The Tournament [A Non-Traditional Fantasy]

"If you keep zoning out like that, you'll completely miss dinner." Iatric, her voice again.

His wife's familiarly soft pitch never failed to break Doyen from his reveries. He blinked away the sudden disorientation and found himself sitting at the head of an absurdly long dining table.

His absurdly long dining table.

The dining hall had been designed for much grander gatherings, which it nearly never hosted, and the vast majority of the seats would forever remain empty. It was a cold, depressing chamber dressed in alienating opulence. Doyen thought back, remembering a childhood of leaky roofs and sputtering stoves. He remembered an adolescence in tents, cooking hunted game over smothered fires. Then he thought on his adulthood and of its lavish adornments which his younger self could never have imagined. The thoughts put a frown on his face, the upset so multifaceted he wasn't wholly sure which soured him the most.

His gaze swept the table's length until it met its only other occupant. At once, his discomfort shifted.

There she was—Iatric.

The aged woman was sat by his side with her ever-vigilant posture and a surety that kept her forever youthful in his eyes. Then he registered her expression of sorrowful concern, and his frown snapped back. With the shock to his emotions, he again felt that harsh influx of feelings, distant yet personal. It was like the castle itself was speaking to him. He couldn't see them, but he could feel everyone within its halls. He could feel his son, Wish, hurrying toward this very room. He could feel the servants two rooms down, lazily gossiping. He could feel Duke Payola stomping into his guest quarters. He could even feel the mice hiding beneath the floorboards from the estate's cat.

Why was he hungry for cheese?

Doyen tried for a reassuring smile. "I'm fine."

The creases formed by her pitying eyes told him it didn't work.

Iatric took his hand in hers, as she often did when he lost himself. "You're not fine, Doyen. This is why I was saying you need a break. We live in peaceful times. I know that because of your…" She paused, the words not wanting to be said. "...condition, it's hard for you to adjust, but constantly seeking out conflict isn't the solution."

Doyen huffed a disbelieving laugh at an utter loss of what she was on about. "What?"

Iatric's concern curdled to petrification; her eyes grew heavy, and her shoulders slumped as she saw a man, her husband, disappear. "Did you forget again?"

Doyen laughed hollowly, his dismissal once again failing to ease her worries. "Well, you'd need to tell me what you're talking about to know whether I forgot it or not."

Iatric's voice turned cold, reverting to the commanding tonality of her royal inheritance. "This is not okay, Doyen. We were in the middle of a conversation where we HAD been discussing what to do about the White Witch." Iatric watched the unexpected surprise shock across her husband's face, and it only steeled her resolve, "But clearly, that conversation is over. We will do nothing."

Doyen sputtered petulantly. "What? Absolutely not! We can't just do nothing. We have to find her, find out what she did to me! What she did to Wish!"

Iatric remained unmoved, his words falling uselessly against her determination. It reminded him of a youth battling against a stoic mother, and suddenly, the visual disparity in their ages seemed all the starker. The thought left a bitter taste in his mouth, and with only a hint of hesitation, he added- "Don't we at least owe our son that courtesy?"

The moment he spoke them, he immediately regretted the words as he saw his wife's posture stiffen. Then he saw Iatric the wife shrivel away, and Iatric the Machiavellian princess take her place and then he really regretted his words. "Don't try to use my son against me."

The accusation stung, "I am not using 'OUR' son against you. We do owe this to him. That monster did something to him, and I won't stand by it! I'll hunt the White Witch down and kill her myself. End her horrible tyranny, once and for all!"

His passionate decree was met with a scoff and an eye roll. "Oh please, Doyen, you have to be joking."

The conversation was turning sour, and Doyen refused to take it idly. He was ready with a retort but stilled himself upon hearing echoing steps from down the dining hall. His son, Wish, approached, white hair mostly obscured under a large woollen hat. Doyen and Iatric didn't say a word, merely glared at each other as Wish walked the grand hall.

The young boy finally made it to the head of the table, and Iatric spoke without breaking Doyen's eye contact. "Your hair is showing."

The boy flushed with embarrassment and quickly tucked the offending strands of white hair under his hat. "I humbly apologize mother." After correcting his mistake, he moved to the open seat opposite his mother and waited attentively.

Wish looked more like he could be Doyen's younger brother rather than his son. With Doyen's unaging nature and Wish's noble demeanour, the great hero never quite knew how to treat his son. But Doyen wouldn't have him isolated.

Doyen accepted the proverbial defeat and broke his staring contest with Iatric, turning to his son. "You may sit, Wish." Doyen gestured to the free chair, then returned to his wife, "And Iatric, I am not joking, I will kill the White Witch and end her curse."

Iatric was statuesque, completely expressionless, and stone-cold. "Sometimes I wonder if your mind had also stopped maturing Doyen. You can't kill all of your problems away."

Doyen saw that she had already shut down. He knew they had lost any chance of having a cordial discussion when she got into her full 'royal mode.' But he couldn't stand giving up on his desires simply because she couldn't engage in a real conversation. She would always do this to him; any time he would try to have any kind of proper discussion of real meaning, she would curl up into this emotionless husk, and he hated it. He hated how she purposefully hid behind that high and mighty royal disposition like she knew she was better than him.

He was lesser than her; by wealth, by eloquence, by blood. He was nothing but a passing fling, never expected to amount to anything. The anger at the situation chafed at him; it burned stronger than just his own frustrations, and he barked back, "Don't treat me like I'm the villain here; I didn't want this to happen either. Sorry if you're disappointed that I didn't die back then!"

For a brief second, that dead royal mask slipped. "You know I would never think that."

A small part of him felt awful for enjoying the fact that he managed to hurt her and break through her defences, but a greater, more impulsive part of him wanted to deny that she was showing any remorse. A part of him wanted to say that she was still looking down on him. That she thought he didn't deserve her. He couldn't understand all this stiff noble stuff, so how could he know what really went on in his wife's head.

The emotions all screeched at the back of his mind. They demanded action.

Afraid of cats and hungry for the kill.

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Why did he know Payola was pacing back and forth in his room? Why was he so angry with Iatric?

He jabbed a finger at his wife, "I know you too well to be tricked by your noble insincerity." But he wasn't really sure how well he knew her really.

Iatric scoffed at Doyen's pathetic response, quickly regaining her emotionless composure. "How long will you cling to your inferiority complex? You're a noble too, now. Or is being a Duke not enough for you? You just can't be satisfied unless you're the best at everything. Would you like to kill my father and become king? Would that satisfy you? At least a fight for the crown might entertain your bloodlust a little longer."

Doyen gritted his teeth, his face red, fist clenched. "I'm not bloodthirsty." But he wanted the prey.

Iatric took her husband's ire without batting an eye. "Past behavior would argue otherwise. If you aren't so obsessed with fighting, then why do you demand that our son train so hard despite our times of peace?"

Peace, everyone always talked about peace. Everyone always talked about how they were heroes, about how they defeated the Mokoi Khan, how they brought peace to the world. What a lie. "Just because there is no war, doesn't mean we are at peace. With all of the recent activity around the White Witch. Wish is bound to be targeted."

Iatric's response was so fast it hurt. "And whose fault is that?"

Something snapped. Iatric's outburst struck within Doyen, and he felt like he understood her and that understanding brought rage. Doyen smashed the table with a thunderous fist. "It is not my fault our child is a monster!"

Iatric snapped back, that stoic veneer completely broken. "Yes, it is!"

The argument hung in the air, the couple riled, breath heavy. Doyen's rage was reaching a boiling point. He couldn't stand this conversation anymore. He couldn't stand the stuffy clothes he wore. He couldn't stand that the garnish on the appetizer didn't settle right or that he had another five hours to his shift or that he would spend the night in the home of a false noble.

His head was aching.

The voices, all the voices.

He shut his eyes, taking a deep breath and tried to clear that foreign discomfort that sent phantom pains through his non-existent heart. He didn't want to argue anymore; he just needed to think of a different conversation for the short interim until the servants arrived with lunch. He could feel that they were close.

He turned to Wish and spoke. "How has your training been going recently?"

Wish answered plainly and apathetically with the same mastery of that royal indifference as his mother. "Magic and swordsmanship have been going quite smoothly with the help of the tutors, but integrating the two on my own is continuing to prove difficult."

Almost as if called by the change of topics, the servants arrived. Their arms buried beneath grand platters of silver; aromatic meals glistening above with a perfected presentation.

One strand of garnish had fallen off its meticulously poised position. Iatric noticed.

Doyen didn't, but he felt it.

More importantly, the servants brought with them a much-appreciated distraction from the family. For the rest of the meal, they remained mostly silent. Iatric and Doyen occasionally discussed political matters, but Iatric had fully settled into her 'royal mode', and they never again broached the matter of the White Witch.

After finishing his meal, Wish stood without a word. Doyen watched as his son, the cursed child he bore, walked down the dining hall. His own son had been disfigured and tormented because of his failures, and yet, despite this, Doyen still dared to feel a shallow contempt. One day, Doyen would lift the curse.

He called out to Wish. "I have faith that you will find a way to integrate the two styles. I believe in you."

"I will do my best father." The cold response felt like a rejection of Doyen's attempt at encouragement.

He heaved a sigh as his disillusioned son left and his exasperated wife called a servant, all while the bloody taste of mouse lingered on his tongue.

His slightly disturbed melancholia was then interrupted by the soft chime of a bell.

An empty throne stood stoic before three collapsed warriors and three corpses. The only sounds to fill the vast chamber were the strained, recuperating breaths of the exhausted Saviours.

That, and a slow mocking clap.

"Wow, how splendid. I mean truly incredible!" there was a quiet chuckle and the clapping rapidly increased until the few tired survivors turned to the room's entrance to see three new entrants waiting. At the head of the new trio was a tall woman wearing a long flowing gown with an impossibly wide-brimmed hat. Her appearance, though vaguely human, seemed off somehow, her fingers and legs disproportionately long. The woman was entirely coloured in white from her hat, to her dress, to her skin, to the single eye patch over her right eye. What made this woman really stand out was her horrifying, clouded red eye unfocused on anything or anyone, though she still smiled clapping on the show.

To the albino's side was a shorter figure. It was impossible to make out who or what it was under its countless layers of clothing. A thick woollen hat and scarf almost completely obscured its face, with only its flowing blond hair poking out and cascading down its back. With several coats, oversized mittens, and a pair of knee-length boots, the only identifying feature was the long-scaled pink tail that ended in a barbed spike protruding out from under the coats.

The third member on the other side of the albino was the Mokoi Khan, completely unbesmirched by any injury. The downed Ken, sweating and bleeding, turned back to where the dead Doyen and Mokoi Khan stood. The two corpses leaned against each other holding one another upright. Sure enough, the khan was still dead.

Ken returned his fearful gaze to the living Mokoi Khan and saw that it was not exactly the same; this khan wore a bright yellow headband that covered its third eye socket. And the imposter khan's two visible eye sockets weren't empty but instead filled in with disgusting blue irises.

Despite all the blood loss, the one-armed Jocund Forced himself up with his tower shield working half as a crutch to carry his exhausted body and half as a pitiable defence against the new intruders. The white woman simply laughed at Jocund's stoicism. She threw a dismissive wave. "Pen, could you please return Mr. Ream and the c-listers to their home?"

Without responding, the Mokoi Khan stepped forth. Jocund hunkered behind his shield, but he knew there was nothing he could do. The Mokoi Khan approached the broken scythe on the ground and grabbed its shaft. The khan tested the balance of the weapon now missing its whipped blade tip. Then, the Mokoi Khan disappeared, and along with it, Jocund, Ken, and Iatric each vanished from the room in turn. The next thing the surviving Saviours saw was Iatric's bedroom, back within the country of Bemean on the continent of Trammel, an entire ocean away.

Back in the throne room, the albino and her overdressed companion were left alone with the corpses of history's greatest fighters. The white woman spoke again. "As agreed, Queen Arete, you may have the throne while I will have the body."

From under her oversized scarf, Arete smiled. Queen. She liked the sound of that.

She no longer needed to follow anyone's orders. She was the pinnacle of power. Before taking her seat, Queen Arete approached where the khan's broken scythe once rested. She noted the remaining broken piece, that sharp ebony blade which ended into a bright red corded whip. With her decision made, she spoke, her voice devilishly deep, "I'm taking the whip." With a quick swipe, Her tail dragged the whip under the cover of her garb clothes. Without waiting another minute, she marched towards the throne, her throne, and sat down, revelling in the warmth of the seat.

Meanwhile, The white woman approached the two dead bodies still standing as they leaned against each other. The white woman shined a brilliant smile, her steps turning to a giddy dance as she bounced down the hall with a skip.

As she arrived at the crime scene, she gave the dead khan a clap on the back, "Oh, no need to be so down, Ardor. There is still hope for your people. You're in good hands. Because together, the three of us-" She then clapped her other hand on the back of the biological abomination which was once Doyen. "Together: we will save the world."

The white woman took the dagger embedded within the Mokoi khan's heart and pulled it free. As the dagger unlatched itself from its dead victim, the Mokoi khan's body shook with a fluid formlessness and flew into the dagger's tip. The dagger kept drawing from the corpse until no speck was left, and the glass container at the weapon's pommel sloshed with a blackened sludge. The white woman then pricked her own finger and allowed a few drops of her own blood to be absorbed into the hungry weapon. With the introduction of her own fluids, the black rot lightened, and a white glow filtered through, mixing together until the concoction hummed with a dim silver. With her free hand, the woman drove her clawed hand into Doyen's chest. The fetid flesh easily gave way to her, and she clasped onto the still heart within. With a firm tug, she pulled the heart free, and as soon as the solid lump left his carcass, the biological armour rapidly relinquished so that he once again looked like a normal human; well, normal if not for the hole where his heart once was.

The white woman brought her two tools together, a severed heart and a dagger whose glass pommel glowed with a silver liquid. She raised the dagger above the heart. And stabbed down.

The fake Mokoi khan named Pen soon returned and took the unconscious Doyen away, sending him to join the rest of the Saviours in Iatric's bedroom on Bemean.

The white woman released a sigh of relief "And now we wait sixteen years."