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This story has a special place to me and I’m thankful to whoever decides to end up reading it on this website. Thanks to my mom for being supportive of it for a decade now, to Raoul Peck and his documentary Exterminate All The Brutes and to Kevin, who started it with me as a roleplay back as teenagers, and an especial thanks for allowing me to take the universe in my own direction separate from his own.

This story will explore mature topics including cultural genocide, colonization, abuse, death, warfare, and most terrifying of all, economics. It’ll be slow-going and I don’t promise anybody it will be a good story, but it is something I want to write, more for me than anybody else.

-=-

“Extermination is an ideology. An ideology with a quota.”

– UNKNOWN.

Beneath the mother-city of Port Saint Mercy, a vast intelligence recomposes itself, shrinking the impossibility of its existence into something a smaller mind can comprehend. Something small sits before it now, the limbs they use to walk known as legs are crossed over one another, making themselves comfortable on the dirty stonework beneath them. Dirty or not, the boy sat on it can’t really be any more unwashed than he is now, and it strikes the being as unlikely that they’ll be able to cleanse themselves anytime soon.

The boy, after all, lives in a sewer. Or, as he’s clarified many times, a well.

They suppose that they too must live in a sewer, and have done so for so many years that even they have forgotten how many. Sleeping. Until recently. Until Sylvan found them. Only barely sentient throughout their long hibernation, they recall other minds meeting theirs, but not what became of them, or what the results were of these encounters. Perhaps their many talks with Sylvan will one day slip away from them, but the intelligence hopes that they do not. It enjoys the boy. Sylvan’s humor pleases them, as well as his many questions. It regrets that they will part ways with one another very soon, never to meet again, but hopes that the gift they have for the child will console them.

Sylvan feels its giddiness through the unspoken connection between them. Literally unspoken, as the violet-eyed creature before them has no mouth as far as he can see, and instead can only hear one another through echoes in one another’s minds. The floor and air is wet and hot with the filth of a bustling civilization that rests just above their heads, but that barely distracts him from focusing on his friend’s words, bringing them into focus with a difficulty that lessens each day.

“A gift. I bring a boon for you, elf.”

Said elf’s own violet eyes brighten instantly, making the tendrils around him shake with delight. Sylvan rarely received gifts, and almost always only from his brother Noah, who did his best to indulge his sibling whenever possible. A swirling mass of skin approached him from the darkness, one of the too excited limbs from before, now revealing why it was they’d been so animated. With his help, they were unwound, the coldness of his friend’s many projections bothering him little by now as he carefully unpieced them, revealing something that made him crease his brows.

It was a circlet of… metal, of some kind. Iron, he thought. Well-maintained, if not for the ichor and dirt and God-knows-what that now hung off it. It fit into his hands well enough, but his ignorance of what to do with it now must have shown on his face, because his friend’s thoughts rumbled into his mind once again.

“A crown. Bear it for me.”

If it was a crown, it was a pitiful one. Sylvan brought it atop his head all the same, scrunching up his face when it slid over his eyes and he had to pull it backwards over his locks of hair, almost managing to make it look presentable as it barely locked into place, threatening to fall on his nose at the slightest gust of wind. Thankfully, the air was still this far into the sewers.

“It’s… a bit big,” He thinks, chuckling.

“You will grow into it, Sylvan.”

They’re quiet for a few moments longer, idling inside one another’s minds as the larger of the two revels in the simplicity of the child’s mind’s dimensions and Sylvan yields to the many layers of reality and emotions before him. He’s asked the creature many times where it had come from, why it was here, and every other question besides, and never had been denied. There always seemed more to ask though, and along with it, the urge to speak of it to Noah. That was the one thing he was not allowed, however. The being preferred its isolation, and permitted only him.

“I will be leaving you soon.”

Sylvan’s head snaps up, the clutch on his heart as sudden as the loneliness in his mind. Within a moment, his very existence feels crushingly small, the noxious smells of the sewer and its dark-green walls settling back in around him and his arms and legs coming back into focus. His very thoughts feel insect-like and small.

“Why?” He asks out-loud, cringing izmir escort at the sound of his own weak voice before correcting himself and thinking them instead.

“I have been here for too long. You have been a distraction for me, and I am grateful. But it comes to an end.”

There is no room for an argument. Their thoughts are not as binary as to be truly understood in language, and although Sylvan may translates the impossible into the possible, that cannot stop him from a true understanding through their layered feelings and intent that they are irrevocably leaving, and that they will not see each other again. Nothing can stop this. Sylvan feels their assuredness. And their regret. It does not want to leave him here.

It does not stop the tears that come after a minute of silence, or the sobbing noise as the being’s impossibly made companion begins to shake and sob as reality sets upon him. While reality sets upon Sylvan, Sylvan’s emotions settle upon the being, pathetically small emotions that pale in comparison to its many networks of thoughts. And yet, despite their tininess, they leave a great wound in their wake. There is only one thing to mend the ache left in Sylvan’s mind, the sort of hole left behind when exposed to a higher plane than he could possibly be prepared for.

The being knows it will always hold these memories close, even as Sylvan never will.

“Forget.”

~-~

Lord Lucan has many reasons to dislike this city, from its low-quality drink to its loudness and just how many fucking cottonmouths there were; everywhere he looked he saw the fuckers. Even the few Northerners he liked would take their time to bow their heads at each church they passed, competing to see who could remember which saint belonged to each one. The first fifty of them he could tolerate, but he had been traveling with His Glory Louis’ retinue for a month now, and until recently he’d been begging for some crisis to force him to return home to Marlas, to Draidh Keep, where his larder and wife were. The last three days however were proving to be the single greatest thing he’d witnessed since the war.

At this very moment, hundreds of cottonmouth Mortal Guards were scared shitless as they ran across the city, tossing over tables and ducking their heads into barrels of shit and getting their pretty armor dirty as they searched for His Majesty’s stolen property.

Three nights ago the Emperor had tore through the Saint’s Rise, the home to the Prince of Ditschmarchen, screaming that the Iron Crown had been swept up by a night thief, an easy fetch when so much had been dedicated to defending the Emperor’s less humble replacement for the parade that had taken place. For three days the city had plunged into chaos as his soldiers combed the city, six times now getting into brawls with militia before the Prince ordered the militia and his own soldiers to disarm, leaving the poor fucks out in the streets defenseless as soldiers stormed their homes and tore through mattresses and cupboards to find it. All to no avail. The crown was still missing, and the crowds grew more incensed with each hour that passed, the deaths of two Mortals in the night only fanning their enthusiasm for blood.

It wasn’t looking good for Lous the Unready, and Lucan was, at last, happy he’d accepted the invitation. If the mobs outside stormed the capitol and killed them all, he might go up on a stick still cheering them on.

That hadn’t happened yet, instead, he and many other more important people were gathered into a dinner hall that had been turned into a chamber large enough to fit them all. The walls were ancient, and Lucan was a reasonable enough man to acknowledge the beauty in them. Grey and humble and severe stone that made Saint’s Rise one of two churches he could respect; as, indeed, the home to the Prince was one part capitol, one part place of worship. Simple stained glass windows hung above and beside them, casting odd lights onto the lavishly decorated tables that nearly ruined their effect. The lights of saints past, priests, old warriors and angels played across their dinnerware and looked just lively enough to unnerve his better senses. Lucan whispered a quiet prayer to the Ancestors just in case he needed the extra protection before pulling his attention back to a rising that had been growing in the background.

He didn’t remember faces very well, but his wife had taught him an eye for clothing and his father brought him up well on recognizing heraldry when he saw it. Usually the ones belonging to distant friends and close enemies, but he’d been sure to do his research beside. Funnily enough, not a single scion of Lord Ditschmarchen was present to speak for them.

A man with a cannon overlaid two pikes was letting his voice rise to a level that made the Mortals uncomfortable enough to draw near, so close to the Emperor as he was. Not one of Louis’ men. A Drachenwald, with kahramanmaraş escort hair like tar atop his face and cut uneven. Must not have had the time.

‘How unlike one of Whitefire, to scream while the Emperor sits with you,’ Lucan thinks with a grin before settling his ear in to listen.

“The Prince is hiding it from us, I swear to you, Your Glory,” he pleads to the seated Louis whose face remains unmoved. Calculated. Undeterred, the man continues. “None could know this place more than himself. Not a soul had access to your chambers but him. You have men and women from each corner of the Empire at your table, and we must speak plainly.”

Lucan shifted, nudging the man at his side. Til pretends to rumble in their sleep, as if they were the least interested person in the room. They both would want to hear this.

“You could not bring half the number of vassals to different Princes as you have here today and not have them breath a convenient truth of treachery such as this.”

Now the entire room rumbles. Some in outrage at the implication, others in assent to the logic, Lucan in agreement. He and the likeminded knock their cups against the table, drowning out the other voices in dissent. Lord Artillery seems to take a sigh of relief before continuing.

“And yet naught one of our number caught a glimpse of this thief. It was our Burgher Prince, Your Glory.”

A darkness creeps over the room at the slight. Even those who couldn’t deny the reason behind his words cast him an inflamed look; there were terribly few nobles of the old blood by now, but he seems to care little at all now that he’s tied them into whatever proposal he’s making. Lucan knows what the man is going to say next, and isn’t looking forward to it even as he has no sympathy for this rogue Prince.

“The Drachenwalds have proven themselves true,” he presses, pushing his hands onto the table and making it groan even beneath his slight frame. “The Mortals and my companions will take the Prince into custody, where we may call his bluff. Force him to expose the crown.”

None are sure on what to say. Some exchange glances, wondering whether to admit to themselves that it’s the dumbest shit they’d ever heard before or if it was the only concrete idea they’d have up until now.

Neither makes it out their lips, because a new voice belonging to a woman bearing a series of black diamonds beats them all to it.

“Do you plan on burning parts of him off until he admits it, Lord Whitewen?”

The words of a Reformer set the room into motion again as the woman sits back down. Any momentum Lord Whitewhen had is taken from him by the inflammatory response, shot down instantly by somebody who likely had no desire to see one of the foremost Princes to their cause put on a pyre to burn. Voices rise and fall, Til ‘stirs’ awake just to annoy him.

“How goes the planning, My Lord?”

“Not well old friend,” Lucan mutters. It’d been enjoyable to see them scurrying about like rats, but this talk of taking their host hostage had him on edge. He rubbed his good arm for comfort, which Til was wise enough to notice.

“We can depart whenever the fuck we like,” they note, the suggestion the last thing they needed to hear. “Darkmen season, even if ain’t. Tell them some shit about your Ancestors calling you.”

“No,” Lucan says with enough resolve to make his friend’s brow rise. “We should stay on this, best we can. We’ll stay right until it looks like it’s going bad. See how the winds sway.”

“Looks like they’re swaying away from the smell of shit,” the conquistador answers, sighing.

A new silence settles over the room as a Mortal sergeant enters the room, her tall and elegant looking halberd enough to quiet even the seasoned soldiers in the room. He sees the nervousness fluttering across their face.

“My Glory?” She begins, bowing deeply and leaning towards the straw-haired Emperor who had managed to go an entire conference without saying anything useful. He barely moves, urging her to speak with all the casual imperiousness he could muster.

“Speak, sergeant.”

She motions her eyes across the room.

“These are my Lords, sergeant,” he points out with only an ounce of patience left. “Trust them as you would trust me.”

“Yes, My Glory,” she clears her throat.

“We’ve found the crown.”

~-~

“With a group of other children, My Glory,” the sergeant goes on, her face looking redder by the moment. His pity for her was growing by the minute. “He… was wearing it. Ordering the other children around. King and Vassals, they call it.”

Their thief, a short and pitiful looking elf-boy with cursed violet eyes was standing before them, his slave collar hugging his neck tight enough to just make him have to work to take a breath. Lucan had to stop himself from trying to tear the horrible thing off his tattoo-carved body. More slave markings. manavgat escort Some he wasn’t familiar with, and others he’d seen thousands of times. He barely looked big enough to hold the damn crown, and, yet… it was in the Emperor’s hands, and it was certainly the Iron Crown.

The sergeant rapped her gauntleted hand against the back of the boy’s head, making Lucan and too few of the others gathered in the room fluster with annoyance.

“Speak, slave. Tell Your Glory of how you found the crown.”

They swallow, exchanging looks between each of the powerful lords in the room, hoping for an answer.

“The… sewers. It was in the sewers. I found it. I swear I didn’t know what it was.”

Somehow, this story resolves none of the tension in the room.

“How the fuck did it get there?” Lucan asks, not sure if he’s asking the boy or Til.

The elf shrugs, hopelessly useless and eyes filling with tears he had a hard time watching fall.

“Simple,” Louis began, his voice darkly calm, still holding the crown between his fingers like it might bite him. “He took it there from my room.”

“No!” The boy yells, earning himself another strike that, to Lucan’s surprise, doesn’t silence him even as the pain makes him squint and hunch. “I’ve never seen you before, My Lord! Honest! Ask my brother!”

“Thieves rarely see their victims, slave.”

“I’m no thief!”

Louis scoffs, shaking his head along with some other servants to House Caen that mimic him.

“You’re all thieves, and you nearly put the stability of our empire into shambles. Sergeant, inform this one’s Master of their crime. Bargain with them without shaming me, and then bring this one to the yard to be killed.”

The boy screams, and Lucan rises alone, walking up Louis, stopping him before he began his stride, swallowing down the anger that threatens to rise from him.

“My Glory,” Lucan insists, keeping his eyes and ears away from the slave, knowing it would only make this harder. “What if the boy is telling the truth? Enemies could be abound in this keep. In your tent. Surely one of us would have noticed him — the Iron Crown could have been dropped into the sewers only for the boy to stumble onto it first before… a fence.”

Murmurs from behind him. Even the Mortals seem uncertain. His face is close to Louis’ now, and the lack of assuredness from his bodyguards seem to unnerve him. Good.

“I am satisfied, Lord Mulbrandt.”

“Satisfied with what?” Lucan asks, voice harsh enough to put steel back into the hearts of the Mortals who take a step closer. He forces himself to barely calm down. “The boy can’t even be ten and one. People are dead in the street. Mortals. Will you tell them that a simple street slave crept into your quarters, took the Iron Crown, and left without anybody noticing?”

It was asinine. And the fantasy of it began to at last settle onto the room. This slave was not the only culprit, if he was involved at all. There existed another explanation, and, yet, Louis remained… not quite steadfast. His face was shaking now, insistent, continuing to cast his eyes towards the door, and his crown.

“They will believe whatever I belay to them, My Lord. This matter must be settled at all costs. The Crown has been returned, and we have our thief.”

There’s a way to his words that Lucan cannot help but notice. Disappointment. Annoyance. But not a hint of anger or confusion. Til steps up closely behind him, raising a hand and urging him to ‘sit the fuck down,’ but Lucan ignores him, thinking quickly for a moment.

“Aye, it must be settled. But if we were to get a confession… “

He eyes the slave. Clenched with terror as they are and so close to objecting, they catch Lucan’s look and convince themselves to stay silent. Smart lad.

“… The city would be satisfied. As would more of us, I suspect. Means we can keep looking for our real thief on our own time and the Port can open again.” At that, more nobles concede. Reformers and Baptists alike.

“The pagan speaks true.”

That makes Lucan grin. But Louis, as he hoped, can only shake.

“Mercy, boy? Eh? A confession and we’ll do you no harm,” Lucan asks the tattooed boy. “You’ll enjoy a Lord’s mercy, promise. Just gotta find the fuck who took the Emperor’s crown.”

Louis swallows.

“There was no thief.”

Lucan blinks, not having expected that. Not so soon and not those words.

“What?” Somebody from behind Lucan asks, confusion mounting.

“I… dropped it. During the parade. On purpose. If this will dissuade your fears of treachery, you shall have the truth of it.”

If silence became so thick and heavy that he could stab a spear through it at that moment, Lucan would. He doesn’t understand his anger at the time, or that of those gathered behind him, but he is just sane enough, when his jaw begins to tremble and his throat clenches that when Til steps forward and begins to pull them back, they listen.

“Get the fuck off me,” Lucan barks in a rare display whereTil obliges, after a moment longer than he wants. “Two confessions in a day. What’s it you cottonmouths call it? A fucking miracle?”

Lucan throws his hands up in the air, nearly yelling just as the slave takes a fresh breath, relieved to know they won’t be killed.

“Hallelujah, cottonmouths!”

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