Pcello

*taken from a longer piece*

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            The night felt darker than normal. Darmouth was on the balcony in his knight wear, minus the fancy adornments. He propped his elbows on the railing, looking below at the sparring mats next to the lush green field at the center of the academy. Where had the time gone?
            He grasped his biceps leaning forward, his midsection cutting into the balcony. He visited his sister at the new Tipnooga mansion yesterday; her stomach had swelled to the size of a giant watermelon. She grabbed his hand and rested it there, letting him feel the gentle kicks of the baby. By the time he returned, his nephew would be born.
            It was when he glanced into her eyes though after feeling her child, the lack of emotion there, the half smile -- what happened to her ear splitting smile? Ever since Andromeda’s kidnapping, Darcy shriveled, like a molting flower. Even with her marriage to Sir Tipnooga and the coming of a child, her blithe, carefree demeanor hadn’t returned. Darmouth noticed things. He saw the way she shied away from her husband's touch, he saw the bags beneath her eyes, and the paleness of her once rosy cheeks.
            He asked his parents about it: I’m sure she’s fine, only anxious about the baby. And yet, deep down, Darmouth knew it wasn’t the child: there was something else plaguing his sister causing that miserable shroud to surround her. When he was about to broach the topic, the drawing room door opened and Sir Tipnooga entered with his characteristic smile. The time had passed, so Darmouth took his leave with only a subtle, hesitant glance at his sister.
            Darmouth dug into his pocket and felt the silver casing of a lighter and a thin cigarette. A bad habit, he nudged the white stick in his lips then flicked the metal lighter open, revealing a thin blue flame. Darmouth relished the bit of warmth brought to him for that moment, and watched the slender smoke curl and dance from the burning paper and tobacco. The white trail swirled to the East, at mercy to the wind. Darmouth gazed, thoughtless for a moment.
            Whenever Darmouth’s father was stressed, he’d climb to the top of the ginormous study closet and produce a fat cigar which he’d light and smoke on his study balcony while gazing at the clouds. ‘Don’t tell your mother.’ He’d joke while taking a drag, consciously blowing it away from Darmouth, ‘Just need to take the edge off.’
            There was no cure, just treatment for ‘edge off’. Darmouth removed the cigarette from his lips, gazing at it critically while blowing smoke out of his nose.
            After visiting his sister, he went back to the academy to finalize the plans with Julian, not that they needed much finalizing. In the past few months, Julian’s lack of presence in class and around the academy was odd. And yet, it was like all of Julian’s senses were becoming sharper, almost lethal in combat and academics -- the rage was pushing Julian to do the best he’d ever done since arriving. Darmouth wasn’t sure what to make of the change. He felt something dangerous about it, but, again, how to broach the subject?
            In the distance, Darmouth could see the orange glow of the forge illuminating the grass and hear the echoes of metallic clangs as swords and arrows were created. The amount of guards on campus had tripled within the past few months; it was almost suffocating.

            They created ‘Wanted!’ posters to be hung in towns passed on the way to the Capital of Yuslevs. There were five assailants: two burly looking men with hulking upper chests; one with glasses and a smart face; another ferret looking man; but the fifth man was never witnessed and could not be drawn. Other posters included: an image of a vague black bird, reading, Any Information About Organization?, with the Yuslevsnian capital listed as the mailing address; Andromeda’s sixteenth birthday portrait with Missing written beneath it; and Lady Roswell’s plump, timeless face also with Missing beneath it. All posters with the men were given a Dead or Alive (but preferably Alive) clause with a bounty of 2,000 gold dead and 3,000 gold alive. Andromeda and Lady Roswell had a reward of 5,000 gold if returned alive, and 1,000 gold if their bodies were identified.
            Staring at the drawings of the men reignited the rage that Julian felt.
            ‘Fucking animals. I’ll hang them myself.’ He’d seethed.

            Darmouth took another long drag of the cigarette, letting the smoke enter and exit him, calming the cagy feeling growing in his chest. The rotten bodies lying in the mansion, corpses decomposing on the embroidered rugs, their eyes vacant and whited over. He imagined the families of those corpses, no, dead people. Those were people forced to rot in the place they were slew. Faces of the kids, husbands, and wives, asking when they could bury their loved one. How could they rest in a bloodbath? They needed to rest. And hang the assailants? Despite seeing the carnage, he felt no need for the violence.
            Darmouth knew he was alone in ideology. The boys in the academy were nearly shaking in excitement with the promise of carnage to come. They would be wanted on the battlefield for the first time since their great grandfathers had fought in their youth. All dissent had either died or gone senile and the road to war was evident.
            A cart came through the open field hauling sharp steel tips that glinted in the blue torch light. Two more carts came, one with arrows in its haul, another with swords and helmets.
            Darmouth took another long drag, he was used to being alone. His peers had always thought him strange. He refused to mess around with women when they danced; he refused to drink. It was all too messy for him. He felt the passion like a drug in his system but could also feel the duality of it, haunting him from the edges, its absence a void that would eat him alive. He had a longing for a woman he kissed on the cheek on the way to work; for easy Sunday mornings with coffee and a calm introspection on the week. He wanted gentle caresses on his cheek and soft soothing words while lying in bed. He wanted a small child that he could lift in the air and read simple books to while lying in bed, his wife on the other side.
            What more was there to wish for in life than that? What more was there to live for?
            Darmouth could think of nothing.
            The cigarette had almost gone out. He took his final drag. All the women he’d met so far had the same feeling of duality. There was something insidious about almost all of them: they marry for power and security, not love. He needed someone different, someone unafraid, unabashed, and the only noble woman who’d ever shown him a glimpse of that was Andromeda.

            In the distance, Darmouth saw the first rays of sunrise peak through the night, the orange painting the clouds. He crushed the cigarette into the railing as the balcony door opened behind him and Julian’s voice alerted him, “It’s time to set off.”