Hi everyone! This is my first story to help me get used to the formatting before I start writing stories for any particular fandom so if you let me know what I did well and how I can improve I'd be grateful.
In The Land Of The Pigs, The Butcher Is King
She didn't know how she got there. The last thing Lyca could remember was walking into a room coated in her parent's blood as it seeped into every crevice until the entire house had been filled to the brim with the gruesome stench of decay.
From the corner of her eye, within the shattered remains of a mirror, was a sly grin and an amused voice which crooned, "Don't be so alarmed my dear piglet. After all, you're still far too small for the butcher and besides, I still have plenty of other uses for you," before a sharp pain from the back of her neck had sent a flash of black lightning across her vision as everything went dark.
Then there she was. Locked in a damp, dreary cell – surrounded by shadows – in some godforsaken dungeon with no way of knowing where. One door with a sliding hatch, no windows, and one solitary bucket….charming to say the least. Surely someone would come, someone would tell her why she was here, she just had to be patient and wait, just a little longer.
Years passed.
Darkness. And a rising sense of uncertainty as Lyca was blindly lead from her cell, her sanctuary. The snickers of onlookers filled the air around her as the guards dragged her by. The sudden splashing sounds of people walking through puddles, and the unknown dripping which surrounded her, told Lyca that she was no longer in the cobblestone corridors.
Her captors brought her to an abrupt stop, tearing the sack from her head. The shock of the sudden light hit her eyes like wildfire, and her nostrils flared as the foul stench burnt her lungs as if they were filled with molten lava.
When her senses had finally returned to her, she recoiled in horror at the twisted scene before her. A mountain of corpses, all different shapes and sizes. There were bankers and politicians, nobles and statesmen; businessmen of all kinds, some she knew and others she didn't, all hacked up in the most grotesque manners imaginable, her parents included.
Lyca's face contorted and every fibre of her being screamed at her to run away, far away, as far away as she could from this horrific place and its hideously demonic inhabitants. Slowly, her gaze shifted upwards. Past the blood, guts, and gore until it fell upon Kurutta ō, The Mad King as he rested atop his blood-stained throne, made from what appeared to be bones, at the peak of the rotten mountain in its crimson lake of blood.
Her stomach churned and her blood ran cold as she spotted his bloody butchers knife. She could sense his icy stare as he watched her, evaluating her worth (or so it seemed) with a sly grin on his sadistic face.
"Why so shocked my dear piglet. It's only natural after all that in The Land of The Pigs, The Butcher is King."
She knew that voice, of course, she would, it had haunted her dreams to the point that she couldn't escape it even when awake. Every time she closed her eyes he was there with a wide smile that was all teeth and eyes as cold and lifeless as the corpses on which he now sat. The vision before her was a thing on nightmares but she knew, oh how she knew, that this was one nightmare she could never wake up from. Nikuya, The Butcher, the man who targeted anyone and everyone among the upper classes of society if he thought for even a second that they were willingly and knowingly leaving the lower classes to suffer before leaving all that they owed for the scavengers to pick through to their hearts content so long as they didn't fight over anything. As a little girl, she had likened him to a perverse Robin Hood in that he took everything from the rich and gave it all to the poor, but now all she saw was a monster.
Once again her blood ran cold as she felt the darkness creeping into her heart as her vision started to blur and her breathing grew faster and faster. Not many people had seen Kurutta ō and lived – she'd at least learned that much from the guards who stood watch outside of her cell during the time in which she was imprisoned there. And the fact that she had been there for so many years without knowing why she had even been brought here let alone who by, had to mean something.
"But of course you're not a piglet anymore now are you my dear, and from what I've heard you were never much of one, to begin with, were you Zaritorukorō?"
Zaritorukorō. The word reverberated through her mind over and over and over again as she finally understood why, why she alone had been spared among her family and why, in all the years she'd spent in that cell, she had never once been physically harmed. Just as she'd heard of him while growing up, he to had heard of her. Zaritorukorō, the little crow she had been called, by both upper and lower classes alike, not that they knew it was her, of course, she was very careful about that by always making sure that none for her more defining features were ever seen. Wherever Nikuya struck Zaritorukorō was there not long after, making sure that the children got what they needed and the adults didn't take anything from them before disappearing into the shadows once they had all been cared for.
But the question remained. "How, Nikuya was it that you guessed who I was when no one else could?" Because the entire kingdom had wanted to know but most couldn't even get her gender right.
"I must admit that it took me quite some time, but who could blame me? After all, who could have guessed that Zaritorukorō was none other than the kingdoms Gōrudenpurinsesu, The Golden Princess and heir to the throne Crown Princess Lyca Seraphina Rosalia Saltatione-Solis herself, it certainly threw me through a loop."
"Get to the point Nikuya how did you know?"
"I didn't at first, the only reason I even kept you alive was that the best way to secure my position on the throne was by marrying you so I decided to wait until you were older. But then after my next hunt, Zaritorukorō never appeared, then the next and the next until I started to wonder where my little follower could have flown off to. So I started searching, retracing our steps and asking around but not a trace could be found of my Dārinritorukorō, and my darling little crow had been missing for almost an entire year. It was only months later that I realised that my Dārinritorukorō had vanished from the public at around the same time I had taken the Gōrudenpurinsesu for myself." At this, he rose from his bloody throne and started to make his way down a previously unseen staircase as he came towards her.
It was then, as he came to a stop in front of her, that she finally noticed that the men who had dragged her from her cell had left the room, leaving her alone with Kurutta ō, or was it Nikuya, she wasn't too sure anymore. Slowly, he reached out and twirled a piece of her of her once golden blond hair, now darkened by years of grim, between his fingers uncaring of how dirty it was as his other arm slipped around her waist, pulling her closer and holding her tightly against his chest before he spoke again.
"Once I came to the conclusion that my Dārinritorukorō and the Gōrudenpurinsesu were one and the same I was beside myself. My Dārinritorukorō had spent almost two years all alone in the dark without me there to look after her and I immediately wanted to move you from that dark cell to a gilded cage where I could keep you with me without fear of you breaking. Imagine my surprise when I found that not only had my Dārinritorukorō remained unbroken but she was thriving, what else could I do but leave her there to grow until she was ready to take her place by my side. After all, what was Nikuya without his Zaritorukorō or Kurutta ō without Zadākuuin by his side, for The Mad King would be nothing without The Dark Queen just as The Butcher went nowhere without his little crow following along behind to protect the children."
At this, his grip on her tightened and the hand that had been playing with her hair made its way to her chin, tilting it up so that his lips brushed against hers as his eyes stared into hers, anticipation palpable as he waited for her reaction to his advances.
Lyca didn't know how to respond at first, on the one hand, this was the man who had murdered her parents and the rest of her family, but on the other hand, he was also the man who took care of the corruption within the kingdom which her father had always refused to deal with, always turning a blind eye and never acknowledging it. It was bloody and brutal but it worked and now the classes were more equal now than they had ever been. Finally, she decided to address something that had been bothering her for a while.
"What's your name?" Her voice was but a whisper against his lips as she spoke.
He blinked, clearly surprised by her question, before letting out a low laugh and answering her, "Only you, my Dārinritorukorō would think to ask such a question at a time like this. Here I am offering you the world and all you want is to know is my name," he finished fondly before continuing, "You, my Dārinritorukorō, may call me Daemion as one day soon you will call me husband and we will rule this world as man and wife."
Just like that, it was decided, there would be no going back from this but by now she wasn't sure she really wanted to because together Lyca was certain that they could change the world for the better, into a place where no child needs to go cold or hungry and everyone worked together towards a new golden age of enlightenment.
Years passed.
At first, the kingdom had been shocked when Kurutta ō announced his marriage to the Gōrudenpurinsesu as Crown Princess Lyca Seraphina Rosalia Saltatione-Solis hadn't been seen or heard from in years and many had assumed that Nikuya had killed her as well on that fateful night oh so many years ago. The wedding itself had already taken place and afterwards when some of the people claimed that Kurutta ō was using their beloved Gōrudenpurinsesu to secure his position, while others claimed that she had sold herself to him so as to ensure her survival. This was when the happy couple revealed that the Gōrudenpurinsesu had taken on the mantle of Zaritorukorō so that she could help her people until she could ascend the throne and help in more meaningful ways.
Once their people knew this they were far more accepting of their new Gōrudenkappuru, The Golden Couple that would rush their kingdom into a golden age of enlightenment. To think that none of them had realised how much their newly crowned Gōrudenkuīn had done for them, The Golden Queen even going against her own father in order to help them when he refused to so himself, lowering herself to their level where no other nobles would and risking her health time and again protecting their children when they were too desperate to spare them a second thought.
Following this, there was an era of peace as the Gōrudenkappuru improved upon the lives of all those who lived in their kingdom, making alliances with those neighbouring kingdoms who cared for their citizens equally while conquering those too corrupt to be allowed to continue. Over the years King Daemion Nathaniel Alexander Umbra-Saltator Saltatione-Solis and Queen Lyca Seraphina Rosalia Saltatione-Solis Umbra-Saltator had many children together, all of whom were made to personally help the poorer or elderly citizens so that they would better understand where their parents were coming from when they spoke of the corruption that used to run rampant throughout their large kingdom. Until at the age of 118 and 106 respectively the Gōrukīkingu and his Gōrudenkuīn passed away peacefully knowing that their legacy would endure and that their kingdom was in good hands.
And that's the end of my first story! If some people liked it then that's great but since this is only my first story I'm not really expecting much, just messing with the formatting really. Anyway thanks for reading and hopefully I'll only get better from here.