The Hundred Days War
Rider: Stormy Summers
Horse: Dreamscape
So today is the last day to submit this @_@ this week went by too fast. I have too much art to get done and 0 time to do so.
If you're wondering about the title, it's in reference to "Heathens" by Twenty One Pilots.
Stormy looked up at the dark, brooding clouds in disgust. The weather that day had even her mare in a mood, and now that evening was approaching, it was only getting worse. It was certainly foreboding enough to change the entire atmosphere of the farm. Then again, the entire kingdom of Omartan seemed to be on edge, ever since the official declaration of war on rival Esterria the week before.
Stormy gave her mare a pat on the neck and continued along the path by the fields, headed home. "Easy, Dream," she muttered as the mare's ears swiveled and she started to turn back the way they'd come. Suddenly she noticed an armored figure on a tall draft horse, also decked out in the armor of the royal guard, trotting towards her. She stopped Dream and faced the soldier, a scowl marking her face. Soldiers around her home, always looking for her father, were an unwelcome sight. He stopped his horse in front of them and handed her a scroll tied with a ribbon colored in the dark red and gold of the country.
"Captain Alistair Rolfe, under the command of General Jasper King of Omartan," the rider announced. Stormy just glared at him. They were very familiar with one another, and not in a good way. "Issuing a formal notice. Failure to comply would normally result in twenty years imprisonment, however, in your case, failure to comply will result in death." Stormy untied the ribbon and unrolled the scroll.
Under the order of Duran Fuqouis, kingdom of Omartan, this is a call to arms.
"A draft?" she scoffed, looking back up at the soldier. "You can't draft my father, there will be no one left to manage the farm." She crumpled the scroll and tossed it back at him.
"Oh, Miss Summers," he said with a deep chuckle, "don't you worry your pretty little head. They aren't enlisting your father." He tossed the paper ball right back at her. She caught it, nervousness churning in her stomach, and again opened it.
King Nicodemus II enlists the following, if able-bodied, citizens from the household:
Stormy Summers
Stormy cried out, startling Dream. She was going to war? "You can't draft me!" She screeched. "I am not a soldier! I am not a commoner! I was royalty; I am not bred for war!"
"Oh, my dear Miss Summers," she captain laughed heartily, "the King can draft whomever he wants." He turned his steed away for a few paces, but turned back around. "And remember, Summers:" He drew a finger across his throat. "The King does whatever he wants."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"This is all your fault!" Stormy screamed, stomping into the main room of the tiny farmhouse and slamming the crumpled draft notice on the table in front of where her father sat. "I hate you!"
Slowly the man picked up the scroll and read it. He looked back up at her, his eyes full of grief. "I'm so sorry-"
"Sorry isn't going to do me any good!" she cried. "I have to be in the capital come high noon in three days so that I can enlist in a war, Father! I am sixteen! We used to live in the castle! And now I am going to go off to be killed in a war all because of you!"
"Stormy, please-"
"Don't you 'Stormy, please' me! You got us thrown out of the castle, not me! I was seven years old, I didn't do anything! I don't even know what you did! But whatever you did, you made them so angry that they're drafting your daughter into a war! Me! Not you, me!"
A heavy moment of silence fell between father and daughter. The room was quickly going dark as evening fell, the main source of light being the flickering candelabra on the table. Stormy laid a hand on the table, tears streaming down her face.
"What did you do, Father? What did you do that was so awful, so terrible that soldiers come knocking on our door every month to see you? What did you do that was so treasonous that they want to kill me?"
Her father seemed to have aged twenty years since she'd walked in the door. His face was crestfallen, his eyes dying, his hands shaking. "It wasn't what I did, Stormy. It was what your mother did."
Words: 729
Horse Reference: STOCK - Friesian Show 2012-122
Person Reference by RobynRose