shawna v

-1-

We start in Finneas' POV.

I came up with the name for Princess Xael (rhymes with Superman's birthname Kal-el) pretty quickly. It took me over  year to come up with names for the other characters. I finally settled on a Victorian theme for names. Finneas' is our male MC but we don't get his name in this part. His voice is a mix of Vice!Sky (lonely kid trying to do his best) and young Vice!Luce (cold, determined, in way over his head and lowkey in love with a cinnamon roll)

He was later going to be called Finn which...I guess I stole from Star Wars ? I think the italics are supposed to be the weapon part of him ??? IDK ??? I Wanted to set up he was deadly. For some reason I decided that the people on this planet were from a Victorian era space mission so a lot of their references are British. Let's get into it:

Kill

I remember my first night in Wingate Citadel.

I did some Google-fu until I could come up with a good work to use instead of castle. I thought citadel sounded futuristic but also grand.

Kill.

I was a scared 4-year-old boy and a fairly recent orphan. 

The night before I was eating a supper in Vauxhall Gardens with my mother and grandfather  when they were swept away in a cloud of acrid smoke and debris. 

The next morning the Commander and  two members of the Royal Legion found me tear-stained and asleep under the picnic table.

Kill

I thought I was being punished when the Commander ordered the Royal Legion to bring me to the Wingate Citadel. I thought I was in a prison. My room in the Citadel was small then; it had only a bed and lavatory. A warm plate of food arrived while I slept.

Kill

I cried for my mother, not understanding she was gone forever. Eventually a nursemaid in a white came. A gold Wingate Family seal accented the corner of her cape--not that I noticed this then. She told me my family was with the stars looking down at me and that I was to be  apart of something special now. That I have a new duty that would save the entire city.

She and other nameless, nearly identical nursemaids came just enough for me to have human connection but not enough to form a bond.

Kill

My first few years in the Citadel are a blur of sedative induced sleeps as they initiated Coherence.  During installation I lay in bed, my little body aching and the hour long cartoon animations on the projector as my only company. The pastel colored animated drawings appeared on the walls and  told me parables. They taught me what to do and how to behave. They taught me how to be good. They made me laugh. They told me I would be okay.

I really wanted to do the SFF Capital Letter Thing.

Kill

Then I was shown animations of the six Wingate Princesses. Hours and hours of  fictionalized versions of the royal sisters and their  adventures together. I was immediately drawn to my princess and Orion, the small white newborn kitten she’d grown attached to as a baby. My princess was the youngest. She would never rule but she was kindhearted, loving and brave.

I guess I went back to my cyberpunk roots and invoked the Ludovico method from Clockwork Orange a little here. He's basically being brainwashed by propoganda films and forming a parasocial relationship with Xael so they will bond when they meet IRL

I loved her. 

Then came the images of the monsters.

The monsters weren’t animated or fictional stories. It was educational archival footage  that showed the beasts in deep detail; monstrous grotesques made of smoke and earth. They ripped the sky  as they came down on the Citadel and the Metropolis beneath it. The strange monsters had an unyielding desire for the  blood of our royals, but on the way to their targets they  blazed a path of destruction. The monsters made no matter of collateral damage to the citizens. They delighted in the destruction--like they had with my mother and grandfather.

Kill

As I grew older I would wake to shifting walls. My world, became larger. The next time my door opened the nursemaids were long gone and I formerly met The Commander (SFF CAPTITALIZATION THING!) my recruiter and trainer. By then I knew what my true purpose was.

I just knew. (I imagine he is like 10-years-old at this point. And since it's not clear, basically the government is training him to become the perfect weapon,  with no purpose but his main directive--kill monsters ravaging their planet and protect Xael.)

Commander taught me how to work my Coherence, how to harness the elements of Caleus (This is the name of their planet) and  control the volatile energy now seeping through my body. He trained me without mercy until I was ready to meet the other Sentinels. The others were older, they were brilliant and ruthless but so tethered to their emotions.

I was going to be the best because this was all I was made to do. IDK why he would know this.

Kill

I practice the word until it sounds sure and true as an arrow on my lips. I get so wishy washy at times and always use compound phrases  instead of picking one word.

I am still in the room I was brought to 15 years ago but now it is large enough for me to train. I can choose to watch anything I want on the projector but  I always choose the old rolls of  the princess and her sisters on their fictionalized adventures. Two sisters are dead now, one is with child but there is still my princess.  This leaves 2 sisters who are never mentioned. There are six total.

And I will protect her at all cost. Yes, okay, yes I have a bodyguard thing. SUE ME!

I’ve know that in all of the best stories, in every world, the damsel in distress must be saved by a knight in shining armor.

And that is my duty as a Sentinel. To serve. To always save the princess.

So she can save the world

Yes, okay this is coming back to me. The first simmering of this started because I wanted to do a take on the damsel in distress trope. The common "damsel in distress" subversion is "the damsel saves her knight" but I wanted to do a version where she's still a "damsel in distress" and she is still saved by a "knight" but what if she is being saved because she has an important duty in society. What if her being saved is serving a bigger purpose.

Three warning tones sound  and I sit up in bed, alert.

I have 45 seconds before the door opens.

I wash my face, comb my hair and stand directly in front of the door.

The familiar 1-2-1-2 tone plays before my door glides upward to reveal the  concrete low ceiling of the sub-basement walkway. I walk down the hall at a quick but respectful pace. I hear someone pacing behind me and I look to  see which Sentinel I am being summoned with tonight.

Does this make sense ? It's kind of like they are in single occupants rooms that run along a hallway so if someone opens their door farther down the hall they are behind him.

My practiced steps almost falter.

Sattarius Longshire.

Sattarius  is tall and pale, her fine white hair in an intricate braid pinned around her narrow head. Sattarius is a fierce soldier, almost legendary, and has been at the Queen’s right hand for over two decades. If she was on duty tonight it meant I was going to be fighting alongside the Queen. IDK why she's almost legendary. I also have no idea where the name Sattarius comes from, I should have just made it Sagittarius.

Sattarius and I reach the end of the antechamber (look at me using sff words like antechamber )hall together and stand on the elevation pad. We are cleared and lifted up through the octagonal opening  and to the Royal Armory. We don’t speak; sometimes the other Sentinels would exchange nods or tight smiles with me. But tonight I follow Sattarius’s lead and choose reverent silence.

So, it's like how Beyonce or someone comes up from the bottom of the stage. Because they are in the basement below the armory.

My mind focuses once  the elevation pad anchors in the Royal Armory. I  change into the black and gold Sentinel  uniform, clap the silver bracer that bears my princess’s seal on my wrist and strap the quiver on my back. I choose the katana blade for my chest and  finally  the golden and onyx cudgel for hand to...hand, as it were. The beasts we were up against rarely had human hands, usually pincers or hoofs.

Does this imply he was naked earlier ? In my head he's wearing like underclothes and just puts the uniform over them. The uniform isnpy:

The doors at the far end of the hall opens and my adrenaline rushes at the delicate click, click, click  sounds of my princess’s boots (I'm blushing over the boots line because of LILE now) (Present day SHV: I wrote this a year ago, I have no idea what this is referncing)(Present Present Day SVH: Oh, this is about AYC)  and the heavier thuds following behind them.

Princess Xael  appears as a vision in the gold and white battle uniform of the royal family. The  white complements  her deep complexion and mark her as the highest ranking member of the Royal Legion, higher rank than the captain of the guard, higher than a general even.  Her rose colored hair is tied back in a braid crown and her face is set in a determined smirk. More wishy-washy. She's just the highest ranking. I think I was really trying to pump her up by saying higher than x, higher than y.

Behind her, the Queen is a severe sight. I am humbled by her presence. I have never seen the Queen fight in person.

The royals take their jewel embedded scythes from their cases and approach Sattarius and I. The scythes are big, I should have emphasized that here. Weapons inspys:

In my head I knew this story would be relatively PG-rated with no mentions of sex or anything like that but my mind is so corrupted by AYC that this next line reads sooooo dirty:

I take a knee and lower my gaze in front of  my princess as she approaches me. Sattarius, so much more familiar with the Queen, merely bows at the waist as Caleus' sovereign (does using words like sovereign make it sound SFF-y ? I was trying) approaches her.

Princess Xael, leans haughtily against her scythe, the specialized weapon  almost a foot taller than her. She touches her delicate hand to my bowed chin, lifting it. (Maybe...maybe I should make this dirty ? Will that fix it ?)

“What will you do ?,” My princess asks. As she always does before we go into battle together.

I meet her dark eyes and the Coherence buzzes between us.

CP!Shawna: Hey, what's Coherence ?

SHV: Oh, it's uh..hmm...I hope I explain it later

“Kill,” I say, it comes off strong and sure, just as I’ve practiced. See... he was saying that in his head earlier and now he's saying it outloud. Isn't it cinematic ? Maybe ? Yes ? No ? No, it's not. IDK. I think I was taking this story too seriously.

Also, in case it wasn't super obvious, I was going for an anime vibe.

Okay, let me see what Past!SHV had to say in her author's note below....OMG,LOL DID I REALLY SHARE THIS WITHOUT HAVING THE SERIAL OR MAIN  CHARACTER A NAME ??? I was such a slacker!

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A/N

I feel like with me constantly mentioning this serial and then putting it off for years it got over hyped but this is just a taste of this weird idea that has been going on in my head. It's kind of experimental. It's going to have some themes I've played around with in the Vice novellas because I basically wrote them all as I wrote this. This story started because I wanted to dabble in the Human Weapon trope.

You: Okay but what is the name of the narrator ?

SHV: It didn't actually fit into the prologue but it will show up in the next chapter.

You: Okay, but what's the name of this serial ?