Vestiges
16.
\Knight/
"No."
The Queen was dumbstruck. "…What…?"
She'd done dozens of knightings ever since she became Queen of Mewni when she was a teenager. Sure, there had been some refusals. Most people were content to merely accept her as Queen. It was another thing to take on the title of a Knight, which would mean that you'd have to kill yourself for entertainment if the Royal Couple were bored enough, although they had no desire for that. Extra responsibilities, more pressure, things like that tended to make some people go against being knighted.
This girl…
As she gaped at the girl before her, flabbergasted, Moon realized that this wasn't the issue. For starters, there were more tact ways of refusing to be knighted. One did not simply stand up in the middle of the ceremony and tell the Queen NO. It was the same as spitting in her face.
The girl's face was stoic, yet Moon read the expression behind it.
"Do you, Higgs, solemnly swear and pledge to uphold the honor of knighthood?"
"I do so solemnly swear and pledge to uphold the honor of knighthood."
"Do you, Higgs, solemnly swear and pledge your sword, mind and heart to me, your Queen and to the King, to defend and obey until we depart the throne, or until death takes you?"
"No."
There was a reason for answering like that. She was willing to be a knight, but not for the royal couple. She was a knight for somebody else.
In all of her musings, Higgs continued to silently level a stare at the Queen. There was a look in her cold green eyes that intimidated the Queen; this wasn't a girl that stood before her, almost as if she was in a subtle fighting stance. Perhaps a woman? Regardless, there was someone older in her place, someone who'd experienced plenty, someone who was no stranger to doing whatever necessary action in order to get what she wanted. Someone who was willing to shed blood, innocent blood if needs be.
Her right hand seemingly lingered close to what looked like a sword-like knife that hung from her waist. It was in this instance that, somehow, the Queen knew that the closer she was to the girl before her, the closer to actually dying she was. Perhaps if she'd actually tried to knight the squire with the sword in her hands, to tap it at her shoulders next her neck, Moon would have gotten herself cut open in retaliation.
It was then that Moon the Undaunted actually dropped the sword and took a step backwards, completely unnerved.
The significance of this was lost on nearly everyone, but it was in this moment that the entire hall erupted into chaos as everyone tried to make themselves heard. Most were yells pertaining to the fact that the squire had no respect or fear for her superiors, and had committed sacrilege in what was an honorable ceremony. Despite the noise, Sir Stabby was the first and only one to make himself heard over the noise.
"Higgs!" the man shouted, "what's the meaning of this?! You've committed pure irreverence and you've brought nothing but shame upon yourself and to me! Why would-"
"Sir Stabby," Higgs said calmly, interrupting the man. "… Go fall over a knife."
The man sputtered. "Wh-what? Why're you acting like this? Have you been bewitched?!"
"That's not why!" All heads turned to see the new speaker or shouter as it were. It was Tom, and the Lucitor stood up to help his voice carry throughout the hall. "I just found out that she's always been Marco's friend! What's more, SHE'S the one who brought Marco back to Mewni! That means that the squire that got killed yesterday… she was in on it!" He then pointed at the squire, completely livid although the girl wasn't intimidated in the slightest. "You!" Tom roared. "WHERE IS MARCO?"
Higgs nearly looked directly at Marco; she knew where he was. There was only one person in the entire hall who had a hunting sword, much less wore it the way that he did. The fact that he was standing so close to the front also made it easier to notice him in particular. However, the response as to where he was didn't come from her, nor from him. In fact, it came from the girl who sat on the bench right next to where he stood.
"Marco got angry and released his aura when Star showed up and got even more pissed when we discussed him," she said quietly, yet everyone around her heard her voice. "When he realized that we were catching on to the fact that he was in here, he tried to calm himself down. He'd have to be really close to hear us. He'd also be the only person who'd actually try to tell Star to stop doing something, especially if it meant that he was protecting his own friend from being discovered," she said coolly, hinting to the fact that she was talking about Higgs. "Furthermore, Marco is too damn sensitive to the little things, and he was grumbling over the name of his disguise."
"So where is he?" Tom demanded, not able to process what she was saying due to his growing angered inclination to find Marco and roast him alive.
Janna then thumbed at the knight who stood still right next to her, pointing directly at him in her usual jaded manner. "Marco's right here."
Everywhere fell silent as if a bombshell had been dropped on them. In the wake of this, Marco took off his helmet slowly, and underneath, his face was revealed, from the familiar complexion to the glowing crescents on his cheeks. Almost on cue, his aura that he radiated whenever he was immensely angry began to flow from him, and the feelings it emanated was enough to drive the civilians out of the hall, screaming as they went. "I'm almost glad I was caught," he said slowly, "the smell of this musty helmet was starting to piss me off." He turned to those who still occupied the bench, looking at those he had once considered his friends one by one. "It's been a while… Janna… Kelly… Pony Head… Tom… Star…" He said the last name with noted rage, something they all felt. "… Did you miss me? 'Cause I sure as hell didn't."
"Enough." The Queen demanded. "Diaz, why are you here?"
"Oh you know," the boy said easily as he started to walk forward to the podium with hardly a care, removing the armor of his disguise as he went. "I came here to support my knight."
"Your knight?"
"My knight," he reaffirmed. "I came here to support her on the day she's recognized for all of her hard work. Now that that's done, I guess we should make our leave unless you want to convince us otherwise to stay." By now, he'd removed all his armor, and clad only in his sweater and skinny jeans, and swaddling black robes by the time he made it to the podium next to Higgs. Something about him commanded respect, and the way he stood next to Higgs gave the impression that they were two people not to be taken lightly.
"Are we running?" Sienna asked quietly so that only he could hear.
"Do you know what 'Removal of the Defender' is?"
She cocked her head in thought. "Isn't that a chess tactic? For when you need to take out a strong enemy pawn?
"Dead on." Marco turned his head to look at Rhombulus who was now standing next to the king, unsure if he should get involved or continue to defend the royal couple as he was pre-ordered to. "We're killing the 'Gods', and Rhom-Blockhead's the first."
"Great," Sienna grumbled. "And here I thought that our goal wasn't hard enough already."
"What are you two whispering about?" Moon asked before she shook her head. "No, never mind. I hope you came with the intent of submitting yourself… because you'll never leave. You have a lot to answer for!"
"Oh? You're all talk." Hardly had he sensed this did Appendaxuz speak up from the boy's mind.
"Marco… I sense that you wish to deal with Rhombulus first, I urge you to consider the time and place. You and the girl are outnumbered. There's also Moon to account for, the numerous knights, the Lucitor and the princess-"
"The princess, the princess, the princess!" Marco fumed to Appendaxuz as much as to everyone else. "It's always about her, isn't it?! And why should I care?! I'm going to demolish the Wellspring, even if I have to walk over her dead body to get there!"
"You see? He's not a 'good' guy!" Tom grunted to Star. "He's really just another bad guy, and he's a murderer!"
"Marco!" Star yelled as she stood up to face her former crush, ignoring Tom's complaint. "Look, this is going too far! I don't know why you're insisting on doing this… I don't know if it's because magic makes you feel powerless… Or what happened in the bathroom… Or if it's about what happened on my birthday, or even if it's because I made everyone think you were losing your mind even when you weren't. I'm sorry if I'm to blame because of this, but you can't be doing this because you think-"
"Star?" Marco interrupted. "…Fuck off."
Star froze in disbelief at what she had heard; the knights in the hall were only a bit better but fell into chaos once more. The Queen shouted for them to stand strong, and ordered them to detain the pair of insurgents. Sienna withdrew her tanto-like knife in a reverse grip and entered her stance, while Marco pulled out his sword and aimed it at the queen.
"I declared war on the M.H.C. Your knights are just pawns; they don't have to die, but they don't have to live either. If it means that I get to cross over to the other side of the board easier, then I will CLEAR them out of my way!"
"What?" The odd statement had thrown her off, and made her confused long enough for the first of the knights to get to Sienna and Marco. In a vicious counter, Marco hacked his hunting sword through an unarmored knight's chest and killed him instantly, before slashing his sword once more through the collarbone through another, right into the muscles and sub-clavicle vein and arteries. He then dived at another knight in a tackle off of the podium and sliced his neck open before they even hit the floor, and leaped away to engage even more of the knights.
Sienna was much more fluid-… despite being in the younger version of herself and having her close-quarters-combat techniques lessened by reach, she was still, quite unbelievably, untouchable. In truth, there was no invincibility; she was reliant on a technique she'd picked up in Hekapoo's dimension, and learned how to will her body to produce and release adrenaline whenever she wanted it. Quicker, stronger, faster reflexes, with a somewhat faster perception of time. Along with her own lithe body and her strong lightweight knife, she was one of the deadliest people she knew.
Her left hand was bare, and she had her knife (ten inches of the sharpest blade to be found for miles) in her right hand. It was as if she had some sort of invisible killing zone around her, and anything that entered her proximity was guaranteed death. Every move was another step of a deadly dance, one of constant evasion and counterattacks; she backhanded a spear from stabbing through her, and slid her knife through the ribcage of the knight that had affronted her, piercing his heart with cold steel. In the same breath, she ducked a sword that would've beheaded her and strafed around the knight who had tried to attack her from her blindspot. His jugular was slit; and the man collapsed, clutching at his neck as if he could keep himself from bleeding out. However, her 'invincibility' was tested when a sword grazed her-… although it was a very small cut, it was the first 'injury' she'd ever gotten since perfecting the close-quarters-combat style she'd developed when she was attempting Hekapoo's trial.
"Marco?" she called with a small bit of concern, seeing that the number of knights was still numerous. Engaging in his own conflicts, he still found the time to actually glance to the girl who was helping to fight in his cause.
"Yeah?"
"There's a lot of 'em. Is there a general plan here?"
Before he could answer, the doors to the hall were thrown open with such force that it sounded over the din of the battle. Everyone's eyes shifted to the figure of the new person to arrive, but the light shining from behind them made it hard to make out their facial features.
"…A plan, you say? Failing to plan is planning to fail."
There were a select few who recognized the voice, and their fears were realized once he fully came into view, fully attired in his signature suit. "Toffee?!" Queen Moon gasped, seeing the Septarian. "But how is this possible-?!"
"I have no obligation to tell you why." The entire hall fell silent, and the entire battle was at a standstill as they gazed at the supposedly dead monster who had, singlehandedly, brought Mewni to its knees. However, that silence was broken when Marco grinned widely when he realized that he'd procured some extra help.
"Oi, Bishop!" Marco yelled unexpectedly, "I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm glad to see you." Everyone was stupefied to hear this, and became even more so at the Septarian's response when he heard his title, especially once he noticed the boy's glowing crescents on his cheeks.
"Ah, my King…" He did a half-bow, before lifting his head. "What services can I offer?"
"My knight's feeling a bit overwhelmed," Marco called back, almost in a cheeky tone. "Could you do something about that?"
Toffee's eyes swept over the halls, noting how most of the knights were gathering at the front to fight Higgs and Marco. "…But of course. I presume that your knight is the ginger-haired girl? In the blue tunic?"
"You presume right," Higgs remarked easily, though she was trembling on the inside. How the hell did the monster that threatened Mewni come back to life, and why was he calling Marco 'King'? It dawned on her that she had stumbled into something far greater than herself, yet it felt appropriate. Her draw to Marco was that strong, and she didn't feel like asking those kinds of questions now; they could wait until later.
"Understandable. Bishops stand alongside Knights, after all." To end the apparent unintentional cease-fire, a knight close to Toffee tried to cleave his head off with an axe. Toffee seemed to hesitate for a moment to allow him to get closer, before grabbing the axe away from the knight. With a powerful low swing, he lopped off the knight's leg, and just as the crippled knight fell to the floor on his back screaming, Toffee smashed the blade of the axe into his forehead with so much force that his skull was entirely gouged in with a spatter, brain matter and bone going to pieces all over the floor. His barbaric act held everyone speechless for a moment before all order was lost once more. Rhombulus was torn between whom he should fight, Higgs or Marco or Toffee, but once the King and Queen made it their choice to fight the Lizard, he knew that it was where his duties lied.
Although he was nervous, to say the least. This was the Lizard who'd taken down the M.H.C. easily, after all, and absorbed their powers when he'd corrupted the wand.
"But he hasn't corrupted the wand, so I should be able to beat him with Queen Moon," he reasoned out loud. He tried to find a little courage, and following most of the knights, the King and the Queen who had changed into her Butterfly state, they charged at the Bishop.
Toffee looked at them in his usual jaded stare and ever so calmly, took off his tie and rolled it up, and placed it in his pants pocket.
In the midst of her own conflict, she couldn't help but wonder if she'd really been a subservient squire to 'knights' of this weak caliber.
"A lack of a war made them all soft…"
Perhaps there was truth to what Marco had said when it pertained to Toffee's assail on Mewni. Had they really been running scared while that monster was on the loose while in the body of Ludo?
And speaking of said monster…
"Why the hell is he working with us?" she mumbled to herself as she continued to fight, "and more importantly, why the hell are we working with him? And why did Marco call him 'Bishop'? I wonder…" It came to her that something must've happened between Marco and Eclipsa last night. Glancing at her crush, she noted how he seemed to fight with a strong fervor; although it was clear that he was skilled, even more than her, it was a bit brutish in comparison to her own methods.
They were killing people.
"If Mewni is the dimension that abuses magic and causes the apocalypse, then we'll burn it, along with the aristocrats who sit in the high positions. They've already gotten their warnings." With this statement, like an embedded hook finally coming free, long-forgotten memories due to Hekapoo's trial came rushing back. She'd ridiculed him, made him miserable, and what she'd done in Quest Buy was only the start. Betting on his life, however, that sealed it. An unrealized tear came into her eye, and on reflex, she blinked it away quickly before it hampered her. "I wasn't always his friend. He didn't even know me that well, or why I had so much work at the time, but he helped me when I lost the bet. Damn, I was such a bitch. But he forgave me… we became friends…! But his friends… The knights…The rulers… The princess… All of Mewni… they treated him like dirt!"
Unknown to herself, but noticed by the last dozen knights that engaged her, the girl had started to fight like one possessed. She moved in blurs, she dodged all that they had to fight her in reprisal, and she always slashed with her vicious knife for the quickest kills. She looked so much younger than them, shorter with less mass and strength, yet fought as if she was used to fighting people with much higher fighting calibers. When she found knights closest to her, be it one at a time, two at a time, three at a time or even four, she evaded their broad-area blows and attacks. When she found weaknesses, no matter for those for some that were armored, she exploited them. When her knife sought flesh, even if it had to be through the slit eyeholes in more than just a few helmets, the blade found their targets. Soon, it seemed that bodies were starting to pile around her, and she still hadn't really moved from her position. It was as if the knights would have been better off throwing themselves against a wall with spears.
"They treated him like dirt!" Sienna ducked and sidestepped a diagonal slash, allowing one knight to injure another severely. Stepping inside the guard of the knight that tried to kill her, her knife slid right through his neck at his adam's apple and straight to the other side at the back before she yanked it out swiftly, letting the man fall to the ground as he choked on his blood. "They discredited him, insisting that he was of unsound mind!" Evading another bisecting blow from a sword, she still got injured by a spear that sliced into her shoulder. Her adrenaline dulled the pain, and lithely dodging the spear on its second attempt to skewer her, she got to the knight and darted around behind him. Grabbing at his head and kneeing him in the back to make him lean against her, she exposed his belly upwards, and drove her knife into his gut with all of her strength repeatedly, even as he writhed pathetically in her grasp. "He tried to warn them!" she yelled, now berserk, "And they exiled him, forcing him to leave everything behind!" Another tear burned at her eye, and this time it stayed. "To leave me behind! They sent him away, and forced me to be all by myself again!"
"What are you blathering about?!" A knight yelled as he tried to run her through with his pike. Yet another knight was behind her, and about to grab her to hold her still; the girl thought quickly and pulled out her dimensional scissors. Quickly opening a portal, she jumped down through and fell inside, making the knight to accidentally spear his fellow cohort with his long pike. Unknowingly, a new portal opened up behind the spearer, allowing the girl to fall out sideways feet-first into his back, making him yell in pain. "Gaahhh! You bitch!"
Sienna righted herself quickly as he fell to the floor with her on top of him. Still, with her weight on his back, she reached down and twisted his helmet with a savage jerk, breaking his neck with a sickening snap. Taking up her knife in hand again, as well as her scissors, she realized that her most powerful weapon was the warp scissors, and began roving around, creating more than just a few portals. By the time everything was said and done, she had snipped open six portals normally around her, but their half-dozen exits were also on the podium area in the oddest places. One or two were horizontal in midair above their heads, another few rested flat on the ground, and yet another few opened up out of sight behind some unsuspecting knights.
Standing with the last of the knights that were fighting the insurgent was Sir Stabby, and to say the least, he was immensely angry with his squire. "Higgs! You've brought nothing but shame and dishonor-"
"Shame and dishonor… Is that all you talk about?" the girl taunted as she started to step into a portal. "You're just pissed that I'm not your squire anymore. What, you needed someone to clean your lance? Sharpen your swords, maybe? I'm not your squire… I'm Marco's knight."
"You're a common killer!"
"A common killer?" She gave the man a dirty glance. "And you're one of the elite knights that's in charge of these useless guys who became knights in peaceful times. You're fighting to protect the royal family who're getting fat while everyone else goes hungry, abusing magic that puts the whole universe in jeopardy and-"
"And nothing!" Sir Stabby roared, spittle flying from his mouth. "You should've known your place! Now you have nowhere to return to, and no title as your own!"
"Title?" Sienna mumbled again before she finished entering the portal. Unexpectedly, she emerged from a portal behind a knight, and stabbed her knife into his back, before kicking him off of her blade, blood flying after him. The knights hurriedly tried to rush to attack her, but she hurriedly retreated back into the portal before they got to her. She re-emerged back through the portal she had first entered and stared at Sir Stabby, who glared back. "Aren't you thirty-one years old next month, Sir Stabby? I'll let in on a little secret… I'm thirty-three years old."
"...What?"
"I'm a failure, as according to Hekapoo," Sienna continued in earnest. "I tried different ways and things in order to pass her challenge, but I failed every time. I learnt how to set traps for her, and failed… I learned how to improvise to catch her, and failed... I learned how to track her, and failed… I learned how to develop a photographic memory to target her specifically, and failed. But you just mentioned that I was a common killer… I guess I was. I had to learn how to become mercenary to support myself, but before that happened, I had to learn how to fight. One and one equals two… It's not hard to figure that's I had to learn how to kill people…to learn how to kill very important and skilled people. I won't do anything to you… You heard Marco earlier… you guys don't have to live, but you don't have to die, either. Just drop your weapons and find another line of work."
"We won't bow to a bunch of insurgent children!" Sir Stabby bellowed before turning to the last two knights that still supported him as he tried to take the fight to Higgs. "My fellow knights, take her down!"
"Children? Haven't you been listening? I'm older than you. I've spent eighteen years…"
They weren't going to listen. She seemingly ghosted to another portal and jumped through; she fell through one of the overhead portals onto another knight's knees first, knocking him to the floor. Before the knight could recover and throw her off, Sienna drove her knife down through his neck where it leveled off into the shoulder. It entered all the way through to the hilt, and actually got stuck when she tried to retrieve it. Sir Stabby advanced upon her, lunging forward with his lance. Higgs had to retreat without her favorite weapon in order to dodge the man's attack but failed as he was too quick; his lance dug into her leg as she tried to get away. Amidst the ache, she could feel her lifeblood beginning to leave her; cursing her carelessness as she limped, she knew that she needed to end the fight before her loss of blood weakened her too much.
"My lance is stained with the blood of a traitor!"
"Damn! When was the last time I cleaned that lance? I would hate to get an infection!" Sienna shouted back as she made her escape through another portal. She reemerged from another portal close to another knight; unfortunately for her, they had wised up to her tricks and tried to face the portals to avoid being attacked in their blind spots. She still had years of experience with her, however. Half-turning to avoid getting through with the sword by the last subservient knight, she rabbit-punched his wrist (in his tendons) to disarm him and grabbed the sword from him. While in his efforts to guard himself against any instant fatal attacks by placing one of his hands over his heart, he pulled out his secondary war-knife from a scabbard on his thigh and tried to defend himself. It didn't stop her full retaliation, however. She paused, using both hands to grip the sword to add more strength behind the blade and drove it, unexpectedly, into his groin. As he doubled-over in pain, now severely debilitated, Higgs flipped the sword around her fingers into a reverse-grip, and drop-impaled him through the back and let him fall lifelessly to the floor.
"You defector! Have you no sense of morality?" The man yelled in frustration as he tried to catch up to her, but failed as she got to another portal and escaped. He stood still, trying to maintain vigilance to ensure that she didn't get the drop on him. "Have you no honor?"
"Don't you have any sense?" Snipping a small portal with her scissors to where her knife still was, she reached her hand in, grabbed her knife and pulled it out back towards herself. By now, there was only Sir Stabby himself. He was proving to be a real problem, as he was always quick to respond to when she used her portals. Reluctantly, she closed the original six portals she had created, and the entire dozen portals closed.
"Are you surrendering?"
"…Does the Queen shit in the Forest of Certain Death?" In a riposte to her infuriating response, Sir Stabby charged at the rash girl, but Higgs calmed herself. Sometimes, it was good to anger her opponents to make them lose their cool so that they'd make mistakes. Sir Stabby was still something of an exception, however, and channeled his anger into wild strength. True to his namesake, he stabbed at her with his lance, and upon missing, would withdraw it quickly to stab at her again, or sweep it at her when she would least unexpected it. His movements became rapid in this fashion, his lance blurring, and blurring, and blurring. Dodging was all Higgs could do as she backpedaled from him, as he had a reach advantage with his lance. At the last, his lance was swung and batted at her wrist to knock her knife out of her hands. She was caught off guard in that second, and Sir Stabby capitalized on it, and speared his lance at her, aiming for her midsection. She wildly grabbed at the lance before it stabbed into her, but partially failed.
Sienna felt a foreign in her belly, and let out a cry of pain; she looked down with hazy vision to see that his lance had stabbed into her belly, if only the point. "Ooh… shit!" Already, blood was welling up and bled around the lance to drip to the floor with a low pitter-patter.
"You're more trouble than you look, my disgraced squire, but in the end, every traitor falls…"
"A disgraced squire…?" Higgs mumbled before Sir Stabby tried to force the lance into her, intent to finish her off but the girl pushed back on it while backpedaling, though her strength was waning. "A traitor? Well…" She tried to find the words, but they refused to come out the way she wanted. Finally, she said what could only be said. "I'm a knight. I'm his knight." She wasn't stabbed all the way through, though Sir Stabby was trying his hardest to complete the job. He, though his strength was greater than the girl's, he still found it nearly impossible to urge the weapon any further. It was either due to some sort of unconscious unwillingness to kill the girl he thought he knew, or she was finding some sort of strength only from sheer willpower.
He knew he was willing to dispatch her. He knew that as he stared at the maddened squire; he knew that she wasn't his anymore.
"You swore to protect your King, and I've sworn to protect MINE!" Higgs yelled as she leaned back suddenly in a fall, to get the lance out of herself. In doing so, she leaped fully backwards, pulling the lance out of his grasp as she did, and rolled backwards as soon as she hit the floor with her back. Injuries she'd gotten ever since the battle had started were starting to pain her dreadfully now, but she bit back against the agony. Finally righting herself upon exiting the roll, she entered a new stance with the captured lance, before she rushed at her former master, who pulled out a war knife to in an effort to defend himself. Shock ran through the man like a wash of cold water, knowing well and truly that he was about to be killed, yet stood tall, never flinching.
"I will not bow to evil!"
"Raaaaggghhh!" Fuelled by the dregs of her adrenaline and a yell of almighty effort, she stabbed the man with his own lance right through his gut in an echo of irony, withdrawing it as quickly as it had punctured him as if the lance was nothing but a cue stick. Using it like a bat, she then gripped the lance by the handle and swung it at the man's legs, sweeping it from below him. Hardly had he hit the floor on his back did his eyes widen at the stance of Higgs holding the lance high above her head.
"No!"
With a grunt of effort, she thrust the lance through the man's chest, staking him to the wooden floor of the podium. She quickly looked away before she saw his face; one of her habits of not wishing to see the light of people disappear from their eyes. In a sudden onset, a sheer tiredness overcame her, and her injuries finally let her know that she'd bled far too much.
"Oh… " She was in the midst of limping away, but fell to her knees. "Adrenaline, huh? I know how to release it whenever I want it… but I'm not invincible when I use it…" Higgs, tremulously, touched at her belly and felt the warm and slightly-sticky blood there, and knew that there was more of the same bleeding from her shoulder… and her leg… and her…
Sienna didn't want to think about her wounds. Instead, she thought of how she'd gotten many chances to escape using the dimensional scissors, but chose not to. The thought had nagged her too many times, but she never doubted her own place. She'd stayed there, fighting by his side.
"Marco…" She said weakly as she sagged, trying to right herself, but her weakened arms failed to support her. In weakness, she collapsed to the floor in a growing puddle of red, wondering if the boy she loved was any better off than her. "Was I a good knight?"
Then her eyes closed.
Well, shit… But nothing's concrete until EVERYTHING is said and done. I'm still working on Toffee's and Marco's side of the conflict.
Anyway, how was it?
Valete omnes,
MRAY 4TW.
