Young Writers Society

I stared.

"You're letting yourself get executed because you had a break-up?" I asked, disbelief surprisingly clear in my monotone voice. "And here I thought Lockwood was extra."

I put my hands on his shoulders again.

"When he said he didn't want to see you again, I'm pretty sure he didn't want you to get yourself executed," I said. "You probably did something to upset him, or he was having a bad day - whatever it was, dying is a pathetic way to deal with it."

Jacob just kept crying.

Megara returned from her searching with a few assorted items of clothing slung over her arm and a sewing kit in her hand.

She rolled her eyes at Jacob, "Hey, stop crying, you're gonna get us all caught in here."

Fidel glared at her. She shrugged and sat back down on the bed to begin altering the clothes to fit.

Jacob's crying let up a little, just enough for him to choke out a few words, "I- I must obey the king. The king knows what is best!" And he dissolved into another fit of wailing.

...Time for another approach.

"Why does the king know best?" I asked.

Jacob looked up at him, his sobs subsiding into whimpers and hiccups undercut by a constant flow of tears from his blotchy redened eyes.

"He- he's the king," he said, as if it were obvious.

Megara paused in her sewing to raise an eyebrow, "I've killed kings for being wrong," she deadpanned, "The title means nothing."

Jacob got suddenly defensive, "Those were your kings."

"Yeah, but what qualifies him for that besides birthright?" I asked. "Imagine if I was the king of some place just because my dad owned the kingdom before he kicked the bucket. You wouldn't want to do anything I'd say, would you?"

Jacob suddenly forgot that he was crying long enough to get angry.

“Do not speak that way about the king!” he exclaimed with absolute offense.

Megara snorted, “It seems we’ve found ourselves a fanatic,” she commented.

"I wasn't talking about your king anymore," I said. "I was talking about me. Besides, he's not my king - his declarations don't mean anything to me. Not that I would care if they did. I don't like people telling me what I can and can't do."

“You are foolish,” Jacob pouted, apparently forgetting Skull’s earlier threats.

I shrugged.

"You're not the first person to say that to me," I nonchalantly replied - secretly grateful that he didn't seem to care about the threats I had issued earlier. I would have been a little more angry at the insult, but it worked surprisingly well for my argument. "But if you know that I'm foolish, would you still follow what I said if I was suddenly your king instead of the current one?"

He crossed his arms like an angered child, “The king is wise. The king won his throne. You are a fool.”

Megara chuckled, “The fanatic has spoken, Skull, you are equivalent to a jester by the logic of this world.”

Fidel glared at her. She just gave him an amused roll of her eyes.

"I wasn't asking you," I hissed, "and I know more than you'll ever know, Meg."

The last part was far from necessary, but I knew how to push people's buttons - and I very much wanted to push hers.

She flinched, “Call me that again,” she said with a controlled calm, “and you won’t be the one paying for your mistake.”

Fidel looked at her quizzically, not understanding.

Jacob, meanwhile, didn’t seem to care about the exchange, “You should all be executed. You speak badly of the king,” he pouted.

I dismissed both of their comments with a wave of my hand - even as Kirux's lips quivered and eyes started to water at Jacob's comment. "I've already done that twice - death doesn't like me all that much. And, if I was executed, I'd just haunt you for your entire afterlife."

Jacob was stunned speechless at that. He sat, frozen, for a second, then buried his face in his hands and went back to crying.

Megara tied off a thread with her finished seam and started a new one. “You know it wasn’t you I was threatening,” she said casually, not looking up from her work, “If I were you I wouldn’t be so blasé about the lives of others.”

"She has a point," I admitted. "What gives you the right to say who should live and die? I'd argue that while Meg and I are both despicable people who probably should be executed given how we've both acted towards you, Kirux and Fidel are perfectly good people. Don't you see how much you've upset Kirux?"

As if to prove my point, the tears Kirux was trying to hold back came spilling over.