I am the son
And the heir
Of a shyness
That is criminally vulgar
I am the son
And the heir
Of nothing in particular
You shut your mouth
How can you say,
I go about things the wrong way?
I am human and I need to be loved
Just like everybody else does
Saeryth leaned his chin against the knuckle of his hand and stared off into the flickering fires of the camp with a disgusted look, listening to the scraping and the cursing, the howl and whistle of his soldiers huddled around their bonfires and sprawled out in their tents to protect from the evening chill below him. They were animals, all of them, crawling around in their own filth, scrounging and fighting for scraps, for places, like they held importance in the grand scheme of things. They'd won a battle last night against the Protective Army, and like the fools that men were they truly believed that the world was theirs now. One battle in centuries of bitter warfare and the idiots believed it was done. He could smell them, cooking the meat of wild creatures from the woods on spits, dirty and raucous, chanting their exploits and lauding their great deeds.
It all made something churn indelicately inside him, and he turned away, turned around and stepped back into his General's tent and sat at his desk, where herb scented candles burned light into his eyes and where parchment and pen rested, ready for the deployment of orders, the reconfiguration of his corps in response to last night's casualties. He looked down at the paper, studied it a moment, before sniffing and turning away, towards his bed. He wanted to laugh, to hear tales of his legend told to him from the mouths of minstrels. He longed to kill something, draw his sword through its insides in a dance of death, to make its flesh fall away at his will to gather in neat, paper-thin slivers at his feet. He wished his men weren't animals. He wanted, wished, and longed for so many things, among them, something unique.
"General Saeryth, I have news…" The head of his assistant poked into the tent.
"You also have disgusting manners," Saeryth drawled, not bothering to look at the man. Instead, he lied down on the silken cushions, with his eyes staring straight up towards the canvass material of the tent.
"I bring word from the Supreme Command, sir."
A scoff in response. The Supreme Command indeed. Saeryth's army was the supreme command of the land, as far as he was concerned. Without him, without his men, the leaders lording over the humans' filth-encrusted cities would be helpless; the only other means of defense from the United Protective armies were situated on the opposite side of the valley. It consisted of an inane group of minor generals spread thin like the silken cobwebs of a frail spider across the borders of human territory.
"And what, of any possible importance, does the Supreme Command have to say now, Medth?"
The assistant bobbed his head up and down a few times in an act of pathetic deference. "General, they wish to commend you on yesterday's stunning victory."
"Stunning, was it? Not only did they manage to drive us back after a week of fighting, but I also have 5,000 dead and General Doyle's armies still have enough strength to send boarder patrols to engage in skirmishes with our hunting parties."
"Sources say that General Doyle lost more important players than we did, sir."
Saeryth chuckled. "Considering how worthless all my officers are, that's probably a safe bet, Medth." He paused, turning thoughtful. "I wonder how my old foe is dealing with that? I hear he's excessively empathetic…dangerous, if you ask me."
"Yes, General, most definitely dangerous. Which is why your apathy towards loss gained you a stunning victory the previous evening."
The poorly disguised brownnosing was wearing thin. If it kept up, Saeryth might very well have to kill the little man and grind his body into something to slop the hogs with. Instead of voicing such a thought, he sat up. "I suppose we should send the Supreme Commanders a response."
"It would be favorable, sir."
"Tell them we thank them for their commendation. Tell them the men… celebrate… as we speak."
"Yes, sir."
He waited until Medth left. "Tell them their men are disgusting, small-minded brutes with the initiative of skinned black'smhageth beasts," he muttered under his breath. Luckily for the human armies, they had him. Tomorrow morning, he'd call those docile creatures to a meeting and outline his plans for the next two days for them, hold their hands and tell them exactly what he wanted and when. He'd tell them in step-specific sequences what had to be done, what would win them the whole damn thing. What would land him a battle with his most arch nemesis, the only other competent being in a world full of idiots.
He spied a glassy flash in his peripheral vision, and with some delight, turned to look at a magnificent gold framed mirror beside the tent's entrance. He got up off of his cushions and strode over, studying himself in the exquisite glass. He observed the pale cleanliness of his face, the neat stiffness of his hair, the perfect mend and fit of his clothing, plain as they may have been.
Then, he thought then about his soldiers outside, fumbling around by firelight in tin cans, armor stolen off the back of Protective Army corpses, or beaten from pots and roughly shaped by the pressure of a sword rather than a hammer and anvil. He thought of their wild, unruly features, wide, blood rimmed animal eyes, their savage, chaotic mannerisms. Studying himself in the mirror, he saw himself in battle, a strange anomaly amongst his own kind, a smooth, fluid predator, calm and cool and deadly in his precision. He saw his own arrogance and reveled in it, his own innate savagery tempered by a rare agility, his wicked mind edged with something like emotion.
"Admiring yourself, my lord?"
He turned his head to the left smoothly, a dark brow quirked to form a high, perfect hook on his forehead. "Why do it myself when there are plenty who would do it for me?" he responded archly, allowing a smirk that showed his neat, perfect teeth.
The woman laughed. "Ah, darling, how you must fascinate yourself at the mirror," she drawled, sauntering into the tent like a wench. "So painfully different, you want to look at yourself until you can figure out why you were created out of synch with the rest of us."
He scowled at her even as she teased him (knowing his thoughts, wicked girl) and wrapped her arms around his waist without so much a flinch of fear, even as her head butted against his chest and the smell of blood and grave pyres wafted into his nose from sunshine colored hair. She laughed into the cords of his neck. "At least you don't stink, like the rest of them."
This elicited a low rumble of laughter from the depths of his throat, and he put her arms on her shoulders and leaned down to whisper in his ear. "I have assignments to write, Breia, a big, ambitious plan to outline."
Her hands drifted to his hips. "Make your Colonels write them, you've enough to do tonight. As for plans…" her hands slipped under his shirt. "…I can think of more prodigious undertakings than anything you've got planned."
"Is that an offer, Colonel?"
She licked the underside of his jaw. "Well, I meant your other Colonels," she amended. "All they're doing is scrapping around like beasts for the fat of the meat. Leave them to their work, and me to mine."
He pulled back from her slightly. "If I left the assignments to those dolts they'd have traded the whole corps for a banana by morning simply because they like bright colors."
Her eyes sparkled and she let out a laugh, hands still dancing across the sinewy muscles of his stomach like butterflies. "They served you well enough last night. No matter what, you always find them incompetent, don't you, my lord?"
He shared a conspirational look with her, touched her cheek with callused fingertips. "They're weak, my dear. Stupid, without vision. They'd do whatever the idiots from the Supreme Command would ask them to without so much as a question why. The war would be lost in the time it took them to belch. They have none of my ambition, my drive."
"That may be, but they're fierce warriors, my lord."
"Only as fierce as a wild animal. Deadly yes, but just as stupid." He laid his forehead against hers. "Aren't you tired of always being called animals?"
"What else would you want from us? Man is an animal."
"Wrong again, wrong and short-sighted, my love. Man is king. Man can rule, if he'll let himself. We can be better than animals."
She ran the back of her fingers across his brow. "Always the visionary."
A wicked, purely maniacal passion lit behind his eyes, like fire. "Those are long term ideals, dearest. My immediate vision is to end this war… to attack the Protective Armies in their nests before they've had time to recover from their defeat last night. My vision is to take everything. To face Doyle…"
"All by yourself?"
His whole countenance blazed. "Of course! He's too worthy an opponent to fight any other way. I live and breathe for the opportunity to face him with no one else in the way. To say that I killed him, to take his weapons from his dead body and hang them in my home? To have his head for my trophy? What greater honor?."
She studied him, fireworks exploding behind his eyes as he spoke of some grand battle, in which the result would be the ignominious disembowelment of his most elusive, most worthy opponent. "And if he's as great a warrior as the men speak of? And if he overpowers even you? What then?"
He laughed, wickedly. "Then I'll die. But only by his hand, no other. I will subdue his armies, and I will fight him myself, to the death. Even if it would mean my own. But I would fight him!"
She shook her head. "You are a visionary and a fool. Your desire to be unique will be the death of you."
He smirked, infuriating and alluring all at once, as if she'd complimented him. "You'd rather I let the numbers overwhelm him? That I stay back in the shadows and watch his inevitable defeat from across the field like another great coward?"
"Your life would be ensured then, my lord. If it was done that way, he would surely lose. And you…" she pressed a kiss to his collarbone. "…would be left to more…pleasurable…ends."
He shook his head, realizing she was missing the point. "My dear Colonel… you haven't lived," he laughed. "You haven't lived until you've fought a battle where the outcome could never really be known ahead of time. The best fight is the one you believe you might lose."
"Like when your father battled Fessing on the field?"
He scowled at that. "My father had an archer positioned behind Fessing the entire time for insurance. He was a coward, always with backup, with something 'just-in-case'. I'm so tired of fights I know I'm going to win."
"So you look forward to your battle with Doyle because you might lose?"
His eyes simmered to blackness and he wrapped his arms around her waist, leaning forward until their lips were a breath apart. His voice was a purely carnal whisper, almost against the very flesh of her mouth. "Now you're getting it."
I am the son
And the heir
Of a shyness
That is criminally vulgar
I am the son
And the heir
Of nothing in particular
You shut your mouth
How can you say,
I go about things the wrong way?
I am human and I need to be loved
Just like everybody else does