To Drown in Power(And Re-Emerge Heartless)

Don't Wanna Hurt(I of II)

Your majesty, is it wrong to want more food on the table?

They are doing what you don't have the will to do.

He was undoing his father's greatest mistake.

The easy path is rarely the more satisfying one.

A full military campaign then.

If you do not care for your people how can you expect them to care for you?

He couldn't. He failed Astus. He failed his laborers. He failed his dissenters. He failed his soldiers. 

He failed everyone. He failed Amina.

He was supposed to be the turning point in Sivic history. He was supposed to be a new start. He was supposed to fix things. He was supposed to care for his people. He was supposed to be different. He was supposed to do something. At least he was doing something.

And yet here he was in his royal robe riding his fat stallion above his gaunt soldiers draped in rags. Here he was heading deeper into the pass that had taken half the men he sent marching in. Here he was walking over the graves of his people.

He never wanted them to die. He never wanted the adoration and admiration that made them fools. No one told him, no, anymore. He just wished someone would.

He wanted someone to stop it all. All the death. All the bloodshed. All the fighting. All the hunger. All the lies.

Astus deserved to die. He was fixing things. The insurgents had to be quelled. He was doing okay. They wanted to go.

So comforting. So easy. So simple.

He never wanted to hurt them. And yet he had. Over. And over. And over. And over. And ov-.

"You've been rather quiet, your majesty," Noram interjected, "Are you feeling alright?"

"Yeah. Sure." No. Another lie. He wasn't fine. Hadn't been fine for a while.

"Sir, is there something bothering you?" he pushed. Xien why wouldn't Noram just leave him alone? He wouldn't understand.

"I said I'm fine," he snapped. Lies. Those were all he ever told these days.

How many times had he said that this would be the last party heading into the canyon? That they had enough supplies to last out the bitter winter? That they would win?

He couldn't tell them no. Couldn't say they were fighting a fools war. Couldn't tell them there were no more guns. Couldn't tell them there was no more food.

He couldn't let them down; so he let them march onwards. Let them stumble, disillusioned, into their cold graves. Let the snow bury them until they were nothing more than a number on a report. He never did anything. He had to do something.

"Actually," he said, interrupting the monotonous clopping of hoofs and jangling of gear. Gear that his soldiers had to carry when their last steed collapsed a few miles back from the cold and exhaustion. "I was thinking we make camp to wait for Ascilia's group,"

"With all due respect sir, we are barely a few days away from the exit," Noram argued, "It would be ill advised to halt our steady progress,"

"It would be ill advised to continue onwards without proper supplies and precautions." Could he not see the soldiers were starving? Did he not care for them? None of them would make it to the end of the pass even if there weren't any traps along the way.

"Why are you suddenly all concerned about the Aquilo, sir?" Was he not concerned? Did he not fear death alone in the frigid mountains? Did he not understand that soldiers ambushed by the Aquilo never made it out of the mountain alive? "We started attacking barely more than a month ago, there is no way the Aquilo could raise and station an army that quickly"

"They were a barely organized group of rebel slaves during the first war," he countered. Had Noram never picked up a history book? Had he never looked at the records from that war? Did he not understand what happened? "As Amina reminded me, there is a reason the Northern Revolution is called the White Massacre,"

"Sir, you think the word of a servant is valid military advice?"

She was more than a servant. She was his guard. His confidant. His friend. She said the things he was too afraid to. Too cowardly to.

And Noram had the gall to question her.

"She may not be a strategist like you, but she is a student of history," he said, barely containing his anger. Noram wasn't his top general for no reason, there had to be a logic to his words. "The Aquilo have never needed numbers or supplies to decimate our troops. Now stop."

There had to be a reason why Noram kept pushing even as the soldiers dropped one by one by one by one. Dead and hollow. Just like Astus had been a year and a half ago. It had really only been a year and half? A year and a half and his people were still starving, and suffering, and dying, and-.

Astus. Xien only knew he was still haunted by what he did that day. He still saw those eyes in his sleep, peering around corners, lurking in shadows. Still heard the words, the rope, the crowd. That was the last time he was fine.

"We have yet to encounter the Aquilo's saboteur," "I think that is a sign to continue,"

A sign? Like Astus's people had seen when he killed him. A sign like when he signed the Sequi Agreement again? A sign like when he pushed Amina away?

"That's not a valid reason." If only he had listened to her. But he didn't, and now he was stuck arguing with his advisor in the middle of enemy mountains while his starving people played soldiers. He was done with it all. He was done doing nothing.

"I said stop!"

Everyone in the party finally came to a halt. Snow stopped crunching, gear stopped clanging, and whispers stopped entirely.

And it was quiet.

Too quiet.