x
Please leave a comment I really am curious if you guys think this chapter is well-written or not!
92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKhqtiGAFma
"You gambled back there that the locals would'nt pick you apart too Huck" I was sitting in the passenger seat this time around as Aiko made her way down an abandoned freeway. The road was devoid of any human life as gazelles grazed beautifully on the river bank running perpendicular to the main highway of Buriti.
92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIdl0ByNoE4
"What, Koi nah--I had been bumming around this sector for the last week." She seemed to be contemplating something as her brown freckled face remained stony; eyes on the barren road. I don't know what her problem was-she was my sister's keeper, not me. Well, I guess she was mine now. Culture dictated that both the Vascan king and his female kin be followed by a lone bodyguard that was meant to only answer to him and the family he deemed worthy of the Shadow Sentry's titanium-like loyalty.
92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCkPGW0SmYd
"Can you listen really quickly?" Her voice was rough as always as Aiko slowed down from the high velocity we had maintained since the incident with Dennis. I've never been one to dwell on the past but since this morning-the morning air has kept forcing my mind's eye to the shattered mural that is my past. Listening was also never one of my strong suits...
92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXaVuNjKV0B
I had spent an unhealthy amount of time with Aiko leeching her Shadow training as a royal sentry. Every summer when she and Kash would come back from Svetlo-Vascan boarding school. Terrorizing the onyx marble walls of our gaudy palace with their talk of stratagem and use on my chubby body for endless games of torture and sarcasm. Kash was a fierce debater while Aiko always solved everything with the swift physicality of someone twice her size, which had tapered to a confident 6'4 by the time we were eighteen.
92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ60h4xHBSqd
When my sister had fallen asleep in her vapidly jeweled royal bed. We had spent nights attempting to find ways away from Buriti and all its follies...cutting our arms and legs on screws jutting from vents--Spying on my Father and uncle for hours as they planned their next ill-fated assault on our own people.
92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkrozmv638H
Aiko's brown eyes almost seem to glimmer in the moonlight brighter than any star in the vast desert night sky...Now we were just two adults who seemed to not care about anything but the paths we had set. I considered her my friend though it was a messy subject.
92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGKebHRyzVQ
"Sure, you basically have me hostage. Like back when you would sneak from my sister's guard duty..." I let my eyes wander over the road again as the clay dirt was whipping small vortexes against empty houses. We entered the outskirts of the capital quickly. The drive felt so empty, all things considered, yet peaceful.
92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0VUw1r1v7D
"Huck...I'm going to leave if you aren't taking this seriously--I've never left Buriti my whole life, I've rarely even been alone since I was assigned to your wonderful late sister" She pulled off the main highway abruptly. I felt her eyes finally breaking slightly from the normal thousand-yard stare. "We need to go by foot from here so we don't catch a stray air raid," I noticed she wiped a single tear from her melancholic face, I caught myself from reaching out and wiping it...too soon for something so intimate again.
92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaMTx8sURHo
I'd never seen Aiko cry. She had been there when her younger siblings were dismembered and used as bargaining chips to her father...The head-Late head general of Vasca Myus Ewabatta. The situation itself paled this one in my seldom-taken opinion--even if it was my family this time. I remembered my father's leathery face nearly cracking in the hot sun at the news.
92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡn3a0Vp3RLS
we had just gotten anywhere with the rebels with Aiko's father's help and then...two weeks of village raids resulted in a major blow to the structure of the rebels at the time. Obviously, our parents saw this as a power move but only stood to exacerbate everyone involved. On one particularly dusty afternoon, they had taken her whole family and began torturing them mercilessly for hours on end...the only thing that had saved her was the fact my father had been particularly fond of her much to my mother's disgust.
92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnJXcVZtiOR
She had come to garner so much of my father's rancid 'favor' that she even escaped her second forced betrothal with my now-dead older cousin. Though Aiko and Dennis had been betrothed each had stalled on any plans in the 2 years they had been engaged. I had wondered if it was due to my sister's last years of school or Dennis being...odd to say the least.
92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJxOVkMH3Bf
She turned to me as we waited for the rumbling M-10 tank heading toward us. "You know Kash was supposed to turn 20 in 2 weeks?" Her words were conveyed almost in the same low tone as the rumbling. We stopped briefly as soldiers began assisting me and Aiko. They seemed more tense than the standard royal guards. There had been many talks of Dennis taking power and now he was nowhere to be found, exiled drunkard in his stead.
92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlo8epzJ74I
"I thought my sister's birthday was in October..." Memories of my charming younger sister came rushing to me as I began placing a bulletproof vest briskly. Kasiha Vasca is the brightest pupil our shoddy Capital State College can offer: is all my father and mother would say before carting her off to more boarding school. Like she wasn't wasting away in a state-run military camp. I had never been formally educated--A Vasca in name but my father did not want me. His fervent applause for my sister and Dennis still rang in my ears now. The memories as fast as they came, went. Aiko now had a regime of soldiers lined up as she flawlessly led a speech I had disassociated from. I was standing on the corner of a desolate city street as they lined the asphalt with their boots.
92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkUTaSwDdes
Each man a scarred visage of our country's past and present crisis'. Hot rays of sol baked my brown skin as Aiko's voice boomed from my left. "Huckleberry Vasca is the last remaining royal in all of Buriti...The rebels have taken the life of Grand Regent Dennis. We stand at the precipice of disaster as our country's enemies line at our borders-Cackling filthy hyenas ready to attempt to use this moment of weakness as their chance to fill their rapacious bellies." Her face was stone-like but her words dripped with acrid nature.
92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtpinJscobR
Hushed voices came without mouths among the men standing resolute nearly eating every last word that left her mouth. Aiko's voice silenced the line once it rang out. "You are to protect our new King while he meets with Grandpa Aygu. You will cease any fire unless told otherwise by me or the king himself." The small Square formation of soldiers clicked in unison now as they took places to cover-fire positions and stage the tense meeting.
92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡceCR791OZG
Aiko gestured in a simple Buritian salute, Fist raised then lowered firmly to one's side. She then began to speak to me without looking away from the procession of soldiers. "I do not know how long we have Huck until they arrive...I really want to speak with you alone" She motioned to a small alley being used as a makeshift base of operations.
92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ58wSC2lbPT
The brick wall had blown out of a sewing kit factory making it difficult to traverse quickly. The old building did not withstand anything above 6 feet when the bombs hit. I stepped over some militarized sandbags as the side opening gave way to a partially barricaded room. We stood in an office with a small amount of light peering through from a skylight with audible sounds of soldiers preparing for a confrontation outside the brick walls.
92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡELGDy7lYbb
"Well, Koi what...I doubt you keep asking me to talk to keep just tindering your resignation?" I sat down in a rickety leather chair that instantly gave way. The shards of wood splintered my right ass cheek like I has been attacking a porcupine den. I held my tongue knowing that a true Vascan king never shows his weakness.
92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtdlvCLNWUj
Her face remained unchanged as she granted me our cultural respect of ignoring my folly "You need to choose how we will move forward once you give a pardon to these insurgents--Mind you I do see your idea but you only have handled the issue of reuniting our military. We still contend now with I will have to step down to a fifty-six-year-old madman who employs child soldiers."
92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNAt21B3eXj
Aiko finally flinched as the words left her full lips. Trepidation was admirable but I did not have time for her doubts. Her deep brown eyes were now transfixed on mine like she meant to gleam at what she assumed were little thoughts I had given to the matter at hand. "You think too small--I didn't have you commit treason for nothing Aiko. With Dennis out of the way dead...you stand to benefit greatly as a minister of defense and internal affairs...not to mention a free woman again." I stood up after saying the whole monologue I had been saving since the car ride.
92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfcdLkPUTDc
"You don't seriously think the Daughter of the highest-ranking Military official can really act as a petty minister while you parade a pirate as our general." She folded her arms the same way she normally did when she didn't believe a speck of what I said. Why is she fighting me so hard? We had spent so many years fighting a cartel turned freedom fighting group. The amount of foreign aid they received nearly outweighed our own, at least from a military standpoint.
92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkTmWXcJ3he
"I do not plan on going to war, once this civil issue has ended we can focus on rebuilding and reeducating the masses." I knew this was a good idea yet her laughter rang out to my chagrin. "You're very naive, we do not have the manpower to educate the children, they are not tools Huck. Every generation since the Svetlan retraction of the annexation has felt the cold grip of poverty, ignorance, and violence that infests nearly all walks of life here in Buriti Vasca."
92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6kKRiCQ1sv
She sat down at the desk in front of me looking down at her rifle. She fiddled with the long gun anxiously keeping clay from jamming the weapon. I interrupted her racing thoughts with a quick interjection."And you are too willing to say our people cannot do anything but eat ourselves from our own growing pangs...I do not agree that the retraction of our oppressors should be lauded as our savior from our own people" I found myself now sitting next to her on the dark mahogany desk.
92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXCGWz0n5Lx
Its curves allowed an ease of conversation that made me lean into the spirit of my words. "You can act as the hidden hand rooting out the garden for snakes. I act as the face placating Cartel Aygu so they feel like they're standing" Aiko's eyes flashed with a burning look that matched my intensity--shockwaves of repressed emotions welled up as I looked deeply into her eyes...I missed her more than I feared this confrontation.
92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ739YOgKK8P
"You are a drunk idiot Huckleberry Vasca....But this plan is one I can agree has some merit Huck-all these years you've chosen to stay in the shadow of your family still make me uneasy." She adjusted loose curls frayed from her braided hairstyle that framed her light brown skin well under the subtle sun rays. I smiled as the thought of being king had always crossed my mind but not in its former state.
92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnRXNgwxSC1
"I didn't have a purpose...the people only love me for my rejection of my family, my family only loved me for my rejection of the people, and no one has ever taken me seriously due to everyone else's accolades." I usually spent my time drinking at any run-down building they passed for a bar in the lower wards. Running small laps in my own race to no real end...
92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzgb7qko72r
Aiko and I had a very complicated history, to say the least. I had briefly been betrothed to her until one racey night at a Svetlan delegation...I was deemed unfit for the crown and forced marriage. I had always been happy for my own freedom but saddened that Aiko had no agency. No one has asked either of us about our opinions on the matter but that was life is in Buriti nobility.
92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJ1JXOz8qwV
We had never once talked about our short engagement 3 summers ago, even at the time it was something that made both of us feel like cogs. Ever turning pieces of a machine with no purpose but to burn fuel. My sister had told me that night had been the worst the family had ever seen me. Aiko hadn't truly spoken to me since then either...a sense of guilt briefly made me swallow before I almost whispered my next sentence. "When you shot Dennis...how did you feel?"
92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAfojdV2hKa
The sparkle in her eyes briskly faded to a black shark-like gaze piercing through my mind. I did not fear Aiko like the grizzled soldiers she ordered around in a dogma-laced tune. I respected her deeply. She was my future commander, my second in command, and my only living life-line to my past now...and so much more before the prying eyes and my hubris ruined everything."I felt like you were the better of two evils--I take no pride in laying Dennis to rest. Even if he was a showy moron with a god complex, He was sweet to me and we had spent the last summer with talks of redistributing the wealth of your family" Somehow the same woman that sprayed her finances cantaloupe-shaped brain onto the dirt was now lost in another moment...in another time devoid of the constant bloodshed of our homeland.
92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZiNcPptSRJ
"Aiko I'm not evil, Kasiha we both know was the true monarch-Her death will be the mark of another dark age for our people. I just want to be some fucking torch that leads us to the end of the tunnel." The gravel in my voice began from how much we had been speaking in the short time. "You realize what I meant when I said I made my choice?" even though we were less than a foot apart the distance between us felt like an increasing expanse as each moment passed.
92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTrFURoucHY
A wall existed but it did not matter to me anymore. "Aiko, If I can't make up for the sins of my family...You should easily be able to do to me like you did to Dennis." I felt her hand shaking me from the stupid gaze I had placed on her face as I finally realized how much I truly loved this horrid place.
92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQVuVlfmFn7
"Im by your side Huck, if you abuse your power I'll just break all your bones to show you the true lesson: without structure, there is no system..."The end
92Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6JgUdjOSmt
