Dancing In The Moonlight [FICTOID]

The flames in the palace finally died out, leaving only blackened stone walls standing against the starry sky, empty windows gaping like eye sockets in a skull.

In the now empty huge palace outdoor swimming pool, danced a beautiful man with mauve eyes.  Only a few inches of water remained in the deepest end of the pool, the rest pumped out in a futile effort to save the palace.

On the spacious, once tidy lawn behind the palace, dozens of charred skeletons stood chained to heavy wooden stakes, forced to watch the palace burn before they, too, were set ablaze.

The beautiful man pivoted and turned, ducked and wove.  Be you ballerina or boxer, you would weep at the beauty of his movements.

On the edge of the pool, empty champagne magnum in his meaty hand, the orc snored.

The orc was the beautiful man’s boon companion, his Sundance Kid, his Sancho Panza, his Chewbacca.

The two stuck together through the long, hard, demoralizing early years of trying to rally the oppressed population against the tyrant.

They robbed banks to fund the revolution, they worked in fields to help starving farmers, they hid in the mountains as military patrols hunted them.

Now the military rested on their side, seizing the persons and property of the nobles who dominated the people for so long.  Military tribunals already took place; those who confessed saw their wealth and property confiscated while receiving twenty year sentences at hard labor, those who demanded a trial didn’t live long enough to see their wealth and property confiscated.

An alliance of other nations that opposed the revolution for fear it would spread to their lands now stood poised to invade, and when the dawn broke and the orc sobered up, he and the beautiful man with the mauve eyes would stop dancing and rally their forces to confront the invaders, not merely driving them from their soil but sending a message to the people that yes, it was possible to throw off the yoke of tyranny.

But now?  Now was a time to dance and rejoice, to drink and revel in victory.

Pain and blood brought them this far, and pain and blood would see them through to the end, but for now there was peace and victory.

And the eyeless skeletons kept staring at the empty palace windows.

© Buzz Dixon