holy faith

So act, have faith your crimes have will

Every action is an act of reaction

Because cause always has an effect

Since the beginning of time it intermingles seamlessly

No one unaffected, it just “is” with no “why”

Time, passing as regrets are stacking

My only hope is in those that change

 For everything never stays the same

And consider, using what your given

Given the truth to separate the lies

So that you can act on your truth and confess your crimes

Death proving to be the only other option in “do or die”

As time is proven to be wasted but never slowed

You should change the world with what your given

Because your will can change everything

Even change the ones you don’t know

He cocked his chin and began to speak, “I am Horacio Dunst of the Rebel Battalion and you good sir, are trespassing in the pristine of the Badlands. As the designated protector of these Badlands I’m afraid I’m going to have to put you under arrest, or if you would prefer, send you into the blissful eternal slumber we all wish to receive.”

Dellius replied by rushing the bridge. Horacio drew and they clashed with the great spark of the hot iron medal. It was a green light that cascaded into wonderful smoke streaking across the forest. With a swift pass and the end of the duel, Horacio Dunst was no more.

By the end of the week, Dellius returned to a guild of trumpets and a bountiful feast in honor of the return of the Queens’ locket that she had missed so very much. He was honored among all and for his bravery in the Badlands he was rewarded with the title of General to the Royal guard. 

Dellius stood for the congregation on a mountain of oak in the village square and rejoiced for chants of his name to which he replied

“Good people of Fort Nok, in return for my deed I do not wish for tribute nor worship, nor do I wish for a gaggle of gifts and riches laid at my door. I only wish that for this eve, all creatures great and small may eat, drink, and be merry under a full moon that provide glow to the streets, and glow to the hearts”.

Despite her focus on them, she doesn’t notice his hand approaching until it crudely nudges her own. She doesn’t move. Her fingers shift when he nudges her hand again, with more force this time. Looking down at the obstacle interrupting her rhythm she sees the burning paper stick he was offering. For the first time after sitting, her eyes meet his face, he’s not looking back, her jaw protests when the clench she holds on it strengthens. He nudges her hand again before she finally swipes it out of his clammy hand, her nail scratching his knuckle on the retreat. 

Her lips part, pushing past the initial stick the cold gave them. Elbow now firmly planted atop her knee, held between two fingers she lifts the cigarette up to her mouth. A small moment of relief fills her head after she breathes in the smoke. Lightly tapping the cigarette, she returns to her beat.

Looking now, she finds him staring at her from where he’s sat on his suit jacket, one leg spread out, the other bent with the knee pointing outwards, his mouth pulled into a tight line. His right palm is wrapped around his knee, he squeezes, then releases, then squeezes again. Then there’s tap tap tap of his foot, it dances to an unappealing rhythm, one heightened by his dress shoes that seem to simulate the sound of a tap shoe. Eyebrows high to where they crease her forehead, she meets his eyes, directs her gaze to his fidgety foot, then back.

The foot stops and the wrinkles at the bridge of his nose tighten, a look of confusion settles on his face. That is until flippantly rolling his eyes and then picking up the incessant tapping again, this time with a purpose. 

A tooth pierces her lip while she sits and glares, hand shaking around the cigarette. Lifting her elbow and raising the paper above her head she kicks her leg out, colliding her foot with his. For a moment he loses the lines in his face, bafflement consuming his features. It’s not long until he responds with a harsh kick of his own, one she can feel in her toes. This time she goes for his ankle, introducing the heel of her boot to it.

A sharp intake of air hisses through his teeth before he moves to ram his shoulder into her elevated arm, causing her torso to twist in on itself away from him. A tiny sound of rage is the only warning given before the cigarette bends in her forming fist and her boney elbow finds its target in his ribs. Fingers wrap a cold firm grip on her wrist, cigarette then slipping from her grasp when she flicks her wrist, landing a fist into his nose. In a rushed reaction he bends her arm back away from his now bloody face, still not releasing her, she turns her body, and grabs his shoulder with a tight grip, pushing him into the concrete. 

He now has a hold on both of her wrists from where he lay below her, and is lifting his leg in preparation to knee her in the gut, when suddenly the door behind them opens with the sound of a record scratch and they pull apart. While they dust off their clothes and attempt to look casual, the remaining embers stuck to the end of the deformed cigarette catch her eye. 

Everything is silent as she watches the only warmth in a world of blue, fizzle out.

Even if the devil of the parent I call my mother told me that I looked like a pig and swore I was an antichrist when I walked backwards up a wall, I know I was a perfect child. She also said she “was afraid of showing me to the other noble woman” because “They might faint and collapse at the mere sight of me”. I am sure she meant that the others would be so overwhelmed by my majestic and handsome visage that they would faint on the spot. *Snort*.

This young master only requests that you answer this one question, are you willing to die for me to inherit the throne that my late imperial father incorrectly said would go to my second brother in his will when he surely meant me? He claimed that the person who should inherit the throne shouldn’t be ugly, arrogant, and stupid. This proved to me that he meant my brother!... Everyone who didn’t nod their heads is to be sent to prison for treason against the rightful emperor.  

Now that my power is to be established and I am to gain women, gold, silk, the throne, an army, and women. I wish to tell you peasants that you should start licking my feet and not run over to that dreadful younger brother of mine. With his “tax based on income” and “Consistent federal currency backed by gold standard”, why would we need a currency backed by a gold standard when GOLD is backed by the gold standard. Can’t he see how much money I and the people that had bribed me will lose if he both increases our taxes and lowers yours! This is a terrible thing done by a terrible person.

I propose that you give us your money so that we don’t have to spend our own money when funding our army to crush any and all opposition! Some may die, but that is a risk I am willing to take. As all of you should feel lucky to die for a man as great as me. Sometimes I wish I could die for myself, but I just couldn’t, as fighting would both ruin my beautiful face and I have all you mud-eating, wheat smelling, pig-looking, dumber than the bricks you place, dreadfully poor peasant to die instead. Thankfully, your money and donations will go a long way to fund the war you are going to fight in my stead.

Thankfully my brother has only gained support from 90% of the politicians of the country. They are people who do not matter when it comes to my power as an emperor. All of the people who bribed me are the ones who truly have a hold over the country, and are the people who my brother wrongfully wants to expose their crimes. In my opinion, they have done nothing wrong! The black markets, though I have never been there, are supposedly a completely free market. As well as all sorts of fun entertainment, like gambling, drugs, and fighting rings. I may send some of the conscripts to the fighting rings to entertain me during this boring and ultimately time wasting war. As we all know, nobody could defeat someone as strong, handsome, and perfect as me. Have I mentioned how humble I am?

Now then, send your most beautiful daughters and wives to my castle as tribute so that… wait… stop throwing things! GUARDS! Why aren’t you stopping them?! AAAAAAAA!”