“Today was uneventful. The army came across a village by the outskirts, ransacked and pillaged by the caravan of bandits. Not a single soul has made it out alive. The bandits are nowhere to be seen, so the army has taken it upon themselves to scavenge for any food or usable item within the vicinity.
The army was only able to secure a small blade. A dull, rusty yet effective blade. The General decided that we keep it.”
-Florence Dominique Sibylla’s Fabricated Reports to be sent for the Emperor, Pt. 1
Florence tore his parchment for the umpteenth time, unsatisfied.
He had spent hours crafting the perfect report to send back to the empire, which was supposed to be ready by the time he met the emperor’s envoy. So far, Florence had scripted a version with the general running into bandits, a young woman that needed saving, and finally – saving a poor kid from starvation. Anything but the truth.
Florence wished he could simply lie and be done with it, but given everything that the emperor is able to hold over his head, he had to make sure that his lies were plausible.
“Done with your reports?” A voice called out. He didn’t need to turn back and check to know who it was.
Florence immediately picked up the pieces of his report, making sure that they were out of the General’s reach. “Not yet.”
The General raised an eyebrow at this. “Putting them off again? You do realise that you’re here for a job, don’t you, Sir Scribe?”
Florence shrugged, completely unbothered that the General just called him lazy. Normally, this would be a warning for the other soldiers to start hauling ass or suffer punishment, but for him.
Never for him.
“I have a hard time putting into words what we just saw, Percival. You know His Highness would lose it if he finds out what we’re planning to do.”
At the mention of his name, the General’s face softened. It was a time-tested trick that Florence liked to employ whenever the General probed too much on his work – or whenever he felt called for a timeout.
He sat next to Florence, arranging his desk. “I know,” he whispered. “I’m sorry that you have to talk to him in my stead.”
A lump of guilt started to form in Florence’s throat, but he forced it down. “That’s…not really a problem. It’s just…where do I begin?”
As the scribe, Florence’s primary work revolved around recording the events as they happened and sending timely reports to the capital. However, since the General and the Emperor had their fallout, Percival refused to talk to His Highness, and instructed Florence to write to the Emperor in his place.
At first, it had been a convenience – with Florence controlling the communication with the Emperor, he had lesser chances of his fraudulent reports being discovered.
But as time went by, Florence grew to understand why Percival hated communicating with the Emperor. Stuck-up, out-of-touch, and impossibly demanding, the Emperor was a spoiled child wearing the most important headdress of the empire: the crown.
“You could start by asking him to send reinforcements,” Percival offered. “It doesn’t even have to be for the army. The people here need extra security, we need order. This village is lucky to have someone like that bot Aster, but the others? Imagine how many villages are pillaged every day. You’ve seen it.”
And Florence had. He’d recorded exactly how much of their expenditure was spent helping people instead of themselves, which almost led to a coup in the past month. He could never forget how the General had soldiers hunting food to be distributed amongst the poor, only for the same soldiers to almost drop dead due to hunger.
He admired the General’s pure heart. In another life, had they been blessed with a kinder monarch and a better place to live, soldiers would be stationed everywhere to serve and protect the people. The people would not have to debase themselves or be at the mercy of the elements and bandits just to survive. The resources would be properly allocated, distributed to the regions that needed them most.
Florence picked up another parchment, putting on a show of starting over with his task. He didn’t know how to tell the General that the only reinforcement they would be getting was a death squad to finish them off. “We can’t save everyone, Percival. You know this.”
Percival gritted his teeth. “And what do you suggest we do? Just let them die?”
Dead men can’t save other dead people, Florence wanted to say.
Instead, he simply sighed. “I always wonder what would happen if someone like you took the throne.”
He could feel the General stiffen beside him, the same way he always reacted whenever Florence showed and expressed any indignation towards the current regime. Percival had shared similar beliefs – he would have been arrested and executed for insurgency and treachery otherwise – yet the General remained firm on one, particular stance:
“You know I can’t,” he said, whacking Florence over the shoulder. This caused the scribe to lose his grip over the brush, leading to another scrapped report. What a mess. “Why don’t YOU try it?”
The emphasis on ‘you’ was so strong that Florence couldn’t help but break into laughter. “Are you sure? I’ll burn this empire to the ground!”
“And I’d let you,” the General muttered, almost too soft for Florence to hear. But he caught it anyway, and Florence was torn for a moment whether he should pretend to have heard it or not. Truth be told, he simply couldn’t imagine the General working under him in any capacity, nor could he imagine handling a station higher than he has now.
People like Florence were meant to work behind the scenes. There were people like Percival, who do great deeds in the light, and him, who simply do deeds in the dark. Both can coexist, especially if it’s for a greater purpose.
“You won’t, actually,” Florence said, on the final vestiges of his laughter. “You’d have me killed.”
However, when he looked into the General’s eyes, he was surprised to find that man actually looked serious. His grey eyes were stormy, almost as dark as the clouds, and he regarded Florence with such intensity that the scribe was suddenly struck with the realisation that it was only the two of them inside the hut.
“I wouldn’t,” the General repeated. He was adamant to drive this point across.
Florence felt the temperature rising for some reason, which was odd, given that they lived in a land of perpetual winter.
“Stop overthinking it,” Florence nudged the man by the shoulder with his own. “You should be resting, not ruining that pretty head of yours with delusions.”
The General scowled. “And you should be writing reports, yet here you are, tempting arrest by disclosing your plans of treachery against the empire.”
Florence snickered. “Please. I’m loyal to the empire. Why else would I have followed you here?”
“You didn’t follow me. His Highness sent you here, probably smelling your treachery a mile away. ” The General said with a huff. “How unfortunate that I must be stuck here with you.”
The words were demeaning, but there was mirth in the General’s eyes as he said it. Both of them knew that His Highness would never willingly let a potential traitor out of his sight, given the man’s paranoia with anything and anyone that might get in the way between him and his throne. Percival was only able to be stationed here given his trustworthy character, and there was no better candidate to accompany him than the emperor’s lapdog, Florence.
Florence smiled. “I agree. Truly unfortunate.”
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