Anyways, I spent a lot of time writing this, discovered that Garlic Fingers need mozarella cheese and less garlic than the recipe calls for, and am looking forward to relaxation for a bit this coming weekend. Hope you find such for yourself as well, have yourself a lovely day, and see you Monday.
(P.S: The name is an adaption on Marty McFly due to the Pride aspect of his movies, but Marty isn't too feminine and McFly is too obvious to be taken serious, so I mixed it up a bit.)
Marilyn McFahry by Mac Clevinger, June 16, 2017
“So… explain to me again how this game works?”
The aide at her side anxiously wrung the towel in her hands, staring wide-eyed at the inattentive woman holding her nails in the air in front of her, scratching an errant finger against the ornate metal buckle on her belt. She leaned against the archway leading out onto a balcony, gentle light filtering overtop a gleaming, pristine palace courtyard.
“This is not a game! You have been challenged by the duke to a duel, m… mistress, please take this seriously!”
The woman rolled her eyes at the aide, sighing.
“Listen, peasant: this is a game. We royalty do not see the world as your simple minds do; we gamble with lives as you would with coin, and I’ve a mind more value moves in your games than does in mine today. What manner of kingdom would a duke offer in exchange for a few paltry musings upon the nature of his bedmates?”
The aide threw her towel on the floor, planting her fists on her hips and staring at the woman with anger.
“You accused him of sleeping with his sister.”
The woman chuckled, raising a placating palm towards the aide.
“A common occasion amongst the royalty in this region, I’m told.”
“At her funeral. And no, it isn’t.”
The chuckle exploded into a sudden bark of laughter.
“Perhaps I should have saved that tidbit for a more informal occasion, and your ignorance truly shows the divide between a peasant such as yourself and us royalty.”
“No, shut up, you said he slept with her sister at her funeral. In the casket. This morning. She died a week ago.”
The woman let the smile fade from her face, looking inquisitively at the aide.
“And I meant every word. Attentive ears and sharp eyes see far more than you seem to believe.”
The aide became flustered, sputtering as her face turned red.
“That’s because it isn’t true you… you bitch! The duke would never do that to – “
The woman nodded knowingly as the aide’s jaw clicked shut,
“You. Like I said, we royalty play a different game than you peasants, both on the table and in the bedroom. Or mortuary, in the case of your duke.
“Bitch! I hope he shoots you dead!”
The aide fled from the archway, heading into a maze of corridors that would soon belong to the woman shrugging at the retreating figure. Or, rather, that she believed would soon belong to her, which should in no way suggest she doubted herself but that for narrative sake it must be made clear that this is not telling the reader what is going to happen.
Undisturbed by the display, the woman wandered away from the archway onto the balcony proper, enjoying the warmth of sunshine on her bared shoulders. She looked down at the dress she wore, observing its relative rattiness to her surroundings and not caring whatsoever. It was a pretty shade of blue, and she liked to travel light so why not wear the same thing for a few weeks of traveling?
As long as it was her wearing it, it made it more beautiful than anything else around her; just as she was more beautiful, intelligent, cleverer, and plainly better than everyone around her. She hadn’t asked for a kingdom, but if presented? Of course it belonged to her more than it did to some duke who just ‘inherited it’ from a long lineage, and the idea of losing a duel to some necrophiliac freak?
It never even enters her mind.
Less than an hour later, the woman is found sitting on a stone railing on the balcony with her legs dangling over the courtyard, a servant dressed in a suit bowing as he approaches her to be met by a curt nod from the woman. Behind him stands the aide, a look of consternation on her face.
“Your apparent Majesty Martyn McFahry, the duke bids you welcome to your doom.”
Marilyn leans forward, peering at the gilded figure watching her from below. She waves at him, grinning in response to the smug, self-assured look he gives her. Minor members of royalty stand around him, servants making up the outer shell of the royal coffin. All it was missing was the corpse.
“As I am sure you are unaware, the terms are as such: when the sun is at its zenith, you shall each walk ten paces, and on my mark fire at one another with the provided pistols. You shall be shot, and this embarrassment will be at its end. It has been anything but a pleasure, and in no simple terms I look forward to your death, you pestilent rat.”
Marilyn nods, chewing on a lip as she watches the sun rise steadily towards its peak point. Leaning back, she wraps an arm around the servant’s shoulder, bringing her lips to his ear.
“That is no way for a man of your position to speak to a lady.”
The servant tries to break from her grasp, but she tightens her grip on his shoulder. Sniffling, he stiffens his spine and stares straight ahead, ignoring the woman half-draped over him.
“You are no lady.”
Marilyn nods, mulling over the servant’s argument. Releasing her grip on his shoulder, she swivels off of the stone railing, carefully unseating herself so as not to rip her dress. Standing, she looks the servant in the face, her thoughtful expression meeting his glower for a few tense seconds.
Then her forehead meets his noise for a very brief, and painful, moment. Marilyn plucks the handkerchief from his front pocket as he stumbles back, dabbing at her forehead for specks of blood until satisfied the blood of a bastard was no longer upon her. Cupping his hands beneath his nose, the servant sputters as he staggers toward the surprised aide standing in the archway.
“Out of my way whore! The duke will deal with the both of you!”
Marilyn ignores him as he leaves, turning to briefly wave the bloody handkerchief at the distant duke before releasing it, letting the wind take it towards the crowd of impeccably dressed royalty not expecting a blood-splattered surprise.
“If you’re still here, I assume you forgot your place and spoke to the duke?”
She could hear a quiet “yes’m” from behind her.
“And you didn’t hear what you wanted to hear. Or you heard too much.”
The silence was answer enough for Marilyn. She leans against the stone railing, grinning at the expression on the duke’s face as a panic erupts through the nobility around him.
“You see, we royalty play a different kind of game than you peasants. Royal games are those of pain, destruction, and control; yours are but of money or joy, simple things with small consequences. If you stumble into our games, you will die. If we stumble into your games, you will die. The only person that can beat a royal game is a member of royalty, and let me assure you…”
Hiking a leg up, Marilyn steps onto the stone railing, a matter of inches between her and a freefall into the courtyard below. Turning her head to look at the aide, she shoots off a grin.
“I know how this game works.”
She turns back toward the duke, the aide stepping forward as Marilyn hops forward and falls through the air into the courtyard below. Running to the railing, the aide looks over to see Marilyn crouched in the center of a network of cracks, already standing back up and striding towards the stunned crowd of royals, leaving behind blue threads that had torn free from the ragged end of her dress.
“Kill him, Queen McFahry.”
Marilyn raises a fist into the air in response as she walks forward, flexed muscles lit by the warm rays of a sun at its zenith. A path opens in the crowd of servants and royalty, a man dressed in gold-filigree armor and clutching a pistol awaiting her at its end.
“Duke, pray tell: how is thy sister; does she serve you still?”
The duke draws himself up haughtily, grimacing at the sound of her voice and sneering as he responds with acid in his voice. He is a tall man, with a countenance easily capable of the viciousness he now exemplified watching Marilyn, yet among the younger of his servants another face was often seen; one of compassion and forbidden lust that was too often repaid.
“I hope you have enjoyed your fun at all of our expense, your majesty. You owe me a debt of honor, but I will be surprised if there is enough man in you to repay that debt. At least this should be quick.”
Beside the duke stands the bloodied servant, his bloody handkerchief returned to him and pressed against a blood-strewn face. He holds a small box in his hands, the top removed to reveal a beaten pistol, its surface dented and its barrel warped. Marilyn looks at the gun, shifting her gaze to the ornate pistol in the duke’s hands. Shrugging, she accepts the battered pistol, looking at it distastefully.
“I agree, dear duke; it will be quick. Much like your visits to your servants’ quarters, I’ve heard.”
The duke’s hand clenches the handle of his pistol, visibly resisting the urge to shoot Marilyn as he puts the pistol in a holster and pulls his trembling hand away from his waist.
“Who do you think you are to come to my lands and act as my equal, you freak? Spreading vile rumors about my departed sister, assaulting my servants and spurring them on to approach me? What wretched thoughts do you have in that twisted mind that believes you to not only be royalty, but a queen at that?”
“My poor man, please; these are simply too many questions. Of course I am a Queen, how else do you explain this?”
Marilyn gestures to her ratty dress, the firm belief in her own royalty an immovable force in the face of such dissent. The act, however, proves too much for a woman wearing a dress objectively far finer than Marilyn’s, but subjectively unimportant because Marilyn isn’t wearing it at the moment.
“This is ridiculous! What manner of court do you run, duke, that such a diseased person as this is permitted the right to duel, or even walk among us? If you had half the respect of your father you would have had this man executed.”
Marilyn beats the duke by a matter of a fraction of a second to firing upon the woman, her bullet shattering her knee while the duke’s catches her in the gut. Her screams are brief, servants quickly taking away the body with a gaggle of relations following their fallen member. Ignoring the outburst, Marilyn and the duke look back at one another.
“Where were we? Oh, yes; is a rumor vile by writ of it being true, or by writ of you disliking its truth? Please, duke, we both know what we saw, and I imagine you must have seen far more than I. I know the workings of royalty; you are anything but atypical for your kind.”
“A kind you would profess to be a part of, yet apart from?”
“Duke, let me be clear. I have not come to your lands and acted as your equal. I know where we stand in relation to one another, be assured.”
The duke almost relaxes, but suspicion filling the space of rage that had been emptied by murdering a woman.
“If this is meant to be some sort of apology – “
“Anything but; I know where I stand, and believe me I am surprised to even see an ant such as yourself. You call yourself royalty? Stomping around like a child and performing such acts of depravity at a time of honor and respect? Using your servants as an extension of oppression as you run wild with whatever pretty faces you come across?
“Being willing to lose the entirety of your kingdom to a complete stranger with no idea as to my capabilities to lead a people that should be thought of as your own children, and over a matter as lowly as that of defaming your character? That you believe you should lead and have no respect for the leading, nor the people you lead, disgusts me and demands you repay a debt of honor, one signed in blood.”
Handing the emptied pistol to a servant, Marilyn crosses her arms and stares the duke in the eye silently. A stunned look slowly drains from the duke’s face, replaced not by derision or haughtiness but a trickle of fear and confusion.
“You came here for me.”
Marilyn shakes her head.
“I came here for someone like you, and found one.”
“Found what?”
“A tyrant.”
The servant returns the pistol to Marilyn, the duke receiving his own reloaded pistol as well. Stepping toward one another, they stand face-to-face, Marilyn’s resolve and confidence meeting the growing uncertainty of the duke. Together, they turn away from one another and begin to walk away, silently counting ten paces.
At seven the duke turns in a flash, firing upon Marilyn’s exposed back. At six Marilyn had thrown the pistol over her shoulder, hearing the sound of metal striking metal at seven, and at what would have been eight steps was already running towards the duke, her dress billowing around her knees but not limiting her movement.
He turns to run, but Marilyn is already upon him, tackling him, looping an arm around his neck, and pressing a knee into his spine that pushes him face-first into the stone floor. He is immobilized, and already judged by the woman hunting tyranny. Leaning in, she put her lips beside his ear.
“Who am I?”
The duke tries to writhe, to free himself, but there is no resisting Marilyn’s strength and hold on him. He sags, held up from the ground only by Marilyn’s grip on his neck that is slowly weaning him of air.
“K… King – “
Marilyn slams his head into the stone of the courtyard, pulling him back up to a sharper angle that made his spine creak.
“Try again.”
Breathing hoarsely, the duke answers.
“Queen McFahry.”
“Good.”
Rearing back, Marilyn breaks his spine and lets him go, standing as his head bounces dully against the ground and the last vestiges of life leave his body. Around her stand a crowd of slowly retreating royalty and servants, looks of horror and fear on their faces. Marilyn grins and bows to the crowd, waving and blowing kisses at their retreating forms.
She turns toward where she had left the aide on the balcony, recognizing the ambivalent feeling of regret and satisfaction on her face: the rewards of getting revenge, no matter how right you feel. That is, unless you’re Queen Marilyn McFahry, in which case you know you’re right because you’re Queen Marilyn McFahry, to whom everything is justified and nothing is ever wrong.
With a short wave and the certainty that breaking the duke’s spine was not the same as killing him in a duel, thus voiding the agreement for her to now claim ownership of his lands, Marilyn departs the chaos-strewn palace to wander in her tattered dress, not searching for tyrants to depose but always finding them, and always delivering what she believes to be justice.
Until, that is, the Cardinal Sin of Pride lies its roots in her heart.