To kill a Marty Stu

Mid-storm season, 52nd year of our lord King Randall the First, Dwellasux, Psuck

His name is Marty. His name not Marty Mcfly or Marty Friedman. His name is Marty Stu and I hate him. I have known him for thirty years, and I hate him more than any man alive. No man could be as lucky, as blessed as that one. Is he favored by god? Did he make a pact with the devil? I say no. There is more to it than that. I have come to believe there is some other force at work guiding the life of this man. Starting my journal here I should probably introduce myself, to know what I thought of myself this day in the future. What a jest, more likely so the reader knows something about me once something happens to me, as I assume it must.

I am a man. This and only this really matters. I could tell you I'm in my late 30's with gray hair, a bent back, that my opportunities in life have passed me by. No, not passed by, stolen! I am the oldest of several children from a disenfranchised noble family like many created by the crowning of the new king before I was born. It is a unique experience in life to grow up with your parents raising you as an heir to what little they could scrape together of the old estate with the meager funds they were left after the revolution. So much is lost and you are still expected to behave like the gentile instead of the peasant you are. It's not a way to earn a lot of friends. Still that's not where things really began to go wrong for me. There are many others in this land that share that same story. No, my life began to shrivel and sour the day I met Marty.

It was at a party held at the old fortress, the small squat castle our family and the surrounding small town of Dwellwell had called home and refuge for over 10 generations. At that time my family was still invited to parties there. Whether it was out of pity or a lingering respect I don't know. As we entered the castle, I still remember my father, that proud broken man, pointing to a scar in the center of the iron brace of the mighty castle gate. It was the place where once our coat of arms graced the entrance of the keep. He led me by his large calloused hand to the stones that framed the arch of the gate itself. He knelt down next to one that seemed the same as the others and brought me close. My father scrubbed at the stone with fingers hardened by a life in the fields. As the filth came away there was a mark revealed on the stone, carved there when they were first laid. He told me "When the revolution came I was about your age. The soldiers of the new king came to take our land, our keep, our serfs. My father, his last living younger brother and our few remaining loyal knights faced the king's new army here at the gate. In the end your grandfather was executed in full view of the castle in front of my mother and my sister and me. I found out later his last request was 'Have mercy and spare my children.' King Randall has honored that, whether out of grace or to see us squirm as peasants I do not know. The old Count, your great grandfather, fearing the worst had plans to smuggle us out of the keep. Before I left he showed me this stone. He told me this was a mason's mark. It was our mark. He said our family had laid these stones with our own hands beside our serfs and the engineers and workers hired to build the keep. We were not helpless. We were strong and we would rebuild even if it was only our own hands this time. Soon after I left under the guise of a stable boy. Then my grandfather surrendered the keep and all our assets to the king." My father squeezed my hand as he finished telling me this story. "It's not an easy legacy to live up to. But it's who we are. Never give up, no matter what."

Less than a page in and I am already rambling. I was taught better than that, but those were better days. It was later in the evening that we were introduced to these new regime nobles, the Stu's. The ballroom was filled with light and glitter. The gentleman and ladies of the new nobility and the court waltzed beneath bright chandeliers, our chandeliers, to the tune of the band. Everything was gem and sparkle, in stark contrast to us poor farmers. And none seemed to sparkle more than Lord and Lady Stu and their sole heir, Martin. People said they were different, I didn't know how much so until we met. Our family was introduced to the trio one by one by a friendly courtesan. Lord Stu was a tall imposing man, a former knight of the north who sided with Randall in the coupe. His steel eyes, pale skin, and gray hair enforced the image of a statue, like someone had breathed cold life into marble. His wife, the Lady Stu, was an epitome of loveliness, said to have been taken from the most prized of the king's harem when Randall took the throne. Her bright hair stood out the most over her perfect skin and voluptuous form. Such a shade of blue I had never seen in all my life. It was not dark like a raven but bright like the sky. I remember wanting to run my hands through that hair to see if it was real. In my history lessons mother had told me about the ancient people of the ice with blue hair, thought to have been wiped out a thousand years ago in a war with another of the northern nations. Even then it was said they dyed their pale blonde hair to blue with a special flower that only grew in the cays of Cold Wreck Coast. The same cays that were almost all drained and mined for their precious metal deposits hundreds of years ago. But this woman was blue down to her roots. The combination of Lord stone and Lady ice had produced one child. His name was Martin Xavier Loquacious Ravenwing Stu. His hair was a vibrant blue like his mother's with purple and red tips. By some freak accident of nature he was born with what I can only describe as "rainbow eyes." Their very color seemed to shift from amber to bright green as I watched. It's so easy to fall into those eyes. They seem so trusting and deep. But as I learned later it's all only skin deep, like god cut a human out of cookie dough and put tons of frosting and sprinkles on it to cover up that he forgot to bake it all the way. It was if only I noticed how utterly bizarre this was. But, as an obedient and well-mannered child, I kept my mouth shut and my eyes down.

My father bowed lightly, as to an equal, paused then lowered his head. My mother curtsied and my sisters and I kneeled as was proper of our station. The Lord and Lady greeted us in turn and Marty smiled warmly. "It's a pleasure, I hope we can be friends." We were all charmed by him. I truly wanted to know more about this inexplicably mysterious kid. And I smiled back and took my first step to the hell my life has become.

I'd like to write more but I have little parchment left. I'll have to visit the monastery for more.