December 2, 2012

• DOWP: stratagem

  A image blooms...

  The tiny humanoid creature struggles and screams in a mixture of indignation and fear, defiant to the last, but very much afraid of what was coming. He was dressed in the regalia and finery of a king, and he very much felt he should be treated better then this; and, indeed his clothing was quite fine, if not bright; the vary starkness of that particular hue of black would be quite startling to look upon, by mortals. An impossible shade of black to capture in mere cloth, accented and given contrast by thin lines of somber golds and purples. His fine clothing only served to paint the disparity of his own features; for he, instead of adding dignity and regal bearing to the clothing, only served to strike a comic appearance, being ill suited for his current garb. Of course, the sight of two delicate fingers picking him up by his hawkish balding head, did nothing to add to his dignity either, and when she set him down one square from where he had been, the terror in his eyes darkened the image.

  Sprawled on the floor clutching his ebony crown, he could do nothing; not struggle, nor scream; neither run, nor could he fight. The words that seemed to enscroll his body glowed now. They weren't apparent before; but now, they looked as if chains, binding and constricting him from action. So all he could do was look on helpless, knowing the outcome, having experienced this all to often; look on, and up, at his tormentors, his antagonists. The White King, and the Black Queen, both watching the game with intensity, their features, inhuman. His eyes looked on as if dead already as spike pierced flesh and bone alike, breaking it easily. The heft of a spiked maul, conveying the mock appearance of a scepter, solidly connected with a sickening thud; collapsing the skull of the poor little king, his cerebral juices pooling red on the white square beneath him.

  Stifling a sigh of annoyance, the Black Queen glanced over the balcony at the mass of mangled and broken corpses that littered the checkered floor, with an air of disgust, as if to blame the bodies for her lack of skill at the game. She watched as her servants went about stripping the bodies of their clothing so they could be restored to their former condition.

  “Maybe next time.” She said, and turned to look at an image of the White King watching her, sitting at his own thrown, looking down on a checkered table, with diminutive humanoid figures that resembled the hulking and brutish Ogres reforming ranks on the floor below. She shot him a coy and seductive smile saying, “I'll beat you some day, don't get too cocky.” Her voice like silk on the air, with a hint of danger to it, predatory. She motioned to board in front of her, where her new pieces were already in place.  Most looked like beast-kin but some looked like the humans they once were, all had the stink of fear and squalor, mixed with a powerful sense of dread.  “Again?”

  A nightmare fades...

   

  This piece was written for @PallidPen for the DOWP: Stratagem

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