Author’s preemptive notes. Ha! or something. Anway, a particular OC in this thingy, one 'Bronze Brand,' is someone else’s character. In short, dude won on a little offer I made someplace or other and so got his character featured in a PvSC story. This is a very loose definition of ‘win,’ considering I don’t think this is what that person expected. -At all.- Even I think this is a bit off-the-wall-but-it’s-ok-they’re-the-padded-bouncy-kind-with-the-snug-jackets, and I write these damnable silly and fun things.. ‘Wtf-erie’ ensues, I’m sure. Seriously, this one’s weirder than the norm. I think...
Anyway without further adieu: Manesk vs Shipping
The problem with empires is, perhaps at the root of all speculation, a simple one.
It will be explained in two words: garden gnomes.
Yes, garden gnomes. Now, the casual observer...no, not that little invisible adorable yet slightly uncanny in it’s relentless impassive staring kind...well maybe that kind. Never hurts to check. If in doubt, plan a scan, amirite? Whatever. Starting again...
A great many things exist that are the litmus paper of sanity, but so few are willingly placed right there in the front yard for everyone to see. How, it may be wondered, do garden gnomes relate to vast empires, of particular interest the multiple planet spanning and oversized-shoulder-pauldron-emblazoned-with-gold-and-heraldic-beasts-kind?
It’ll become clear. Promise.
Right. Gnomes. Note the quantity, and the quality. A few weather beaten little abominations haphazardly scattered around the half-assedly cut grass and shrubbery represent very little threat. The more weatherbeaten they are, the better. The little runts should be beaten as often as possible.
If there starts to be more of them than people living in the house, or if they look to have been actively cleaned beyond a freshening rain storm or a shot from the hose, this is where our litmus paper begins to blush towards an alarming pink.
Be wary of anyone who places garden gnomes in their backyard as well. That’s downright suspicious.
Now consider the house which these gnomes infest. It’s probably a rather regular house, more or less. If there is a terrible massing of gnomes gathered outside this otherwise innocent appearing abode, at least the wary observer can jay walk to safety.
A larger house, the kind that merits its own drive, the sort with a gate (rather than a humble driveway) might compound the problem. Terrible as this is, at least one can still run away at a stiff pace, wheeze about through the demesne, remember the gnomes, and thusly find renewed vigour instilled from healthy distrust and paranoia.
Think the gnomes aren’t worth such reactions? Imagine a large manor, the sort with nicely kept gardens, and slightly less nicely kept gardeners. The sort with a hedge grown maze. Imagine oneself in the maze. Alone, but happy-go-lucky, stumbling one’s way through it. Imagine oneself in this maze some time after the proprietor of the property decided that ‘garden gnomes, great idea, they’ll make the place jolly!’ Suddenly all those innocent plaster and paint eyes, all those overbearing, overgrown walls that so obviously need a little trim...with a flamethrower. And the little gnomes too. Especially them.
Indeed, people are quirky. Look to the gnomes, as has been said already, for they’re a handy litmus of the mind. Note the trends, as these quirks tend to be the same whether it’s a tiny little house with a yard that’s essentially an eight by eight with the window open or a large old mansion with ‘grounds.’
The only difference is scale.
Now scale this up to the size of billions of people, in thousands of cities across a handful of worlds.
Place the self crowned emperor of this mess - with a tacky rouge cape, rogue that he is, and shoulder adornments bigger than his head atop it. Clearly there isn’t an ego there. Not at all.
Indeed, even here there’s a lawn ornament of a sort, just for him, though they don’t really work well as litmus papers anymore. They'd keep melting through the floor and setting small, embarrassing chemical fires.
These lawn gnomes are towering siege walkers, and rather than stand around all day being slightly menacing, they actively stomp around the place and bring extra menace for everyone. Every garden gnome wishes to be this when it grows up.
But this isn’t about them, it’s about him. And his quirks.
Indeed, Emperor Manesk of the Terrible Dominion stormed through his palace. Yes, palace.
He was shouting and threatening, which wasn’t really an odd occurrence, being his usual way of talking. He did have an appreciable voice though, which was not just bearable, but quite enjoyable. He even had the beard essential for singing country.
Manesk might have been much happier as a country singer. He certainly wouldn’t have been lead into this mess...or at least, knowing country singers, have had a more reasonable - or more drunken - outlook on the manner.
“I do not have a thing for minotaurs!” The conversation really was that weird.
The voice of unflappable reason weathered the tirade. “Of course, your majesty. There was, however, that incident with the minotauren marine-”
“I was inspecting the craftsmanship of his armor! It was so finely fitted we couldn't even get it off!”
If Manesk was a shark, all teeth and restless motion, the secretary, one curiously named Cymbal Tied was the calm, suckery remora. “Of course, sir. Yet such a thing can be misconstrued out of context-”
“By shippers, I tell you! Shippers!” he shouted emphatically, thrusting a gauntleted fist into the air. Lately, every fault and folly of civilization could be blamed on shipping - not the hard working and essential transporting industry, oh no.
The other kind, which is entirely more merciless. And rabid.
“Relentlessly shipping me with large, hunky bulls! It undermines my hard-boiled, unbreakably badass, get the job done appearance. Look at this!” he said, and thrust selfsame fist towards the clerk. Out from iron clad fingers fell a crumpled piece of paper.
“It appears to be a drawing, my grace.”
Manesk whirled about, doing that swirly thing with the cape that surely takes great practice to get just right and still look natural. “Yes. It is. Fanart,” he hissed venomously. “Hideous, vile, demeaning fanart!”
It was in crayon, and looked to have been drawn with a clenched, happy fist. It was what could possibly be, from a certain stretch of imagination, the emperor and another, larger figure next to him. They were holding hands and smiling.
In scrawled colours there was a caption. Contrary to cliche, there were no backwards letters, though the same effect was managed with plenty of hearts and happy faces and other such things.
It amounted to this: Everybody should have a special somebody! Manesk and ???? sitting in a tree! K-I-S-S-I-N-G!! A flurry of pink hearts flocked around the end, just incase the message hadn’t been clear enough.
Cymbal Tied coughed discreetly. Manesk was something altogether more ruffled. In the voice of command, one that had ordered terrible retreats and even more terrible victories he said, in absolute seriousness: “I am going for a bubble bath. No one to disturb me.”
“Of course, your eminence. I will bring the new Head of household security up to speed.”
At that, they parted ways.
Cymbal Tied wasn’t the sort the grin. If he had been the sort, he probably wouldn’t have managed to get this job, or deal with this kind of thing daily. Like the kind of deep sea shrimp that explodes out of water, so adapted it is to the pressure, so too are some personalities just at home in inhospitable places.
Even so, he allowed himself a curt, knowing smile. The sort immortalized in paintings.
The thing about palaces is that, for every dining hall and grand reception area there is a myriad little dark backrooms. Secret places where cloak and dagger would be literal truth, except who wears a cloak indoors? Seriously? Well, excepting eccentric emperors of course, but they hardly count.
In such a room, a minotaur waited nervously. His name was Bronze Brand, and he’d just been offered a job.
He wasn’t particularly happy about this. He was large, muscular and toned like a sculpture, coloured in his namesake with a thick mane of blonde that drenched his shoulders with hair. His prospective boss was a pasty smear of a desk jockey, yet there’d been a certain predatory gleam to the glasses that showed which of the two was truly large and in charge.
The minotaur had been left to stew in his own thoughts for a while. He wrung his huge hands and waited anxiously.
At long last the door opened, admitting the secretary. In a way that had nothing to do with body size, he loomed. “Do you know why you’re here?”
“A job?”
“That’s right. Stand up. Let me get a look at you.” Feeling terribly self conscious, the minotaur stood. He felt like he was being put up for auction and a keen buyer was examining his worth.
The silence, punctuated only by little nods and ‘mhmms’ of approval was entirely unbearable. “So. Uh, yeah. This job. Security detail, right?” Bronze Brand wasn’t keen on the position. He had the build surely, but not really the heart. Saying 'no' was just so hard.
“Head of Security, actually.” Bronze didn’t know what to think. He was vaguely aware that sort of job didn’t go to people just in off the street.
“Oh, don’t worry. There’s not much of the more...shall we say physical tasks involved with the job. I just want you to look the part.”
This did not reassure as much as it could have.
A cloven hoof clopped against the cold floor as Bronze Brand took a step backwards. “I’m not sure...” For a minotaur, he was a bit of a pansy.
“Listen to me, closely, you pile of bull. Do you understand what an empire is?”
Beads of sweat glistened. “Yes?”
“Now, what do you think an emperor does?”
There was only one door out, and that was beyond the secretary. Crap. “Umm...run it?”
“No. His job is to think that he runs it, and to have everyone else think that too so that nameless, faceless people like me can get on with our jobs. Ninety nine percent of government is paperwork. Bureaucracy. Resource allotment. Speeches and public gestures have no real value in the operation. Understand?
“The last thing this Terrible Dominion wants is for its emperor to actually start taking an active role in management. That kind of mind always gets...ideas. And lately our supreme leader has been paranoid and bored. Paranoid. And. Bored.” Cymbal emphasized each word with a hard glare.
Bronze Brand gulped, which considering his physiology made for quite the gulp indeed. He leaned well back from the glinting glasses. “What do you want me for?” he squeaked.
No. The glasses hadn’t glinted before. That’d merely been a pale reflection compared to this, where they drank in light and spat it back with snide vengeance. Cymbal Tied leaned closer. “Well. Manesk has... let’s call it a keeness. A keen appreciation - one he hotly denies, of course - for a build such as yours.”
Cymbal grinned. “A build, in fact, exactly like yours.”
Bronze Brand’s eyes went wide. “You want me to what?!”
“Stand around in shiny armour. Look like a big, tough minotaur. Distract our fine and noble hero. By any means necessary.”
Bronze Brand trembled. “I...I don’t really want to do any of this. This is mad!”
Cymbal Tied slammed the table. “Too bad. You’re going to do a fine service to this Dominion.”
“This was supposed to be a job offer!”
“And it is. Provided you accept unconditionally.”
“What if I don’t?”
“Then you will wish you had.”
Bronze Brand shivered. This was not what he had expected. If he’d had half a clue what today would turn out like, he not only would have stayed in bed, but would have put a couple extra blankets over his head and stayed very quiet. With the doors locked and the curtains closed.
By any standard, he was a wimp. Doubly so by minotaur standards.
“I’d just have to stand around?” he asked, pleading in his voice.
“Of course,” the secretary smoothly replied, smiling like a snake. Or a spider. Something venomous, with lots of shiny bits and cold blood.
“Well...ok then.” Spider or snake. Bronze felt trapped, certainly. Caught in a web. He also felt breathless, like the latter had coiled around him. Maybe the secertary was a bit of both. Like an eight legged snake with eight slitted eyes and a slithering tale and long, venom dripping fangs...
Bronze Brand shut his eyes. “I think I’d like that powered armor suit now, then.”
Cymbal Tied smiled. “But of course, Head of House Security Brand.”
An hour later, the hapless minotaur stood in the corridor. The secretary had insisted he wait here to ‘introduce himself at his majesty’s pleasure.’ This had warranted a little grin from the snake and/or spider paper pusher. The instant a convenient window presented itself, he was going to jump.
The armour could probably take a simple fall without much hassle. If not...well, that wasn’t so bad either, was it? Compared to this?
The voice, and the heavy thud of boots on marble reached his ears before the doors opened.
“I do love a fine warm bubble bath, nothing leaves me feeling more refreshed, more prepared to face the universe again! A lovely, warm bath-” Manesk almost sounded happy.
The door opened. The emperor looked up and down the armoured minotaur, who smiled meekly from nervousness.
Manesk spun about. “...and now for a cold shower! Sexy- I mean sudsy! Yes. Sudsy. All those bubbles. Terrible, vile suds. Gotta rinse them off.” The door slammed in Bronze Brand’s face.
Ten seconds later Bronze Brand hit the ground after a three storey drop. He was already running, and accelerating by the second.