King
They let the kings die. They built democracies. They made men weak, ruled them with entertainment and food, robbing them of their authority. They cast aside the old bloodlines, sending them to the cutters and killing those who didn’t comply. He was no better than a rat, and for years, he was treated as the vermin he was. He fought for every scrap, willing to hurt anyone for what was his. The streets were no place for a heart. So he had none. There was only the will of his stomach, and nothing else.
His nimble fingers kept his stomach always full. He fucked and gambled away his money whenever there was excess. There rarely was. He stayed away from the establishments where they hired men like him to work for the pennies the bureaucrats deemed as enough. The noble blood in him pulsed too strongly to yield under the families who ruled with pen and paper.
He had his kingdom, and it was here with the rats.
He danced around a high and mighty man in his fancy clothes. The man was making his way to the market. His fingers slithered into the man’s pocket, relieving him of his golden burden.
When they parted their ways, and the shadows grew deep over him to hide the glint, he counted his newly found coins. They were barely enough to buy a proper meal. The coins had started to run low. There was no longer a guarantee that fancy clothes meant deep pockets.
The others whispered about bad times. At first, he had deemed the rumors false, but weeks and months were showing that trouble was taking over the city.
He pocketed his find and went to search for another mark. The city guards pushed him off the high street, following his every move, marking his clothes and manner as unwelcome. He would get fancy clothes to find where the money had moved. The money had to have gone somewhere. It just didn’t disappear. And he had an idea what the bureaucrats did with them. It was the same as the kings and nobles had done in the past.
And as the son of a king, it was his duty to liberate the city from them, and make sure the money flowed again, and his stomach was full.
—
I’m back. I was sure I couldn’t write anything today, even when Lady Luck was favorable towards me with what I got. Getting my mind into writing mode proved difficult. It was as if all the stories had abandoned me, and there was just the random noise of life: of wants and needs and fears. But I’m happy I managed to write this one, even though I struggled to make it the way I wanted. I had an idea of a friendship, of a group of men, but it never manifested on paper. I again defaulted to the lonely protagonist I have a habit of writing. Maybe tomorrow, whoever comes to be will have a connection, as connections are what make the world work. It is our basic need, and it has broken. I hope I can write about cooperation tomorrow.
What I got today was a voice-driven fantasy quest told from a third-person point of view.
Thank you for reading! Have a day of plenty ❤
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