Broken Soul

Zen

The cheers of his people surrounded Zen, but they weren't cheering for him. It was strange; he felt that his surroundings were familiar, but everything was unfocused, as if he were looking through a heavy blanket of smoke.

"Where am I?" he asked, confused, but only got laughter as a response. It was the kind of polite laughter that long-time court members would have at a bad joke.

That seemed to snap his surroundings into focus a little bit more as he managed to make out his throne room. He was kneeling at the foot of the stairs that would lead up to his throne, flanked on both sides by scores of nobles. Their faces were covered in black mist, but their burning red eyes focused on him.

A slight metallic sound drew his attention downward to his limbs. Metal cuffs were clasped around each one, connected by heavy metal chains. His clothes were in tatters, barely a shadow of their regal glory.

"What is the meaning of this?" Zen roared in anger at his chained situation.

Again, that gaggle of polite laughter echoed in his halls, then another pierced through the many. It was low, then high, then different. It changed from moment to moment, never staying the same and yet always familiar.

Zen looked up to the source of the strange laughter and found it sitting on his throne. The creature was a human, or at least humanoid, but Zen couldn't spot any recognizable features. Its face was covered in even darker mist than the random court members around him, and its hair was made of soft, fiery wisps that seemed to form into snakes every once in a while.

He couldn't even make out if it was a man or a woman. The clothes of the usurper were black and flowy, sometimes resembling a dress and sometimes a tunic.

The usurper raised its voice, which again changed tone again and again from male to female, loud to quiet, beautiful to raspy.

"You have brought this upon yourself, stupid king. You were weak, and we love you for it," the creature said and raised its arms to the audience, which returned with thunderous applause.

"This is not right. This never happened," Zen pressed out between clenched teeth, looking up at the usurper with defiance in his eyes.

The usurper cocked his head and laughed again. "It might not have happened to you yet, but this is the reality. There is nothing you can do. You will be remembered as a fool who allowed me to rise. Well, that is if you are remembered at all. You haven't done much to be remembered by, have you?"

The mocking tone caused another round of laughter from the audience and made Zen go red.

"This future will never happen. I will make it so that it never happens," Zen spat back. He tried to rise to his feet, but the chains were bolted to the ground somewhere he couldn't see and stopped his vain attempt at defiance.

While he couldn't see it, he certainly could hear the grin that the creature was wearing as it said, "As always, so much fire and so little to back it up. You try to defy fate, but wasn't it you that brought us here? Your actions? Your weakness? Well, either way. I will no longer waste my time on you. Your part in this story is over."

In the blink of an eye, Zen was suddenly crouching over a chopping block in front of a roaring audience. The sun was beating down on his back, but his head was in the shadow of the figure that he knew was the usurper.

Zen tried to talk, to scream, to move, anything he could do, but his body was rigidly refusing to move. A sword rose in front of him. Silvery metal with a slight gleam to it, but the remaining details were as obscure as everything around him was.

"All hail the king who gave rise to me," the voice suddenly snapped into a single tone. It was dark, rumbling, and promising the demise of civilization. Then the sword fell, and Zen nearly jumped out of his bed.

Zen was breathing heavily as he half-crouched in his much too large bed. It was dark with only the faint light of the crescent moon shining through a gap in the curtains.

He jumped out of bed and rushed over, pushed the curtains back, and ripped the glass windows open. A nice breeze welcomed him back to reality as he stood there in only his pants on and breathing into the night.

Zen could still feel the shackles, hear the cheering of the people as a sword fell on his neck, and see the afterimage of that red and black monster that swung it.

"What the fuck was that?" Zen said to himself as he stared down at the palace gardens. "That was ... fuck."

- Later that day -

"Are you alright? You seem distracted," Michael noted as he pulled Zen back to his feet. Theodore and they had been sparring for half an hour in multiple rounds, and Zen was definitely worse than usual.

Zen waved him off with a smile. "Just didn't sleep very well, and you are getting too good for me."

Their practice had gotten quite lopsided over the years. Zen was much better than Theodore, and Michael was pulling ahead of the young king, so someone always had to hold back, or the fights were always an uphill battle for one of the duelists. It did have its own excitement once or twice, but fighting against someone who was better or worse than you all the time could get old fast.

"Sleep? What is that?" Michael replied with a smirk. "Honestly, I haven't slept as much as here in over a year, but I don't think I will ever catch up with all those lost hours."

"I know what you mean. My father is running me ragged. The only reason I am free now is because he is busy with the festivities," Theodore said with a pained expression.

Zen laughed at both of them. "And I have an entire kingdom's worth of work. How do you think I am feeling? We should call ourselves the Unsleeping Knights or something."

Michael grinned, and Theodore noted, "The Unsleeping Knights has a nice ring to it, I am just not sure if I will ever reach that level."

"I honestly think that Sola would shackle me to my bed for eight hours a day if we made up a name like that. She really hates my sleep schedule."

That made Zen and Theodore laugh, but only because they didn't realize that Michael was being honest.

"Hey, boys," Tara said as she entered the secluded training yard together with Mira. They were both wearing pants and shirts rather than the more customary dresses.

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"Oh, hey," Michael greeted them, eyeing their outfits with some interest. Normally, Mira would only wear something like that to combat training or in Reen when there were fewer eyes to watch her every move, and as far as Michael was aware, she was still forbidden from having that.

"What are you two up to?" Zen asked, obviously also curious.

"Dance practice. The ball is tonight, so we thought we would dust ourselves off a little, well, more me than her," Tara replied nonchalantly, but Zen noticed that Michael didn't seem to believe her, so Zen wouldn't either.

"And you have to do that here? We are practicing and don't need more distractions," Zen replied and crossed his arms in front of his chest.

"Oh, we are a distraction? Personally, I can attest that in battle, you will face numerous distractions and must learn to ignore them. So, technically, we are just helping with your training," Tara explained.

Zen and Tara stared at each other for a few seconds before the king waved them off and returned to training. Michael and Mira smirked at each other and went to separate parts of the yard.

Theodore and Zen took the next round while Michael watched to give his opinion after. While fighting, Zen noticed Mira and Tara out of the corner of his eye, moving around one another with more grace than the two boys managed.

They fought for a while, their sparring interrupted multiple times by the girl's loud talking and laughing. Zen got more frustrated by the minute as his timing was off again and again while the fight dragged on. It didn't help that he had to concentrate on not being distracted by the rapid movements and loud conversation to his side.

"Let's stop for a moment," Michael tried to prevent an impending disaster, but it was too late.

"For god's sake," Zen exclaimed angrily. "Do you have to be this loud? I am sure there are dozens of other places you can use and other people to annoy."

The young king turned to the two girls and looked at them expectantly. Mira looked surprised and a little bit shocked, while Tara simply stared back defiantly.

"Zen," Michael simply said, and that was enough to make the other boy snap out of it.

Zen took a deep breath and then another. He raised his hands in a placating manner before saying, "I apologize. I seem to be a little out of it and took my frustration out on you two. Could I request that you try to be a little quieter, please? I am having difficulty concentrating and can't seem to get a handle on that right now."

Mira walked over to them, looking at her brother, "Hard night?"

He looked back at her and simply nodded, not even questioning how she knew.

"About dad?"

Zen shook his head, not willing to explain his strangely vivid dream of disaster. He found it hard to shake it off.

"Do you remember when I used to have bad dreams? The palace was too big. Mom and Dad were rarely there to tuck me in. I always came running to you when I was scared," Mira said softly.

Zen felt weird; he didn't like the sense of weakness he felt in front of his friends right now.

"We aren't children anymore," he said.

"Some would argue that point," Tara quipped and stepped next to them. "Maybe what you need is not high-speed sparring but doing basics."

Zen wanted to argue, but the redhead, who seemed to have no regard for his rank, shushed him.

"I don't mean that you need a refresher in basics, but trust me, I have a lot of experience with bad days, and I am telling you, the way you are right now, you will frustrate yourself more and more if you try to function to your best because that is just not happening. So use this time to go through things you know. Do them slowly and with purpose. You can calm down and solidify your basics as a bonus."

Zen hesitated; he really didn't want to go through stances and basic strikes. It felt like he was wasting the time he had with his friends, but he also knew that Tara was probably right.

"Fine. I am just gonna go over there and do some basics," he conceded, a little bitter.

"Oh, you don't need to do that. You can just show them to Mira and do them with her. Teaching is the best way to solidify your skills, and she gets a lesson, two dire rats with one stone," Tara shot him down again. He was starting to think that she was enjoying this. It took a moment longer for him to notice the obvious.

"Wait. Why should I show them to Mira? She can't fight," Zen noted.

Michael was staring at Tara, who didn't seem to think anything of the situation, and Mira, who seemed a lot more nervous than her friend.

"Well, that is why you should show her how," Tara intentionally misunderstood.

"No, not ... don't be difficult, Tara. You know that she isn't allowed to. My mother has forbidden it," Zen sighed.

Tara shrugged. "A girl needs to know how to defend herself. And who better to show her than her big brother? You are the king, which also makes you the only person who can quite easily ignore your mother's orders."

Zen looked over to Michael and Theodore, who both shrugged. Zen finally began to laugh loudly.

Everyone looked at him with confused expressions, which made him laugh even more.

"This is good. You guys are great. The whole 'A girl needs to know how to defend herself' and 'who better to teach her than her big brother'. Mira would be bored out of her mind with the basics. She has been training for a few years already, after all," Zen said after finally catching himself.

Theodore was the only one who looked confused at that point, while Tara, Michael, and Mira looked at the king with shock.

"You knew?!"

"Of course I knew," Zen chortled. "Do you think I am stupid? The moment Mother forbade her from doing it, I was sure she would get Michael to teach her."

Michael joined his friend in laughing. "I should have known. I just assumed you were too busy or that you simply didn't want to know."

"Oh, I didn't. I pointedly didn't want to know, but I hardly could get out of this one without knowing, without looking like a complete asshole. Thanks for that, by the way, Tara," Zen said.

"No problem," Tara replied, while grinning and giving him a thumbs-up.

Zen shook his head and then turned to his sister. "So, now that I 'know', I will have to deal with Mother. I might be able to avoid that if you continue keeping it covert, okay? I am not gonna lie to her though if she asks me directly."

"I can do that," Mira assured him with a broad smile that mirrored Tara's.

"Good. Then let's see what you can do. I have been curious." Zen grabbed his training sword and stepped into the ring.

"Didn't we say something about practicing basics?" Tara asked sarcastically, but stepped back nonetheless.

"We will go slowly. I am just curious," Zen replied, suddenly seeming a lot more energetic than before.

Michael stepped between them and waited for Mira to get a staff to fight with. "Alright, take it easy and no mana, please. Just do a couple of simple strike-and-block sequences."

Both of them nodded and fell into a basic wide stance.

"A staff? Good thinking, you won't often have access to a sword," Zen commented and attacked.

Mira whirled her staff around, blocking and redirecting three strikes. She was doing well with keeping enough space between the two of them to leverage her reach, but Zen had only been probing her yet.

While for most people this wouldn't really constitute as a slow spar, Zen had the mana and training to react to anything that could happen, so it was as slow as he would ever go.

After Mira blocked a couple more strikes, Zen stepped back and nodded, "Okay, defense is working nicely, but you can't win by only defending."

Mira didn't reply but rather dashed forward, making two quick stabs toward Zen's head. The much more experienced teenager dodged the first and parried the second.

"Vicious. Going for my face immediately," Zen smirked.

Mira got faster, her staff flowing around her and striking like a serpent from different angles.

Zen blocked, redirected, or dodged every strike, but it was getting harder by the second. Mira looked like she was dancing and getting into a rhythm with her attacks.

There was no mana usage from either of them, which meant that the exchange of blows was slow for the enhanced senses of the audience, but Michael and Tara knew for a fact that Mira was devilish fast and precise with her attacks. If only she had the mana to fight properly, she could easily rival her brother with enough training.

As things stood, Zen was getting pressed more and more, but he had the experience and physical advantage to never get overwhelmed.

Zen caught the staff out of the air with his hand after a while; this time, mana was radiating off him in gentle waves. He was impressed.

"Very good, Mira. I gotta say, I didn't expect you to be this good already," he said with a gentle smile.

"Thanks. It is a lot like dancing," Mira replied happily.

Zen nodded. "Your style seems to be. I have never seen anything like that. Where did you pick that one up?"

"A mix of Michael, Master Solon, and my dance classes. Sir Antreos said it was good because I wouldn't be able to do the traditional knight style with my build," Mira explained excitedly.

"He is probably right," Zen agreed and then paused for a moment. He did say that he wanted to spend more time with his sister. "How about we train together from time to time? I am sure Sir Gavin's input would help, and I would love to have an activity we could do together."

Mira basically exploded in excitement and quickly agreed. Zen would ensure that their little training sessions remained private, though. Not only would it be better for Mira if any aggressor didn't expect her to be able to fight back, but it might also scare off potential marriage prospects, so double the reason to keep it hidden.