title, "Coat of Arms"
I will freely admit that I wrote this, as a gesture of grace. Go ahead and crit as if it would do some good.
Outline.
Yep, she and I fell in love. Because we first met on the battlefield, we remained as comrades-in-arms as well as lovers.
As it turns out, the central powers unearthed a whole lot more than a tomb when they plundered the shadow realm, the only people she ever loved to stay with, during that incredibly modern age during which I was brought up.
Yes, she and I took command of our own army, one that always closed the books with every victory that it made.
We stalked the central armies for an hundred years and she and I and a few others accidently became demagogues in the process. Hey, I wasn’t lying when I claimed they massacred the shadow realme.
We made our battle all the way up to the victorious empire’s shrine that actually stands on the site of the original excavation, as a matter of coincidence.
We fought our fierce battle in the spirit of sheer nemesis and suddenly the choppers surrounded us and shot everyone! Except for us few demagogues, my countrymen and countrywomen died fighting the battle they already knew was to make them who they are.
Since the choppers found no way to kill us, they decided to abduct us instead.
Prison. I hate prison! Luckily for us, the empire actually decided to outfit us within a cave that had a small pond near the back.
As it was, four out of the six of us could not recall whether or not we had the gift to breathe underwater. I explained this to everyone and let those best people know that the trick is to decide they already have the gift and then actually USE it.
Even though she didn’t really feel like it, Chelsea volunteered to lead the way through the underwater channel, simply because she already knew she was equipped to endure such a trial. As for me, I was unsure of myself but hyper-confident, just like the four others.
Yes, the subterranean tunnel was our salvation from imprisonment. But at such a dire cost! Despite all my efforts, those other four men and women did not emerge. I waited for them for years and years.
Chelsea knew it would happen. A crow visited our tiny abode and windslashed chains fast from our wrists into the bedrock. We had no choice but to remain there for centuries as we simply witnessed the horror of sterilization from irradiation. In fact, we sustained ourselves using the ruffiage that grew around our tiny shed.
Surely, Chelsea and I learned to hate one another. However, this hatred was severely tempered by our common hatred for that huge retro-helix facing our little window and simply growing like a firey tornado of its own axis, consistently peering at us through that little window.
I can’t remember, but I think she and I made love like ten thousand times in that tiny room. I was bothered by the fact that we had no choice but to stay bound in that tiny room together, just watching the horror of that retro-helix. Chelsea told me she was bothered by the fact that all this crap began in a mythical age back when SHE was a kid several thousand lifetimes ago. She said she wasn’t even bothered by the fact that I bothered her several times while I was in grade school and not even by the fact that this whole scenario simply resides in the head of an adolescent during the middle ages.
[censor here]
“But he is the real villian, right? That fat cat in his stupid airship holding his staff, dagger, and 1000-lb crystal ball!”
“No,” she insisted matter-of-factly, “WE’RE the villian. Either us or those six billion souls trapped inside that crystal ball. He cannot be the villian because your four best friends drowning back there are simply emmissaries from HIS crew.”
“ . . . what’s your point?” I was puzzled.
“Well, for one thing, he’s all alone with absolutely no women!” She frisked my thigh and and jeered lovingly.
“Ahem! I thought there were two women back there.”
“That is just what you saw, not the truth. The truth is that I love him, but not as much as I love you. He deceived me when he insisted that he was of my own world but lived there only as a possession from the future.”
“…………….. Hey. How can those poor souls in the crystal ball be the villian? All he does is sit there and cast spells on it the whole day.”
“He’s trying to fix them. But every ceremony of his simply ends in failure. All they do is writhe in pain and consider him the villian. Mighty and selfish, if you ask me.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that he destroyed this world-
“He already destroyed it twelve times over,” she interjected, “Listen. The moment you’re ready, just break these chains and we’ll go over and kill his sorry ass.”
“Allright. But we’ve got to rehearse! We’ve got to make sure that he is the sacrifice, neither you nor I.”
“I already saw that he IS the one who’s sacrificed. You already rehearsed this whole thing back when you were an adolescent. Don’t you remember which method is the one that makes him pay?”
“Ooops. I’m embarrassed. You’re right. As a matter of fact, I still do remember, for that is my only strength… It was the only method where I never turned my back to him and simply trusted you.
“OKAY. I’ll just use my big muscles to break this chain, and… heh, heh! The chain has disappeared. You learned it from me, trickster.”
“I learned it from you for the fifth time.” Chelsea brushed my hair lovingly.
[censor end]
On that day or evening or whatever she and I smashed through that tiny window and ventured out into nothing but callous, dry, mud-twisted plains under a sky of exactly the same color.
We marched directly into that abominable thing of blood-red fire. I even thought back to the circumstances of that knuckles assassin in the back alley when I drank a lot right before shipping off to war.