A Rebel in your Thoughts
LANCER:
Two men, one with fading lavender hair and a grizzled jawline and the other a bruised and bloodied wolf-shifter in his prime, sat side by side, watching a scene play out from the other side of a one-way barrier.
Thud.
The fist of the white void struck the young man's jaw.
"Are you scared?"
Thud.
"Is irrational violence scary?"
The voice was sourceless, and it echoed the collective screams of centuries.
"Mmph!"
The young man, really just a boy, pleaded with the void behind his gag—tears mixing with the blood smears on his cheeks, drawing red watercolored lines all the way down his exposed chest.
Thud.
Another blow, this time to the lowest rib—right below the ropes that bound him to the chair. The boy screamed through the rag that barred his speech.
"It's confusing, isn't it?"
Thud.
"Why me? What is going on? I've lived an honest life thus far. That's what you're thinking, isn't it?"
The white void took a break from the punches and walked over to a table with an array of all sorts of horrible objects laid out. The void—the thing caressed the tools like a painter fanning his brushes. It picked up a pin cushion.
"Honestly, I can't answer any of those questions for you, I'm afraid."
The phantom plucked a pin from its home, held it up to a blank white face, and examined the point with non-existent eyes.
"See, I don't know the answers myself."
The boy's eyes, very real in their desperation, pleaded with the ghost of a once great man. He was a man, no longer.
"Mm-mm! Mmph!"
The boy, no older than fifteen shook his head furiously as a hand of white void grabbed his thumb, and placed the tip of the pin just under the nail, poised to meet flesh.
In grim horror, the boy could not look away. His eyes remained fixed on the pin. He'd gone deathly still.
"Yet here we are. You, scared out of your wits for violence you feel undeserved. And me, committing heinous acts for reasons I am not privy to. Shall we look for the answers together?"
The void drew back a palm, then slammed it into the back of the pin.
Convulsions shook the poor kid, a silent scream broke through the gag, felt rather than heard.
"…"
"Fifteen is the perfect age to break people like you, I have found." The man with fading lavender hair sat regally, as if the ordinary chair were a throne, lording over this dungeon like it was his entire kingdom.
"…"
"They are old enough to understand exactly what is being done to them, yet young enough to retain innocence. Their ego is unsteady—their pride: fragile. Like a vase, all it takes is a nudge and…"
"AAAAGH!" The void was done with one hand, a pin under each nail. It picked up the other and began anew.
"Then they're in a thousand little pieces on the floor."
King Sebastian Ether turned to look at the man seated next to him, a man who displayed his own signs of abuse. He was strung out on opium, he knew. Not enough to cloud his mind—that would ruin the purpose of this twisted exercise. No, just enough to limit his magic to little more than party tricks. Opium suppressed Zyph, and under the right dosage, could dull pain enough to allow lucid thought.
"You can end this, you know." He wanted to. Zyph and spirits, he wanted to end this for that poor innocent boy.
"His name is Xander, son of Yuder and Gella. He's half wolf-shifter and half human—his father was one of the lucky ones who was granted citizenship through the lottery program. He works as an apprentice cobbler down by the docks and has this sweet little girlfriend who is the daughter of an herbalist. The poor thing is probably wondering why Xander hasn't shown up for their date right about now."
"What is it you want? Do you want me to disband the rebels? It's done, just leave that poor boy alone." It was hard to believe such cruelty existed in this world.
The king laughed a wicked below, "Hardly! You guys drum up fear in the populace. Fear is a very useful tool, as my phantom is currently demonstrating." King Sebastian Ether gestured to the boy, now little more than a shattered vase on the ground.
The king sighed, composing himself, "You will be taking orders from me from now on. You strike where I tell you to strike. You kill who I tell you to kill. You take who I tell you to take. I want my orders carried out to a tee. If you refuse to do so, I have six phantoms and a city's worth of fifteen-year-olds to pick from. Your choice."
"I—I accept." Lancer, wolf lycanthrope and leader of the rebel forces stationed in Andeir, the capital of Ether, bowed his head in submission to the very man he swore to overthrow.
The king smiled. A gentle and rotten smile, "Good. Now, on a totally unrelated note, do you know how knights of this kingdom are sworn into position?"