proclamation_of_the_dead

You

“Quincy is dead. I will take over responsibilities until such time as a suitable replacement can be found.” She apparently glared at Samantha when she said this. “It will be difficult to live without him. He served a useful function where others could not. Do not let his death interfere with your lives. You each have worth beyond him. We will build a replacement for his function, and life will go on. I would expect the same for any of you, and any of us royalty. We… we’re just people, and people can be replaced. Thank you.”

Your face was mussed up. You were some traveling farmer who had come to learn of flashy but useless Penbarrian agrarian magic. You talked to a priest who you knew had never seen Quincy in person, and he told you of Anisa’s words. You talked to a blacksmith (who seemed to more want to be a glassblower, and you subtly referred him to a glassblower you knew who’d love to take an apprentice), and you forgot why you were there, oh yes, and the blacksmith confirmed the priest’s words of Anisa’s words. You talked to some crazy bum with a dogmange beard who mistook you for Quincy, and he vaguely confirmed the words, too, so you gave him your half-eaten bread and directions to a farm which required more farmers for his trouble. He said he preferred being a bum. You said the elements would kill him, and maybe the wild dogs. He said okay.

Her words, that was it. That was what I, you, wanted to get away from, and that justified what you’d done. She sought pure utility. Where was the joy, the comedy, the tragedy, the stupid ideas, the roaring waters against the cliffs, the wriggling maggots on the pig carcasses, thunder? Where was anything that sped up your heart, shook up your humours? Maybe she was born underweight because she was born without her sense of adventure. Maybe she had no liver to filter her blood after a humour imbalance.

You’d been depressed, but now you had decided. If Anisa, scion of Felkner, was going to act as if she had no liver to regulate the emotions in her blood, you’d act as if you had hepatitis. You would live!

If she seriously needed blood, she had more than enough subjects she could receive from. Maybe she could become a vampire, they seemed a more passionate lot…