Next Thundering Steps

[King Ghidorah]

When I leave the village of Holmwood, it is not in ruins. Smoke and flame fail to billow from nonexistent piles of pulverized rubble wherein not one stone stands squarely upon another. The many trees which shroud the streets in shade haven't been reduced to blackened stumps, and the scent of burned wood, charred brick and roasting flesh does not hang heavy in the air. The three-story inn at the center of town isn't a broken stone shell full of crushed bones and crackling fires. The wells are not choked with corpses. The tiny, tragic lights of drifting embers are conspicuously absent, and no twisting yellow clouds of sulfurous vapor rise upon the breeze. 

The sense of dread, of weeping anger and futility revealed - the tingling epiphany of true value amid the chaos of loss and the desolation of an entire population doesn't linger upon my muse!

Nobody has been killed. Everything is 'fine'. Some of the villagers have even followed me to the edge of town to wave goodbye.  

The only thing - the only thing! - that keeps me from immediately turning around, ascending, and rectifying this utter travesty is the cloying lure of grander things. By allowing this village to survive now, it will be all the more satisfying when I obliterate it later - when I ravage the entire duchy of Harnburg in a single glorious day, luxuriating in the singular thrill of annihilation as its unique web of relationships, locations and lives is shorn from the world. 

I've decided that it's important that it should be daytime when I finally do the deed. Preferably before noon. The disruption of the people's routines will be vital, the rhythm of their existence falling into a final chaos before its snuffed out forever! The question is, when I begin, should I start at the fringes and work inward towards the castle, or destroy the center first, and work outward towards the fringe? One method or the other won't have any affect on the broad outcome, but in my vast and considerable experience the process will be quite different. 

If I attack the castle, destroy the center of authority, it will effectively stun the rest of the duchy. People will huddle in their homes, or attempt to flee the polity- some may even succeed. If I start on the fringe, however, destroying the farms, and then the towns, they will flee to the castle, gathering together in what they think of as a place of safety.  

It's the difference between the terror of the individual, scared and alone as their world collapses around them and everything they thought was true is revealed as a lie in the face of my glory, versus the terror of the masses: numbers without safety, fermenting (a word with both precision and a certain narrow versatility) in each other's fear as inevitable doom descends upon them, shining gold in a traitorous, burning sky!  

I think it will have to be the castle, first. The entire point of this, after all, the whole reason why Holmwood remains intact, is to cultivate the unique substance of the individual, to savor the interconnected diversity of each location and victim's personal apocalypse, and its weight as a part of the whole.

I continue to muse on the subject as I make my way further down the valley, glinting in the afternoon sun. The  worn and pitted road wends its way down the valley, between fallow fields bounded by moss-covered stone walls, vast expanses of newly-sprouted crops, fields off cattle and grazing sheep. Some of the land remains wild, stretches of briar and tangled bracken, meadowland like that I encountered on the slopes, or small stands of trees separating one field from another.   

The verdant vitality of it all excites me. This land is rich and healthy, and I can't resist ravaging it, at least a little bit. Passing through a copse of cedar I unleash a storm of leaping lightning, cackling as shards of wood and embers fly, filling the air with pungent smoke. With a creak and a groan a tree crashes to the ground, sending small furry creatures scurrying for safety. I try to blast them too, but my bolts arc wide, succeeding only in setting some bushes on fire. Only slightly annoyed, I continue on my way. 

***

There are several villages between Holmwood and Harnburg Castle, scattered across the hills as they roll down towards the lake upon the far valley floor. I counted five in all from atop the lip of the basin when I first arrived, each larger than the last, but I simply pass through the next one without stopping. The people give me a wide berth, but they don't run and they don't try to stop me, regarding me with cautious smiles tinged by something I don't recognize. It seems that Chatterly's propaganda has already spread throughout the duchy.

Chatterly; Stepping around a team of cattle on my way into the village of Hilltop (identifiable by the large, wooden sign that proudly proclaims it as such), which appears to be more of a livestock exchange than a town, I wonder what revelations he has in store for me, what unsuspected nuances of this polity and its place in the Kingdom he has yet to reveal. It's this anticipation which drives me forward - I can return to the villages at any time prior to my grand finale, and with Holmwood for a case-study, they offer only their unique details. And yes, details are the point, however, they require context - ideally from multiple angles. 

Chatterly offers me angles that I lack, so for the moment, he gets to be a priority.

Besides, Violent Angus said his master had a job for me. The prospect of more Omnilium, as well as the ability to indulge in mass-destruction without ruining my ability to savor my ground-level perspective of this land are powerful motivators. I wonder what he'll ask me to ruin next? 

 

[King Ghidorah]

As I make my way inevitably down the valley, Harnburg Castle and the town that's grown around it looming larger as they draw near, I meet other travelers on the road. Many of them are farmers or tradesmen driving carts, heading to or from one village or another to sell their wares, procure supplies, or fulfill some petty obligation. For the most part I let them be, only stopping those who strike me as particularly intriguing. Unfortunately these roads are too busy and the terrain of the valley too open for me to conduct the sort of thorough interview I have so grown to enjoy - I'd rapidly end up with a large, unwanted audience, and the entire Harnburg experiment could easily end prematurely.

I speak with them briefly about their lives before letting them go, gleaning some small tidbits regarding seamstressing, and cattle, and mercenary pay-scales. Their survival is a farce, but my burgeoning curiosity outweighs my need for immediate, violent gratification. 

At least, it does for now. 

It's evening by the time I reach the valley floor. The area around the lake, including the smattering of pine forest and Harnbug Castle with its surrounding town, are in the flattest part of the entire valley, where the rolling, fertile hills finally meander their way down to the level of nearly-bare bedrock. As I approach the duchy's capitol from the North, the dirt road gives way in places to rusty stone where the thin topsoil has worn through. On my right, beyond the tall, straight trunks of the pines, I snatch glimpses of the lake, dark and black in the shadow of the cliffs, already abandoned by the setting sun. On my left, the ground is covered by moss and pale grasses. Ahead, a small stone bridge crosses a weeping stream which runs down out of the hills. Beyond it, some several hundred meters past, the the outskirts of the town cling to the lake-shore. In the near distance, I can see the turreted shape of Harnburg Castle rising above row upon row of thatched roofs, slate tiles and the silhouettes of brick chimneys; My glorious golden body is easily the brightest thing here.

I smile. The place is far from being a city, but its much larger than any of the surrounding villages. The bigger a population center is, the more nuance there is to its destruction, and the greater the range of unique accomplishments it represents - and of course, the impact on the rest of the society that raised it -

"Stop!" 

Out of sheer surprise, I do, pausing halfway across the bridge. There were two voices just now, high and small, and speaking in perfect unison. I whip my head around, searching for their source, but I see nobody. 

"Who 's there?" I demand.

"You must stop, King Ghidorah!"

I take another look around, more slowly this time, retreating back across the bridge and walking down to the bank of the stream. 

"There is nothing that I 'must' do!" I declare, flexing my fingers as my anger rises, feeling the twitch of the lithe, corded muscles in my forearms. It's a gratifying sensation, filled with the potential to rip and tear. Although I still prefer my wings, having hands isn't nearly so terrible as I'd first believed.

The voices continue, accusing. "We know that you plan to destroy this place. You must stop! Return to the Nexus. Go to the Ashen Steppes, or the Endless Dunes. Leave Camelot alone!" 

I look under the bridge. Nothing. There's nothing in the bushes either. Maybe they're in the trees? But then how do they sound so close?

"I'll do no such thing. And who are you to make demands of me? You know my name. You know my title. Do you know what that means? I'll do as I please little phantoms. 'Stopping' is not in my nature."

There's a pause. The air is very still this low in the valley. I can hear the faint sounds of the nearby town drifting in the quiet, and the lapping of the lake against the shoreline. 

The twin voices speak again: "Then Mothra will destroy you."  

An image flickers through my head, intruding upon my mind's eye - a creature, massive and powerful, but somehow fragile. It's three-lobed body is covered in a thick layer of fine white hair and its head is occupied almost entirely by a pair of twinkling compound eyes. At first I think that it has no legs, but then I notice the six spindly appendages clinging to its flanks. It's wings are, I will grudgingly admit, glorious, though rather than shining gold they swirl with a depth of color and vitality that's practically hypnotic (and oh, how I would love to watch them burn...!) It has a tiny, ridiculous beak, and two thin antennae.  

I recognize this beast, this 'Mothra' - or at least, I recognize its tribe. Several planets have them. They are guardians of sorts, protectors, some would even say gods, though their actual potency varies wildly. One of them, in its larval form, fought beside the mighty saurian Warrior on the day of my first and only defeat; But for one of these overgrown insects to challenge me alone? Even limited to an imperfect, adolescent form I'm confident I can handle a single interfering moth.  

I laugh long and loud. My cackling echoes out across the lake and reverberates off the distant cliffs. Within me, my astral wellspring crackles in time with my amusement and another cosmic kink un-knots. I manage to conceal the shock of it, showing only a vicious grin. 

"Tell your master," I purr,"That if it truly believes it can, I would relish helping it fail."

The voices do not answer, and the road feels somehow emptier than it did a moment ago. Taking one last look around, wary of hidden watchers, I go once again to cross the bridge, resuming the final part of my journey towards the heart of Harnburg.