Still Melkor44's!
Since there was some positive feedback, I decided to add some more onto this; it's now a two-shot.
I'll say once again that I may continue this...Your support, should I get any, will fuel that drive.
I'd also like to input that I've recently become very disenchanted with my style, which seems very rigid and slow-reading to me whenever I look at it. If you have any critiques, please feel free to say so!
That's all I really have to say on the matter.
Present Day: Paris, France
The room was filled with young adults, sitting in desks, and a woman who stood at the front; her black marker made oily lines across the whiteboard, and her question was asked... "Can someone tell me anything about the War of the Queens?"
This was a brighter class than usual, so surely one of them would have prior knowledge of the massive event; the woman looked to the back, where a hand was raised.
"Yes?"
"It was a war between two women, who referred to themselves as either the Red Queen or the Blue Queen, and the rest of the world. The Red Queen was named Saya, and she was the elder sister of the Blue Queen Diva."
"Very good. Anyone else?"
Another hand was raised, and the student was called upon. "The War of the Queens began in France, in a mansion called the Zoo, and encompassed all of Europe and Asia within ten years. The Queens, their elite soldiers, the Chevaliers, and front-line soldiers from the British Isles, fought against all people who refused to submit to them...the war lasted for thirty years; after conquering all of Eurasia, the two Queens and all of their Chevaliers vanished. Nobody knows what happened to them...officially, that is."
"Very good!"
The student nodded.
"Since you know so much already, there's not much to teach you, but I can't just sit around and do nothing...so we'll start from the beginning. The two Queens, Saya and Diva, were born and lived in the Zoo until its destruction at their hands in the late nineteenth century. Their existence was all a very large part of an experiment by a man named Joel Goldschmidt to see how people would react in different situations; Saya was raised as a pampered girl, practically a princess, while Diva was locked in a tower and given only the minimum amount of food and water required for life...it's also highly possible that she was physically or mentally abused.
"The War of the Queens began when Saya, after running through the Zoo, accidentally found the tower that held Diva. She ran back to Joel's office to get the key to her cell, and soon set Diva free. After this, they killed all of the mansion's residents and set the entire place on fire. Their vengeance having been achieved, they left the burning soon-to-be ruins and traveled around the continent."
Bordeaux, France, 1883
"Where are we going?" Diva asked her sister, wide-eyed and likely a little scared.
"Wherever we want; we can go to all the places I've heard about in stories-Paris, London, America, and even far off countries like China. But, for now, you need to sleep..."
"Alright, big sister, but only because you said so."
The carriage was moving smoothly, despite its quick pace, and Diva fell asleep as she was cradled in her elder sibling's arms...Saya wasn't long in following her. All the same, Haji continued on in his driving of the horses until he found a suitable place to stop for the night. Upon reaching a small clearing, on the side of the road, he stopped before making sure that the horses were fed and had water. Once all of this was done, he simply waited throughout the night for his two mistresses to awaken.
The morning greeted them lazily, and Diva almost thought that she was still dreaming when she woke to find herself in such soft and clean clothes as those which she now wore. She saw Saya beside her, and stared directly into her sister's blood-red eyes until neither could take it; as one, they laughed...it was, sadly, the happiest thing that Diva had ever experienced outside of meeting her sister and killing those men and women in the Zoo's ballroom.
The two then got out of the carriage, finding Haji as he was beginning to play the cello music that had been ingrained into his mind; everything seemed still to them, even the insects pulling themselves up blades of grass. The duo's eyes went to one another, and Diva began to sing...the song was beautiful, natural, and flawless. It fit Haji's theme in tempo, style, and even their volumes seemed to play off of one another. It made Saya a little jealous, in fact, to see that the two of them could do something so in sync with one another after perhaps a dozen words between them.
It made Saya smile, however, to know that her sister was able to connect with people that weren't her.
"That's enough, you're making me sad! I can't sing, and I can't play cello as well as Haji, and I'm jealous of both of you! It's just not fair!"
"Your swordsmanship far surpasses either of ours." Haji stated. "It stands to reason that you would therefore not be quite as talented in the fine arts. Nobody is perfect at everything, Saya."
The young woman still didn't like it, but neither did she have to; it was simply the way that the world worked. "Where do you want to go?"
"I don't know, Saya. I'll go wherever you want to go!"
"Wherever you choose, Saya. As you know, I will do whatever you wish."
"Okay...how about England? I've always heard that it's very pretty in the summer."
"Very well."
"Oh boy! We're going to...Ing-lund?"
"Yes, England!"
London, England, 1883
There were five of them, all told; the Red Queen and her Chevalier, as well as the Blue Queen with two. In the streets, several armies of Ireland, Scotland, and Whales roamed...this was their hour.
The first of Diya's newest Chevalier was a Celt, from Ireland; he had wild red hair, brilliant green eyes, and his muscle mass would have intimidated anyone who attempted to stand before him...they did not know his true name, and he insisted on being called Cuchulainn.
The second of Diva's servants was a Highlander, from Scotland, and he was another man who'd been born to be warrior; shaggy brown hair combined with piercing blue eyes, he was slightly shorter than Cuchulainn, and he constantly fawned over Diva...he was Baird Cairns.
From the top of Big Ben, they watched the city die without their help. Diva was getting bored, and her Chevaliers were certainly looking to spill the blood of the English...Saya and Haji simply watched on, waiting for the carnage to finish. Such a thing would change, however, when Diva leaped from her perch and hurtled towards the ground; she was tired of waiting. As the lights and the smoke passed her by, on their way up, she couldn't help but giggle...this is what she lived for!
"Oh, fine." Saya shook her head, sighing in annoyance. "Let's go, Haji. I can't have my little sister dying on me."
"Of course, Saya. If that is your wish..." He would carry it out. That is what he did, what he had done, and what he would continue to do for the rest of his unnaturally long life: obey Saya's will, directly or not.
The pair seemed to flash down, forming a rear guard for Diva; it was really just Haji, though, as Saya went back-to-back with her little sister. This was how they had operated throughout the places which they had "visited:" the humans would rush in, storming the city and breaking a path open. Saya was the leader of the Welsh and Scottish forces, while Diva commanded the Irishmen...after a successful two-pronged assault, they would withdraw and let their human followers do the majority of the fighting; when the enemy began to thin out, the Queens and their Chevaliers stepped in to clean up.
Diva's style had not changed, but she had become more comedic with it; rather than simply tearing people limb from limb, she would instead take only one arm before beating the former owner of the appendage to death. All the while, she would giddily cry out, "Stop hitting yourself!" She, unfortunately, was the only one to find any humor in this course of action.
It was, to her, incredibly funny. She could go through all the reasons why it was absolutely hilarious...but a joke loses its grandeur when it must be explained.
Saya simply continued on with her swordplay, cutting down the opposition and smiling sadly as the world around them burned to ash; this was not what she lived for. All she wanted was a place to lay her head, somewhere that she and her sister and their Chevaliers could live out their lives in peace...which wasn't too much to ask, was it?
But, before that could be achieved, they needed to finish what they had started; perhaps, after this, they could just live out their lives here?
"Wishful thinking." She admonished herself, watching stone buildings crumble around her; this was never going to be allowed to pass, and they would need to crush all opposition in order to make certain that they could live happily...it wasn't what she wanted, or what she'd envisioned herself doing, but she would do whatever she could in order to help her beloved little sister.
They were as the Visigoths who sacked Rome, and near-joyful music could be heard emanating from Haji's cello. He had disengaged, having always hated fighting, and instead chose to watch the spectacle unfold. It was nothing but a grand opera to him, and what would an opera be without music? He certainly didn't want to find out how such a thing could exist.
Slag fell around them, as well as burning wood, but the Chiropterans ignored it; their wounds were never permanent, and the humans were dying in droves because of the flames. It was only making their job easier, which meant that they would be finished more quickly. The sooner they were done, of course, the better and happier everyone would be...and, with that in mind, Haji began to throw his daggers at critical points in the burning buildings' structures.
Present Day: Paris, France
"The War of the Queens truly began in the cradle of what was then the British Empire. The sisters went to Ireland, Scotland, Whales to gather an army which would help them against their first target: England. In exchange for this, their lives and families would be spared. Their army is renowned, even to this day, for how few soldiers were lost in battle; of approximately five hundred-thousand men, only a thousand or so were lost in the entirety of the war's thirty years. They launched a tri-pronged attack against England, which ended with the Battle of London...a day and a half of fighting, without quarter, destroying almost every structure in the city. Can anyone tell me what two pieces of architecture survived?"
A student raised his hand, seeming a little uncertain. "Wasn't one of them Big Ben?"
"Yes, it was one of two; what was the other one?"
A girl spoke automatically, forgetting to raise her hand. "Buckingham Palace."
"Indeed...and can you tell me why they might have left the palace mostly intact, miss, despite the fact that it held much of their opposition?"
Cold blue eyes slid across their sockets, pointing towards red ones that responded in kind.
"They were queens, and what place would be better for royalty than a palace?"
The teacher gave a disgruntled look, eyes narrowing in irritation for the girl's clear sign of disrespect. The blue-eyed girl was the younger twin of the red-eyed one; they were French, but their parents had moved to America and raised their daughters there...the pair had returned to France for boarding school, to grow and mature in their homeland. Delilah was the younger, and Susan the elder. The two bore very striking resemblances, in fact, to the Blue and Red Queens; it was something that unnerved the staff, and some of the elder girls, to the point of worry.
The pair only ever did anything with one another, always huddling off and disregarding the rest of the world. They seemed as though they missed something, like there were supposed to be other people there, but no one would ever approach them about it. They danced with boys at balls, and were perfect with small talk and feminine things when they had to be, but certainly appeared to be hiding a dark edge of themselves...
Oh, if only they knew.
From here on out it will be me, wish me luck, it's my first time!