Her Father’s Kingdom After All
Dim flickers, the other lights dead long ago. She carries a torch and the others follow. It is easier for them. They are very afraid, but she will lead them, they are sure.
She is searching for something else altogether: her father was the king and she is the last of her people. He had sat on the throne in the palace until this other had come, this other who had swept in and destroyed everything, turning the land into a swamp of blackened earth and blood. He tainted with his touch, a thinning of vitality, a plague and a rot.
She would meet with him in the palace, this man who had defiled her father. The palace was now overgrown with weeds, damp with mildew, crawling with creatures.
The once Great Hall that had stretched for miles with color, sweetness and beauty now lay barren, a cold fog and a stench of decay, the result of death horrific. The corpses of a million soldiers lay pooling into each other and above all this stood the new King.
He was a man unlike any she’d seen. The others stayed far back clinging to the shadows as she strode forward, hiking her white dress up around her knees. She trudged through the squelching mass of death. Strange things slithered in and out of eyeballs and mouths.
It took her hours to walk across it all and the new King just sat and watched her, moving never once. The others, courtesans and villagers alike, clung to each other, afraid to move. She hated them and knew that they were cowards, that they would sacrifice her.
The King sat high, staring, covered totally in a liquid battle armor, tall and thin, a glowing metallic blue.
“This is all mine now, child.”
She bowed down, her long hair slopping in the giblets of a fallen soldier.
“This is so, my Lord.”
Her words echoed around the Great Hall. The others listened open-mouthed and afraid. An old priest who was with them began to recite a prayer but the others forced him silent. This was not the time; something marvelous was about to happen, they thought.
“Then why do you come?” the new King asked.
She stood and looked up at him.
“You have everything, my Lord; you killed my father and took his kingdom. You have left nothing untouched, spared no one; you have destroyed our land and murdered most of us; you have left a mark here we never wanted and we can never forget.”
The King continued to stare. The others kept hoping, though for what they remained unsure.
She continued.
“These are my people and you are indeed a monster, but I have a question for you. What comes after you? What then?”
The priest began to pray again, louder now. The others watched him–he was crying.
“It is the end,” he said. “Just you see.”
They turned back to her and watched as she began to ascend the steps. Her dress turned a dark color, her face rigid. She took the new King’s hand and kissed the royal ring upon his finger, the ring that had once belonged to her father. She looked back at the others and let out a long and hateful scream before talking her seat on the throne. The new Queen.
The priest left first, the others followed, heads bent low.
“What did you expect?” he asked to no one in particular.
