when i came back from the wars i was a different man, i had seen to much, lost to much. a man be him warrior of high priest is only a man, and his limits will be reached where the excessive spilling of blood or holy devotion blend into something divorced from meaning, the sword that used to kill with becomes the sword that sets you free, the bible that liberated you now enslaves and kills many more than the sword ever did, the intention is blurred, what was holy is now an antiquity, what was a weapon is now an historical relic, there's meaning within meanings and even no meaning has a meaning.
i was tired and jaded, to much blood, to much toil, to much killing, i had seen my friends die in battle, i had seen my enemies die, the whites of their eyes, their pupils dilated as the moment approaches, i have seen the soul leave the body, i have seen my women go into battle and die for their beliefs and in the end battlefield and the bedroom appear the same, the only thing that is different are the players and the faces, the despair that haunts their features as they come to understand the truth, as the life force leaves the body, as the aura closes down, as will begins to diminish, that horrific realisation that it is all for nothing and all for something.
my men and i had sailed south upon a trade vessel, we were five in number, seven if you count the dog and the princess we had taken captive. she was brutalised and beaten, barely conscious and still in trauma but my men were not responsible, it was her court of treacherous lawmakers and bureaucrats, who thought we would be appeased at this offering, we slaughtered them all and then took her down, we nursed her and dressed her wounds, there were five of us left. they had crucified her, left her hanging until we stormed the walls, my small army fought until we had taken the position, there five survivors stood under in her shadow, we were bloody and beaten, we may have lost our humanity but looking at her up there with the sun behind her, blood caked body, her face beaten and a map of brutality we saw her blackened eyes and her scared chest and her tiny feet nailed into wood, her hands twitching and her hair matted and knotted something deep within us stirred.
it is at the point when you are tired of living, when you look back in refection and think what have i done, where have i come from, what is left for me, it when the joys of life are outnumbered monumentally by it's tribulations that such nilism descends upon a mans soul, no matter the spiritual strength he may have, my men and myself had transcended this, we had no reasons to live anymore, killing conquering, carnage had become an endless journey with no destination, in the name of what, a god, a king, a country, a idea and there under the cross, under the sinking sun that illuminated her body in a white halo of light shone a glimmer of something numerous, the crossroads, we could have just as easily decided to kill her but we chose to cut her down.
on the vessel we assisted crew but she remained in her cabin, we fed her mouthfuls of broth soaked up with bread, one by one we took turns in reading to her from the only book on the vessel, a story of arjuna and his council to krishna upon the eve of battle, we all enjoyed this story but the princess never really responded. the voyage was uneventful and at port i we thanked the captain and took the princess to the sanctuary.
here we made our plan, we would destroy our government, our leaders, our king, our queen, and their council, all of them would be killed. and then we would decree that our captured queen would reign. it is better to serve beauty we agreed than brutality.
and so when the princess was healed the deed was done.
the princess became our queen.
her first decree was to declare war upon the world and we in horror realised what we had done, installed a mad woman as queen.