All's fair in Love and War

The horse gallops through the fogey forest towards the distant light. The midnight wind carrying droplets continuously washed over the drenched rider yet he remained unfazed; thrusting the horse to move faster.

The camp tents are in view making out only the figures of soldiers he could count on his fingers, six. The sound of the horse disturbing the rather unusual quiet night draws the attention of the soldiers and they gathered at the outskirts of the tents.

The rider finally pulls on the reins bring the horse to a slow halt. He ignores the soldiers as he fast walks into the camp.

A bulky female soldier runs after him. “I need to inform you of something sire—”

He stops and faces the woman. “Where are the men?”

“That’s the thing. Her majesty commanded them to return to the kingdom.”

“We’re at WAR.”

“I know sire but—”

“How many men are currently in camp?”

“About fourty but—”

“I do not work with guesses. This is not a game, it is war. Did EVERYBODY forget that? Do a head count. Plan out the return strategy, I’ll revise it later. Get the men ready, we leave by dawn.” He glances at the only lit tent. “I’ll take care of the rest.”

“Her Majesty ordered for the all the wine at camp to be brought into her tent—does she drink?” She shifted on her spot feeling his questioning eyes on her not daring to look back up. “Not the right time? I see that now, sire. I think it’s better to give her time you know given the loss . . .”

He turns away and continues to the tent. It smelt like a marriage of wine, dried blood and wet sand.

“Your Majesty,” he said bowing.

She picked up another jar drowning the content down her throat with most of it pouring down her face till the emptied out the content. She stared at the jar.

“This is not the time for this NONSENSE—”

She hurls the ceramic jar to the ground and it breaks on impact, joining the pile of broken ceramics.

“It’s Nonsense. You are drinking in the middle of a war. Where are your men? What’s the strategy? Or are you just going to breakdown like the wine jar.”

He inches to her, “Are you listening to ME?”

She sniffs, “I haven’t had enough if I can still understand you.” She smirks picking herself of the ground staggering across to the tent to the pile of wine jars. She picks up another jar holding it by her waist. “You drown away your sorrows, that’s how it works but its not working. This isn’t the good stuff, is it?”

“I was there when they brought my father and brother’s corpse. I was ten. I didn’t understand death but I knew they were gone. Too far gone to reach. I know I cried. I remember this particular scene very vividly.

"My mother’s nails pierced my cheeks and her lifeless blue eyes pierced my soul and she warned in her usual cold soft voice, ‘Don’t cry! You are not allowed to cry. Crying is for weak fools. You are not allowed to be a fool or worse weak.’

"Then she sent me to the library. I obeyed like a butcher’s dog. I read all day non stop for days till eventually you came to find me. Many things have happened after that but I’ve never cried again. I don’t think I remember how to.”

She removes the cap and drowns the content again. “You more than anything should know what he means to me?” She throws the jar on the ground ending its career.

How can he forget? Phineas, a refugee, she despite all odds chose to save him and bring him into the palace. He reminds of her brother she had said, so she named him Phineas. He could not understand how an uneducated pale impoverished six-year-old child had reminded her of her prince brother.

His eyes she had explained, that was what reminded her of her brother. It beamed with life and hope, something that was taken away from her long ago.

She picked up a silver cup trying to make out at her reflection. “You want to create a heartless monster with no attachments. You did it. You’ve broke me to the point where there’s nothing left to break. I’ll ignite the burning fire of war. I'll lead the fight not sparing anything in my path. I’ll end what you started.”

She looked back at him, “Satisfied?” She tossed the cup at him failing to make a dent.

He said, “Your Majesty, I'm afraid you are not in the right state of mind.”

“That’s what you do best. You stay quiet or better yet you lie. You knew I was thinking of calling it truce and that means she knew. It was Phineas who made me realize how many suffered and will suffer in trying to build this empire. You’d tried to dis-attach me from Phineas.

"I find it Ironic that our enemies broke into this so-called Empire's Palace, kidnapped him and held him hostage without help from within. It’s a very clever idea only it’s too clever. To clever for them to think and to execute perfectly like they did. Why hold him hostage as an advantage point against me only to kill him before my eyes, to taunt me?

"How can someone so clever be so stupid? Unless they are pawns, your the Knight and she’s playing the pieces. You want me to end the truce, in rage I'll head into war with the thousands of men and conquer yet another kingdom. I wouldn’t suspect anything but I am my mother’s daughter—but still nothing compared to my mother.”

She staggers back on her feet walking up to him on the spinning ground. The pain in her chest burnt through her bones into her soul. “I don’t remember what date my father and brother died.”

“5^th day in the Harvest of Subert.”

“You remember?” She laughed and the pain heightens suffocating her. “I don’t even remember how they looked like. I’ll forget today like how forgot their deaths. I’ll forget Phineas and He’d have died for nothing. You hated my brother but you remembered. I truly am a monster.”

He wants to say she’s not a monster, but all he says is, “I didn’t hate him.”

She looks at him. “Why did she have to take him away from me?" How is it worse to bear the loss than she was ten?

He knows she never got to mourn or heal. She buried everything. He looked at her, at the most vulnerable state he had ever seen her. Her face was pale and she was mumbling to herself.

If he con stop the pain, he would. He doesn’t understand why he’s also in pain. The more she struggles the more it aches. Perhaps, it’s the guilt knowing that this time he played a huge role in causing her grief.

He knows he should comfort her but he should not.

There are boundaries, boundaries he never dared cross before.

He had orders. Orders he had follow. Rules he had to Obey.

“How could you snatch him from me”—Her voice broke—“Why did you?”

He sees tears gathering around her red eyes. It’d never had expect that he could ever see her cry again. But he understood, it was more than the loss. It’s been long awaited.

She struggles to keep the tears at bay. She bites her tongue leaning to even more pain to cope with the pain but it was not enough. Not this time. “How can you look at me like that and still lie to my face?”

She looks into his brown eyes. He didn't look away. In a swift motion, she places a broken ceramic that she hidden to his throat with enough pressure that she began to see red liquid slip down his brown skin unto her fingers. She doesn't go through with it and she drops the piece of ceramic to the ground. Her voice gives into the tears. “How can you look at me like that—"

He draws her into his embrace. His cold hands wrapped around her warm body—Too warm, she was having a fever. She fights against his embrace but he only tightens his grip, her head resting on his chest as she cries into the shirt.

"I'm sorry," he finally says. "I'm sorry."

She stops resisting and for the first time in fifteen years she gives into the emotions, she has always known as a weakness.