"We lost the Beetlejuice."
A skinny, balding man stood in front of him, his navy uniform slightly damp. He sneered back, "We've lost too many to those damned Day sailors."
Swiveling in his chair, he turned his eyes to watch the training going on below him. These few thousand men would probably be the last soldiers to see battle. They only had enough ships left for one last stand against those greedy sun-soaked posers.
"What orders should I pass along, sir?" The lanky man asked, tucking his sparse, thinning hair behind his ears.
The general swiveled back around and spat the wad of venom he'd been chewing at the pathetic man. "You're still here?"
Said envoy nodded, taking a few steps back.
Just as quickly as his anger had flared, he calmed. "Outfit the last of the ships made from the Efreet pines."
"With all due respect, that will take months. We won't survive that long."
"Do you doubt me?"
The smaller man ducked his eyes and shook his head vigorously.
"Then get it done in two. They'll be coming for Efreet next. At least we'll have the benefit of surprise. Even if we will be fighting in derelicts."
"What about the Wormwood?"
"The Wormwood always stays to protect our home, Gorgossium. Now get to work."
The messenger backed out, bowing, and the General swiveled back to look down on the sergeant shouting out the count in an Abaratian dialect. The men were starting off with push-ups in their training to become the last soldiers in Night's army. They were in a large area set aside and hidden from sight behind the Carrion Mansion, and down below, two future killers whispered a scandalous conversation, unbeknownst to the General or yelling Sergeant.
"I have got to screw her before we leave for battle."
His friend snorted. "As if she'd give a halfheart like you a second glance."
"I wouldn't even allow her a first." He smirked conspiratorially.
"More like you'd be tortured and hung in Gallows Forest before you could blink."
"For the most beautiful princess in Gorgossium, it's worth it." He responded, and was about to continue when the Sergeant stomped over with a glare. Kicking a hand from beneath him he growled, "Pinok, if I have to hear another sound out of your trap, it'll be the whipping post for you."
"Yes, sir." His friend replied for him, and earned a solid kick to the face.
. . .
Thant Yeyla Carrion never left her room much. What with her brothers off dying in the war, her sisters spent an unhealthy amount of time trying to kill her and snatch away the throne. It all just wasn't worth the effort.
Today however, she was bored, so she went to wile away the time near the whipping posts. Since the cracks had woken her up they might as well better her mood. She arrived just as the last few fell on the last tied up man. His soldier's jacket lay on the ground and (bare-chested) he yelled out, "A pleasure to meet you, princess." Her eyebrows shot up in shock, the nerve.
Then, just before they pulled the knot loose for his hands, he gave her a wink and a smile. Else, that's what the blush on her cheeks deemed it as. The entire left side of his body was covered in bandages, and he could have blinked and smirked and she would still have had no inkling of the truth.
She wouldn't say he intrigued her, but her interpretation left her feeling a tad bit merciful. She called out to Nurse. "Patch him up in the kitchen." She pointed a wicked finger at the presumptuous man. "I like the smell of blood before breakfast."
. . .
Thant adjusted her bodice as she entered the eating room. A long table awaited her, and the guards ceremoniously surrounded her as the small breakfast was brought in. She could have spent these few moments mentally commenting on the portraits on the wall, or the small ritual that took place as her escorts inspected her food for her, or even the slight loneliness she felt living a life so far removed from the rest of her family, but alas, she didn't. She instead inspected her nails and flicked out a piece of dirt. Perhaps she should paint them again? Red was always a good choice, but she was feeling partial to purple.
As the door closed behind the cooks, she slid elegantly into her seat, practicing for the throne. "Finally. Ipractically have to fight a war to get breakfast in a timely manner."
She sniffed haughtily and cracked open her first boiled unborn chicken egg and took a healthy bite out of the embryo's head. The coppery perfume of blood filled her nostrils and she sighed happily.
Putting down the fetus, she unfolded the napkin to place in her lap and noticed a small piece of paper that fluttered out of it. She glanced around to see if it was some sort of assassin trap, deemed it wasn't, and bent down to retrieve it.
8=== (rated R)
It was a crudely drawn picture of a thing quite too explicit for her virgin eyes.
Signed by a soldier who had no fear of the pain she could inflict.
Her lip curled into a snarl and she slammed the scrap into the table. With a flourish of her gown she rose and headed menacingly for the kitchen and that scoundrel. That little bugger would pay for laughing at her expense.
Thrusting open the swinging doors she found him leaning against the tiled wall. She reached back to slap him, but he caught it and kissed her palm. "So happy to see you again, Thant. Pinok at your service." He held up his bandaged hand to still her voice. "I must apologize for my means of communication, I don't know how to write."
"I should have left you on the ground to rot." She spit.
"Oh Thant, you and I both know you don't have it in your heart to leave your skein-mate in dire straights." His hands shimmied to her sides and pulled her hips against his.
"Filthy pig."
He grinned, leaned over and rubbed the covered side of his face against her cheek. It sent goosebumps down her neck. "Why don't you meet me during sleeping hours? Somewhere where there are less prying eyes."
"When the sky falls, I hope you survive just to die a slow torturous death afterwards." (But she blushed)
"I'll take that as a 'yes, please.'"
. . .
She wasn't coming.
Pinok frowned at the lonely Gorgossium bridge he had been waiting under. Waiting under for an hour. "Damn princess thinks she's so high and mighty."
He dumped her Rufilin saturated drink into the fast flowing river and downed the rest of his wine. Well she wasn't going to get away with it. He knew where she lived.
The soldier stumbled up the bank and back onto the cobblestone street, kicking at an urchin. The castle shed pinpricks of light into the everlasting night, and he could barely make out her tower near the front. They had trained near it often, and he was fairly certain it was the one with the long creeper vine.
He could get up to her window. What was it, twenty, thirty feet? Pigs knees, he could do that with his eye closed. Plus, alcohol allowed you the ability to be incredibly focused. And once he got up there, she would gasp with that pretty pink mouth and she would be sorry that he had to waste a perfectly good dose of immobility. And then he would...then...
"Blast, I'll think of that later."
. . .
Yeyla poked her needle through the embroidery she continually worked on. Her brothers always said she had a talent for it, and now she steadily etched a scene of death and horror across the small tapestry in her lap. A knight of Day with steaming sword snipping away her frightened brother's life with a slice to his head. She sneered. He would forever be remembered as pitiful, just the way he always treated her. Fitting, that.
She set the portrait down upon her vanity and moved on to her open window. The Night was still, and from her window she could see port. Isabella sloshed, black and terrifying, and the stars above provided little solace to the ghastly beasts living in shadowed terror.
Then the flame of her lamp flickered. Or a blink? Blown out of proportion by a bored mind, stirred to creeping madness inside four small walls? Or a breeze, too stupid to die at sea like its sisters? She looked further; did the hallway seem dimmer than before?
She moved quickly, on slim legs that knew stealth after a lifetime of politics and murder. Snapping her embroidery needle from its perch, she slipped behind her door, not even having time to hold her breath as it slid steadily open.
She smelled it first. Grotesque, lumpy, rotting flesh, snuffling about her bed and linens. Tall and thick like a man, but hairy like a beast. It turned, throwing things off her desk, giving her a view of the foamy spit around its tusks, the piggy nose, the small beady eyes. It moved to her window, out of her sight, shuffling its gross weight disturbingly. She gripped her long needle tighter, the fear in her making her tense.
Then the door slammed into her.
It threw the breath from her lungs, almost breaking her toes and bent her double, gasping. His beefy fingers encircled her neck, tightening, and pressing her against the wall.
She stabbed with her arm, quick and nimble, and the needle pierced its eye. Milky ooze dripped down its face, the only tears that would ever be shed over her body. Even now her vision darkened quickly, she originally had so little air, and the strength of his fingers allowed little more. He pressed into her further. She could feel the lump of his manhood warm against her skirts, and the murderous intent of his face could not hide the wanton desire in his eyes. She would be so disgraced in death.
Then even it's piggy face left her vision and she slumped, semi-conscious. He squeezed a few moments longer, then tossed her atop her threads, seeming to think her dead. She thought herself dead. It was in a haze that she felt the beast slide up her skirts, and in growing horror as she felt his hand on her ankles, knees, and thighs. She was alive. And for this—she would have to be silent.
.
When Pinok fell into Thant's room from her balcony window, his arms trembling and curses on his lips ready to be launched in her direction, he was astonished to find a piggy beast with fly-bitten twitching ears ravaging his prize.
He first felt perturbed. What a waste of effort, he thought, something beat him to it.
This seed of annoyance, fed by the alcohol of his drunken stupor, grew into a belligerence. A rage that pulled him to his feet, held his sword with unsteady hands, and gutted the creature where it sat. He stumbled while fitting his sword back into its sheath, then kicked aside the pig with a grunt, able now to see the pile of pale linen that lay prone at its feet.
He saw there the princess, pale and soft in the moonlight, even in death. Her blonde hair splayed beneath her head like a whore's, marred only by the pig's blood. Her skirts bunched around her hips and the beast's hand still gripped her leg in a caress. Slender and feminine. Sexier even if wrapped around his waist. Those legs beckoned him.
Her body would still be warm, as her rosy cheeks belied. He would probably be unable to tell the difference if he continued the work the beast started…
Her eyes opened. "Soldier?" She whispered, unmoving, disbelief in her eyes even if proof stained her skin red.
"Pinok, actually."
If she saw the hunger in his eyes, she denied it. "Pinok. You saved me." She knelt, stood, woozy on her legs and long fingers reaching hesitantly towards him. "Why?"
He stared, deciding, planning in a pregnant pause. Then he relaxed, smiling warmly, pulling her into his arms. "Shush, my dear, save your strength."
He held her body tighter against him, a devious smirk breaching his charade. "We have many Nights to come to understand one another."
. . .
Thant Yeyla felt hesitant when she arrived on the outskirts of the soldier's camp. She wrapped her spiderweb shawl tighter around her shoulders and faced the hundreds of covetous eyes turned towards her. She put on her best perturbed face and focused it on Pinok when he finally pushed his way through the crowd. "You made me wait."
He wrapped an arm around her waist and she bucked it off. "Soon you'll admire me for not acting like another one of your servants."
She sniffed. "Perhaps when the dragon king weds a chicken."
He laughed and steered her by tugging at her hair. Upon reaching his tent, he opened the flap wide and bowed.
"This is your idea of taking me out on a date? A moonlit walk from the edge of camp to your carnal-smelling tent?"
"My dear, you think too highly of me." Then he knocked her forwards by a thrust of his knee and swept in after her. Thant lay in a heap of her skirts and had to crawl and roll around quite indelicately before she had straightened herself out. "Why do you continue to where so many layers around me?" Pinok questioned.
"To keep your wandering hands away from my legs." Thant watched her soldier turn and rummage around in a small chest near the head of his bedmat. This was the first time she had visited his tent, and he appeared to have cleaned up for her. She appreciated that. "I thought we were going to dine tonight?"
"Your lips taste sweeter than any broiled shellfish Gorgossium could provide."
"Oh, don't you have such a sensual poetic style?" She replied dryly. "You're skipping to the make-out scene again."
He grinned at her and smoothed the bandages on his scalp sheepishly. "But you love me anyways, don't you?" She blushed and he finally produced the present he had been searching for.
"A flower?" She reached out for the colorless blossom, and it wiggled in her hand. She let out a surprised gasp and dropped it onto the dirt floor.
"I made it from my rice pouch, and a little of the magic mud that bubbles from the Todo rocks."
The ugly flower crawled toward her like an inchworm until it nestled in her lap happily. "And did some of your perverted traits rub off on it?"
He raised his palms in innocence. "It is completely sentient of its own accord."
The young princess grasped it by its stem and held it in front of her face. The living rice pouch bent towards her and fondly scratched her cheek with its course fibers.
"It's adorable." She pulled the half-bandaged soldier into an embrace, and he immediately grazed his lips along her neck. A strong kiss or two later, and he had gotten her underneath him on his bedmat, and was searching for a way through her lavish skirts.
"Pinok," Thant said, stuffing the wiggling flower into her bodice and sitting up, "I'm still hungry for shellfish."
. . .
As the weeks passed she increasingly risked more and more to see him, and Pinok tried every trick in the book to get under her skirts. But he was charming and a brave soldier in her father's army, and she was charmed. He knew how to pull her in with a quirk of his half-smile, and she knew how to keep him running back for more. She believed they shared a love, and maybe they did, but she endlessly ignored any signs that said it wasn't.
Tonight was going to be their last night before he left for the last battle in Efreet. If the Night troops didn't damage the opposing fleet enough, the next to fall would be Gorgossium, and she didn't want to see her home island in flames.
In light of the impending danger, she wore her best live boa and met him in Gallows Forest.
"You look beautiful dressed in shadows, my Yeyla. But you would have looked better had you worn nothing."
"As sly as ever, I see." She responded, laying her head on his chest and reveling in his presence and cannibalistic squirrels cavorting above their heads. "I can't believe you're leaving so soon. I feel like I barely got to know you."
"I agree, I don't know you nearly as much as I would have liked."
She kissed him full on the lips, let him deepen it, and when he tried to steer her to the ground, pulled away. It left him sitting at her feet.
"Why don't you join me down here?" He patted the spot next to him.
She smiled happily and lowered herself down, stabilizing her bountiful skirts and pointy heels with a tight grip on his thigh.
He shuddered and pulled her against him, speaking softly into her hair and running a hand along her stomach. "Would you please give me an incredible memory to remember you with?"
She leaned her head back on his shoulder and clasped his hand in hers. "Tell me you love me, Pinok."
"I love you, Thant."
"Then before you leave, I have to know. Why do you forever wear these bandages around me?"
He laughed. "Because of War."
She turned and looked him in the eye. "But you haven't seen battle yet."
"No, you misunderstand." He showed her both his hands, the left tightly bound and the right-alive and warm. "The half that I let you see I call Peace. My other is War. And when I go into battle it will be that side my enemies sees, and they will tremble in fear."
She put two hesitating fingers on the strips that covered his face. "Let me see."
"No, Thant. It'll ruin everything." He grabbed her wrist and she pouted.
"I'm not squeamish. Just this morning I watched a man eat his own toes out of starvation."
"Regardless, this is not a Night for morbidity. This is a Night for fun." He crooned. "Come a little closer, Theyla, my dear."
She sighed, exasperated, and her boa constrictor hissed while slithering round his neck. She said, "Tell me again that you love me."