[quote]So Flood, I am in the middle of writing four different stories right now, and I decided I'd share one, just to see what your reaction is.[/quote] One^1 The man walked through the hallways nobly, taking special attention to not upset the equilibrium of the glass of midnight serum, the milk, in his left hand, his right hand partaking in the job of balancing, with all of the grace of a blueblood. He made sure to avoid tripping over the obstacles of a slightly unkempt house, avoiding the obstructions of toys, clothes and household decorations that had been uprooted in the daytime calamity that had taken place earlier; the conflict between a five foot, eleven inch dragon and a four foot, three inch princess. A princess had rescued the knight, an eleven year old, seventy pound Irish Setter. The man let all of his thoughts give one collective sigh as he continued on his journey to the princesses' chamber. As he navigated through the hallways he noticed all of the decorations on the walls. Replicas of obscure paintings he did not remember buying, and the portraits of estranged family relations he did not remember framing. He passed through the ostentatious hallway without much more thought and opened approached the door to the chamber. He listened to the princess on the other side, as she sang to what must be a dolly in her hands, in the made-up language of the motherly. He gripped the doorknob and slowly opened the door to the halfway point, so as to not alert the princess of his presence immediately, he waited a few minutes before he threw himself with the entire flourish of a Prince, for a Prince he was. The princess was stopped in mid-coo, and gazed up from her bed and observed the stranger in her door for a moment in silence. Upon registering the stranger as no one else but the Prince himself, the corners of the girl's mouth shot upwards so quickly and forcefully she clung to her bed sheets to avoid blasting off to the moon in happiness. "Joey! Lookitmelookitme!" she screamed, before throwing herself on the floor and performing a lop-sided cartwheel. The Father sat down the milk on the bedside next to the princesses' bed and the Prince laughed and scooped her up to lay her in bed. The Father tucked her in and sat down next to her. "Now now, what do you know about bed time?" The Father questioned. The girl sat stumped, feigning anger at her Dad for throwing her back into bed. The girl threw her shoulders up in surrender. "Oh you know better than that! What do all princesses need to be strong and pretty?" he questioned again. "Sleep! Princesses need sleep!" she shouted excitedly. She waited another moment before asking again, "Bubut, aren't I already pretty!?" The Father laughed loudly and the Prince exclaimed, "You're the most beautiful princess in all of seven kingdoms of the world!" threw his hands up, and bowed to the girl flamboyantly. The princess laughed hysterical at her Prince and she drank the milk that her father had given her excitedly and fell back into bed. She pulled the sheets up to her eyeballs, as green as they were exposed, gazed at her Father. The Father kissed the girls forehead, ruffled her hair, and sat up off the bed. He walked to the door and turned off the light, telling the princess of his love for her, and the princess did the same for him. Satisfied, he closed the door and began the process of cleaning up the remnants of the epic dragon battle that had taken place earlier. He worked for an hour, resetting everything to its aesthetic locations, and sweeping the floor of the dry macaroni, which had served as the guts of the dragon. It was a work of love, all for the girl. When he was done, he sat himself in the living room Lay-Z-Boy and turned on the TV. His sports team was losing; his political party was gaining seats, his favorite show was being renewed for another season. He relaxed his eyes and let all of the entertainment come to him. There was nothing more for him to do with the day, and he felt no urge to change that. Exhausted, he was no longer the dragon, the Prince or even the Father. He was off the clock; he was now only Joel Lund. After a few hours of television, he fell asleep in his seat to the noise of his mind's pacing and the droning of a Proactiv commercial. ###### The Soldier marched dutifully through the sleet and mud, keeping his feet out of puddles and his eyes on what was in front of him as well as what was going on behind him. His head was locked in place, and he was determined to not fight. He looked at the trees which lined either side of the path all the soldiers were walking, black like the Ardennes, the Soldier became convinced he was in Germany. He kept his gun slung on his shoulder, in the masculine, accepted pose he watched his allies stride in. They were faceless projections of what he wanted them to be, he made no effort to incorporate himself with the men whose reasons for enlistment differed so greatly from his. They were pawns, and the Soldier viewed himself as a martyr, he was the one in control and it was only with his permission would his life be given. Even then, his life would be a contribution to only whomever he wished. His life was not for protecting the freedom of people hundreds of miles away, people who felt no more familiar to him than the enemy he was instructed to terminate. He groped his side for the pack on his thigh, searching for the papers he had strategically hid from his commanding officers. He had one objective; the mission was merely a transport, a vehicle for his own inclinations. His fingers found the impressed pulp fibers and their edges, and he patted them for extra security. He moved his hand back into marching position subtly, feeling watched the entire time. He would give these men no inch for them to pull him along, and kept all the slack for himself. They marched for many more miles. The Soldier watched the woods on either side of him transform from their snow-trimmed wholesomeness into victims of r­ape, tormented and contorted into shapes immediately more reminiscent of refugees than trees. The sky had melted from its grey indifference into a fire of orange and hatred. The Soldier continued thrust his shoulder in a semi-circular motion, reinforcing the sling on his breadth. He gripped the barrel with his palms, bringing its soulless opening into view, and keeping it pointed down without doubt. The officers, riding their horses in front of the platoons walked with more caution, a nervous stomp. The Soldier didn't like how the atmosphere and suddenly become so smothering. He looked to the treeline, gazing over the lords of the forest. He saw a villa, a small grouping of houses on a hill, overshadowed by a French château. The Soldier became convinced now he was in France. The officers stopped the platoons. The Soldier stopped with them. There was a hushed murmur amongst the soldiers, as they all speculated in low, unconvinced tones. The Soldier turned to speak to no one and discussed his thoughts in his head. The clouds in the sky conglomerated in the distance, and the hating orange sky turned to dark. The light from the sun no longer reached the shoulders, and still they sat illuminated. Heavenly rays poked through the clouds in giant amorphous blobs, highlighting selected sections of the men at random. The Soldier was convinced the light was not the sun, but something magic. The Soldier gripped the barrel of his gun more tightly, making sure that not for even a moment that his gun may be gone from his possession, he still had no need to fight, but the gun's presence made him feel more secure. The officers cried out in surprise to their troops to stop moving, to halt their activities, to keep quiet. The Soldier stepped back and swung his head nervously to all sides, gazing at the r­aped trees that leaned in closer to him, trying to whisper to him the regrets they had. The Soldier would not listen; he only dug his heels in and waited for the officers to give orders. The openings in the sky were beginning to shut, the swatches of light shrinking, stifling the people below in darkness. The Soldier sat unafraid, groping his gun and now his papers in his side pocket. The men around him grew grey and powerless and shifty, they looked around in fear as the landscape began to turn against them before their eyes. The trees contorted violently, stretching and reaching towards the soldiers as they huddled into piles of themselves helplessly. They had no reason to be afraid, there was no enemy, death was far away tending to other lands, but the Soldier felt that may have been the reason for their fear. The loneliness of the situation, it was a battlefield forming before their eyes, devoid of everything, including death. The mean readied their weapons and pointed into the sea of twisted limbs, ready to respond with violence when provoked with violence. The officers' horses had enough, and they revolted against their seated masters. They sprang up and shook off the men desperately, eager to gallop away from the forest of the damned. The officers stood up quickly to stifle their humiliation. The winds picked up, rattling the already restless tree limbs. The soldiers turned to men, disorganized and frightened for their lives, they began to lose order. The Soldier pulled out a cigarette, his hands were shaking badly. He steadied them with the support of his limbs, but found them turned to little earthquakes in his body. He stood in the center of the crowd of scared men, men with guns. The illumination that had blessed them earlier was now nearly completely gone, and a shadow was closing in all around the men of the infantry. The men shifted back and forth, each one desperately trying to weasel himself out of the edge of the circle, and climb his way near the spot the Soldier found himself in by good luck. The illumination from the sky now was gone completely, and everything was still. [Edited on 01.13.2011 2:32 PM PST]