Juliette I

0 PA

It didn’t feel real. That was all Juliette could think. It didn’t feel real.

Not the battle raging on outside. Not the people who had come to call her their queen.

Not the corpse that laid at her feet.

Bile rose up in her throat, and she fell onto her knees, heaving onto the floor.

She hadn’t been sold on the idea that they were immortal. That they could apparently live forever, that their life was now tied to a glass ball smaller than her fist. There was no way that was true. It would be ridiculous, to be able to die so easily.

(That was what she told herself, at least.)

But she couldn’t pretend anymore. She had shattered a ball, and a man died. He fell to the ground the second it broke, dead where he stood.

He had begged her to spare his life, and she killed him.

She choked, tears burning her eyes and vomit caking her mouth. The guilt burned, worse than she had ever expected. But she had to do it, she had to. If she hadn’t, he would have come for her soon enough, and their roles would’ve been reversed, and she’d be dead.

Juliette didn’t want to die. Not now, not ever.

If she had to kill others to survive, then that was worth it to her. It was worth it.

(Please let it be worth it).

She shuddered, kneeled over in the hut. Her heart was racing, and try as she might, she couldn’t raise her head. Couldn’t make herself look at the body a few feet in front of her.

Maybe… maybe if she just stayed here, it would all be over? If she just closed her eyes, she would wake up back home and go to back classes with Avery and Jill and forget all of this and she’d study and play games and get a good job and… and…

And.

If only.

In the end, it was the smell that snapped her out of it. Both that of the corpse and her own. It centered her, the putrid stench of death, reminding her where she was.

There was a battle going on outside. More people were dying. Her people. People who trusted her, who had put their lives on the line for her own selfish desires. People who even now were killing and dying.

She needed to stop them. The battle was over.

With a shuddering sigh, she spat out what was left in her mouth before wiping her face with her sleeve.

Erg. Disgusting.

Now she needed to…

She looked down at the corpse.

…She didn’t know his name. She didn’t know the slightest thing about him. Maybe that was for the best.

She took a step towards him, before immediately jumping backwards, spooked by the sound of her own footstep.

She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. Focus.

With another deep breath she forced herself forward, and with a grimace she grabbed a hold of the body. Clenching her teeth, she lifted it up, half-carrying it and half dragging it, she pulled it out of the hut.

It was still warm. She swallowed heavily and tried not to think about it.

Outside, things had begun to calm down. Sort of.

The brutal melee that had begun when she first arrived had cooled down into a standoff. The remaining warriors of the tribe had knocked down their own tents into a small circular barricade, pointing spears out in every direction. Behind them were the civilians who hadn’t fled into the woods, many of them children, huddling as closely together as possible. They looked terrified.

She felt disgusted with herself.

Her own soldiers didn’t have enough people to completely surround them—she had only brought forty-six people, not wanting to force her entire population into a battle. Instead of doing so, they had followed her orders, falling back into a sort of phalanx-like formation, using their shields to block any projectiles the others threw at them.

Glancing down, she saw bodies on the ground. She hoped none of them were hers, and then immediately felt bad for thinking that. She grimaced, swallowing back more bile. She bit her lower lip hard enough to make it bleed, forcing herself to focus on the living.

The battle was over. It was time to let everyone else know. She took a deep breath, and then froze. What should she say? ‘Fucking—fuck it, just tell them to surrender.’

“SURRENDER!” she bellowed, letting the corpse fall off her and onto the ground, where it landed with a dull thud. She hesitated, the sudden loss of heat and the reminder of what she had been carrying startling her for a moment, before she gathered herself and continued. “YOUR KING IS DEAD! SURRENDER, AND YOU WILL BE SPARED, AND YOU WILL BE ABLE TO RETURN TO YOUR NORMAL LIVES! CONTINUE TO RESIST, AND WE WILL HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO KILL YOU!”

‘Please, please surrender.’

Both sides paused at her voice, a number of her people turning to her with unmasked faces of relief. It made her feel a bit better, that so many people cared about her. Still, she made sure to motion back to the other tribe, making sure they kept their eyes on the enemy that hadn’t yet surrendered.

Looking at said enemy, she couldn’t make out their expressions, but she could practically feel their morale plummet. Their leader was dead, and they were already fighting a losing battle.

There was no reason for this to continue beyond their own pride.

“Surrender!” she shouted again, trying to put as much charisma into her voice as possible. “Drop your weapons and you will live, and everyone else here will live too! This, I promise on my life and duty as a Queen!”

Should she say please? No, that would be weird. The winning side shouldn’t have to use ‘please.’

Slowly, reluctantly, the enemy warriors put their spears down.

“Good!” she called to them, trying to hide her relief. “Now, walk out of the circle with your hands in the air! And you five,” she pointed to the five of her own soldiers in the back, “grab all of their weapons and put them in a pile behind us. And remember!” she turned back to the civilians and warriors, “No funny business! No trying to be a hero, or trying to get revenge, or anything! Just stay calm and obedient, and nobody will get hurt!”

‘Please, for the love of God, nobody try anything.’

Luckily, thankfully, nobody tried anything, and a few tense, heart pounding moments later, everyone was disarmed and the people still in the village rounded up in the center.

‘Okay,’ Juliette thought to herself, ‘what now?’

Because, honestly, she hadn’t really thought that much on what to do after she won. Before? She had come up with a dozen plans and drilled her soldiers over and over until the moment they arrived, but after? She hadn’t really been thinking that far ahead.

How the hell am I supposed to control a tribal village? I mean, I just conquered them, right? Normally that makes them my subjects, but does it actually work that way? Something tells me they won’t just roll over and accept that. Maybe… taxes? For now, at least. They send us food and supplies, and we protect them. That’s how it goes, right? And it would allow me to field more soldiers for next time if we didn’t have to worry as much about food…

And, as much as she hated it, there would be a next time.

There were other people out there. Other immortal leaders like her and him who were all stuck in this battle royale together until only ten were left standing. There would be those like the man she had killed, who lost, and those like her, who took from others and became stronger for it.

And she didn’t hold any illusions on what would happen if she didn’t grow strong first.

It had been the reason she came here. The driving force behind her conquest (could it really be called that?) of this tribe.

She was terrified.

She had been terrified from the start, when the God-Thing had dumped her into a tribal village as their leader. She had been terrified as she tried currying favor and popularity among the people of her tribe.

She had been terrified when the counter in the back of her head had ticked down from 10,000 to 9,999. Someone had died. Five days in, and someone had died.

How long would she last?

So, she couldn’t let herself be the hunted. She had to be the hunter, the conqueror. The person who killed, rather than the person who was killed. As much as she hated herself for it.

So, she built up her forces. She gathered up the forty-six strongest members of her tribe and set about drilling them into something barely resembling proper soldiers. She had them make crude shields and enough spears that everyone got two. There was a tribe nearby, she had learned when Tau returned from his hunting trip.

She couldn’t let herself get killed. So, she attacked first.

And now they were here. She had won.

It didn’t feel like winning.

--

The first order of business was counting the dead.

Counting the man she had killed—Sam, she had learned his name was—fourteen people had died.

It felt… low. It was both a relief and a punch in the gut.

Of the fourteen people who had died, only three had been on her side. Mao, Laifeng, and Aoi. She memorized their names and faces as the others readied their bodies for the funeral rites. Apparently, those would happen later that night, at twilight. The bodies would be wrapped in linens along with various things they might need in the afterlife—things like food, objects they valued in life, and clothing. After they were wrapped, they’d be placed into the river, where they would flow down it into the afterlife.

Or get eaten by fish. One or the other.

Of course, there were much more pressing concerns than people who were already dead.

While only fourteen people had died, twenty-six people from both sides had been wounded. Some were only minor injuries—a bruised rib, a cut along the arm, etc. Others were much more severe. Two people so far had needed to be amputated, and another man had been paralyzed from the waist down.

The cost of war. Somehow, she felt worse about the injured than the dead. Maybe it was because they could still speak and laugh and cry. The dead were already gone—the living would live in pain for years.

But even with all that, there was another thing she needed to attend to. Something that had been burning in the back of her mind ever since she found and destroyed the unguarded phylactery of the other King.

So she spent as much time as she could force herself to tending to the wounded and reorganizing everyone. And once she was sure they would be fine without her for a bit, Juliette begged off to go check on their forward camp.

That led her to now, sprinting as fast as she could through the forest, trying not to think of all the horrible things that could have happened to her soul in the time she was gone.

As much as she was needed back at the village, she needed to deal with this first.

Eventually she had backtracked far enough, coming across the now empty base camp they had set up, about an hour away from the village. Most of the primitive bedrolls had been rolled up and hidden—more from animals than people. She didn’t have a bedroll—the bugs grossed her out, and she was never one for camping, so she just used her newfound ‘power’ that allowed her to stay up all night. Not like she would’ve fallen asleep anyway.

But she wasn’t here for bedrolls.

With a gasp of relief, she grabbed her leather satchel, feeling calmer just holding onto it. Opening it up with trembling fingers, she pulled out the orb—ball—soul that sat within.

She just let it sit there it in her palm, staring at the blues and reds and whites that swirled throughout it, entranced.

It still made her uncomfortable to hold it—to even see it. But she choked back that feeling. Right now, after what had happened that morning, she never wanted to let it out of her sight again.

After a while of kneeling there, she calmed down, almost relaxing for the first time in days.

It wasn’t perfect. But she was alive. Her first plan had succeeded.

Hopefully the next one would too.

--

She returned a couple hours later, taking her time to return—most of it spent trying to figure out what she wanted to do when she got back.

She figured she needed to give a speech—that’s what people did when they conquered somewhere, right? They gave a speech? Or was that only the bad guys that did that?

She frowned, discarding that thought. She wasn’t going to be a bad guy. She’d be morally grey at worst.

“Qian!” she called out, stepping up to her second in command. “Is everything going all right here? Has there been any problems?”

“Not much, my Queen!” the man responded, turning to face her. Qian had been the most skilled hunter back in her village, which was half the reason why he was her second in command. “There’s been a scuffle or two, but nothing we couldn’t handle—spears beat fists, after all. Other than that, we’ve sent out scouting parties—of both our and their people—to gather those who fled the battle, but it’s unlikely we’ll find all of them.”

Juliette tsked. “That’s unfortunate. What about the rest of the people here? Do you think they’ll be causing any more problems?”

The man shrugged. “They’re pissed, and wary, and I don’t think they really understand what we’re still doing here. Most raids end with the attackers taking what they want and then leaving. The fact that we’re still here seems to be baffling them.”

‘Hn. Note to self, explain conquest in my speech.’

“I see,” she nodded. “Get everyone to gather up around the fire pit in around—say, thirty minutes, give or take. I’d like to make a speech.”

“I’ll make sure it’s done. But, uh…”

Juliette frowned lightly. “Is there something wrong?”

“No, no my Queen! Everything’s fine.”

“Qian,” she frowned harder, “I don’t want you lying to me. If there’s an issue, I want to hear about it immediately, not after it’s already caused a problem.”

“I… I understand,” he nodded, appropriately chastised. “I just don’t understand what you mean by ‘thirty minutes.’”

Juliette paused, her brain stalling as she processed that. ‘Right, these people don’t have accurate time keeping. Hell, I’m not even sure they keep track of time at all.’

“I… see,” she said after a moment. “It doesn’t matter, I’ll explain it later. Just get everyone around the firepit as soon as possible, alright?”

The man bowed again. “It will be done!”

“Thank you.”

With that she left him, meandering through the village. ‘Should I get there early? Rulers should be punctual, right? But what if that makes me look to eager? Queens run on queen time, after all. Should I show up there after everyone’s arrived? Or will that make me just look like an ass? Maybe I’m just thinking too hard on this—ACK!’

Her thoughts were suddenly cut off when she bumped into someone. The collision caused her to stumble a bit, thrown off.

Looking at who had knocked into her, she noticed it was one of the people she had just conquered. It was a young woman with a long brown braid and biceps the size of her head. The woman threw her a sneer, before walking away.

‘Uh… should I do something about that? I’ve got to stop people from challenging my authority, right? Should I—wait—shit—speech!’

With that she turned away, power-walking towards the center.

When she arrived, she saw that most of the village and her people were there. It was probably enough to start, but she decided to wait a bit longer for any stragglers. It also let her take stock of the people in front of her—most of the villagers gave her looks of anger or fear, while her own soldiers looked smug or bored.

She waited another minute before nodding. She couldn’t wait anymore and just needed to get this over with.

Clearing her throat, she began. “People of—”’Wait shit what’s this place called again?’ “—this village! My soldiers! Lend me your ears!”

Within seconds she had everyone looking at her. She had found that it wasn’t hard for her to command a room—between having blonde hair, exotic features, and being taller than even most of the men, she must have seemed like an alien creature to them. It was probably harder for them to not pay attention to her.

‘Come on public speaking course I took last fall, don’t fail me now!’

“I am Juliette, Queen of these lands! And I have arrived here to unite our tribes as one! Eight days ago, the gods sent me forth from a great land, to bring the people of this world prosperity!”

She took a breath, gauging the crowd. There was an old woman at the front who looked skeptical yet resigned, and a couple people who were looking pissed, but for the most part they just looked mildly confused and worried.

“I understand that recent events may have worried you. That this does not seem like a good thing. But I assure you, this is only a moment of pain! A war, and all that comes with it. But now that war is over. Yesterday, we were enemies, but today you are my people, the same as the soldiers surrounding you. Should you need supplies, we will provide them; should you go hungry, we will send you food; and should you be attacked, we will defend you to the last. As the rest of my people prosper, so will all of you. This, I promise on my life, soul, and status as Queen.”

She took another breath, staring out into the crowd. So far so good, some people were actually nodding along and nobody looked too annoyed. Now for the hard part.

“But prosperity is not a one-way street. As we give to you, you must also give to us. For now, until things have settled down, we will take any of your excess weapons. We will leave enough for you to hunt without issue, but the soldiers that now defend you will need the supplies. Next winter we shall—”

Suddenly a woman from the crowd of villagers jumped up, breaking free of the crowd with a rage filled scream. The woman charged forward; Juliette’s guards unable to stop her in time—not trained to be prepared to stop something like this—

‘Holy shit she has a knife—where did she—I thought we confiscated all their—’

Juliette couldn’t get another thought out before the knife slid into her chest, piercing her heart.

It was as if the world froze, everything coming to a stop. Juliette stared down in shock and horror at the woman in front of her, whose face was twisted in hate and rage.

Then the moment passed, and her guards tackled the woman off of her, a scuffle breaking out as they struggled to hold her down.

Juliette couldn’t focus on any of that, however. All she could focus on was the hilt of the blade sticking out of her chest.

‘Ah,’ she thought deliriously, ‘That’s my knife.’

Juliette blinked.

‘I should probably take that out.’

It was only because her mind wasn’t thinking straight that she thought that, and as a result followed through.

With a squelch and a squirt of blood, she pulled the knife free of her chest, staring down at her blood-soaked garments with a detached sense of wonder.

‘I was stabbed,’ she thought, as the last few moments sunk in. ‘I was stabbed. And somehow, I’m not dead yet.’

It was then that she began feeling an uncomfortable crawling across her chest as her flesh began to shift and twitch. She couldn’t see it beneath the blood and mangled leather, but she could feel it.

And what felt like an eternity later, she was fully healed, the blood on her knife the only evidence that she had ever been stabbed at all.

She glanced back up, out into the startled crowd. Everyone was staring at her in shock.

Well. She still had a speech to finish.

“Yi, Qin, take that woman somewhere else, and make sure she’s properly guarded and detained. I’ll figure out what to do with her later,” Juliette commanded, far more calmly that she reasonably should have been able to.

With a hum she turned back to the crowd before her, sheathing the bloody dagger back in her belt. “Now, as I was saying, next winter we will look over this arrangement once again—by then, everything will have stabilized, and we can come to a more long-term arrangement. Of course, I am not going to take without giving back. A group of my own soldiers will stay here to keep the peace and protect you all from danger. Similarly, some of you will be brought back to my own home to be trained to be soldiers themselves—they will return after their education is complete, adding to your own defenses.”

She paused again, making sure she hadn’t lost anyone. But, no, they were all paying attention to her, arguably even more than before.

“Finally, you will all have to take an oath. The same one that my own people had to take. As we have all gathered here already, we will do it now. My soldiers will help guide you through it.”

After a couple minutes of shuffling people and coaching, they began their oath.

“I swear, before the Ancestors, and before the Gods,

That I will bow before the Queen, whose name is Juliette.

That I will obey her law, and respect her word,

And that I will teach my children the same.

I swear that I will never cause her harm, nor betray her trust, nor bow to any other,

And that I shall speak all of this in good faith, without deceit.”

Juliette nodded in a way she hoped looked regal to them. She didn’t actually believe a word of it, and she doubted they did either, but the act of making the oath meant she had at least a verbal agreement from these people they wouldn’t turn against her. They might even be more willing to follow her after making it.

She hoped at least. She had really just been making this up as she went along—her own people didn’t swear that oath until yesterday.

“And I, the Queen you all swear to, promise this. Should you go hungry, I shall feed you. Should you be harmed, I shall protect you. So long as you uphold your oath, and your loyalty stays with me, I shall protect you, forever. This, I swear to the Gods, the Ancestors, and to Myself.”

And with that, her speech was done.

She nodded to the people gathered before her, dismissing them, and then began to make her way towards the makeshift infirmary they had set up. Her guards tried to grab her arms to help her along, but she shook them off—she felt perfectly fine. If she didn’t know any better, she wouldn’t even think she had been stabbed in the first place.

Besides, there was one last thing she needed to do today, and she didn’t want anyone to be near her for a bit.

--

Juliette stood alone over a hole, a crude spade in her hands. She had dug it a fair distance from the village—she wanted to be alone for this.

Turning to her left, she stared at the mound of linens beside her.

Inside of it was the body of the dead King. It wasn’t a coffin, but it would do.

She blinked heavily, trying to focus. She just—she wasn’t in the best of states, right now.

But she had to do this. So, with a grunt she leaned down and grabbed the body, sliding it into the hole as delicately as she could.

It still ended up banging against the side of the hole hard enough to make her wince, but she pressed on. With one last grunt of effort, the body was completely in the hole. And then she got to filling it back up.

As she shoveled the dirt into the hole, she zoned out, letting her mind go completely blank. Just the dig-plop-dig-plop of her shovel against the dirt. Soon enough, the grave was filled in, with just one thing left to do. With a grunt of effort, she shoved the stone grave marker she had brought with her over the grave, leaving it to rest on top.

And on it, she had carved—

Here lies King Sam

A kind Man, and a benevolent King

He died protecting his home

With her work done, she sighed, flopping onto the ground in front of the grave.

Juliette opened her mouth, but couldn’t find any words to say. So she stayed silent, sitting in front of the grave.

But eventually the silence started to get to her, and she—she just needed to say something.

“I—,” she choked. “I’m sorry. I know—I know that doesn’t mean anything. Especially now that we’re, well, here. And I know you probably hate me for this—I hate myself, damnit.” She hissed, beating a fist against her leg, feeling tears begin to fall down her face. “I hate that I did this! I hate it! I hate it!”

She broke down after that, crying in front of the grave of the man that she killed. Ugly sobs rent through her body, as she bent over, curling into herself.

Eventually she ran out of tears. She quieted down, heaving silently as she gathered herself.

“I don’t,” she choked out, “I don’t know if this is how you wanted to be buried. I don’t know your religion, or your customs, or whatever. You looked American, so I hope this is fine. I’m sorry if I messed this up.”

She took a deep breath.

“I don’t know who you are. Were. I didn’t learn your name was Sam until today. I don’t know what food you liked, or movies you watched, or games you liked to play. If you even liked to play games. But—but. We’re both from Earth. And I suppose that means something, between the two of us. Makes me the closest person to you, in some weird way. It’s why—why I buried you. Why I’m here now. I don’t know you, and you didn’t know me. But we could probably have talked about Pokémon, or football—the European kind, not your heathen American kind—or maybe we would have talked about movies or Minecraft. I kind of wish we could have. I think—I think that’s what I hate the most. That we didn’t get to talk about that.”

“So, I guess what I’m most sorry about is what we lost. What could have been. And I’m sorry it was my fault we never got to experience it.”

She quieted down after that. Just sitting there, listening to the sounds of nature. And if she listened really closely, she swore she could almost hear the man speaking back to her.

She imagined he was cussing her out. The thought made her smile.

Eventually, though, she had to leave.

She stood up unsteadily, her legs having fallen asleep.

“Thank you,” she told the grave, before feeling a little silly for it. With a deep, calming breath, she centered herself, turning away from the grave.

She had more funerals to attend tonight, and she wouldn’t allow herself to be late.

9,996 God-Kings Remain