Passerine

Chapter 4: my birds of a kind (they more and more are looking like centurions)

Summary:

All able-bodied citizens of the kingdom are called to the king's castle, the letters all said, carried from bustling towns to quiet villages by messengers on the kingdom's most swift-footed horses and courier birds taking to their familiar wind-carved routes. War is coming, and it is time to defend your motherland.

//

Three men stood on a balcony where once there were two. A mortal king, a mortal prince, and their red-eyed teacher. In the gardens below, travelers were gathering, most weary from their journey from every corner of the vast kingdom. Even now, more were still pouring into the capital city, staring in wide-eyed confusion, a conscription notice tucked into their pockets or crushed between nervous fingers.

All able-bodied citizens of the kingdom are called to the king's castle, the letters all said, carried from bustling towns to quiet villages by messengers on the kingdom's most swift-footed horses and courier birds taking to their familiar wind-carved routes. War is coming, and it is time to defend your motherland.

The conscription letter had gone on to specify that only those over the age of eighteen were to be included in the king's army. Many had chosen to ignore that. Among the horde trickling slowly into the heart of the kingdom was a brown-haired boy a year shy of the stipulated age. He kept the hood of his battered cloak up, so no one could see the traces of boyhood still etched into his skin like a brand.

Someone noticed. It was a girl with hair as pink as the hibiscuses she grew in her garden. She had lived in the city all her life. Once, a man with the same hibiscus-pink hair had walked into her flower shop, his eyes bleak and unfocused. He'd asked her if she had any yellow roses for sale, and had bought it all. It was only later that she realized who the man was, but by then he'd already left, heading towards the woods that bordered the city. Now, she marched along the city streets that had become unfamiliar over the course of a week. She'd left her garden to the care of an elderly neighbor. A sign was left on her flower shop door, telling hopeful customers that it was closed indefinitely. There was nothing else to do now but follow the course of the crowd, keeping an eye on a stranger that was definitely much younger than her, wondering whether or not he'd outlive her.

They passed underneath the castle gates, where a woman they called the Captain kept a watchful eye. She was under orders to turn away anyone too young, too sick, too old—but every time she looked into their eyes, she only saw herself. She'd clawed her way to her position, made sure to earn her reputation, and had stood guard over the royal family for over a decade. It was her stubbornness that got her to where she was, adorned with medallions from the king—both old and new. It was stubbornness that she saw in these people now. So while she did her duty by barring the way for the youngest, the sickest and the oldest, if she turned away for a moment when an aged warrior did her best to hide the wrinkles on the backs of her scarred hands, or when a seventeen-year-old boy pulled his hood lower over his face, or when a strong-jawed smith from the city limped by her with a broken foot that wasn't quite healed yet... well, she would consider that her duty, too.

By the time the boy and the flower shopkeeper found themselves in the garden, it was crowded. People stood shoulder-to-shoulder, pushing and pulling like a tide on the trampled remains of the dead queen's flowers. The shopkeeper grimaced as her boots treaded across petals and stems, violently returning them to their soil. The boy did not notice the flowers at all. He was staring up at the balcony, looking at the man whose call was answered by thousands.

Most of them had never seen their king before, but they've all heard the stories of a boy crowned on the eve of his sixteenth birthday after his father's mysterious disappearance—or death, or assassination, depending on which rumors you believed—and guided by a strange adviser. A kingdom of peace would never have had any reason to know the name Technoblade, but those who heard the folk story of a red-eyed emperor from a cold and distant land whispered amongst themselves at the resemblance, or the coincidence, or whatever word they could use to explain away the uneasiness brewing in their gut.