A Writer's Mind

“You oppose us, Leonitus, when we have the day in our hand?” Finnegan raised his tall silver sword to the sky. The blade flashed blindingly with the golden sunlight before its wielder pointed it directly at the Roman ruler. “Your servants will be like dogs, trotting after your demise that is soon to come. The Norse shall rule Borwell by the time the sun hits the hill you will die upon tonight!” He jabbed the sword toward a tall hill behind the Roman army with a deep grunt, his tiny black eyes glinting with rancid anger. Or perhaps that might have just been the strange odor that surrounded him. A wild grin stretched across Finnegan’s dry, cracking pink lips that only infuriated Leonitus Demitae, the ruler of Rome for the last fifteen years. He was tall and thin; this was because Rome had been in a drought for the last few months, and many fields of grain were withering in the merciless sunlight. Long brown hair crowned his head, and his dark green eyes, like an overgrown jungle, glittered with—no, I couldn’t use that example. It would alter the feeling of ancient times—he had eyes like the jewels on his neck, green and sparkling with the fury he had at Finnegan and his army. That sounded so much better. I tapped my pencil against my chin. The scribble of sketchers and writers alike sounded around me our mentor walked up and down the isles of desks. His—Daniel Steep’s—deep, authoritative voice was Leonitas’; that’s where I, Havana Marie, got my inspiration. Finnegan is the cranky little boy that sat just in front of me. His crazy smile, the gnarly, scarred face (don’t worry, this little boy has no such scars, he just has an oddly, always-angry face). I sighed as he tossed a crumpled sheet of paper over his shoulder at me. But to my surprise, Daniel darted forward and caught it with one hand. I shot him a grateful glance that he returned with a smile and a “I got ya” look before I shyly lowered my embarrassed gaze back down to the brimming war between Rome and the Norse people. My excitement returned immediately as I took in the majestic poses I had placed my characters in on the drawings on the margins of my paper. I has just finished my class on the Latin language, and this was my vent to practice all of my shiny new cultural knowledge. “My people have been suffering for months, Finnegan.” Leonitus raised his chin. The large, gleaming white pearls on his fingers clicked together on their bronze rings, fingers tightening frustratedly to clench the glimmering rim of the muddy golden chariot. It wobbled a little as his noble stallion, Pallas, snorted and shuffled his big black hooves on the soft earth of the cornfield. Hundreds of men stood behind the chariot, armed with sharp iron bows and arrows of steel that clanked together in their quivers as they quickly drew up their bows to launch. Leonitus quickly stopped them with a snap of his fingers. Finnegan waved his hand out over his own army, presenting them to the high Roman king with that horrible gleaming, toothy grin. “No, my lord, your people have lived better than mine for years. We are the ones caught in the worst of this drought that has starved many of our women and beloved children. Why do you lie like this to the face that has suffered worse?” Triumph was clear in his voice. Leonitus crossly straightened his leather flask and flapped up the hood of his wind-rippled gray cloak, recognizing that he was caught in a very tight web. (I loved metaphors like this; they made stories sound rich and interwoven with nature in the most divine way). I quickly erased the flask from my little sketch of the Roman ruler on the right margin of my writing sheet; it reminded me too much of a show I had watched, set a little bit in Jerusalem, where flasks of water were probably very common. I didn’t like the thought of associating Leonitus with such a city. I loved ancient Jerusalem. But solely for this story, I felt like he had to be more authoritatively-awkward sounding. So I replaced, “Leonitus crossly straightened his leather flask” with “Leonitus quickly yanked off his jeweled necklace in embarrassment”. Yes. That sounded much more shocked and awkward. It made me giggle at imagining such an important person being so flustered and wavy. I drew a little black chicken wearing a silver crown adorned with I crystal on the back of Leonitus’ cloak—the symbol of the large city of Sara, the city he lived in. I let my cheek rest on my fist as I wrote, continuing with Finnegan’s evil assistant, Ebbe. His lopsided sneer made me I smile at as I drew a fat little man beside Finnegan on the margins of my paper. Leonitus and his Roman army stood on the other side of the writing paper, tall and powerful looking. “My lord, have you shame?” Croaked Ebbe, his pale, warty face wrinkling to mirror Finnegan’s wicked grin. He had a gravelly voice that was taunting but not frightening, more like the way of a grandfather clock’s chime. They clearly knew that Leonitus was a devout pacifist, not one to go to war easily. Indeed, his eyes glowed with irritation at Finnegan, but the emperor would not stand watching good men die over food from a drought. “Your men will die anyways if you do not settle this countrywide dispute. Much thanks to your cooperation, my lord.” Leonitus felt no such cooperation stir inside him. He raised his hand at the bubbling, jumpy army behind him to lower the raised bows, and shouted crossly at Finnegan and Ebbe, “We’ve wasted so much time simply standing here and squabbling over mere food! My men will go to war against you if that is what it comes to, but I cannot be a part of this wretched blood shedding.” And with that, he lashed the rains of the chariot, making Pallas whinny with startle, and rode off. It was all up to his most trusted soldier, the great Fido Marcellinus, now. This was no fair fight that Leonitus has fled from. This was a war that now had the Romans, the most powerful league of killers in the entire world, standing tall and strong in front of their wicked Norse counterparts, clanking their swords to their shields and shouting an intimidating, bloodthirsty battle cry. I used the side of my pencil to create the illusion of light glinting on Fido’s sword as he stood at the head of his army. Leonitus had just made either the best decision in his life, or he had made the absolute worst that would eventually get himself killed. Either way, I knew that it was solely up to my big strong warrior called Fido now, or all of Rome would be in fiery shambles by midnight. I couldn’t let that happen, not when Leonitus and his family were so vulnerable in the poverty that had begun to eat away at them. I gave Fido a black leather sash of silver knives that he slung over his shoulder like the sling of bullets shotgun wielders carry around at war. The silver helmet on his head, crowed with sharp brown hawk feathers, was engraved with same jade-topped chicken from Leonitus’ cloak, and tall brown boots covered his feet. I imagined they had to be covered with bad blisters from walking so far from the city of Sara to old farmer Strabo’s cornfield. Many of Fido’s comrades wore the same as him, but he was the one to carry the hawk feather helmet, a sign of his authority as head of Leonitus’ Roman army. The soldiers behind Fido shouted angrily in Latin at the Norse, who cackled like witches fifty feet in front of them. War was brewing dangerously fast, and Leonitus Demitae might have just possibly escape a very violent death at the hands of his oldest enemy. “Charge!” Screamed the Romans, and they hurled themselves across the cornfield to kill the Norse people once and for all. “DESTROY THEM!” Shrieked Finnegan, launching his sword to the heavens. His army of ten thousand erupted from behind him to take on the forty thousand Romans. The greatest war in the history of the world was here.