Consistent, continuous clanging tore through the countryside, trees were ripped out of the ground and bushes were flattened. Hundreds of ogres and goblins marched in uniform, all of them suited up in thick, heavy, plated armour coated in mud and blood. Their tired grunts were silenced by ten foot tall battleaxes that threatened to swing down upon their necks from above and the owners of such weapons were enormous trolls. The trolls were nearly nine foot tall and had wrinkly, leathery, furry tan skin wrapped around their rock hard muscle that could easily mash an ogre head or two. At the centre of the group was a large red carriage lined with smooth golden edges. It had an elaborate arched window in the centre that was covered from the inside by an equally elaborate red curtain. Extending from each corner of the carriage was a long pike, three of said pikes four were currently occupied by severed human heads that stared forward in horror.

“Rest!” screeched a burly troll who was nearly two foot taller than the rest and who was carrying a battleaxe that matched his height as well.

The entire army exhaled at the same time as if they’d been holding their breaths throughout the entirety of their march before collapsing to the ground creating a thunderous clanging sound as their armour hit the dirt road. The trolls remained standing, parading over the fallen troops, the3ir menacing stares sending the ogres and goblins back in recoil. Meanwhile, resting inside the carriage sat Queen, quietly waiting, drinking tea and eating biscuits, paying no attention to her armies struggles outside.

A few kilometres away on the horizon was a small brown dot. The dot gradually grew in size and as time went by, more and more details could be made out. The dot was a small merchant’s wagon surrounded by a group of tired looking men wearing weathered leather armour and carrying blunt swords at their waists. A troll lounging around at the back of the group spotted the incoming wagon and informed the others of their guests. The army arose in sync and slowly and wearily walked off to each side of the road they had been resting on and into the forest that lined either side. This was a usual routine for the army now and they did their best to stay unnoticed to prevent any information leaks. They didn’t want any words getting out that they were mobilising a small army along the edge of the human-goblin border and the easiest way to do that was to make sure there’d be no chances for witnesses to escape.

The humans approached the red carriage, cautious of the vehicle as there were no horses to pull it. As they slowly and cautiously closed the gap between the two, one of the humans leading the wagon spotted the severed heads mounted on the carriage and screamed out in alarm to the rest, but it was too late. Trolls, ogres and goblins poured out of the woods and formed a ring around the terrified humans, slowly shrinking the circle as the humans fell to their knees in fear. The large troll from earlier stepped forward and signalled to a group of goblins, they snarled back and then slowly approached the humans, hands on their swords and ready to lunge forward. The humans quivered in horror, clambering at their own weapons, shakily holding them out in defence. Within seconds twelve new human heads fell to the floor and were then mounted on pikes, later strapped to the side of the carriage. Within a few minutes the army was mobile once again, right after a few ogres had tossed the merchants wagon into the forest, leaving only a few bloodstains ground into the dirt road.

********

Days passed and the army had reached their first destination, a large goblin tribe that lay on the human-goblin border. The entire tribe lined up in rows in front of the red carriage, standing tall in attention while the tribe’s finest warriors kneeled at the front awaiting their Queen as sweat poured down their faces. The carriage door swung open and Queen strode out, casting a judgemental eye on the kneeling goblins, their eyes widened in fear, yet they stayed strong and focused, not moving a muscle. Queen huffed and walked over to the tribe’s chief, whispering a few words in his ear and then walking back to the carriage. The chief, a rather young adult goblin who’d just taken on the role paused for a few moments before bursting out to the tribe,

“A-Ah… set up the arena! W-we will battle her highness’ troops and those who are worthy will j-join!”

The tribe ran around in preparation, preparing for a tough battle while Queen returned to her cabin, a look of disappointment evident on her face. After shutting the carriage door behind her Queen sat down and slumped over her table, letting out a large sigh. She lay over the table for a while, curling her hair, pondering things and groaning in boredom. She was regretting personally coming to oversee her army when she could have just left it to her troll unit her were perfectly capable on their own, yet she had come, she had hoping that there may have been something interesting or dangerous to come and see, but so far it was incredibly dull. She hadn’t killed anything for weeks to let the new troops gain experience and the trolls wouldn’t even let her leave the carriage for anything because they were far too overprotective and didn’t want anything to happen to her. So, she waited, and waited, and after weeks of travelling to get to the first tribe, what did she find? She found a bunch of skinny, weak little goblins and not even a single ogre. It was a complete waste of time, but that wasn’t even the end of it, there were still over a hundred more tribes to visit and it will end up taking years to get to them all!

Queen sighed again before whispering to herself, “Fuck it, I’m leaving.”

Queen burst into shadows and disappeared with an eruption of hazy black fog, her figure lost to the darkness. The carriage door opened and a slight disturbance in the grass could be seen along with the quiet crunching of soil compacting. A single note was left behind in the carriage reading, ‘I expect completion in my absence,’ as she did not return for years to come and during that time, only a single being encountered her and lived to tell the tale.

********

Lucy rolled over in her massive bed which was so large that it occupied half of her bedrooms space. The ridiculously large bed was paired with multiple ridiculously large pillows that were as tall as she was. Her room was rather simple however, other than the bed and door, all that was there was a chest of drawers with nothing in them, a tiny window too high to see out of and a few lamps fixed onto the blood red walls. This had been Lucy’s bedroom for the past few weeks now and she’d begun to grow used to it, praying that her siblings got similar treatment. The room was the only room she’d seen since she and her siblings were ‘escorted’ out of their parent’s mansion and driven away somewhere that took over a week to arrive to. Since arriving there had been no contact between her and her family, so nerves were high and Lucy hadn’t been able to relax whatsoever regardless that she’d been given such surprisingly good treatment.

Everyday a meal arrived at around noon, usually delivered by a rather creepy, rather hairy goblin wearing a tuxedo, however no such person had arrived today so Lucy was anxious, waiting in anticipation.

A grating, scraping sound came from the door as it was unlocked from the outside and pushed slightly ajar. Gut wrenching screams, cries of anguish and groans of agony slipped through the crack as a tiny, delicate head the size of a grape (but not the shape of course) poked its little head through the gap. I had eyes the colour of the sea and bright aqua hair tied back in a loose plait, cute pointy ears poked though its hair and its cheeks were tinged with pink. With tears in her eyes a minuscule female fairy entered the room wearing an equally minuscule maid outfit.

Lucy looked up in surprise at the fairy, wondering what happened to the usual goblin, but she definitely welcomed the new addition.

“Ah… U-Um! J-Just a s-second, let me get y-your food!” squeaked the fairy, her delicate, semi-transparent wing beating furiously behind her to keep her in the air.

She turned around and dashed back outside leaving Lucy still staring at where she was in wonder. Moments later the door swung open and the fairy entered the room ‘carrying’ a large tray of food. The tray seemingly levitated in front of her, yet if you looked really closely you could see that the underside of the tray was supported by a hand composed of clear, flowing streams of water that twisted together elegantly to form the shape of a hand with the base of the hand trailing behind the tray, slowly fading away like a smoke trail. The tray drifted over to Lucy and softly landed in her lap, not a single drop of liquid spilling from the cups resting on it. The fairy then bowed and dashed over to yesterdays dirty dishes, picked them up with her magical hand and began to fly back over to the door.

“Hey! W-Wait!” Lucy called out to the fairy, to which she responded to by squeaking in shock, causing her magic hand to dissipate and send the dishes crashing to the ground.

The fairy looked at the mess in horror, her eyes widening in dread and her face paled drastically. Tears formed in the corners of her eyes, her bottom lip quivered and she shook nervously, her little wings slowing down before stopping. Lucy looked at the now falling fairy in shock before she leapt off her bed and snatched the fairy out of the air before she collided with the stone ground. Lucy looked down at the unconscious fairy in her palms. Her cute face was distraught with unease and terror as she squirmed around erratically. The little fairy’s eyelids fluttered a little and then slowly opened, she looked up at Lucy’s face in fright and then quickly clamped her eyes back down and curled up into a little ball, trying to make herself look as small as possible as she quietly half muttered and half cried something incomprehensible.

“H-Hey there… Don’t cry! I-I didn’t mean to hurt you or anything, I… I just wanted to talk to you. S-So please stop crying okay? I promise I won’t do anything to you, I mean it! I’m just a prisoner here anyway, I can’t do anything. So… please… stop crying,” whispered Lucy apologetically.

The little fairy slowly uncurled herself and got up into a sitting position in Lucy’s hands. She slowly brought her teary face up to Lucy’s until their eyes met and she quickly looked away, staring at her feet.

“H-Hi there… Um, I-I don’t mean any harm... Really, I don’t. Allow me to introduce myself, I’m Lucy Alastair, and you are?” questioned Lucy.

“..ly,” mumbled the fairy.

“Sorry, what was that? I couldn’t hear you,” asked Lucy.

“Lily… I’m Lily…” answered the Fairy quietly.

“Lily, nice to meet you Lily, it’s a shame it had to be here. Anyway I don’t mind at all that the dishes were dropped and I’m sure as long as you pick them back up and take them away like usual nothing will happen. I am sorry for calling out to you all of a sudden though. I was just wondering why such a cute girl like you got here,” spoke Lucy quietly.

“T… That’s okay. I-I’m sorry for g-getting so teary,” stuttered Lily.

“That’s certainly no problem with me,” said Lucy, giving Lily a smile. “So… Why are you here in such a place Lily?”

In response Lily simply pointed towards her neck where there was an intricate black collar on her neck, presumably a slave collar.

Lucy sighed, “I’m sorry about bringing that up. I just didn’t notice it earlier. I guess not many people here want to be anyw-”

Lucy stopped talking as a miniature finger was poking her index finger repeatedly, Lucy looked down to see Lily looking back up at her nervously.

“Umm…” started Lily nervously, “I… I have to leave… The-They’ll be l-looking for me. I don’t wan-want them to do anything… bad again…”

“Ah! I’m sorry for keeping you! Go then. I’m so sorry!” burst out Lucy.

The fairy flew up into the air, bowing repeatedly to Lucy and then dashed over to the dishes, picking them back up with her magical water hand. After some more bowing and apologies Lily darted out of the room leaving behind a still rather bewildered Lucy who wished to know more about the odd, pitiful fairy.

********

A cool breeze brushed past Queen’s cheek, pleasant sounds of trees rustling all around her and the sweet scent of the forest pleased her greatly, but not to the extent of running a blade through somebody’s midsection. Queen continued her pleasant afternoon stroll through the forest, not paying attention to much of her surroundings. For the past few months she’d been strolling through her territory, spectating other’s battles and fights, spying on nature and occasionally decimating a town or village to soother her building bloodlust. Currently, she was walking through an area densely populated by living trees, a few of which had tried their luck against her and instantly regretted it as only smouldering piles of ashes were left behind.

In the distance Queen could hear heavy breathing and fast footsteps that were quickly approaching her. She smiled, it had been a while since she’d had a bite to eat and whatever this was, it smelt good. It approached faster and faster and soon she could smell a distinct smell of burnt flesh and fleshly spilt blood, only deepening her hunger. That was, until she saw what was approaching her, which at the same time, it had apparently seen her too. In the middle of nowhere, Queen had met something she’d longed for her entire life… a being like her. Standing in front of her, slumped over, intestines spilling out of its midsection and severe burns to its face and neck was a horned being… a being she thought she’d never get to see. As she stared at him in shock and wonder, an arrow flew though the air from behind him, almost as if it were in slow motion, it twirled slowly through the air, arcing towards the injured being… and… the arrow pierced his heart, knocking the boy flat on his face. Queen erupted into a rage she’d never felt before. For the first time, she’d found another like her and he’d been killed seconds after they’d met… then… there was blood. A lot of it.