Toy Soldiers

The second chapter of Part 1, 'Echos' of 'Myth: of Men and Monsters'. This is dark, no matter how it looks at the beginning.

“That’s not fair!”

Firan was crying, pushing, kicking, screaming. He was doing everything and anything he could do to get his way.

Jax was tired of it. He returned a fraction of the abuse, careful to avoid jarring the battlefield he had taken so long to set up.

“You chose the Jil. You didn’t set any rules that said I had to pick a certain captain!”

Firan’s oceanic green eyes were red around the rims. His fists were trembling with the force of constriction.

“You didn’t tell anyone you had Andial! No one wins against the Golden Guards! That’s not FAIR!”

He screamed the last word into Jax’s ear.

Jax wanted desperately to push him into the ground onto his stupid creature figures. It was his fault for not bringing his good figures. What Aelphi child prefers pointless repugnances like the Jil anyway?

He stepped around Firan, grabbing his still moving, still fighting figures. His hand had to be stabbed by a small Goreatan dagger before he remembered they needed to be deactivated.

He took his highest authoritarian voice and filtered it through a hushed whisper.

“Stand down.”

They listened well. Of course, Firan’s creatures continued to attack. They knocked the Aelphi soldiers down and tried to bite into their hard, inorganic sides. They thought they were killing them. Apparently Firan had as well. He shot his hands into the air and gave a whooping yell of victory.

Jax turned to him.

“You’re so simple, Fir. We were already done!”

“No we weren’t, no we weren’t! I won! Your guys are all down and they’re not getting up!”

Jax breathed, like his father had taught him. He unclenched his hands and felt the heat spreading through his arms. 

“We were already done, Firan. There was no winner, you started being an unenlightened before it was over.”

Unenlightened, it was a title that no Aelphi liked to be given. To be known as one of the species they had saved; to be seen as less than an Aelphi, that was unforgivable.

The general youth had desensitized themselves to it over the years, like they had with every insult that came before. Boys would call their friends unenlightened when they got a bad mark on a test. Girls would sneer it at a romantic rival or a sister who stole a ring.

 Most of the time it was met with a shielding smile. Firan, however, felt the sting as if he had been the first one called it in spite. He barreled his fist deep in Jax’s stomach.

Jax’s green and orange hair fell into his face as he landed on the ground. His hair was important to him. Not because of its style, he always preferred to let it go unkempt and wild so there was nothing much that could ruffle the already ruffled.

It was the color that was important. It was the color that gave him his pride. It was, Jax had always thought, the reason he could never keep his friends. To have hair like his was to be given the gift of the Royal Flame. The meaning of which had been lost to antiquity but it was still celebrated as a sign of impeccable breeding. Jax was the most pure royal in his level at school. 

It was a point of envy for almost everyone else, especially Firan, the boy with the high bred eyes.

Jax’s breath caught as he scrambled to move and check the ground. He had heard and felt something heartbreaking.

Lieutenant Herth was sprawled over a small rock, crushed and torn to pieces from the weight of its owner’s fall. Beside him was Andial, nearly intact besides his arm which was in worse shape than Herth’s entire body.

Jax began to feel tears sear his eyes. He held his toys, his soldiers. He wasn’t new to the fact that they could break. He had even witnessed various ‘surgeries’ in which he and his friends would take their older models apart to see if they bled. But these were not forgotten and uncared for pieces of trash. These were new. These were important.

Andial had always been Jax’s hero. He had originally wanted the General Andial, a great statuesque work of art complete with the legendary golden armor and mask of the decorated war hero. It was god-like, second only to Lord Obeiron himself. 

When this little Captain figure marched into his room one morning, he couldn’t help but to feel disappointment. This was less coveted, an homage to the man who led charges through the most hopeless battles and always succeeded. This was the cause to the General’s effect. 

Jax knew he’d shown his displeasure. He could see it on his father’s face, the man who had received special permission to come from the front lines, the general who did everything in his power to involve himself in every one of his son’s birthdays. The man standing in the doorway, the one who had set the little Andial in motion, had been showing early signs of being crestfallen

A deep sadness had come when he saw any guilt or sadness coming from the tall, barrel chested officer. He sent his selfishness away and grabbed the saluting soldier from the ground. He began to realize that he wasn’t in awe of the decorated General who barely saw the wars. He dreamed of being the Captain, leading the charge.

He adored his fah even more than the heroes that covered his room’s walls. He was the hero at home, when he was at home.

Tears fell from his eyes onto his wounded figures. To see Herth and Andial like this was, to his childish mind, close to seeing his father in the same state. He could imagine him broken on the ground, writhing like these insentient animates were.

“I guess Captain Andial can lose… if a pompous a*s falls on him.”

Firan’s laughter threatened to spread to the others standing around but they all saw Jax better than he could. They all saw the fire and the anger billowing through the tears of confused sadness.

He grabbed the nearest Jil monster and stood. He gripped it against its will as it clawed, bit and scratched to be released.

“Fir. Apologize. Tell me that your father is going to have them fixed.”

The other boy spat a startled laugh.

“No.”

Jax turned and walked towards him, holding the Jil behind his back.

“Are you sure you won’t reconsider?”

“I’m done talking to a common like you.”

Sniffing back the tears, he knew he wasn’t angry at Firan any longer.

But he still needed to show him exactly what happens when you act in a way that betrays your station. They were both highbloods and pushing was below them. 

Jax didn’t give him time to react. Using a thrust taught to him in combat courses, he sent the Jil into Firan’s side. As the struck boy was steadying himself from the first blow, Jax delivered a second to the side of his head.

He tossed the destroyed Jil figure on him as he fell. At least Jax gave him the courtesy of only dismantling one.

***

Jax hated this hallway.

It was the interview wing. No one was sent here without some ulterior motive. No one sent here who wasn’t going to be scrutinized and judged.

Firan gave a quick shove into Jax’s shoulder. He whispered so the other child, a younger girl, couldn’t hear.

“This is your fault.”

Jax winced. He saw the bandages on his friend’s head. He remembered what it looked like underneath. He was truly sorry but not enough to take all the blame.

“I’m not going to argue this with you.”

Another shove came at Jax, this one softer and with a smile.

“I bet I can get reordined more times than you can without crying.”

Jax laughed though he didn’t quite know why.

They had been grabbed in the field by a professor. They were young enough for a single adult to separate and subdue them but old enough to cause minor injuries. Jax was normally very well behaved. He sincerely liked the teacher but it was his fist that caused the man’s nose to fracture.

Reordining was something that had been accepted by the Aelphi youth. Jax was horrified when he first learned of it, adults causing the students calculated pain through a wicked looking device. He had never wanted any part of it. He had never been threatened with it’s jarring purpose until now.

Firan was a different case. He was in and out of this hallway multiple times a season. With that frequency, Jax had to wonder at the usefulness of such a system. Of course, if he had questioned it outline, he’d be subjected to it anyway.

The girl was an interest though, Jax hadn’t seen her before. In class it was customary for the males and females to be separated. The girls sat on the floor and the boys in the balcony.

But during breaks and when they waited to be retrieved by their parents, they were free to socialize.

This girl was new to Jax even from those integrated sessions. She was different. She bore the darkened skin of a low-zoner. She had been raised on an outpost world, one like that of the Jil where there hadn’t been an intelligent dominant creature. 

Those worlds were pitiful and falling apart. Nature was overrunning and the planets called out for cultivation. Obeiron’s forces answered, putting royal families and their workers in charge of building great cities and tilling the land into something useful. But the land had its way with those caretakers. Through generations, their offspring took different shapes and colors. The most common were the dark shades.

The children of the higher borns were sent to more advanced worlds to gain access to better schooling. Though Hartour was a new city, it benefited from being on an old world. There was a people here with society and art and learning. This planet known as Thalkith was home to a decidedly barbaric people but they were still people. The Aelphi weren’t here to start the place anew. They were here to build on what they created, to help them. They were here to spread the word of Obeiron. Far more resources were put towards this end and that, inevitably, brought the best of everything.

He realized that this girl was an import, probably new. Questions sparked in his head. He adored the novelty of learning about people. His head was always full of wheres and hows but more importantly, the whys. 

He leaned past Firan and touched his thumb to her shoulder. She glanced at him, not startled, just waiting. At least her home world was advanced enough to understand commonly accepted greetings.

“I am Jaxial Douri’an-Kayl’ya Sa’anit’ag.”

His voice was official. There was no other way to say his speech of a name. It was so stuffy, so inaccessible. He lowered his head and whispered through a grin.

“I run this school.”

She laughed. He noticed her eyes had flecks of purple in them. She had to be from the Outer Spheres. Those desolate and detached planets were the unfortunates in Aelphi society. So far away without a chance of update or aid. He instantly pitied and respected her. It was a strange mix. A mix only a youth could really feel.

“I am Thorin Guthar’an Heral’inat. I’d like to talk to you about your employees, they seem to detest their jobs. I blame you.”

She said it so seriously that for a moment, he was wondering if she meant it. There was something about her that disarmed him, a charm, perhaps. She knew how to speak, to boys no less. That was a wonder. Most girls he knew of couldn’t handle his smile. They’d giggle and shrink away. This Thorin stayed the same.

He nodded.

“Yes, well, they do that. They get cranky when they haven’t punished enough children. Speaking of, what brings you to the hall of hell?”

She didn’t stay the same. But it wasn’t his endearing boyishness that forced her back to her shell. He reminded her of what was in store. 

Firan shoved her a bit, not nearly as hard as he had done with Jax, but enough to test her resolve. He snickered.

“I’ll bet a year of this that she was caught kissing the low-borns.”

She pushed back. He had to have struck a cord because Jax was tossed from the bench.

She threw her words in his face.

“I don’t even know why I’m here. They said I was ‘baiting for the hidden’. I don’t know what that means.”

Neither of the two boys were able to grasp exactly what she had said as soon as she said it. They were caught up with the sounds. She had an accent. When she first spoke, it had been in a whisper, the curves and the flourishes were muted, hardly audible. But when angry, louder, almost shouted, her words became more and more interesting. They had never heard a voice quite like hers. It took them longer to listen. It took their minds a little more time to reach the end.

Firan was the first. His eyes grew wide and he turned to glance down at his dethroned friend. 

“Did you hear that? We have a criminal on our hands!”

Jax finally found his way to the end of her statement. He had been enjoying the journey but Firan forced him out. The magnitude of her crime dropped on him.

She was in for a long interview.

Thorin was becoming angry. She slid around to fully face the two boys.

“What does it mean? You know what it means, tell me!”

They didn’t bother traveling along her dialect now. Firan was more intrigued than horrified. Jax was fine being the latter.

“What did you ask about?”

Firan wasn’t known for his tact, he was known for being brutish, dull, but more loyal than anyone you could want to have by your side. Unless, that is, you knew something he didn’t. Then he’d try everything short of torture to get it out of you. Curiosity was a curious part of him. 

She lifted her hand. Across from them, on the wall, hung a series of posters. Each had a figure the same words above it. ‘Don’t speak.’ Firan’s breath caught in his throat when he followed her finger’s point. He became as close to hysterical as Jax had ever seen him. He stood, raising his hands over and over like he had seen the boy’s father do when berating him.

“Him? You asked about him? Why would you do that?”

Thorin walked to the middle poster, tapping on the paper. She touched the head of the figure, a black silhouette of a boy with long hair.

“Who is this?”

She tapped harder on the chest of the figure, right on the terrible white symbol all the children had come to know by heart.

“What is this?”

Firan laughed cruelly. Jax was finally able to bring himself to stand. He grabbed Thorin’s hand and brought it away from the paper. He tried to be gentle but it was hard for a young Aelphi boy to push someone his own size back into a seating position on a bench. He began to plead with her.

“Don’t touch it. We should all stop talking about it before this gets any worse for you. Before we get dragged into it too.”

How could she not know? Jax thought everyone knew of this boy and the symbol. He shuddered. He’d tried to keep from seeing it ever since he started classes. The posters were everywhere but he’d finally been able to tune them out. He was privy to information other children weren’t. They knew him as a drawing, a shadow. Jax had heard more stories. His father had seen it. His father had fought it. He barely lived.

To not know what an Althrian is. How is that possible?

She pulled her hand back, breaking Jax’s grasp.

“How can I be punished for trying to learn something in school?”

She was urging some logic that didn’t make sense to them. Their lord knew of things that were better left to ignorance. It was his burden to investigate the horrors of creation. Obeiron ruled everything, every Aelphi world. It seemed preposterous to Jax that the same rules wouldn’t apply to the Outer Spheres. 

But here she sat, her purple and green eyes begging them for information that she wasn’t allowed to have. She probably wasn’t even aware that an adult would be imprisoned where she’s being giving lenience. A night of reordining is nothing to ask for, true, but it isn’t a night in the prisons.

A sound jolted them. The door to the Interviewer opened. She stepped out, he boots clacking hard on the stone floor. They could always here her on the prowl but she wasn’t hunting now. She stared at her already caught prey.

She was a low-born. Most professional teachers and administrators were. They left the important jobs, the military positions to those with the blood to handle the workload.

“Girl… Come.”

Thorin was in more trouble than Jax thought. The school was honor based. The better you were doing, the more respect you were given. Jax was often called by his surname. At least by his first. His sex had never been used as a title.

The interviewer grabbed Thorin’s hand, not waiting for her to move on her own accord. The girl, as she was undoubtedly to be called throughout her session, latched on to Jax. She whispered feverishly to him.

“Tell me why!”

He saw the tears in her violet-flecked eyes. The skin on his arm was red from her grip and he was being pulled along with her to the inescapable door. The Interviewer didn’t seem to care. She glared back at her double-haul with something that looked like humor.

Would they punish them both?

Jax planted his feet on the ground and pulled as hard as he could. He closed his eyes tight and pushed down with his legs. He felt a rush of movement. There was a yell, an angry one. Then the world spun.

Jax opened his eyes. He saw Thorin. He technically felt her first. When they fell, she had toppled on top of him. 

“Thank you, Jaxial.”

That voice was there again, pulling him along, inviting him somewhere he couldn’t imagine going.

He leaned up, forgetting where she was. Their lips met. It wasn’t a kiss. There was more surprise than action. They both separated. She slid across the hall and he bumped his head on a column, hard.

He saw the Interviewer throwing Firan off of her. He’d tackled her. He gave a wink before she jabbed him with her reordiner. He convulsed back in a strange moving mass of limbs. She hadn’t given him a mouth guard so the great shock of pain caused him to bite his lip. Blood trickled out of his still smiling mouth. He managed to stand and grab her hand while she was still pressing the large blue button. He wrestled her thumb from it’s place, relieving the jolts.

The Interviewer threw him on the ground and stuck him in the side again. Firan began to laugh. He was laughing! The woman stopped, more angry now than she had been. She whispered something to him. He stopped giggling.

She stood and stuck her sharp-pointed finger at Jax.

“Go. I don’t have time for you anymore.”

Jax scurried across the floor until he could rise to his feet. Firan waved to him, tears dropping down over a renewed smile. Jax didn’t know which emotion was the mask but he could guess the drawn back lips weren’t going to be given a reward for honesty.

He walked slowly, looking down at Thorin. She averted her eyes, staring at the heaving Interviewer lifting Firan into the room.

“And take the Low-Zoner with you. You’ll both get this some other day.”

Jax didn’t wait for the last of her words. He grabbed Thorin’s hand and scuffed the floor, running.

Author's Note

Has not been checked for errors. This was uploaded directly from writing. Please review for every aspect.