Author Games: A Knight's Valor

Valor Two: Mavary Valls

The night was a crescent of the barren world. Mavary hadn't seen the light of day since he was deemed a demon of the nighttime, where those he didn't know questioned his virtues and ridiculed his vices. He refused to leave the comfort of the castle during the day, disallowing human interaction and condition alike. He was alone; he didn't feel lonely, only afraid. Only guilty. There was an air to him that was always clean, but now it was otherwise fogged and gloomy. His hands crinkled a paper, adorned and ornamented and dirtied by a message he memorized.

-not a lioness...a jackal. A single claw...jackal.

Kill...jackal-

He dropped it, hearing it land upon the floor like a wisp. The words were distant in his mind. Echoing translucently, they were ghosts of thought, catalysts to Mavary's entire life; well, the few hours he had left. The second letter was a ruse to him, speaking of the handsome prince in such an ignorant manner. To say Jonathan was worse than Melinda was like saying Mavary was still Mavary- a lie.

He stepped to the lone window, watching pellets of snow fall, appearing as if they were flakes of the heavenly moon. Unlatching the wood from the glass, the room lessened in hostility and confinement; Mavary looked back at the locked, bedroom door, frowning at it because it failed at keeping him inside. Part of him begged incarceration to steal his body, take his brain, and mush it up to small bits that could not decipher right and wrong, death and life. However, the window opened; Mavary was a step closer to dying, a second past due time.

There was no attention left, so he simply fell from the window sill and into the snow, a few feet below, beside a towering and stone wall. He forgot if it was grey or black; he did not look back to see. Mavary dragged his feet through the snow, creating pathways instead of footsteps, digging weight and not glory. His thoughts were defined as confused, too muddy to be coherent and too crimson to be his. This earth is too far gone for us...too far gone for me.

He traveled through the woods. A common man would expect Queen Melinda to stay in her castle, but Mavary knew more than this. He was aware of the hidden land, past the flowing river and past the snowy trees; a cabin of spruce was graceful in the distance, less embellished than a single room of the royal palace. Mavary snickered at the sight of it, pulling the second letter out from his pocket, letting it dampen in the snowfall. A man in a black uniform stood guard in front of the door, surely holding a sword that could chop him up- bleeding- crimson- and dead.

Mavary was never afraid of death.

The birds in the air were staring at the boy,
Demonic and feathery, all built out of joy-
Erase the living, and you'll find the dead.
As they pecked and they pecked at a little boy's head.

The birds in the air were ready to fly.
Atmospheric, airy, arid and dry-
Discover a skeleton, you'll know why he cries.
As they pecked and they pecked; he let them fly.

He let them fly; he always let people fly above him. Mavary Valls was the man to take advantage of; knighthood must've treated him well.

He retreated from behind a tree, stumbling with falsity into the clearing, making himself know to the guard. His skin whitened as he tripped into the snow more than once, frostbite tickling him gallantly.

"Sir!" The guard immediately snapped to Mavary, hand on the sword in a mere second of a second. Mavary did not seem dangerous; not a threat, nor a killer, but a pretty man with a face of broken silk. So, he listened when Mavary spoke. "The Prince," he called, "Back at the castle, the Prince needs help!" Calm and loud, he crawled to the guard, placing the paper, the second letter, in his hand. Reading it quickly, the guard nodded, trusting Mavary because he was a knight. Trusting Mavary because his intentions were pure. Mistrusting Mavary, because his valor was false..

He waited until the black figure dissipated. Then, he stood and faced the door, opening it with the slowest and swiftest of turns. It creaked; he wished it hadn't. When he shut it behind him, it was like sealing a fate he had never thought of, solidifying the hollowness of a jailed life. Mavary, in the darkness, stepped up to the queen's bedside, listening to her quiet breaths, watching her hands rise and fall above her chest. At least, she'd be asleep.

Mavary bent his hands over her neck.

a noose of skin, a blanket of sin, a harrowing win, a time to begin

His hands cringed back.

He couldn't do it; he could not make himself murder. As the winds blew trees, as the sky dimmed, as his eyes closed with menace, Mavary Valls became a lost man. Lost within himself, for identity had escaped, lost- lost- forever.

The wind halted.

The sky beckoned twilight.

His eyes flashed open without color.

Mavary looked down at the sleeping queen and smiled. You've hurt me, he thought, You tore my wings and prevented me from flying.

You hurt me.

The birds in the air cooed and they cawed.
The boy on the ground whispered with awe-
"Look at them fly, look at them roam,
a sky of endlessness to love and call home."

The birds in the air chirped and they cried.
The boy on the ground, with a future untied-
"Look at them go, look at them leave,
I'll commit a crime that you'll never believe."

He leaned over her body, stopping breathe, grabbing the pillow from under her head, softly- Mavary would never be soft again- and lifting it to his chest. The way his hands clutched the thing was unnatural, so tight that he gripped demons into the fabric. Tears flowed freely down his cheeks a, but he was not crying; no, men do not cry, men with valor do not cry.

Mavary was no man.

When he lowered the pillow to her face, Queen Melinda awoke to suffocation. She was not strong enough to defy, nor tough enough to fight back. Her last moments were spent staring into white; his last moments were spent fearing red.

I am no man.

The birds in the air spoke and they lied,
an entrance to tranquility, a fateful deny.
The boy was a man, the man was then dead,
and death was a shadow above the Queen's bed.

The birds in the air flew and they flew...
Trust and Loyalty, Mercy and Grief, Valor untrue...
Mavary relinquished all of these things,

for

Knights...

Knights have no wings