The emotions and experiences that pushed Hamnet over the edge.
Normal text is Hamnet in real time. Italicized text is Hamnet's flashback.
"If not them, than me..."
Except, Hamnet had to say it twice to believe himself. "If not them, than me." he said aloud this time.
Hamnet laid alone in his chamber. His body ached from the events hours earlier. He had to kill them, all of them, and that was an order. Ordered to open the water levy, ordered to flood the garden, ordered to kill the thousands of gnawers below. . . So much death only a few hours ago ordered from his mother.
The guilt pained him, gnawed at him from the inside. It made him feel sick and weak and tired as if he had just met each Gnawer in hand-to-hand combat. But all he did was open the levy.
Hamnet swore that there were gnawer screams coming from his stone walls. Water was coming through the door and flooding the room. A dead soldier floated by the foot of his bed. Hamnet's heart was beating hundreds of times a second, almost droning out the sound of the gnawer screams. But when he rubbed his eyes, there was no water in the room. There was no dead man by his bed, and his walls were only cold stone. His heart was still beating rapidly. Hamnet grabbed a goblet of wine, and set it down empty seconds later.
Only Hamnet and two other men with their fliers were sent to do the work; Solovet and two thousand soldiers eagerly waited just beyond the garden. The orders were simple: open the gates, kill the gnawers.
As Hamnet and the two others were departing, "Hamnet!" Solovet called out to her son. The two other man flew on leaving Hamnet with the final orders.
"If not them." Solovet said in her cold steely voice. Her eyes finished the sentence, purple irises that knew no humor.
"No Mother." Hamnet thought, although something much different came out.
"Yes General" Hamnet said, returning to his men calm but raw.
The water levy stood sentinel over the garden. In the Underland, there is no better demonstration of life than the Garden of Hesperides. An oasis amidst the Wastelands, acres of trees that bore exotic fruits which provided habitat for thousands. A refuge for hunters, sanctuary for beggars, and a Promise for the weak and ill. There was no killing here because no killing needed to be had.
Stone slabs made up the walls of the levy, which was held together by wooden perpendicular wooden beams. The plan was simple, remove the beams and the slabs would give way to the water - as well as the garden.
Hamnet flew high on Hera. He held a vantage point on the garden below and would be able to warn his men if there was any resistance. The two soldiers jumped off onto a slab as their fliers hovered nearby. They began to dislodge the beam by lifting it from its holds in the stone.
Theoretically, the beam could be lifted in increments which would allow everyone to remove the beam from a safe position. Although a hundred years of water damage had reduced the beam to a rotten mass. The beam shattered in Hamnet's men's hands from the force of the dam. Horizontal geysers erupted from the dam knocking the men off the walls to the garden a hundred feet below. Their fliers would have of saved their bonds had not the water pushed a stone slab after them. Their deaths were quick and painless.
Then came the water.
A battle report lied on bedside desk, open so he could read it from where he lied.
Known Kills: 1452 (Gnawers)
Unknown Kills: 1500 (Gnawers)
Estimated Kills: 3000 (Gnawers)
Casualties: 4 (2 fliers, 2 Humans)
Although Hamnet read something very different.
Known Kills: Gnawers (Mothers, Fathers, Pups)
Unknown Kills: Old Nibblers, Young fliers, The Weak
Estimated Kills: Whoever Solovet wants dead
Casualties: Hamnet
Hamnet was dead. His body laid limp on its side with a petrified gaze on the report that sat before him. Although his heart still beat. His brain still thought and his limbs still functioned. Only a groan came from the dead body of Hamnet.
But none of that mattered, Hamnet was dead and Solovet had killed him.
Only one thing saved Hamnet that night, one small thing. A gnawer crawled out from under the battle report with a noticeable squeak. Hamnet's petrified gaze broke as it turned to the small rodent and a crazy thought brought him back to life. He cut the pup a block of cheese and refilled his goblet of wine. The pitiful creature so small, slipped into the goblet and had to be fished out. After eating and drinking its fill, the squeaking slowly became less noticeable as the creature fell to sleep. Hamnet thought that there was something beautiful to the rhythmic whistling of the pups wet nose and twitching of its long whiskers.
The water was unstoppable. A wall of water 200 feet tall enveloped the garden below. Trees hundreds of years old, sentinels of the garden, were swept away like clots of dust under a broom. Screams of mothers and shrieks of pups lasted all but a second before the wave hushed them into an eternal sleep. In the matter of a minute, everything was gone.
Some trees floated to the surface, debris of leaves and sticks covered the black surface of the water, black like Solovets soul. A few creatures floated to the surface. Hamnet knew many of them where entombed in their caves below, a hundred feet below the surface. "For the better," Hamnet thought, "they rest in peace of Solovet." Because it was those who rose to the surface that were dragged away and piled into heaps. Some of the creatures were still alive, but disabled with broken backs. Disabled from the neck down, they could only cry as they were piled with their dead kin, doused in black oil, and burned from the memory of the Underland.
But not from the memory of Hamnet...
Hamnet watched wordlessly from the back of Hera. Men worked tirelessly in removing the bodies from the black water, but just as one carcass would be removed, another would rise. . .
The two watched endlessly as gnawers old and young, big and small were dragged away and disposed of. His next moves were as instinctual as they were merciful, but he only needed to think his thoughts for Hera to act. They swooped down where two men were removing one gnawer corpse. Hamnet ordered them off with a command and leaned off Hera near the body. He placed his head over the gnawer's snout to hear no breathing, he even checked for a pulse under its matted fur. Its life had been quenched by Hamnet's orders.
The body bobbed away from under Hamnet as another creature arose from under, cold and stiff like the last. It was another gnawer whose limbs clutched two babes to its breast. The mothers last futile attempts of saving her litter was to break the wave with her own body, but not all the love in the world could stop the onslaught of the water, or even Solovets wrath.
Just as Hamnet pushed away from the second body, a noise arose from the first body that Hamnet had ordered his men off of. It was a small noise, a scared noise, and only a squeak of a noise. It came from the snout of the first gnawer, but was much to small to be the gnawer itself. But it was true, for there was still life, in, this gnawer. Hamnet opened the snout and found tucked between two jaws of bleached white teeth twelve ounces of life. A newborn pup.
Three goblets of wine later and Hamnet was a smorgasbord of emotions. A scuffle at the door caught his attention. Hamnet drew his sword in one fluid motion, still on edge from the events earlier in the day. Three year old Luxa stumbled into his room. She had a purple dress on fit for a princess, only with an unqueenly bulge of a full diaper. A ball rolled by him and she chased after it in a baby-style teeter, part stumbling part scooting.
The sight made Hamnet laugh.
As she stumbled by him, Hamnet swooped her up in one arm and cradled her as he sat back onto his bed. The tiara she wore on her head was the crown of innocence, although her big eyes seemed to see right into him. She had the eyes of Vikus, and Hamnet let out a sigh of relief. Every trait of Vikus she possessed over that of Solovet was a win. This princess was three years old and will rule the Underland one day. Hamnet is going to make sure she did it right.
The first lesson Hamnet ever taught Luxa was that day - a lesson in diplomacy. He tucked the sleeping pup under a chubby arm of the princess. Princess Luxa instinctively rubbed her thick cheeks against the soft head of her new friend.
For the second time that day, Hamnet laughed. "The natural state of the Underland" Hamnet said examining the two babes. "Under the impression of innocence, besides the infiltrations of greed and pride is friendship." A gaping yawn from Luxa told Hamnet what time it was.
"Let me tell you a story" Hamnet said. Baby Luxa and the pup were silent.
The Garden of Hesperides. It was said that Hesperides was a flier queen and was the kindest soul to ever live. One day as her she and her colony feasted on fish by the water, ships appeared on the horizon. Onboard of these ships was a band of gnawers, bandits who only saw the fliers as an obstruction to the great fishing grounds they held. Therefore they destroyed the obstruction, slayed every flier before they could even take to the air. Only Hesperides lived.
Desperate after her friends and family had been killed, Hesperides engaged on a long flight over the waterway. She discovered a jungle on the other side, where life teemed and she met kind new creatures of all species. Wishing to share the same sort of life she had found in the jungle, she gathered a single seed of every plant and flew back to the shore where her colony lived.
All that was left were the rotten bodies of her kin and friends. No fish inhabited the shore, for they were hunted to extinction and poisoned by the wrought of unkempt corpses. Nothing was left in the desolate space Hesperides once called home. But Hesperides took the wreckage of her home and created something beautiful. She buried each of her kin in respectable graves and lied one seed with each corpse. It is said the love of her kin nourished the seedlings to become the great garden it is today.
It was only time before the black sails of the gnawers were seen again. They boarded the flier's turf snarling and cursing, but were only greeted by Hesperides bearing a tray of fruit. She fed them all, ripe fruits from every tree twice, until each gnawer was incapacitated by the full bellies they held. Every creature that day fell asleep happy and content with the sticky juice of fruit on their whiskers. In the morning, the gnawers awoke to white fur. Their paws and maws were smaller, their voices higher, and their appetite desiring of fruit and fish. Overnight, Hesperides compassion had turned the tribe of ruthless gnawers into a band of compassionate nibblers.
By the time Hamnet finished his story, the baby princess was sound asleep in his lap. Blonde lashes covered where her big purple eyes shouldve been. Hamnet laid the two sleeping babes on his bed as he left to scrub the stench of Regalian-fine wine from his pores. Hamnet wasn't sure if it was the wine speaking or the baby princess making an impression on him but his thoughts ran rampant.
"What has war ever done for me?" Hamnet thought. It has made him into a precision weapon that can tactically destroy masses of innocent creatures. But then, there was what his mother told him it did. It was war and combat that helped the humans seize Regalia from the diggers as well as the throne of the Underland. The lovely chamber he stood in - a product of war.
"So pretty" yes, it was so pretty, intricate stonewo-
"So so pretty" Were the words that Hamnet heard coming from his bedchamber this time.
Hamnet dashed from his washroom only half dressed to find his mother sitting with Luxa. Solovet was still clad in full battle attire: ring mail covered her torso, plate armor over her legs, and a red stained scabbard that was once black displayed a visible weapon at her hip. She only held Luxa while Ajax clutched the squealing gnawer pup in a claw.
"Good evening Captain" Solovet said smugly. Her words implying spite for she never called Hamnet 'son' but only by his rank. What little comfort Hamnet had just achieved was quenched.
"Mother" Hamnet replied, but that was an eye-for-an-eye. Solovet preferred the title 'general' over anything, but it was Hamnet's way at getting back at his mother. Solovet's smug composure turned to its classical cold gaze in an instant.
"You have done well today Hamnet." Solovet said, setting aside Luxa, who was now awake, and drawing her sword. "Although due to your recent adoption" motioning towards the still sleeping gnawer pup, "I am going to have to try you for treason."
Hamnet couldnt help but to laugh. He has been laughing a lot today which scared him a little.
"No mother, I'm afraid you are going to have to be tried"
"What?"
"Yes. Were you not the one who ordered the murder of thousands of gnawers today?"
"It is a time of war!" Now Solovet wielded her sword before her.
"Aha, the hypocrite! But did you not poison the gnawers fishing grounds as well - mother." Now Hamnet wielded his empty wine goblet before him, mockingly in a fighting stance.
Solovets pale skin was red and tense when it was all resolved in a second with a smile.
"You are right, let us resolve our problems civilly and by trial" even graced with a smile. "Luxa is of the true royal descent, let her decide."
Solovet sat next to the princess, cooing her after all the yelling. "All you must do is point Luxa," first motioning towards Ajax with the gnawer pup then to Hamnet. "Do we punish the vermin for war, or punish the vermin for treason?" referring to both the gnawer and Hamnet as 'vermin'.
Luxa looked between the two, only a babe who didn't understand a word of what was just said. She reached instinctively for her small and fuzzy friend in Ajax's grasp, as if asking for a hug. Solovet took this que as the queens justice, and motioned at her flier to carry out the order.
"No!" Hamnet screamed, but it was too late. The gnawer pup was ripped into two without resistance, right before the baby queens eyes.
All was quiet for a second. Then Hera hurled through the chamber window to knock over and pin Solovet to the ground. Ajax went to aid his bond but was cut short when Hamnet toppled a stone desk onto his leathery wing, pinning him in place. Hamnet picked up his royal niece and ran to the window after his bond.
"Wait" a feeble voice said behind him. It was Solovet, dazed but conscious as she arose onto two shaky legs. "Where are you going?"
It was a good question. Where was Hamnet going. Never back to Regalia, or any human civilization for that. He was going away, far away, where he can hurt no one and no one may rule him. Hamnet pondered for only a bit before saying, "To find myself a new garden." Then he was off, jumping from his palace window and picked up by Hera, still tightly holding the princess in his arms.
Only two children came of Solovet and Vikus. The girl, Judith, came first and was showered in silks and praises. She was the destined queen of Regalia, and was treated accordingly ever since. Then came Hamnet, her twin who would be king of nothing, a shadow in the presence of royalty.
Hamnet's earliest memory was of his mother carrying his sister on her bat Ajax. The three would fly low and slow ahead of the Regalian army, over the city streets where onlookers awed at the child. She was the posterpiece of Royalty in her mothers parades: stiff like Solovet, but calm like Vikus, with an inborn comfort before crowds. Hamnet always spectated from Vikus's lap, high in the Palace. The twin of royalty with never a glance from Solovet or an acknowledgment from the throngs below.
At night Judith was just another girl and Hamnet another little boy. Most nights she could only whimper herself to bed.
"Whats wrong?" Hamnet would ask her.
"The dark," Judith would say, "I don't like the dark and i don't like being alone."
Hamnet could never provide comfort to those words. He was born in the dark, and accordingly embraced it. All he had ever known was loneliness, and now he has forged it to be his sanctuary. What his sister was given - light and companionship - has become her necessity to comfort, and her weaknesses were Hamnet's strengths. But she will always be queen. She will always have light and people to guide. Hamnet learned early on that he will have to cope without those royal comforts.
At the age of 5 Hamnet and Judith attended their Culling. An event where all fliers and Humans of age are brought together and given time to select their bond. For two days time, children and bats alike are mingled in the arena until every child and flier alike have a bond. Some choose to display their strength, bullying others to display their physical dominance. Others correspond with wit so they can find another as savvy as themselves. Those with neither were paired with whomever was left.
The Culling was easy on Judith. Her natural comfort with crowds paired her with Hestia, a charming and beautiful bat that could converse with anyone. Hamnet found himself to be an 'Other' and after two days was shown to a disfigured flier with one short wing.
Before leaving the arena that day, Hamnet pushed a little blonde boy behind a boulder so they were alone. He started yelling at him to give his bond to Hamnet. Hamnet knew that he would always be dealt the low-hand, and this would be his ascent to power. The blonde boy would not give up his new flier. Hamnet's bond came to the blonde boys rescue, standing between Hamnet and the boy. But Hamnet progressed on the two, and pushed the bat over onto the boy. The two toppled over and hit the boulder behind them. The teetering rock was offset and crushed the two, disfigured flier and boy, crushed the weak.
That left the boy's flier Hera to be bonded with Hamnet. As Hamnet left the arena with his bond, Solovet smiled and greeted her child for the first time. Both Judith and Hamnet cried themselves to sleep that night.
"If you want something," his mother told him, her purple eyes revealing nothing.
"Than you take it."
Hamnet, Hera, and Luxa were flying fast over Regalia when Hamnet remembered that he wore no sword. Flier or not, it was almost certain death to live in the Underland without a weapon, especially with the blood strife between the gnawers and humans. Hamnet decided he still had time to retrieve his belongings before the guard was raised. A tug on Hera's furry coat and the three were headed back to his chamber at the Palace.
Moments later, Hera hovered just outside Hamnet's chamber window as he crawled back in with baby Luxa clutching his neck. Both Solovet and Ajax were gone from the room, only a few drops of blood stood evidence to the conflict that had occurred. His sword still sat half drawn next to his bed where he had last thrown it down. Hamnet picked up the heavy scabbard when he felt the wet handle against his skin. Like that, a million emotions came flooding back to his mind of the blown levy and drowning gnawers.
On second thought, he set the blade back down where he had last left it. On third thought, Hamnet vowed there to never hold a blade against another creature again. It may of been his death sentence but Hamnet knew he would rather die knowing a creature has punished him for his actions rather than live as his mother does. He turned and slowly began making his way back to his chamber window after his heavy actions.
"Hamnet." A small voice said from behind him as he sat on the window seat. "Please leave my grand daughter here with me."
Hamnet turned to face his father. Vikus was off at the Fount for political reasons but surely has made a quick retreat when he heard of his wife's war path. Hamnet had flashbacks to his earliest memory, remembering that it was his father who nurtured him, held him, and taught him the path he knows now; his mother merely adopted him. He thought he saw the first strands of gray in the mans hair and beard.
"Hamme" Luxa said in her small voice. No more than a babe, dressed with a plastic tiara and a poopy diaper.
"Please son." He said 'son'. "Please leave the princess with me." His words getting softer and softer, almost begging at this point. His arms outreached but his legs immobilized. It was Hamnet's choice.
Hamnet pulled the baby from his neck and she released with struggle. She did the same teetering baby walk away from him as she did earlier.
"Fly you high son." Vikus said when Luxa had crawled into his outreached arms. Hamnet wanted to crawl into his arms as Luxa had. He wanted to cry. He wanted to apologize to the gnawers and chastise his soldiers. The sound of Bugles came from below and he knew that it was time to go. He vaulted from the window seat onto the back of Hera and was off.
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