"How Long Until The Crown Breaks?"

 14. The Empress's funeral was extravagant and filled with the color of gold. Everyone in the empire of Naminek and the people of the Doulishii nation attended that day, watching the Empress be buried in her garden with her golden casket into her final resting place.

Standing atop the building that leads into the Empress's garden, Marishi takes her stand as she speaks to the thousands of people before her, "we will be feasting in commerce to my mother, after you all will return to your spaces and watch me be crowned Empress of Naminek!"

The smile Marishi brings upon her face isn't one that shows remorse or sadness in her mother's death, but one that is strange to see in the innocent face of a child; she looks excited but tries to hide it with the help of everyone around her, having to look into the real faces of sadness in order to let a tear drop from her eyes.

"Let us eat! My mother wouldn't want us to be a starving nation just because of her newly made resting place." She turns around and walks right into the palace as all her guards and creatures follow her in.

Amongst the crowd with the large groups of people, Takashi, who stood by with all the rest of the prisoners, was taken along with the others back into their cells, where he sat the rest of the day thinking on how to expose The Great Speaker for poisoning the Empress.

Whatever came to mind was too late for the moment, as soon as the morning came about, the guards came banging on the doors for Takashi to get up, get washed up, and then follow the guards in a line to watch the princess Marishi be crowned Empress of Naminek.

"I wonder how a child will take up the crown?" The prisoners started talking amongst themselves, quiet enough for each other hear, but the guards walking beside then start hitting them with golden metal rods to shut them up.

Then randomly, Takashi hears the prisoner who was hit murmur, "So much for the Twilight Warrior..." Right behind him.

Takashi looks over his shoulder as the same guard who hit the prisoner smirks back at him, proudly.

Then making it out all the way to the back of the gates, purposely out behind the crowds but still able to see the Empress come out onto the balcony of the palace, happily facing everyone with a mask of innocence covering her face.

She starts waving to everyone as The Great Speaker and the high priest walk out with the jeweled golden crown makes its way towards Marishi. She starts smiling before even seeing the crown herself.

With them already anointing her while they were inside, this time they show off before everyone to let them know who will be controlling Naminek and the Doulishii provinces they had taken control of some three hundred years before.

Takashi stares wildly as soon as Calshi and his master Norshi appear, standing there with smiling faces as the high priest crowns Marishi.

She feels the crown and smiles even more as she looks out to the people of Naminek below her. Walking up to the balcony rail, Marishi places her soft hands on the rail and stands on her tippy toes to get a better view.

Loudly and with power, The Great Speaker and the high priest both stand on the right and left of Marishi as she faces away from the crowd completely to make her grand entrance below.

Now making it to the entrance of the palace where it is harder to view her for the ones behind the large crowds, the Great Speaker and the high priest shout at the top of their lungs, "your new power!!! Empress Marishi!!!"

The newly made Empress steps out of the palaces doors before everyone with great power and esteem. With all eyes on Marishi, she glady looks upon everyone who catches her eye.

Everyone claps and shouts for joy, the whole crowd now exploding with different emotions, Takashi can't help but feel overpowered for the first time, and even annoyed at what he did to get here.

He tries to see where the Empress is now, but it is too hard to make out from where he is, making it all the more frustrating.

She walks down the long golden stairs and begins to walk through the pathway the crowd is making for her. With everyone stepping back, happy to let the very young Empress pass through them, Marishi, stuck up in her gold, black, and ruby dress and with a strong grin on her face, looks everyone up and down, watching them bow before her, gladly.

As all her guards and handmaidens accompany her to the palace gardens, Marishi says to everyone, "we feast again tonight! Enjoy yourselves my people, I will make sure we stay the strongest of the Ashio Nations, with ease!"

They all eat up her words in excitement, to Takashi, it almost looked and felt like the people were possessed with how happy they are over the child's presence.

She speaks again saying, "soon enough, the other heads with crowns will make their way here to mourn my mother, when they do, greet them proudly, I will not let any wrongdoing gone unpunished...Now mind you, this is the time Timid would fly over us they say...But the Twilight Warrior is to blame for is lack of appearance today."

They start to quiet down hearing her say this so seriously, but it doesn't faze Takashi and the prisoners, it will be nothing new for them to be faced with harsh treatment, and nothing new from Marishi especially.

But for Takashi, he knew he needed to do something different, replying on Calshi is secondary now, he needs to get out of this prison and make his stand.

......

Takashi sat in his room, unharmed for the most part, but instead of just reading this time, he leans against the stone wall of his cell, planning all that he needs to do next - Then the door gets banged on again.

Takashi doesn't jump from the sudden sound this time, but he leans off of the wall as the door opens, with the guard walking in saying carelessly, "you have a visitor again." 

Calshi walks in, a malicious grin is on his face as he steps down the stone floor right back unto more stone to look up to Takashi and speak.

As the guard slams the door behind him, Calshi starts talking, "I found a way to expose my father for poisoning the late Empress."

Takashi walks towards him as he grabs a letter that Calshi is showing him. Instantly reading it, Takashi's eyebrows lift up with interest as he says aloud, "this concoction will take some time to work..." He scans through the page, "it will cause internal bleeding..." He scans the bottom of the letter which he reads through the blurred ink, "it will help to make the Empress suffer?"

"You see, that is all the evidence we need to expose my father for what he has done?"

Takashi looks back at Calshi, staring at a face that is shining with excitement.

Calshi says again while pointing to the letter, "once we show the high priest this, it will be taken to the Empress, then it will be made at court and the Empress will decide his fate."

Takashi says to Calshi, barely letting him finish his words, "the Great Speaker has harmed you in many ways hasn't he?"

The excitement dies down.

"Everyday since childhood." 

Takashi leans back and proceeds to say, "but wanting him executed says a lot...I thank you greatly for your help on this, but I suggest you not be so close to me once I have your father killed for what he did to the Empress."

"I will for sure follow your orders, Twilight Warrior." He smiles while Takashi just smirks back at him.

Calshi proceeds to say with gladness, "you would make a great Emperor, the power you would have to change Naminek for better would be immaculate."

Takashi leans forward to say, "have I told you my ultimate plan? My memory hasn't been the greatest lately."

Calshi laughs a little before saying, "you want to overthrow the child Empress."

"I want her exiled to Doulishii, it is apart of her lineage after all, I remember the real bloodline of this Jin Dynasty."

 

Calshi nods, "they married in and became us those three hundred years ago. Even my father is truly Doulishii" Calshi looks up to Takashi and continues to speak, "and I'm half of it; it was my mother who gave me my Naminek identity."

"Thats how mixing of families work...But otherwise, you'll be fully apart of Naminek very soon..." His voice even lower and full of certainty, Calshi couldn't help but just stare back in silence, ready to get on with the plan he has in store for his own father.

As soon as Calshi left Takashi that night, he went straight to his master Norshi, and together they discussed the letter and then proceed to take it to the high priest - and the high priest made sure to give word to court, calling in The Great Speaker the next day to question him himself before assuming his arrest and sending him through trial.

But The Great Speaker couldn't hold much longer when his son appeared before him. Having his arms crossed, his eyebrows lowered, his lips curled, Calshi didn't even dare to wear his golden mask, his anger with his fathers attitude towards everything he has done was enough to forget about Naminek tradition altogether. 

"Tell them that these letters were sent to you father, tell us who sent these to you? They shall be put to trial as well!" He slams the golden table before him as his father simply states, "the posion was from a Doulishii scientist" He snickers, "they are no longer here" Then he sighs before leaning forward and saying, "good luck finding them."

Calshi backs up as the high priest says to his guards, "make your way to Doulishii and find that perpertrator!"

Running out of the room in unison, the guards leave with the high priest, Calshi, and The Great Speaker himself together.

"The Empress Marishi will thank me for making her Empress so soon..." The Great Speaker states.

The high priests snickers this time, "she will have fun killing you for it, if that be the case..."

"No reason, she wanted to be Empress...So I did her a favor."

"That is treachery father! Is treachery all you know? You know nothing else but to harm people!" Calshi yells out, his emotions flowing through him as he proceeds to walk around the room, pacing himself, trying to calm himself down.

The high priest takes into account all the obvious words of the great man and has him arrested and put into prison, where he eventually stands trial along with the scientist who made the poison. 

Together they face the large Naminek court system, and then...The newly made Empress herself.

The Empress steps out amongst the courtroom with silence from the people as they all bow down and place their hands on their heads along with taking off the traditional Naminek masks.

"Everyone, stay seated" She sits down gracefully while holding a favorite stuffed animal of hers, "I want to sit back and watch as you all reveal to me what my mothers old lover has done to her." 

Staring right into The Great Speakers eyes, the Empress smiles, "well" She looks around at everyone, "get on with it."

As the judges around him begin to speak, it all only proceeds for no longer than thiry minutes before all the evidence comes forth as true. And having no one to defend the Great Speaker and the Doulishii scientist, it was all set up from the beginning, from Calshi, the own Great Speakers son, that they will be imprisoned and...More likely, executed.

Then right during the trial, right as everyone is screaming and shouting at the Great Speaker and the Doulishii scientist, the calamity suddenly stops as the Empress stands up, bagging the gavel that she took from the judge beside her, standing right in the middle of everyone to say proudly, "I don't believe this court session should go on any longer, besides, I have my studies to attend, why should I be here to watch you all argue when I have the right to decide how this man should live or die? Because it's just about prison, going to prison will be you still living."

She steps forward and lets her famous smirk come across her face, "I want you dead..."

Saying this with strict passion, she then turns her guards and says, "I want him executed amongst the crowd tonight, right along with the scientist, cut both of their heads off and then feed the heads to my tigers, just...Make sure the heads are cooked before you do, my tigers have a perculiar appetite."

She walks right out of the room as the Great Speaker and the Doulishii scientist start shouting and screaming for mercy.

"My Empress, I didn't mean to! I didn't mean to!!"

But the guards drag them out through the noise of the people, and from this they imprison them until it's time.

......

It was only four hours later as the night first began when Calshi ran outside with his master Norshi to eventually see his father get dragged along with the scientist by the Executioners right until the platform where he is seen from everyones view.

The Empress herself doesn't attend the execution, but she watches from the palace balcony with her favorite juice in hand, cuddling her stuffed lion, and her school work right beside her as her handmaidens stay by her side, with some of them looking in fear and disgust from the execution that is about to occur.

Meanwhile, Marishi looks forward with joy.

Down below, Calshi steps back seeing his father standing next to the scientist, with the scientist being put down unto the block and his head instantly cut off.

Everybody cheers once the deed is done, but once The Great Speaker is sat down, giving a look to Calshi right before he goes down, a look that made Calshi stare back at him with hard feelings of how he will handle seeing his father go down.

But the deed is done, before Calshi can do anything through the shouting that is drowning his thoughts out, his father, the Great Speaker gets his head cut off, with both his head and the scientist's head being lifted up to the crowd.

Calshi steps back with Norshi saying to him, "let's go, let's get back to the temple." Listening to him but still looking back to his father, Norshi walks off with Calshi while everyone still cheers behind him, with the guards taking their heads away and the people discarding the bodies.

....

The Empress stands up clapping as her mother death is avenged. She turns to her maidens with a childlike attitude saying, "clap clap!"

They start clapping as the child Empress says to one of them, "go down and meet with the guards, tell them to take it to the body butcher and have their heads turned into my tigers fresh dinner."

The maiden nods her head and leaves as the Empress says happily, "I can't wait to see my tigers happy faces, I dreamed of getting them better food one day...Today is that day."

Suddenly the Empress starts laughing, laughing aloud to where everyone around her hears. 

"Im loving this rule, this reign...Is going to be everything I dreamed it would be...Now" She turns around, looking to her handmaidens saying with all seriousness, "take me to the Twillight Warrior..."