Kenku, Notebook

  ‘Magic at first was the one scorned. In fact, it was seen as unnatural. Deadly. We let steel, and our weapons could explode into fiery bombs. However no one understood the world we lived in, and this world that was safe, now was the most dangerous.’

  I always thought he was a bit crazy, despite my adoration for him. Scorned? Magic? But then again, I wasn't experienced with then.

  Or back in that time.

  He was. Sadly, he got too… strained. He changed. Like he was corrupted with ideals, but, different….Nevermind, thinking of him is—

  ______________________________________________________

  The last revolution-

  ???

  It was getting to its final stages, the pawns were in their places, and a man, merely 30 looking in age, yet much older, and ancient, sits in a chair. He plays with a piece on a board. It's wooden, carved with hands that had seen many better days, and with power that maybe shouldn’t have fallen into his hands.

  He glanced out the window, staring at the dirtied streets, and the people bustling below. Out the corner of his eyes, he could see filthy people, dirtied and harried, all grouped at the edges of the streets, hidden in alleyways and discrete as always.

  “You’ve made your move, Tukami. How I hope you won't regret it.” The Puppeteer mutters, and with a flick of his hand, sends the chess piece, a king, flying into the other carved ornament on the board. Another king. The piece he tossed standing above it, proud like the person who played the move.

  A chuckle emanates from his throat. “Well, I guess you don’t have a choice, do you?”

  _______________________________________________________

  Tukami

  Tukami scribbled on paper, letting out a sigh as he stared over the rooftops of shacks, people who didn’t have enough money for a true house. Just like him. He was just up here, because it was the tavern. The Null tavern.

  His paper contains routes, areas where the guards went, and where they didn’t. The patrols and when they change over. As well as the powers of the strongest people.

  Everything. Everything that ever happened in this city, he knew, he wrote, and he told.

  It wasn’t by choice he did this, no, sometimes it felt like he was on strings. When he gave motivational speeches, or planned something. Like this, the revolution. What had become of it? Something terrible. He didn’t want to lead, or make people believe in him. He was—………………. His head rang with pain, and he winced, not continuing that line of thought

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  A kid with black wings scrambled their way onto the roof. “Kenku.” He says, turning, knowing who they are.

  “Hide your wings. I’ve told you that a thousand times. The moment they find you like this, with wings out, they’ll take them, chop them off Kenku.” Black wings flutter in the wind, as the kid huffs. “No they won't, because they can’t catch me.” Naive. Foolishness to the extreme. And yet, affection for him floods Tukami’s mind.. “They will. They always can.” He reminds. “Now, it's bed time. Go. Hurry off to bed.”

  Kenku groans. “Noo. I want to stay up late!” He protests.

  “The revolution is tomorrow. Get some sleep.”

  Kenku turns, wings tucked against his back, and descends the ladder once again. He had gotten what he wanted anyways. A piece of paper was clutched in his grasp.

  A soft smile escapes Tukami’s lips. The poor kid. Only 12 of age.

  Tukami rotates back to the city below him, scattered papers spread around him. It was finally time. Decades after his own world and century had disappeared, and now he was ready to get rid of this tyranny too.

  No—

  _________________________________________

  Kenku, Notebook

  People clash below, blood spills onto the streets, horrified stares of civilians and the brutal mechanical way the Puppets destroy us.

  I shudder. Recognising people, humans who had fought for us, trained, and others that I had talked to. Ones that Tukami had inspired, others he had brought with him on several occasions, planned with, conversed to.

  All of them, strewn about a bloody battlefield, dead. Some were missing limbs, others were crying. It is a slaughter..

  No fight lay before me. It is terrifying. All these years, I had been mocked, ridiculed, and put down for everything that made me, myself. And yet now, when I look on all the hard work I had put into being someone that fought against the Puppeteer, it seems so pointless, so unnecessary. People were caught in the fray, killed uncaringly, like they are nothing, no-one and certainly not alive.

  It haunts me, even while it happens right in front of my eyes, and i knew every dream, every time i stood in those streets, i would be followed by their screams, persisted with sounds of pleas, of cries, of hopes whispered in the dark, and most of all, out of all of that, his face.

  For who stands in front of me, my leader, the person I looked up to for all these years, and, begrudgingly.. my father. Emotionless. Uncaring. As if the lives below him were nothing but pawns, and their places set in stone for ages.

  He wasn’t like this. No, before he cared. I grip tightly to a piece of paper, a note he wrote long ago, a love ballad to her, before she passed away.

  Maybe I could help him remember, maybe I could help him go back to the way it used to be. Maybe, Maybe, Maybe.

  A sudden, sharp pain sends me crumbling to my knees, and I let out a small cry of anguish. A tall shadow looms over me. “Shut it, kid.” A guard, of the Puppeteer. They had gotten to me. “Now, watch.” They grab my hair, tugging it violently so that I am forced to look up, staring at Tukami.

  He walks towards the Puppeteer, steps slow and deliberate. “Puppeteer, or should I say—” His voice is cut off violently, as his body crumples to the floor. Barely a whisper, his words are harsh, pained, as if fighting something to speak. “Artos. You pathetic—” His head bows, mouth clamping shut.

  “Now, now, Tukami. I wouldn’t talk so boldly. Especially to me. After all, I am your master. Aren't I, Servant?”

  Tukami’s back starts to glow, and I watch in wonder and horror, as his head arches back in pain, something burning through his shirt, revealing two runes below.

  One, control.

  The other - serve.

  I scream in pain, yells and cries echoing off the walls of this terrible, awful place, and my back blazes with pain, a sword digging in.

  “Now, who’s this you’ve brought with you, Servant, or should I call you by your real name, Tukami? Should i call you the name your mother called, as you slau—”

  “STOP! NO!! YOU WIll NOT RUIN—”

  “Shut it.”

  And his mouth closed.