Hate And Heresy

The winds blew hot air over the burning plains. Koi, the fiercest of her crusading knights, stood alone while fire danced about. The ground turned to ash as all plant life burned in the runaway wildfire. In the distance ahead of Koi was a city engulfed in flame. Its defensive walls were smashed and most of the buildings were razed. The Red Knight of the Queen had slaughtered all who refused to join their order.

"Come out!" Koi yelled, hitting her burning sword against the c.h.e.s.t plate of her red armor intimidatingly. "Face me, coward!"

A voice had called the knight out to the burning fields. Whenever a successful campaign had come to an end, Koi would amuse herself with a walk through the lands of the conquered. She was witness to countless dead and endless carnage; all of which she was responsible for. Koi had expected a duel with one of the last standing champions of the conquered world, but no one had met her in the field.

Aimless and irritated she stood alone in the ashy winds. Koi's temper was normally quite high, but being made a fool of was making it boil over. The knight had thought to take her leave, but a figure was finally spotted. Some distance ahead of her, in the direction of the burning city, a woman carrying a bundle walked barefoot through the ash.

The woman was immediately identified as a citizen of the world Koi had conquered. None of the knight's own people had dark yellow skin such as the figure in front of her. The woman that stood before Koi was dirty and covered in the tells of war. Blood and tears were upon the woman, and her expression was empty of hope.

"Are you the one responsible for this?" the woman asked.

"Yes, heathen," Koi replied. "Those who will not covert must be wiped from existence. Heretics cannot be allowed to rot this galaxy."

"You think just because you have numbers and power, it makes you right?" the woman questioned. "What good comes from killing the innocent?"

"No heretic is innocent," Koi flatly said. "Why did you bring a swaddled babe before me? Hoping for mercy?"

The woman seemed to almost find the feelings in her heart that had been torn away, but only a glimpse of such emotion twitched her face.

"My child no longer lives," the woman replied. "Suffocated by the rubble that fell upon her when my home was destroyed. I keep her covered because I cannot accept the crushed look of her. That is not the memory I want to keep in my final moments."

Koi tightened the grip of her sword and limbered her swinging arm.

"Will you not convert?" the knight asked.

The empty woman held the bundled corpse to her c.h.e.s.t and looked at her conqueror defiantly.

"I will not join the savage ways of the Ordan," she replied. "I will join my lord in the afterlife and watch you. One day your people will pay for their sins."

Without so much as a spoken word in response, Koi brought her burning sword down upon the woman.

With a great shake and a pounding headache, Meek awoke in her bed to the sounds and smells of breakfast being made downstairs. Uncomfortable sweat told of stress her body had undergone, despite the pleasant morning air and open balcony door letting in the breeze. With a crawl Meek looked down to the kitchen to see Moya sizzling bacon. Adella wasn't visible.

"F.u.c.k.i.n.g hells," Meek said to herself quietly. "I'm sorry, lady."