Disclaimer: I don't own the movie "300" or the characters therein. And I am not making money off of this. As a side note, I do not mean to put down the movie with this fic. In fact, I saw it three times in the theatre. It is an awesome movie. And it was actually the third time watching it that I got the idea for this fic. Just take it for what it is: a silly story. I may take it off and put it on my own blog site when I get it up. But I want to test it out first. Hope you enjoy it.
Yes, we have no more arrows today
By Kit Thespian
Leonidas felt the throbbing pain from the arrows in his chest. He could probably survive these wounds with the proper care, but he knew the end was near. Only he remained out of the 300 Spartan warriors who had fought so hard to defend their homeland. The pitiful hunchback Ephialtes had retreated into the Persian army in shame and fright when the fighting started again, so Leonidas would face the end completely alone. Leonidas turned and saw thousands upon thousands of Persian archers readying their bows to fire on him and his men.
His thoughts returned to his beloved, "My Queen…My wife…My love…"
This was it; this was the glorious, beautiful death he and his men had always dreamed of. He outstretched his arms to welcome the incoming horde of Persian arrows, closed his eyes, listening to the whistling of the arsenal, and waited…
And waited…
And waited…
Leonidas opened his eyes and blinked. The Persians did fire, didn't they? He heard them and saw the tidal wave of arrows coming straight for him. Where were the arrows? He looked around him and saw the arrows scattered all around him, sticking out of his men and the ground like black wheat.
And not one of them had hit him.
"What the…?" he rechecked his body. But aside from the two arrows already in his chest, he was unharmed. It was absolutely unbelievable. He had been cheated of his glory. He uncharacteristically, but understandably, stomped his foot on the ground and ranted, "You idiot Persians! You can't hit horse muck! You swindled me! I want my beautiful death, zeusdarnit!"
Xerxes, still recovering from the shock of receiving a rather nasty blow to the face, grumbled something to his Captain. The Captain then in turn shouted to the archers, "Kill him! Fire again!"
The reply from the head archer was, "Sorry, milord; no can do."
"What do you mean, 'no can do'? Kill him!"
"We can't!"
"Why not?"
"We don't have anymore arrows!"
There was a short silence except for the gulls calling.
"What?!" Xerxes' voice rose in pitch to a girly tone and he painfully went back to nursing his wound. Having felt like he suffered enough humiliation, Xerxes retreated into his throne structure, leaving the Captain alone to debate with the head archer.
The Captain yelled, "What do you mean you have no more arrows?"
"Just what we said, milord. We don't have anymore arrows."
"And why not?" the Captain asked.
"It seems that the majority of our budget was spent on importing the elephants (which fell off the cliff pretty quickly), the rhinoceros (which died pretty quickly after one spear), paying the magicians (who also died pretty quickly during the explosion), and his Majesty's gold rings and demented women. Is it our fault that his High-and-Mightiness made a lot of bad investments?"
It was at this moment that something began to occur to Leonidas. Since Xerxes and his "divine presence" were gone this debate could last all day if the head archer could keep it up. And it also occurred to him that with a little sneaky-sneaky Spartan footwork, he could be home free. He slowly bent down to pick up his shield.
"Go back to the camp and get more arrows!" the Captain barked.
"I don't know if we have arrows at the campsite, milord. You know how many arrows it takes to supply this army? It'll be a lot easier if you just kill him now with the spears."
"We should have you hanged for your impudence. And when I say 'hang' I don't mean a little sissy rope hanging. I mean a real, authentic, Persian hanging where we skewer you alive on a wooden pole!"
"Don't blame us for being impudent. When's the last time you paid us?"
"Paid you! You're slaves! You don't get paid!"
"And you're wondering why you're not getting quality labor. All that extra money could have gone to getting more rations for us instead of bringing in useless huge animals and moronic magicians! And maybe if you had been a little more considerate, we may have sent you a memo that we were running out of arrows. But no…"
I'm sure that several members of the Persian army noticed the Spartan King quietly sneaking off the battlefield with his armor, climbing the wall, and making his escape, but since the majority of them were slaves and really couldn't care less about this stupid campaign, they didn't say anything. Some of them even yawned. The debate raged on.
"When is the last time you thought to yourself, 'I wonder how the archers are doing today? Gee, we make them work so hard and give them so little food…'" The head archer said.
The Captain fumed, "I'll give you a hundred lashes for this!"
"Oh, yeah? You and what army?"
"Uh…uh…"
"Yeah, I think you've noticed we are the army, you popinjay!"
"Er…the great god King Xerxes will strike you dead for this!"
"I think he's busy nursing that bloody wound of his. Don't think we didn't see that."
"You insolent dog!"
"All talk and no walk! Oooh, who's the big bad Persian Captain now?"
Meanwhile, in Sparta…
"My King!" Queen Gorgo exclaimed with astonishment when she beheld her husband emerging from the wheat fields.
Leonidas grinned, "Hey, Gorgie-babe! I brought back my shield!"
"I thought you were finished!"
"You won't believe it. The ca-ray-ziest happened at the Hot Gates. Let's just say that no glorious, beautiful death awaits me there. I'd die of boredom first."
"Boredom?"
"Long story."
"My King, you have two arrows sticking out of your chest!"
Leonidas looked down as he was reminded of the two annoyances, "Oh, that. It's all right; a little yanking here, a little cauterizing there. I've had worse."
"But…" Gorgo was still slightly confused, "why couldn't they give you a beautiful death, my King?"
"Like I said: long story. Don't worry; we'll have to fight the Persians again and I could get a beautiful death then. Or maybe when this skirmish with the Persians dies down and we start fighting the other Greek city-states again, I'll get a beautiful death. But for now, let's go finish our game of Greek Scrabble, shall we?"
Meanwhile, at the Hot Gates…
"And another thing…" the head archer was dictating while the Captain was writing, "no more whips."
"No more whips!" the Captain growled, "How do you expect to motivate the stupider ones to fight?"
"Whips make stripes, and stripes make sores, and festering sores make a sad army."
"That's nice," the Captain grumbled sarcastically, "you should embroider that on a pillow during your spare time."
"Have you got all of it down?"
The Captain ran down the list, "Higher wages, health care, mead breaks, a postal service, overtime, and no more whips."
"And dental care."
He sighed and wrote, "Dental…care…"
"All right; we're satisfied."
"Good!" the Captain rolled up the scroll and put it in his tunic, "Now kill the Spartan King!"
"…What Spartan King?"
Meanwhile, at Sparta…
Leonidas, Gorgo, and their son paused in their Greek Scrabble game as the sound of a man angrily screaming echoed through the mountains. After a moment, they shrugged it off and continued. It would be at least a year before the Persians assembled themselves into fighting order again. It would take that long for the stitches on Xerxes face to come out. And most likely, it would take that long to get more arrows.
The End