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start of week two.
Chapter 27. Only the Good Die Young, But the Awesome Live Forever
by Monika
All was greyness and misery the day that they buried Ellie.
The fractured circle of grey cowls huddles around the earthen mound, staring. Solemn silence reigns, broken only by the faint cadence of spring rain. Droplets are swallowed into the clothing of the bereaved; they drip from ragged hems, pool about blistered footpaws.
"Poor Ellie," says one of the hooded figures, eventually.
"Yiss," replies Patrice, the head maid. Her accent is thick, foreign. Monika can never quite place it.
Monika says nothing, just continues staring downwards. The rain begins to worm its way through her sodden hood, and trickle at the back of her neck. The hamster grimaces, but makes no move to wipe it away. Her paws, like the rest, are still caked with mud and clay from the digging.
They stare at the grave. The rain falls. In some cases, it mingles with tears.
Eventually Monika manages to force the question past the lump in her throat. "What do we do now, Patrice?"
Beneath the cowl, the large shrew wife's eyes are weary. "What you mean?"
"What will we do, for the rest of the day?"
The shrew's eyebrows narrow. "What are you talking about, Koval?"
Monik takes a long, rattling breath. "Just answer me, Patrice."
"I don't know. We say goodbye. We go back to work, maybe."
"And what about tomorrow?"
The hated words spill from wrinkled lips. "We work."
"Just like that? Without Ellie? Nothing changes?"
Monika looks around. Several pairs of glistening eyes stare at her.
"No," says Patrice. "We figure out a way of doing her work as well as our own, unless Master Lacrimosa hires a new beast to replace her."
"But we'll still do the same chores, right?"
"Yiss."
"And what about the day after tomorrow?"
"The same."
"And the next day?"
"The same."
"And the next day?"
"The same!" Patrice explodes.
"Will we ever stop? Ever?"
"What?" the shrew asks, confusion and annoyance scrawled across her face.
Monika's voice rises in pitch, accelerating recklessly towards a screeching crescendo. "We never will! You know it! Nothing will ever get better! We're going to spend all day, every day, working our paws to the bone, sweeping and dusting and polishing ornate woodwork, until one day our beloved Master decides his bloody tea isn't warm enough, and bashes our heads in with a walking stick!"
"Shut your mouth, Moni."
"It happened to Ellie, and it'll happen to us! And we'll probably be so cowed that we'll kiss the ground and thank him!"
Belying her age, Patrice moves swiftly. The head maid's paw lashes out, whipping Moni across the cheek. Gnarled paws dig into the hamster's cloak, pulling her close.
"I know she was your friend, Koval," the shrew hisses. "I know this. But look at yourself. Shouting! Carrying on, like an infant! You help nothing with this display. Nothing, Koval! Ellie is dead. You cannot change that. Everybeast die, sometime. Ellie, you. Even me, some day. You learn that, and you will be happy."
Monika shivers bitterly, refusing to meet the shrew's gaze. A tear of resentment spills down her cheek.
It's what happiness is when you're a servant, isn't it? Happiness isn't good things, just a lack of bad things. If you're bad, you're whipped, and if you're good you get to work your paws to the bone one more time. And then you try it again tomorrow, and hopefully you're good then, too. And then there's another tomorrow, and another. And then you hope to rack up nothing but good tomorrows 'til you're dead. You're a servant when you're born, and you're a servant 'til you're grey-furred and ancient, as long as you don't anger the master. That's all of it. Birth to death, nothing but "Yes'm, yessir, right away." And, no matter what you do, you end up in the Dark Forest. And even then, you're probably still a bloody servant, because you can't know anything else to be... "Everybeast dies." Everybeast dies. Yes, but not everybeast lives. We haven't lived, really, not a day in our lives. And Patrice and Stacella and Cathlean might be content to stay here and dig their own graves, and die alone and forgotten, but I'm not going to. Not ever. I'll make my own way, and I'll do whatever it takes to survive. And, one day, everybeast will know who I was and what I did. And above all else they'll know that I, Monika Koval, lived.
=-=-=-=-=
Monika loathed them all. The young whelp had a high-pitched voice that grated on the hamster's nerves, the quiet one was about as interesting as the third leg of a cricket three leagues away, and the other one, Darron, was... something altogether different. "Brutish and vile" didn't do him justice, much in the same way that "wet" does not adequately describe the ocean. Vikkeyjigger had been deplorable to Moni for just about the whole day. The lizard kept making snide remarks about the 'lump' in her habit, and accidentally-on-purpose treading on the back of Monika's sandal, causing her paw to come out and get covered with muck.
She loathed them all. They were useless, a bunch of nobodies going nowhere.
And so, when darkness fell and the rest went to sleep and the stars came out to play, the sole somebeast went somewhere.
More specifically, she went somewhere to die.
Her suicide would be puzzling to the rest. But, logically, it was the only option. Deep down, in the deepest recesses of her heart, Monika knew that. She'd figured it out a long time ago. Martin's sword was a death sentence. Either she was going to get slain and have it taken from her, or she'd live the rest of her life trying to hide it. And either way, nobeast would ever believe that a pudgy little hamster had managed to do what so many rampaging warlords could not. There was only one way to take control.
So, she would cement it for them, in her own blood. Slice herself open and spill her blood, becoming the first beast in the sword's history to willingly commit suicide with it. And nobody could ever deny that she'd taken it, because how else could she have done so?
It wasn't the most brilliant plan. Fine. Monika was far from the most brilliant thief. It made sense, in a profoundly stupid sort of way. And, even if it didn't, so what? Sense wouldn't change anything. Not now.
The one hitch, of course, was Monika herself. She had gone over this in her head a jillion times, traced little invisible lines just here and here, figured out where best to cut so that it would be over quickly. But... she didn't want to. Not really.
She wasn't ready to go. There were so many things to do, so many adventures to have... but there was no time. The sand had all run out of the hourglass.
She found herself a seat, somewhere where the sun would shine in the morning, and brilliantly contrast her golden fur against the dew and blood. After all, you only die once. No sense making a rubbish show of it.
The sword was pulled out, and Monika admired it in the moonlight. This was her crowning glory, her swan song, her exit cue. It wasn't especially beautiful, really. It was just a thing.
"Everybeast dies," she whispered softly. Sooner or later, ready or not, they all did. Perhaps she was ready. The swordpoint quivered atop her midriff, waiting to delve into fur and flesh.
But she couldn't. Tears began to come. She needed to do this. This was what gave it all meaning. And she couldn't do it. She was too afraid, too greedy to release her grip on that painful ensnaring web of hurt and fear called life.
"I could have done so! Much! More!" She cried the last words, forcing them out of her lungs. Her throat felt raw.
So much more.
There would always be more, wouldn't there? Always more to covet, always more to clench her paws around and shove into her sack, always more to feed to the deep insatiable monster in her mind. The monster that dangled happiness on a stick in front of her, and lead her to believe that all she needed was this one last shiny thing, this one last act of vengeance, and things would finally be okay.
But things would never be okay. She knew that, somehow.
She raised the sword again.
"Everybeast dies."
Her gaze flicked from the handle to the blade. The more she looked at it, the more she despised it. It wasn't right that something so artfully crafted should be used for such evil. But nothing was right. Nothing could ever truly be right in a world where beasts were born to slave their entire lives away in service to other beasts, just because of how they'd been born.
Life. Death. Do. Do not. It was time to choose. Monika cast a wry glance at the sky. The twilight pastels gave no indication one way or the other. Pity. But that's life.
There was a sound like rending silk. A tear dripped into the scarlet and was swallowed.
And in the moment, there was everything and there was nothing. And there was a new dream, taking the place of the nightmares of the past. She saw it all.
=-=-=-=
Everybeast dies. Monika, like every living soul that is or will be or ever was, died. But she did not die under the tree. When the others came looking for her, they found only the sword, with a the message "I don it" crudely scrawled in scarlet along the blade. They might never see that a small "M" had been carved into the hilt, in a shadowy recess where it couldn't be filed away. Just in case.
So, where did she die? Perhaps she stumbled off somewhere into the bushes and died in a pool of her own blood. Perhaps she died many years later, having staggered off with a paw clutched to a superficial wound on her abdomen, idly consoling herself that it wasn't cowardice that stayed her paw. No, not cowardice, but a sensible survival strategy, wisdom that lesser beasts could never understand.
Whether the legend of Monika Koval ends here, nobeast truly knows. But here is where the storyteller solemnly packs up his quills, tips his hat to his fellows, and bids a fond adieu.
And that, dear rearder, was that.
