Everything always goes south eventually, thought Sammy as she pulled loose hair strands from her face and stared down at the vast wasteland before her. Within a few days, said wasteland would be soaked with blood. Within a few days, the land stretched out before hour little kingdom would be legendary, known as the land where all four factions spilled their blood to Gera, mother Earth. Perhaps then plants would sprout from the hard ground, days old blood providing nourishment, substitute to water and other nutrients. A sign, that the Earth Mother accepted their generous sacrifice of blood and rotting flesh.
"How long now?" She asked the scout before her. He licked his lips nervously as he prepared to provide his answer.
"The Umbrella faction are five days close to us, your grace, they should arrive to meet what is left of our men once we battle the Trogs, which shall arrive in two days. The last faction, the Maygu, are not even moving, your grace, perhaps they wish to wait until we are spent, until we have waged war against and won the other factions."
She laughed at him and the poor lady flushed with embarrassment. "Oh, I'm sorry, it's just, your enthusiasm."
He frowned, still red as rust. "Your grace?"
"Well, you believe we can ward off the first attack, completely annihilate not one but two factions! Oh, if only hope won wars."
"You don't believe?" The scout asked, his face paling. She had an idea of what was running through his head; if my grace does not believe we can survive this then we surely are doomed! How sad. Great, this was probably going to affect their moral, she thought, oh well, we were going to die anyway, I just made him realize that his hope was vein.
"At all, in fact, I believe we're going to die, be killed before the second faction hits. But I have been wrong before, I could be wrong now."
"I fucking hope so." The scout blurted. She smiled with amusement. "Oh, pardons your grace! I never—"
"Save it... Ned, was it?"
He nodded, still looking scared, shocked that he had uttered such an obscene sentence before his Queen and shocked that his head was still on his shoulders.
"I think I like you, Ned; you've decided to drop the act and reveal yourself... Do you have a family, Ned?"
"Aye, and a newborn in that family." He confirmed sadly.
"Aye, I mean yes your grace."
"Where were you grown? South or east?"
He hesitated before responding. "East, your grace. East. My father had me and my sister head South, come here, join the military, have a better life."
"And now you're fucked." She continued.
He laughed at this, and she could feel him slowly loosen up. "Aye, fucked is the right word. Right now, wondering if I had stayed, what would have changed?"
"Either you died of starvation or you died believing 'your grace' was protecting you all the way. At least now you know you're about to die and there isn't a damned thing you can do about it."
"Not true your grace, I could do something."
She raised her brows, curiosity creeping in. "Oh?"
She laughed. "But for how long?"
"Long enough; hide out with a few rations of food and water, abandon my family and my home, wait out the war, pledge allegiance to whatever 'grace' is out there and survive to starve another day."
"Well thought out plan, do you plan on executing it?"
He smiled at her. "We'll see, your grace."
