IX
Dome-Wyrd’s First Dawn
On the first day that the sun graced the sky in Dome-Wyrd, the swamp was bubbling-hot. In Manis’s now thriving kingdom. People gathered in front of the entrance to the throne-room. Which was now sealed. By a giant steel gate which had a small steel door, it required a key which only Manis had. Only his original kidnapped subjects, all who have now undoubtedly lost their sodding minds, were allowed entrée. Manis had hit extreme states of paranoia nevertheless this was already prevalent with charging folks for day-passes in his kingdom. Which was a past-time now, Manis had kept increasing the price for the day passes, and soon anyone who came wandering to the his gates of madness would’ve found themselves slaughtered before they found their mind again.
Above the entrance, and the swarming crowd that riddled the throne room, stood Manis who was now a young man. Not nearly any stronger but outrageously taller, for the first time in his life he had a full set of clothes, that fit. He strafed back and forth, putting his foot on the ledge as rock from the old coliseum slowly crumbled down onto the crowd below. “ My subjects my beautiful people below me! My selected few! You have served me… decently well for such a very, very, long time. Not only am I proud of you…” He flashes an eerily long grin, his teeth now rotting a dark and disgusting yellow. His annunciation quickens. “ I want you all to know with my dreadfully withered heart, that from now until a months’ time, on this… our first day graced by the first one’s blessing, the sun. A month-long celebration!.” The crowd confused begins hollering in an uproar that shakes the throne room. On lookers from outside begin to listen on the thin walls before them. Manis claps his hands grinning and cackling. His pristine guard, a little older now, wobbles down with tankards full of ale. Before long they hauled down rows and rows , full of ale. No one needed to tell his dimwitted subjects they were free to drink, rightfully they did. Manis inclined himself to join in on the party, he thought as Jaykob taught him, you only die once.
He drank, perhaps a little too much. Hiccuping along in song, and as they wandered out of the throne room with the news. As the drunk love to talk word spread very quickly of the celebration. It was the first night that Manis held hand-in-hand with his subjects in song, and delightful ramblings, and probably would be the last. Manis wandered group to group also doing his drunkanly part of spreading the good word. Manis unlocked the gate to the kingdom in a drunken rant about how nice he can actually be. So he did, and he kept drinking. People seemed to just pour in, probably just as much as they were pouring drinks, and still no one knows how or when the dwarves got here. Perhaps that’s a mystery that was never solved, the best ones usually are. They drank until the sun set, they drank until the sun rose again. For what seemed like several fortnights. It wasn’t until many moons and many dawns later that on one dawn, Manis grew bored of the celebration. People were passed out in the streets, several groups he passed on the way to the throne room seemed to be fighting, or rough-housing, he couldn’t tell. With the rising sun he slammed open the throne room door and locked it behind him, his hands shaking. When the lock-clicked he clasped the key-ring tightly, he had an odd feeling. He began walking, quickly, gazing over his shoulders as he heard eerie winds pass through the dark halls with him. Quicker he paced to his isolated throne, as he stepped onto his bright red carpet just as he was beginning to sit down he heard a voice slither in the distance. First he heard a teasing cackle. “Oh, but Manis… the celebration can only last so long” She waved her hairy legs across the throne room. They slowly passed over Manis’s head. Grimace had now grown, she was sluggish and fat. Her immensity sat in the back of the room, behind the throne. “And Manis have you forgotten?” “I absolutely NEED to feed” She complained as he balled his fists, shaking. Pacing back and forth, his legs shivering. “feed, Grimace?” increasing his speed, pacing back-and-forth. “FEED?” “FEED ?!” “You know my dark liege, there’s no denying your enormity truly, but forgive me.” Bowing his head, “But… JAYKOB…” “He wanted to live, he wanted to breathe, he wanted to grow as old as I stand before you now!” His words increase in intensity, practically spitting them. Manis stops himself, putting his palm over his chest, his grin possessing his face. Slowly chuckling, as those chuckles became a moaning cackle, that echoed throughout the halls as Manis pounded the floor with his fists, until they began bleeding. He was crying, laughing, and having delusions all at once. Manis mumbles about how you cannot escape death it only follows you, especially if you’re me. He rolled on the floor, hysterically laughing, drooling on himself when suddenly his face snapped to a serious-tone. His eyes widened. “Oh that’s it!” peaking Grimace’s curiosity she props herself up, intrigued. Her head slowly rotating as her pincers crashed together. Her ruby eyes all blinking at the same speed. “Where has my delusional little Manis gone to?” On the ground Manis throws his hands up cackling to himself, darting his eyes around and pawing his nose. “The STAGE!” “The stage, the stage!” “THE STAGE! GRIMACE! OF COURSE!” “I can’t get over these tribulations, so! Why not bring the tribulations from the past to the present?!” “YES!” “I could command my subjects to build a glamorous stage, perform that tragic play that was never finished, maybe then, maybe then this haunting will finally rest…” Grimace paws her hairy-leg against his chest, gently. “Oh, my dear Manis, yes, keep telling yourself your curse will abruptly end.” “You humans and your grandiose delusions, it’s adorable it really is.” Manis hops up on his feet, pointing his fingers toward her immensity. “ENOUGH, SILENCE,” he bows his head in a shaking fright. “With respect I mean, my dark liege…” “Yes you do, yes you do Manis.” She turns him around with one of her legs, lowering her head just above Manis’s ear. “Lest you forget who the beast is Manis, for the sake of your own mortal life, don’t.”
Now it was dawn, Manis hadn’t slept, which was expected. He had sat in the throne ignoring Grimace as she complained, and criticized until the sun began to rise. His eyes were sunken into pits that were the circles around his eyes. The sun pierced down onto the coliseum illuminating all the shops that graced the slummy streets of Manis’s kingdom.
Drunks littered the streets, thieves lurked in the alleys, and people were gathering under the entrance to the throne room. There was a bustling chatter throughout the crowd, when out from the distance above them birthed a haunting-laugh that could only belong to their king. The bags in his eyes were deeper, his smile stretched wider as his laugh mutated into a horrifying cackle. His eyebrows were flat as he ran his hands through his dirty, greasy, orange hair. Throwing his hands out to his sides, inhaling intensely. His nostrils flared and Manis’s mouth opened wide. “Now, now, my beautiful subjects. I know, you all have your schedules, but I digress, though our kingdom thrives! I have plans…” he scans the crowd which has gone from eager to nervous. “Theatrical ones!” his gaze widens, practically bulging from his sockets as he clasps his hands together. “oh! And every-single one of you has pivotal role to play!” “We… in honor of my father of course…” his widened grin retracts to a sly smirk. “Will put on the grandest play these lands have EVER WITNESSED!” The mothers and children all begin clapping and hollering in dire excitement. Manis smiles back, gazing toward their excitement. “Yes! My subjects! This is the time…” he begins pacing back and forth waving his hands with enthusiasm. “The time in this young and hopeless world to shape the ages that are to come after us!” “So they could learn from our regrettable mistakes…” “So that the orphans of tomorrow, the fatherless, the motherless, will have a god-damn clue, in this young and forsaken world…” “So that maybe the next generation, will be able to cope with death!” he bursts in laughter, his eyes darting around. “But that’s the thing about death it’s inevitable.” His laughs grow louder, his veins bulge against his skin, spit flies down, spraying the now frightened crowd. His face snaps to a concerned look, his eyebrows arched-up. “ That is why my chosen few, we must teach the world through this play, nay, some may not understand or comprehend the tale it tells, but like we inevitably all lose the ones we cherish most…” “watching their forsaken life slip through our delicate fingers…” his eyes line with tears as his voice becomes shaky. “when there’s nothing we can do to stop our madness, like death, we either learn…” “OR WE GO MAD…” Hysterically laughing, turning around as he waves his hands around, when he finally comes back facing the crowd… Manis bends forward, his eyebrows cocked, his grin flashing. “Well?...” “WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!” “A STAGE WON’T BUILD ITSELF.” “THE LANDS WON’T KNOW ABOUT OUR PLAY BY THEMSELVES!” “AFTER ALL…” his screams stop, as his smile becomes violent. “THE ONLY PEOPLE WHO PARISH, ARE THOSE WHO DO NOTHING.” The crowd follows in-suit, scattering as Manis walks back into the throne room. His cackles growing louder, and louder as they fade into the distance. Walking back to his isolated throne, Manis is losing himself in hysteria. Tears falling down his cheeks, his mouth shaking, throwing his head back, his hair damp with sweat as he stumbles. Just as he enters the throne room he hears the sound of clanking metal and a distant voice. His gaze now wide. “My liege! There’s… someone at the gates.”
“She, refuses to leave without an audience.” Manis turns around his gaze intense, “She you say?” “Y-y-yes, my liege…” Holding his hand out Manis replies. “Well?” “WHERE THE SODDING HELL IS SHE?” The guard jumps back as spit wets his visor, walking out toward the coliseum the guard adjusts his posture and leads on. At the towering gate that was fashioned by old-pieces of wood, making it look like an abomination of a gate. It held a smaller gate which allowed for entering and exiting but was bolted-shut with a sliding peep-hole above the door-handle. The guard instinctively opens the door for Manis, she stood directly to the right of the door just out of sight. She stood there idly flipping her hair, lost in her thoughts and batting her eyelashes when she noticed Manis standing before her. “Oh! Finally! Manis, I had no idea you would be so handsome for Dome-Wyrd’s youngest king.” He’s caught off-guard by her existence. She stood there too good for him. With long golden hair, dark-deep-set-eyes. Curves that would intoxicate any man. She was wearing a white-gown with a frilly neck-line with a slit going down her leg exposing her legs. Manis stutters. “h-h-how, do you know me by name Madame, and what is your business at my glorious kingdom?” Placing her soft-hands before her delicate lips she giggles “ Well everyone far and wide knows of Manis, the youngest king of Dome-Wyrd!” “my business is of personal interest.” She bows, refusing to break eye-contact. Manis steps forth holding his hand out, swallowing the lump in his throat he seemed intimidated by her beauty. “The pleasure is all mine.” Forcing the words out, He instinctively leads her forward in front of him through the gate. He watches her hips sway through her white-gown. As she takes her fist steps in Manis’s locked-kingdom, she stares in wonder, her eyes lit like Dome-Wyrd’s newly found starlight. “You did this all of this by yourself? Remarkable.” She said in awe, Manis dawns a genuine smile, the first one since Jaykob use to make him smile. “In these lands, you must see your prize and rightfully take it as your own. Living in times of such… dire evil, in times of wicked selfishness, we must affray to prove our miniscule worth. You must find the light in that impenetrable darkness. And once you do so happen to find it, if you do. You better never let go lest you lose your head, your life, and your opportunities you have fought and traveled so far for. For in this world, if you do not sift through the darkness, it’s inevitable darling! You will sink.”
As they walked through town they walked side-by-side as her hand grabbed HIS, her eyes still not breaking their piercing contact, Manis then blushed. She giggled, bouncing her bust with an amused twinkle in her eye. Laughing in her palm as her face blushes just as much as Manis’s. “You know, when I was a little tyke.” I came to these swamp-lands, my father took me to the coliseum when the seats were always full, when unsuspecting winners started riots, when of all the places in the world, that this was the place to be. Of course this was far before The Riot of Clashes. Like I said, it was when I was little but looking back on the thought… it really is rather humorous.” Manis looked on with an obvious admiration, cocking his eyebrows. “What is milady?” “How permanent of a change takes place after a horrendous battle, then again what is horrendous to some, is just that start of another cycle to others. I’ve never fancied emotions, they’re just so troublesome and controlling, I’ve found if we control others emotions and lose our own it makes us all the more impenetrable. Oh… but silly me, it looks like I’m rambling again.” She bats her eyes, laughing into her palms again as she continues on as they continued to stroll through the town as drunk onlookers whispered amongst themselves. “We came to this thriving coliseum once a year, ever since my mother’s irrefutably dreadful passing.” Manis looked onto her as she told her tale with a now intense admiration, biting his lips, finally, he could relate to someone or so he began to ponder. Who is this woman Manis wondered. Even as Manis wondered with his mind spinning and his heart full of butterflies, it was already much too late for him. “It’s funny, truly, no matter how many times we came here Manis, just like the coliseum soon became a decrepit past-time. My father & I could not escape my mother’s death.” “We eventually stopped coming, as something that once was a grand ol’ time, quickly became a horrible reminder, which was shortly before he mutated into a malicious bastard!” spit flying from her lips as she quivered, clenching her hands beneath her forearms as Manis chuckled. “Death, death is a funny thing dear, it changes us, molds us, and shapes-us into who we inevitably become five years down the road. No matter how malicious, or monstrous you become. Even if we let go, change is inevitable!” They stop walking at the entrance to the throne room. Locking hands with their gazes meeting. “you truly are a beautifully twisted soul Manis, I find myself drawn to you.” Her face inches closer towards Manis, now only a nose apart. They smile in synchronization, blushing like-wise as her gaze widens, her eye bulging and her eyebrows lowered intensely. “Your laugh Manis, we all have a darkness that lays dormant within… never in my life have in just a few brief moments, have I been convinced of not only a dormant darkness laying within, but an awakened one. One that entices and guides, I don’t know what it is but your soul is an especially special one…” Her gaze is distant as Manis smirks. “Oh, my, I do not know where the blazes you came from, but I do not object, nay, I’d be mad to even think.” “well I am mad, but, come, come, come, come, see the rest of the kingdom!” She smiles in anticipation, stroking her hair behind her ear her eyes glowing with the sun setting behind her. “Yes, let’s.” Clasping her hand as Manis un-bolts the door, swinging it open forcefully, his body flinging with the door as he catches his balance, holding it open for her as he grins. Her curvaceous body swirls and waves through the door way as Manis slams the bolted door shut the lock began to clank as the sun was finally setting over the horizon, and the first night slowly began. The luminescence of the moon peering over the horizon as drunk townspeople stared in awe. Just like Manis captivated and distracted by beauty, not a soul in the kingdom knew it was far, far, too late.
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