A/N: Yes, I know that the KttK fandom isn't that active, but I thought of this story for a long time and I couldn't help but put it into words.
Basically, what happens in this story is that Monday's Dusk is caught trying to free the Will, and so it is never freed, but Thursday sees how the rest of the House is progressing, and realizes that in order to save it he needs to take everything into his own hands. This is mainly inspired by the Japanese idea of the Shogun, who was the military ruler who technically served under the Emperor, but secretly ruled the country and kept the emperor under lock and key.
News didn't reach the Great Maze fast. It was almost completely isolated from the rest of the House, but that didn't mean that gossip didn't eventually reach Sir Thursday's ears.
Apparently, Monday's Dusk had grown tired of his master (inwardly Sir Thursday really couldn't blame him) and had tried to free the Will, but had been stopped by Noon, and had later been executed.
This was an interesting, though rater useless piece of information given that the situation had been taken care of. However, it felt like a bucket of ice-cold water to Sir Thursday.
For over ten thousand years, he had turned a blind eye to the misdemeanors of his peers, the other Morrow Days, and how they had allowed the House to sink into disrepair. He told himself that he was a soldier, and from all that he had observed of the Secondary Realms, that meant obeying his superior's orders without question. Yet, being the puppet of that vile Denizen Superior Saturday sickened him, and watching how the entire House fell into disrepair, something he had ignored earlier, awakened something in him.
It was true that he was always angry, but a large portion of that was being forced to stand around with nothing to do, watching helplessly as the House gradually…
He shook his head. He had always thought that Denizens were fixed, unchanging in their nature, but now… now he no longer wanted to remain complacent. Somewhere, it conflicted with his deeper nature, and this deeply unsettled him.
And so, he took to watching the Secondary Realms as a source of entertainment, knowing that the other Days did so, though he didn't interfere. He always liked watching wars, as, honestly, the Campaigns of the House had begun to bore him. True, they were exciting on some level, but they always won. That wasn't true with the humans, and there war tactics always fascinated him, as well as there codes of battle.
One in particular was a tiny island nation which would later be called Japan. Their warriors were known as the samurai, and their code of honor was something that Sir Thursday would have liked to add to the army's. Over time though, he noticed that one of them eventually took control of the country from his political superior, the Emperor… though he never let it show.
Immediately, thoughts began racing through Sir Thursday's head, most of them treasonous. What right did Saturday have to tell him what to do? What right did she have to control the army? After all, he was the one with the Fourth Key, not her, and as such he should be the supreme commander of the army, and not Sunday or Saturday.
And then he realized that he was right. He could order his soldiers to do as he wished, and he could make them even turn against his so-called 'superiors.' And if anyone resisted, the Fourth Key would take care of that quite quickly. And it wasn't as if he had to go about shouting it at the top of his lungs…
It was then that he had made up his mind. He was going to have to take down Saturday (not Sunday, he doubted he could even do that, plus Sunday really wouldn't bother Thursday) and then he would send his soldiers to various parts of the House to control them.
Yes… though that raised some problems. While the Army was fully capable of taking down the Lower House, the Far Reaches, and the Border Sea combined, taking on a large number of sorcerers with none with him was a difficult thing. Not to mention that Saturday wasn't going to fall easily with him just having one Key.
The natural conclusion, of course, meant that he would somehow have to obtain the other Day's Keys, or at the very least, one or two more.
An idea did creep into his mind though, an idea to obtain Monday's Key. Monday had taken a huge and substantial debt from Tuesday, and if Thursday could similarly say that Monday owed him something, he could go ahead and take Monday's Key for his own.
The only problem was that Monday didn't owe him anything in particular, and it wasn't like Thursday could just go ahead and open up shop for that matter.
These ideas preoccupied him for the better part of three months, during which he began lashing out at people less. He also realized that he would need to expand his army, as he couldn't just well call up on the Reserve to take over parts of the rest of the House.
But, first things first, Thursday picked up his phone and made a call to Tuesday.
"What is this?" a voice boomed out across the room.
"Sir Thursday. There's a business deal that I'd like to talk to you about," Thursday said.
"And what's that? If you're wondering, no, I'm not going to give you a refund on those Not-Horses-"
"This isn't about the Not-Horses," Thursday said. Tuesday had sent some Not-Horses to Sir Thursday some five centuries earlier, and they were fine…. save for the fact that they were all pink for some reason (Thursday privately held the opinion that the show My Little Pony was to blame) which meant that the Hoard had not wanted to ride them, dismissing them as 'girly.' Thursday demanded a refund, which wasn't given, though later on Sunday took all of them mentioning that they'd 'go well with the new house' and Thursday had pawned them off, confused, but elated. "I have thought about siphoning off some of the Army's funds to invest in, to make us financially self-sufficient."
"What? Why?"
"Because cozying up to Saturday isn't how I envision most of my evenings!" Thursday said. "She only gives us a fraction of what we got before, and I do not want to host another tournament like the last one."
"I remember that," Tuesday said. He growled. "All of my money that I had bet had mysteriously vanished when you cancelled the contest. Where's my refund?"
"One of Saturday's sorcerers took all of it," Thursday said. "And I do believe that he made some sort of huge Lego tower out of it. Saturday demolished it and gave it all to me. Best I can do is give you the pieces."
"Why would I want a giant Legos tower?" the Grim asked.
"I don't know, and that's besides the point anyway," Thursday said. "Given that I want to start investing in stuff, I wanted to buy Mister Monday's debt from you."
"Eh? That's your idea of an investment?"
"Sure. He's always late and ends up overpaying anyway," Sir Thursday said.
The two of them then went about haggling about the price. Tuesday initially wanted double of the debt's value, but the price went way down when Thursday reminded him that Monday would be the first Day to be deposed of, and if he was, the debt was worthless.
They made it to eighty percent of Monday's debt, which probably told Thursday that even Tuesday was beginning to think that lending out stuff to Monday was a bad idea.
Thursday disconnected the phone. The only problem now was money. If he paid in full, he would not have enough for the Campaign just coming round the corner. And truth be told, he did need to establish a way to get funds that didn't rely on Saturday or on holding gambling tournaments.
Luckily, he had an idea, and so later on, he called the Marshalls for a meeting in his room.
He hadn't thought it prudent to share his plans for toppling Saturday with his Marshalls, or anyone else for that matter.
"Now listen up," he said as they entered and saluted. "As always, we seem to be running low on funds for now, and I've thought of a brilliant plan to make this place self-sufficient for the next two or three millennia."
The Marshalls stiffened. They still had not forgotten about Thursday's last attempt to make money, a Maze-wide game of 'The Floor is Lava' in which people were allowed to bet on the winners. They then glanced at Marshall Dawn, and their expressions said, "Have you been hiding Upper House Vodka again somewhere?"
"No," Dawn replied without saying a word.
"As I was saying," Sir Thursday said, annoyed that they weren't listening to him with their undivided attention, "I have a plan to get us enough gold to last for a good three thousand or so years. As you all may know, the Border Sea is currently under the control of a renegade pirate by the name of Feverfew. He has amassed quite a hoard of treasure over the years, which I plan to seize. Under current Border Sea Law, the one who recovers treasure from a criminal, in this case Feverfew, is entitled to ninety percent of its value. Our attack plan is simple, I will enter his wordlet using the Fourth Key, strike him down, and thereby seize his treasure, which, to take all of it, we will need to send a few companies of soldiers into the Border Sea to retrieve."
There were protests from all three of the Marshalls. Sir Thursday tried very hard to restrain himself from striking them.
"Won't this violate the treaty?" Marshall Dawn asked.
"Not really," Thursday said. "Technically Feverfew's Wordlet is part of the Secondary Realms, so I can enter it on any Thursday. After that, the Accord does not forbid me from taking what is truly my property, and Feverfew's various treasure chests scattered across the Border Sea will become ninety percent mine when I defeat him and take their locations. Plus, even if it does slightly violate the Accord, what does it matter? The other Days visit Port Wednesday all the time without care for who rules it, and it isn't like Duchess Wednesday can very well go ahead and sue me in her current state."
"Can you really take down Feverfew then?" Marshall Noon asked. "I've heard he is an accomplished sorcerer."
"I can take on anything that is thrown at me," Thursday said with a snarl. The Marshalls started backing away from him. However, it was clear that they didn't have any further objections, which was more fortunate for them than it was for Thursday. "Good, all of you are dismissed. I will be departing next morning."
The Marshalls left him to be alone with his thoughts. Sir Thursday looked up at the roof, his mind racing as he plotted the destruction of her, who was right above him.
It was a start.
In truth, he hadn't told the Marshals everything. He had actually intended to station his soldiers in the Border Sea permanently, so that they could 'inspect' various items, and in turn, use them to fund the Maze. In short, he intended to replace, not just overthrow, Feverfew. Not to mention it would be a good pilot project, so that he could know how the House would respond if he stationed his army outside of the Great Maze.
A/N: That's all for now. If you're wondering about the last chapter of Calculated, it will be updated eventually. Thanks for reading, and I do appreciate reviews.