Chapter 13: Chapter 13: Feelin' Boujie

I mingled with the crowd for a bit, shaking hands and receiving praise and adoration from practically everyone in attendance. I’d been afraid that most of the Praedonians would still be scared of me, but after that performance, they seemed more comfortable with having a witch as a neighbor. Someone had even given me a bouquet of flowers. I had no idea where they got it from, but the gesture was sweet.

“Poor Princess Hamela,” whimpered Lord Tiberius Constantine Waddicus of House Jerk The Third, his eyes red from all the crying he’d been doing, “Whatever happened to her after the death of Rome-Bovine?”

Uhhh, I should’ve expected follow-up questions. Hamlet was supposed to end on an ambiguous note, but everyone here believed it was a true story. “Not even my magic is powerful enough to know where the princess is now,” I replied, mysteriously waggling my eyebrows.

“Well, if you ever see her again on your travels,” said Mrs. Wad, snot flowing down her nose and getting stuck in her face’s various fat folds, “Let her know that before hearing her story, all we used to care about was money.”

Lord Tiberius Constantine Waddicus of House Jerk The Third nodded, “And now, we only care about money and poor Princess Hamela.” The couple held each other, whimpering softly as their snot mingled with one another’s. It was sweet, but in a weird and gross sorta way.

“So about the lemons.” I began casually.

“Of course,” said Lord Tiberius Constantine Waddicus of House Jerk The Third, nodding vigorously. “Oh, Jeeves?”

The butler materialized out of the crowd. “You called, sir?” Asked Jeeves, his ordinarily impassive face also stained with tears.

“Give her the lemons,” said Lord Tiberius Constantine Waddicus of House Jerk The Third, pointing at me. “She earned them and then some.”

Jeeves nodded. “Very well, m’lord.”

The butler handed me a brown burlap sack, no bigger than a purse. I eagerly opened it, and resting at the bottom, I found three mushy-looking lemons.

“Oh.” I said, suddenly feeling deflated, “Is this all of them?”

“You earned every last lemon we own,” replied Mrs. Wad, wrapping me in a hug and smearing my outfit with snot. “We look forward to hearing more of your stories in the future.” Mrs. Wad took her husband’s hand. “Come dear,” she said, “let’s throw more coins at the peasants.”

The couple pranced away, leaving me to stare down, conflicted at my overripe prize. I’d been hoping for a couple more lemons than just three, but hopefully, that’d still be enough to charge my laptop. My next step was to figure out how to turn lemons into electricity. Fingers crossed, Thomas could research that for me.

“Piper, you did incredible!” Ellie ran up and wrapped me in a huge hug, which thankfully contained less snot than my last embrace. “Was all of that true,” She asked, her face also slicked with tears, “Did Rome-Bovine really get turned into strips of bacon by his estranged stepmother and was later fed to the orphans of Castle Porkrind?”

“Uh, allegedly,” I replied shiftily.

“Wow. I’d love to hear more stories from your travels when you get the chance,” exclaimed Ellie, eyes wide, “it sounds a lot more fun than listening to noblewoman gossip all day.”

“Well, maybe I can put on another show next week,” I said, the words leaving my mouth without thinking. I blinked, realizing I’d meant what I said. I wasn’t sure how long it would be until I could go home, but I’d never had a more receptive audience than here in Praedones. Plus, it was just fun to perform, and it would help to keep my acting skills sharp.

“What are the lemons for?” asked Ellie, pointing at the mushy fruits inside my burlap sack.

“It’s for a spell I’m trying to cast,” I said, picking up one of the fruits and holding it in my hand. “And now that I’ve got my necessary fruit, I need Thomas’ help to turn them into electricity.”

“Electra-what?” Asked Ellie.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said dismissively. “Speaking of Thomas,” I said, scanning the large crowd. “Where is he?”

Ellie made a noise that sounded halfway between a chuckle and a sigh. “He’s over by the stage doing push-ups.”

I looked back, and sure enough, there was the boy wonder, decked out in heavy metal armor, and doing his trademark push-ups. “You ever get tired of that?” I asked, motioning to Thomas.

Ellie nodded vigorously. “I’ve been thinking about starting to wear less makeup around Thomas. Maybe he’ll feel more comfortable speaking to me if I look uglier.”

I frowned, unsure if it’d be appropriate to tell Ellie she was beautiful without makeup or agree that wearing less of the stuff would make her look uglier. I decided it would be wisest not to say anything.

“Get over here, Witch!” The crowd parted like a snotty, unwashed sea as Princess Melanie stormed towards me. Her eyes were red and puffy from crying, but her hands were balled into fists like she was about to deck me. And, was that a knife in her hand!?

“Can I help you?” I asked, taking a few defensive steps backward, raising my hands to hopefully protect my face from getting perforated.

“What did you do to me?!” demanded the Princess, pointing toward the tears pooling around her bright-green eyes.

Ellie and I looked at each other and back to Princess Melanie. “Come again?” I asked, genuinely clueless about what she meant.

“That spell you cast!” Princess Melanie shrieked, stepping closer so that her face was just inches from mine. “I didn’t even sense you cast anything; how did you make me feel this way?!”

I looked at the Princess, tears and snot mingling across her face. Despite the situation, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of pride. If I’d even been able to move the usually stoic Princess Melanie, I must’ve put on a pretty solid performance.

And that’s when it hit me. I’d never seen the princess so upset before. In fact, the only emotions I’d ever seen Melanie display were mild annoyance and blind rage. I looked from the stage and back to Princess’ watery eyes, and everything clicked into place. It seemed like Princess Melanie had been bitten by the theater bug.

“I didn’t cast any spells,” I said, with a smile. “You’re just a fan of the theater.”

“The theater?” Princess Melanie scrunched up her face, the thought seeming to disgust her. “I’ve seen traveling trade guilds and minstrels perform all my life, but this is the first time I’ve ever experienced a reaction like this.”

“That’s because Piper’s a good storyteller.” Replied Ellie, giving me a pat on the back. I blushed; it was true.

Melanie narrowed her eyes; I could practically hear the gears turning in her head. “And you’re certain there was no magic involved?” She asked, gazing accusatorily between Ellie and me.

“Absolutely,” said Ellie emphatically. She frowned, looking over at me. “Well, 99% sure.”

I nodded in affirmation.

“Oh.” Princess Melanie looked confused. She had built up all this rage and anger and suddenly had nowhere to put it. I, however, knew where she could channel all of these hormonally fueled emotions…into the arts!

“I’d be happy to share more of my stories with you,” I said, always eager to find a fellow thespian and realizing this might be how I could end up befriending the Princess. “And I could use a partner for my next performance if you’re interested.”

“Open the gate!” Before Princess Melanie could answer, I heard a commotion from the castle walls. It was dark out, but torches illuminated several dozen guards up on the ramparts, their bodies appeared tense and ready to spring into action. There was the creak of metal as the castle’s front gate was raised, and I heard the galloping of horses’ hooves a moment later.

I turned back to the Princess and Ellie, my desire to convert Melanie to the world of theater being briefly overcome by my general nosiness. “Will you ladies excuse me one moment?” I ran towards the castle gate, where a crowd of knights and citizens had gathered. A knight and his horse limped into the city proper, and even in the dim torchlight, I could see several dozen arrows sticking out of the man and his steed, making them look like pincushions.

“What happened, man? Speak!” I immediately recognized Eye Patch Guy as he and several other knights helped the injured man off the horse. Behind the man, what looked like hundreds of people rushed past him and into the city, fear etched onto their face as they shouted and shoved each other in an attempt to be the first inside the walls. I blinked in surprise. Did my eyes deceive me, or did I spy Lucille and her family in the crowd of people? Why weren’t they at their home? Were all these people Praedonian citizens?

“They’re coming.” Rasped the injured knight before breaking into a coughing fit.”

“Who?” asked Eye Patch Guy, shaking him roughly.

“Clarence, Regent, and I were out on patrol.” Gasped the man, his breathing sounding wet and gurgly. “We found them massacring peasants; it was an absolute bloodbath, so many innocent lives gone. We tried to intervene, but there were just too many.”

The man coughed up a startling amount of blood, more blood than I’d ever seen come out of one person. He grabbed onto Eye Patch Guy and stared desperately into his eye. “They’re coming,” he repeated, “They’re right behind us!”

Frantic whispering rose up amongst the crowd. I didn’t know who or what this guy was talking about, but per my knowledge of the current political climate, I could take an educated guess that Praedones was about to be–.

“Enemies spotted coming over the hill!” A knight on the ramparts shouted.

Suddenly, the night was filled with the sounds of screaming and shouting. It sounded like the enemy army realized they had been spotted and had dropped all pretense of stealth. The Praedonian knights rushed to close the gate, and before I could even process what to do next, I was scooped up by Eye Patch Guy as he sprinted away from the gate. “Hey, put me down!” I shouted indignantly, pounding my fists ineffectively against his armored chest plate.

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“1,000 apologies your witchiness.” Replied Eye Patch Guy, “But without your magic, the kingdom of Praedones may very well fall this night.”

That got me to stop hitting him. He continued.

“I won’t pretend to understand the intricacies of magic, but I’m almost certain you can perform your job better away from the front lines of battle.”

CRACK. Something big rammed into the gate behind us. I saw people jump back in fear as the metal gate bulged inward, looking like it was about to snap in half. What sounded like a war horn blew outside the gate, and the screaming voices from the enemy army suddenly sounded like they were right on top of us. I silently willed Eye Patch Guy to run faster and get me the heck out of there.

“The kingdom is under attack!” shouted Eye Patch Guy as he set me down in the town square and drew his sword. “All able-bodied men, rise up and protect your homes, everyone else, find somewhere safe to–.”

Another ear-splitting shriek of the sound of tearing metal rang across the kingdom as the gate gave way, and I, along with everyone else in the square, watched horrified as a wave of armored knights donning red and gold crests began pouring into the city.

“Attack!” shouted Eye Patch Guy as he rushed to meet the enemy head-on.

My eyes darted around the square, trying to figure out how I could help. Praedones was being invaded, and if my hunch was correct, every single one of us was about to be slaughtered unless I thought of something really clever, really fast.

“Piper!” Ellie and Thomas ran over to me, both looking understandably worried. Princess Melanie was nowhere to be seen. Hopefully, she’d gotten to safety.

“Are you alright?” Asked Thomas, the fear of imminent death seeming to make him somewhat less awkward around Ellie.

“I’m fine,” I replied, mind racing. “Quick question: those knights are sporting red and gold colors; why is that so familiar?”

Ellie gasped as she looked out at the battlefield. “Those are the colors of Lord DripBussin and his soldiers, the Boujee Boys!”

“The what?” I asked incredulously. I recognized Lord DripBussin’s name; I guess the guy had kept good on his promise of revenge, but were his soldiers seriously called the Boujie Boys?

“They’re part of a neighboring kingdom,” said Thomas, drawing his sword and positioning himself in front of me and Ellie. “One of the bigger ones, unfortunately.

Okay, so it sounded like we were adequately screwed. Without another word, I rushed to the theater stage and began rifling through all my stuff.

“Piper, what are you doing?” Asked Ellie as she and Thomas ran after me, “We gotta get somewhere safe.”

“We’re not gonna be safe unless I do something,” I replied, glancing back toward the ruined front gate. The knights of Praedones were putting up a decent fight but were being overrun by the Boujie Boys’ superior numbers.

“Does that mean it’s magic time?” Asked Thomas. Even in this horrible situation, I could hear the enthusiasm in his voice.

I quickly took stock of what I had in front of me. I had two stage lights, my phone, a crude megaphone I’d slapped together for the play, and my Bluetooth speaker. Not exactly a lot to work with. I could run back into the castle and grab my homemade projector, but the entire kingdom could be a bloody pulp by the time I got back. Plus, everyone might be too busy trying to kill each other to even see my fake dragon projected onto a wall.

“Ellie, turn the stage lights back on and start spinning them around,” I said, motioning to the currently inert lights further back in the town square, “make it look like a rave.”

“A what?”

“Just do it!” I shouted, snapping my fingers. I panicked briefly when I couldn’t find my Bluetooth speaker anywhere on the stage, until I remembered that I’d asked Thomas to grab it for me after the performance. “Thomas,” I said, facing him, “turn on the Bluetooth speaker and slap a megaphone in front of it.”

“Are you and Elyswyrth gonna be safe this close to the battle?” Asked Thomas, pulling out the speaker and casting both of us a worried glance.

“Trust me, if this works, we’re be in the safest spot in the entire kingdom,” I said, opening my phone and quickly scrolling through it.

“Thomas!” Ellie’s scream pierced the air. I turned towards the stage lights and saw, to my utter horror, that an enemy knight, sword drawn, was rushing towards her. Time seemed to slow down as I watched the blade speed towards Ellie’s body; my mind raced, trying to figure out how to save my friend, but I was drawing blanks.

A blur of movement whizzed by my face, and the enemies sword was halted midswing as Thomas blocked the attack with his blade.

“Thomas!” Ellie and I both screamed!

“Hurry up, Piper!” Barked Thomas as he locked blades with his opponent. “Do your spell!”

“I need the speaker!” I shouted back, realizing Thomas still had it with him.

Thomas parried another strike from his opponent and deftly brought his blade through the knight’s defenses, sinking his steel deep into the man’s chest. The knight stumbled a few feet away before collapsing to the ground, but his broken body was replaced only a few moments later by three more Boujie Boys, screaming revenge for their fallen comrade.

“Thomas, speaker!” I yelled, watching, terrified, as the fighting around us intensified.

Thomas raised his weapon, blocking the opening swing from his opponents and nimbly backstepping as the three knights piled onto him. “You’re gonna need to give me a minute,” grunted Thomas, fighting well, but outnumbered and quickly losing ground.

Crud, Thomas wouldn’t have a chance to hand over the speaker. If he took even a second to turn around and toss it to me, I had zero doubt he’d be cut to ribbons.

“Thomas, shut your eyes!” The dimly lit evening was suddenly illuminated by two bright purple stage lights. Ellie had turned them both on and was shining them directly into the eyes of the enemy knights, who stumbled backward in alarm.

Wanting to capitalize on Ellie’s great idea, I jumped onto a chair and shone my phone light under my face to look all mysterious and spooky. “By my dark witchy powers,” I cackled, “I command the power of the necro sun to siphon the souls of the foolish knights who dared to face me!” I didn’t know what a necro sun was, but I figured it sounded sufficiently scary.

“Not the necro sun!” screamed the knights, running into each other and toppling to the ground. I grinned; that had been some quick thinking on Ellie’s part.

Our victory was short-lived, however, as my stage lights drew the attention of several more enemy knights who had not heard my awesome monologue and were now making a beeline toward our position.

“Speaker!” Yelled Thomas as he threw the Bluetooth speaker towards me and quickly turned to face off against his new opponents.

I leaped off the chair and barely managed to catch the speaker. Taking a valuable moment to power it back on and ensure it was still paired to my phone, I ran back towards the stage.

“Alright, Ellie,” I shouted , grabbing my makeshift megaphone from onstage and placing it against the speaker. “When the music starts, wave those lights around like crazy.”

Ellie nodded, her eyes glued to Thomas’ fight. “Are you sure your magic won’t hurt Thomas too?” She asked nervously.

I paused, not sure how to answer that question. Depending on who you asked, dubstep hurt everyone.

I pressed the play button on my phone, and the night air was suddenly filled with what could be charitably described as blenders grinding apart a robotic cat as it yowled and thrashed in agony. I couldn’t believe people actually enjoyed this crap.

At the same time, Ellie began rapidly twirling the stage lights all around, flicking the light on and off to create a strobing effect.

The response was instantaneous. All the soldiers stopped fighting and stared wide-eyed at the sight in front of them (at least, I assumed they were wide-eyed; most everyone was wearing helmets). Grabbing onto the side of the stage, I quickly shimmied to the top, where I was in view of practically everyone, and shone my phone light under my face again.

“You shouldn’t have come here when you did,” I cackled, my voice going through my phone and being amplified through the speakers. “The night is when I reign; it’s the witching hour!”

I laughed madly and maxed out the volume of the music. It sounded like a little slice of the apocalypse had come to visit Praedones. All the while, the stage lights twirled around wildly like a creature possessed.

I thought the scene looked appropriately witchy, but the performance needed just a little something extra to send it over the top, so I reached into my robes and pulled out a fistful of party snaps. These things were surprisingly easy to make, and I’d asked Thomas to whip me up a few to help spice up my performance of Hamlet. I’d decided at the last minute not to use them, as I’d realized that explosives, no matter how small, might cause a lot of people to freak out. Now, however, that’s exactly the reaction I wanted.

With a final cackle, I threw the party snaps as far as I could, which admittedly wasn’t very far. However, it still looked pretty cool when the tiny spark of fire exploded across the ground, seemingly out of nowhere.

That tipped the scales. As the music, the lights, and the pyrotechnics worked in tandem, I watched as the Boujie Boys broke rank, pushing and shoving to get as far away from me as possible. The busted metal gate, which had originally served as a breach in our defenses, now bottlenecked the terrified knights as they could only leave a few at a time. The knights of Praedones quickly rallied, cutting down dozens of the Boujie Boys before they could escape into the night, and after only a few minutes, every single Boujie Boy that was still able to fight had fled the city.

“End scene.” I breathed a sigh of relief and almost fell off the stage’s roof. I caught myself at the last moment and turned my fall into a graceful slide down the roof’s edge and back onto the ground.

Despite the victory, the kingdom looked like a complete mess. Homes were busted into, people lay injured on the ground, and it appeared that several small fires had been started but were thankfully being put out.

I looked over at the stage lights, searching for Ellie, and briefly panicked when I saw she was nowhere in sight. Thankfully, I found her a few moments later, kneeling over Thomas, his head in her lap. This triggered another quick panic attack as I thought Thomas had gotten stabbed to death while bravely defending us. That would’ve been bad for multiple reasons, but I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw he was definitely alive, but one of his arms was splayed out at an odd angle.

“I’m fine; it’s probably just dislocated.” Grunted Thomas, his voice sounding super machismo, but his teeth were gritted in pain. “I’ll rub some dirt on it and be fine in the morning.”

“You were really brave protecting me and Piper like that,” said Ellie, staring down at him, tears in her eyes.

“I-it’s all in a day’s work, Miss Elyswyrth.” Replied Thomas, his face turning red.

Ellie sighed in exasperation. “I’ve told you over a hundred times, Thomas, you can call me Ellie.” And then she bent down and kissed him.

Thomas went rigid as a board, eyes widening, but he didn’t pull away. It was hard to see in the dark, but I was pretty sure he pulled her closer. Oh, wait a second, he just fell unconscious. Well, at least they got one good kiss in.

“The Bluetooth device needs to be charged.”

Uh oh. I looked down at my wireless speaker; its usual flashing green light was an angry crimson.

“The Bluetooth device needs to be–”

And then it died. Well, crap. Guess I should’ve been expecting that with my luck.

My phone pinged a notification. I looked down at it, shocked beyond belief, thinking I’d just received a text message, but instead saw a power notification kindly letting me know that my phone was now at 10% power. I skipped saying crap and just went straight to cursing.

“You did good, witch.” I looked up to see Eyepatch Guy limping towards me. He was bleeding from a gnarly-looking cut on his neck, but if he felt well enough to engage in conversation, I guess it wasn’t as serious as it looked. “I’m surprised you didn’t summon your dragon,” he continued, looking around at the empty battlefield, “but I guess we got the same results.”

I sighed, looking down at my Bluetooth speaker or, more accurately, my brand-new paperweight. “I don’t think I’ll be able to use my dragon anymore,” I admitted, “At least, not as effectively.”

Eye Patch Guy grunted. “Well, that’s a shame; we could use a dragon right about now.”

“What do you mean?”

Eye Patch Guy just grunted again and motioned for me to follow. I looked back at Ellie, who was busy trying to shake Thomas awake and headed after him.

I was led up one of the ramparts atop the kingdom’s walls. “Do you see them?” Eye Patch Guy asked, pointing into the darkness beyond Praedones.

I squinted my eyes and could just barely make out several dozen pinpricks of light in the distance and more popping into existence every few seconds.

“Those are campfires.” Eye Patch Guy said bluntly. You might’ve scared off the Lord DripBussin and the Boujie Boys with your last spell, but they’re not planning on leaving anytime soon.

“Meaning?” I asked, not liking where this was going.

“I doubt they’ll attack us directly again; you scared them too well for that. So instead, it looks like they’ll be taking a different approach.”

“A siege?” I asked.

He nodded.

Surprisingly, I knew a little bit about sieges. I’d read a YA Zombie Apocalypse story where a group of survivors were trapped in a hardware store. Basically, it meant these guys were gonna try and starve us out.

“How long do you think the siege will last?”

“Depends.” Responded Eye Patch Guy gruffly, “Could be a couple of weeks, maybe months; I’ve heard of some even lasting for years.”

“Oh.” I was quiet for a moment as I processed this rather unfortunate information. “Do we have enough food to last through the siege?”

“We did.”

“What happened to it?”

“We used it all during the last siege.”