“Enjoying retirement?”
Yellow Rose looked up from her tea and book to see an imposingly tall woman giving her an amicable smile, and not-so-amicably blocking her sun. Blue Daisy was wearing her usual eponymous color scheme, hat and long coat and boots all a match broken only by her impractically long blonde hair. Unlike other Flower Knights, Daisy hadn’t bothered using Color Magic to change her hair to match her theme.
Well, neither did Rose, once her title was nullified. The once-brilliant-blonde had let her hair fade back to it’s natural coppery curls. The better to move on, or so she told herself.
“Not especially,” said the former Captain. She took a sip of her jasmine drink, then set the cup, and her book, down. She motioned to the empty seat next to her. “I’d intended to serve for my natural life span. Instead, I’m forced to quit early. A conqueror doesn’t particularly trust their new territory’s former knights. Fancy that.”
Daisy took the seat, folding herself into the chair. A stone circle with the thinnest of cushions, framed in painted metal, the exceptionally tall woman wondered how anyone could sit comfortably for long enough to read anything. But the fancily decorated tea-house was small to begin with; no doubt the idea was to keep traffic flowing rather than lingering. Good thing she didn’t intend for this to be an overlong meeting.
“What if I told you your early retirement was just a temporary leave?” said Daisy.
Rose scowled. “We’ve been over this. The war was lost. Decisively. And though I hate to admit it, the Sorcerer Nations did a thorough and swift job integrating our economies and lending rebuild support. Rebelling against them now would just drag out our people’s suffering.”
She noticed Daisy flinch. The tall woman sagged uncomfortably in her seat. “Am I really the only one?” she said, practically in a whisper.
Rose appraised her once-colleague. The question hadn’t been for her. “We all still care, Daisy. We all resent it. We’re also all grateful to have made it through alive. But the facts have to be faced. The Sorcerers were too powerful. They crushed us utterly. As long as they take care of our country in the aftermath, then no matter our feelings, we serve best to not give them reason to wipe us off the map, then take over the ruins.”
Daisy shook her head. “Rose. Please. You were our Captain. I thought if anyone could see through this…” She waved her hand towards the plaza. From the tea-shop’s little patio, they could see the busy towns’ square, looking almost just like it had before the war. The only difference being a couple new shops, selling new mystic trinkets from the Sorcerer’s Lands, and the new banners that reminded everyone who was now in charge.
Rose gave Daisy a studious look, noting the haggard despair in her comrade’s expression, the glint of desperation in her gaze. She cast her gaze over the plaza. “See through what?”
Daisy flinched. “Do you even remember the battles? Our struggles against the Sorcerers’ monsters?”
Rose closed her eyes. The memories were admittedly foggy. Details blurred. She recalled battling the Sorcerer’s horrors, yes. Legions of skeletal infantry. Living Siege Engines. Salvo’s of elemental artillery. She’d lead her Flower Knights through it all, the few brief weeks of battle, saving who she could, taking down platoons of invaders all on her own.
But in the end, the Capital had been seized. The Sorcerers had simply bulldozed their way to the Royals’ castle with a relentless torrent of magical assault, and captured their King and Queen. She remembered that, even if the exact details of the fights were somewhat hazy. It had been the most insane battle the Flower Knights had ever faced. So insane as to be barely believed.
“Rose,” said Daisy, leaning forward, her gaze pained. “Please tell me the truth. You don’t really remember it, do you? It feels more like a nightmare than a memory, doesn’t it?”
Rose gazed back, her countenance firm. “Of course I remember. And I never, ever, want our nation to face such a threat again.” She took another calming sip of her tea. “As much as it galls me, Daisy, I have to face the reality that our nation is safer under the protection of the Sorcerers, if their might is so great.” She likewise gestured to the plaza around them. “And as long as they continue to prove themselves capable of maintaining the stability of the Region, then we only do our people worse by antagonizing them.”
Daisy frowned deeply, and leaned back in her seat. Her eyes moistened, and she quickly wiped her gloved hand over her eyes, before the tears could spill. “I’m the only one. The only goddamned one. Why? Why is it just me?”
Rose’s expression didn’t change, but her gaze lingered. “Sunflower also doubted our situation. She left for the Mesas, carrying one of the Core Seeds. She said if the war was truly lost, then if we wanted to retain our freedom, we would need to find a new land to call home.”
Daisy paused, then opened her eyes to give her Captain a melancholic gaze slightly tinged with confusion. Daisy continued. “I don’t think she’ll find anything better than we had. I don’t think, if she does, that she’ll manage to convince our whole nation to pull up stakes and move. I don’t think, if such an attempt is made, that the Sorcerers won’t simply follow us. We simply are not in a position to fight back. But, I do not doubt the sincerity of her doubt. And so, I gave her my blessing to leave, if she was unable to settle those doubts.”
Daisy’s frown deepened. “Rose. The war. It didn’t—”
Rose cut her off with a quick swipe of her hand. “I’m not going to argue with you. If you have doubts you can’t quell, Daisy, then I suggest you follow Sunflower’s example. Leave. Find a better place than this, where you can be free from the Sorcerer’s influence.”
A long moment lingered. Something subtly shifted in Daisy’s expression, a tinge of realization. She glanced around the plaza once more, then back to Rose, whose expression remained firm. “Influence,” Daisy muttered. She seemed unable to decide upon relief or disappointment.
Rose held her gaze, then picked up her book. “Rest assured, my knight. Should the Sorcerers abuse their newfound position, I will be the first to act upon them. As powerful as they seem to be, there’s a lot to be said for taking an enemy by surprise.”
Daisy stared at her, but Rose made it clear the conversation was over, as she focused back on her reading. The tall, blue-clad woman wasn’t sure what to do or say. She sat back and gazed over the plaza, noting it’s few changes once more. Seeing life still going on, after the war. Seeing how little the war had harmed the citizenry. As if it had barely happened at all.
Because it hadn’t. And she was the only one who seemed to know that. Or at least, the only one willing to say she knew it out loud.
Daisy glanced to Rose, who was making a point to not look at her. Of course, the way her eyes skimmed over the page, without turning the page, made it clear she only seemed to be reading.
Seemed.
Daisy opened her mouth to say something, hesitated, then,
falteringly, stood up from her seat. Rose said nothing as she walked away, but
once Daisy was a good distance down the street, she looked up to watch her disappear
around the corner; a woman that tall didn’t exactly blend into the crowd.
Rose let out a little sigh and sipped her tea again, now cold from the waiting. Daisy was only the third of her former Flower Knights to approach and try to confront her on the subject of their conquest. She hated herself for ultimately doing the Sorcerers’ work for them, for committing to their bit. But she felt she was right. It would be nothing but foolhardy, and potentially disastrous to their former nation, to continue antagonizing an enemy so goddamned powerful, they could start and end a war without bloodshed. To cast a spell so vast in scale, and so thorough, that an entire nation would simply wake up one morning, thinking they’d already been conquered and integrated into a greater empire.
An empire that let them go on with their lives, in exchange for simple trade. An empire that didn’t actually need to beat the citizenry into submission, but offer them a seat in their senate, and resources to help defend against the even worse threats that generations of Flower Knights had been sacrificed to stop. Knights dying for a small Kingdom too proud to accept help from their neighbors, too proud to back down when threatened.
It wasn’t for the best. Her own pride told her that every day. But in a world fraught with supernatural disasters, it was perhaps better than allowing pride to lead them into the fall. And if her fellow Knights couldn’t accept that harsh truth? Then she would play along with the ruse, and imply that hope was better found elsewhere, far away from the Sorcerers’ very real spies and assassins.
Rose finished her tea and closed her book, having not retained any of the words since Daisy departed anyway. She glanced up at the sky, where threads of the Sorcerers’ magical protection fields assured the populace of their good intentions.
“If it’s not too much trouble, let her leave without incident,” Rose muttered, so quietly no one should have heard. An unseen hand briefly grasped her shoulder, and a whisper brushed her ear. Rose gave a subtle nod. As long as Daisy didn’t cause any trouble, the mystic arrows aimed at her heart from a dozen different sniper positions wouldn’t fire. Daisy was headstrong, but not a fool. Rose hoped that would hold true, at least until the former knight made it past their former nation’s borders.
Not the most gratifying tactic, but Rose had very little leeway to work with. She could have left the conquered country as well, but as a former Captain of the Flower Knights, she couldn’t bring herself to abandon her homeland. Within her own limited capacity, she still sought to look out for her people, and save those she could, by whatever means she was able. Hopefully Daisy would understand that someday, and forgive her. Hopefully she would embrace her freedom to find new fortunes elsewhere.
And maybe someday, the now errant knight might find a better tactic, in a land the Sorcerers couldn’t see.
END
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Author's Notes: This little scene cobbles together a few bits of previously unrelated ideas from world building notes and artwork of mine, giving us a glimpse into a potential backstory for the character of Blue Daisy. Daisy is the sort of character I see starting off as a wandering mercenary, who joins an adventuring group. Along their journey, Daisy reveals her backstory as a former "Flower Knight", and that her nation was conquered by powerful wizards.
Meanwhile, I had the separate idea for a nation of Sorcerers who use an immense ritual of Memory Magic to take over nearby nations without resorting to bloodshed, which they see as a "humane" way of expanding their empire. Why not combine the two?
Presumably, in some hypothetical scenario where I actually wrote this fantasy novel/table top RPG campaign/JRPG style video game, the adventurers find a means to free the Flower Kingdom as one of their side quests, or alternatively, help Sunflower to establish a new Kingdom elsewhere, and establish a new order of Flower Knights.
Art for Blue Daisy, another for Blue Daisy, and Sunflower.
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