Today's #flashfiction #ThePurposeOfLoyalty

“Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.”

Harry Houdini* #quote

Well today I played video games with CJ then he headed home. No strange phenomenon happened. Anyway onto the flash fiction!

The Purpose Of Loyalty

         The enemy army already set a foothold in the city. The king holed up in castle to plan an escape to the other largest city of the nation to mount his counterattack. His escape had to break through a massive siege that eventually led to the enemy catapulting boulders at the castle.

          The message of the enemy general after the king ignored his warnings of a direct attack to the castle, “We do not need you to make your people part of our nation.” Part of the nation had particularly interesting implications. The enemy army belonged to a massive empire that believed that it should rule all and create one united utopia under one benevolent ruling class. The fine print of this however is that the tiers would make all conquered nations still under this ruling class. Peasants and other lower classes would remain in their place but the conquered royalty would lose their supreme power.

        The attack of the castle made the air hot enough to bake bread. People ran all about in a panic, including the king. He never thought they would actually destroy a castle they wanted to take and assumed their threats idle. Along with him servants ran throughout the castle.

         A piece of debris fell on the king and trapped his leg. He called desperately out a servant in front of him.

         “Help!”

         The servant kept running.

         “Help your king!”

         The servant turned around for a brief moment.

          “Don't just stand there, save me!”

           The servant looked at the debris and saw that it would take him at least ten minutes to lift, if not longer. He thought of his children and family. And while he left the screaming man behind he thought of coming home to them and providing for livelihood. He figured there isn't enough of a difference between the king he could save and the conquering king to risk his family.

          That night the conquering army treated the people they conquered with a feast to gain favor as they replaced the old king. They burned all records of his existence and removed him from history. The servant lived safely with family ever afterward.