What is right?
1574 Words
There he goes again, Ibarra with her beloved Queen Catherine, as he stands on the balcony with the utmost resolve to win. The glare in his brown eyes can pierce anyone in his sight.
‘I’ll kill them all. I’ll kill everyone if I have to! Every last one of them, no one will ever stop what the gods have written for me,’ he thought.
The Queen has noticed Ibarra’s disturbed eyes, his gritting teeth, afraid to ask what troubles him. She instead tightens her grip on her man, thinking. ‘I’ll always be with you.’
‘I was destined to rule, and I will rule all over your fate,’ Ibarra thought.
The snow has once again fallen. It was Ibarra’s cue to move. Ibarra removed his hands away from The Queen as he drew The Sword of Ara. With a much faster movement, Ibarra passes The Queenshield survival instinct. Sir Horengar was too late to deflect Ibarra’s assault.
Ibarra struck Sir Horengar with one strike in the neck. The blood gushes in the air as he falls and perishes.
The Steward Irelka shrieked from the gruesome sight of Horengar and the bloodied face of Ibarra while The Queen stood stunned with her knees weakening from his action.
Ibarra was annoyed by Irelka’s sharp yell. He swiftly delivers a strike with one side swoop of his blade. Irelka’s head flew, revolving in the air as it plummeted to the troubled crowds below.
The Queen has fallen to the ground, weakened by Ibarra’s sudden action. Shocked and puzzled, she speaks.
“Why are you doing this, Ibarra? Why would you!?” The Queen said.
“I’ll do this again and again! You don’t know how many times I had to do this!” Ibarra said.
He turns around to confront the rest of the royal guards that move to surround him.
“Lord Ibarra, drop your sword! Deal with your crimes!” The royal guards said.
Ibarra’s doubts are gone. His little care for their lives is over, upon figuring all their movement and actions that will follow. Ibarra delivers his blade with every edge hitting its mark, knowing exactly where to strike like completing a puzzle.
The clashes of the sword were crystal clear, striking one to another as the royal guards fell, one by one. Their fallen body that thuds on the ground pairs the sound of his heavy heartbeat.
The bewildered Queen couldn’t take it anymore, as if her lover betrayed her. She gathered her courage, standing with her heavy feet as she grabbed the late Sir Horengar’s sword.
Ibarra was about to kill the last guard when Queen Catherine called out to him.
“Ibarra, stop this at once!” The Queen said.
The last royal guard fell to the ground. Ibarra slew everyone without suffering a wound. His white tunic bloodied as he turned around towards the frightened Queen Catherine.
‘What is this rush? I can’t feel a thing, it feels like I’m floating freely. This feeling, I felt it before with the Licand family,’ he thought.
The Queen saw his man’s face, bloodied, not by his own, and his eyes that turned darker.
With her eyes and voice breaking, she asked.
“What happened to you?”
Ibarra’s hair that’s brighter than usual flutters in the air as he meanders closer to his Queen.
“I’m saving you. I’m doing all of this for you!” Ibarra said.
Although it was just some minutes passed, he walked as if he was tired and heavy.
‘I have always relied on the stone, but it’s taking its toll.’
‘The stone, huh?’ a voice in his head.
‘Who was that,’ he thought.
“Don’t come any closer! Ibarra No! Stop, just go, please!” The Queen said.
“Listen to me! Hey! They were all planning to kill you!” Ibarra said.
“Are you hearing yourself now? You killed Irelka. She had been with me ever since I was a child. Irelka and I grew up together. She was more than a steward for me, she was a friend!” The Queen said.
He continues to walk closer, even with The Queen pointing the blade in front of him.
“How could I believe you? You didn’t even let them explain themselves, and you cold-bloodedly slew each of them. I don’t know if you noticed, but you have been eerily smiling ever since you started killing them,” The Queen said.
“I was smiling?” Ibarra asked.
“You are smiling with that kind of smile now!”
Annoyed by the sword pointed at him, Ibarra strikes the blade of The Queen, disarming her.
“I’ve been doing everything to save you! You don’t know how many times I have returned!” Ibarra said.
Ibarra squints his eyes from the sudden pain in his head.
“What are you talking about? What are you planning on doing?” The Queen said.
“I saw you died a lot of times!” Ibarra yelled.
“Get away! No, please don’t!” The Queen said.
“I’m here to protect you! What is happening? Why are you bleeding?” Ibarra said.
The Queen coughs with blood, her saddest blue eyes as her life is diminishing. Her heart was once again stabbed, bleeding to her white gown.
Ibarra steps back while The Queen falls to the ground, the blood pooled near her. The Sword of Ara still pierced in her chest.
In the pool of blood, he can see his reflection. Ibarra crouches closer to a man with a creepy-smiling face.
He realizes what he has done to her.
‘What the f*ck is happening to me?’ Ibarra thought.
“I’m not sure why or how? But it seems like you know what’s about to happen. Anyway, it doesn’t matter now,” he said.
Ibarra couldn’t control his body or even his mouth, as the only thing he can do is watch through his darkened eyes.
A sudden gush of blood soon followed, with his head rolled to the ground. He saw his headless body as the view slowly blurs. Ibarra’s body falls to his knees and the floor.
‘How could I stop this?’
Ibarra slowly dies with the deathly cold eyes of The Queen as it watches his pathetic state.
Close to the diseased body of Queen Catherine is Ibarra’s beheaded body, resting together with her.
The sun was still high above the sky when it snowed. The clouds gathered near, towering above them as if the gods are watching, waiting for the people to entertain them.
Ibarra’s brown eyes were tired from all that had happened within him, and his hair turned bright-white.
‘I give up, there’s nothing I can do,’ Ibarra thought.
As he stands defeated, a fragment of his memory manifested in his mind, a voice of a man who granted Ibarra the power, the heart stone.
‘Find out what’s right for you. I’ll give you the stone of evigt liv och styrka. You decide what’s right,’ Ibarra said.
‘Who was that man? Why can’t I remember him? Yet, I can clearly remember the memory of a child who got killed, burned, and suffered countless times,’ he thought.
He gazes at the darkened stone of styrka.
‘Who is the owner of this stone?’ he thought.
‘Remember, Ibarra.’
‘Remember what?’
“Ibarra, is everything okay?” The Queen asked.
He said nothing; the only response he gave was taking his hand away from The Queen’s warm grip. He turned around and walked away from her, from everything.
Ibarra’s abrupt leaving causes The Queen to be struck with thousands of worries. She embraces herself to keep on, pulling the robe to cover herself from the cold.
Queen Catherine smiles at the cheering crowd but slips into a furrow from time to time. She couldn’t help but let out a hint of a cry flowing to his cold cheeks; she thought no one could see her cry from that far, anyway.
It was The Queen’s last moment before her trusted Queenshield stabbed her at the back, piercing through her soft heart and chest. The confused Queen loses balance, and with Sir Horengar pushing her, she falls from the balcony. The Queen meets her end for people to see along with her wounded and heavy cold-heart.
Sir Horengar gazes below the plaza, checking The Queen’s state; seeing her lifeless body, he ended his life. With one strike, The Queenshield beheaded himself before the royal guards could do anything.
On Sir Horengar’s headless body, a hint of black smoke appeared in the air, tainting some of the snow before turning it to black. The blackened spirit appeared, jumping into the air towards the ground.
Ibarra gave up the fight. He doesn’t even know who he was against, but now it’s different from what he saw in the sky above as his eyes follow the trail of black snow. A spirit or a silhouette of a man named Juno, an assassin that works for Lord Kristoff Broken-sword.
His eyes sparkled, with his mind laughing at the thought.
‘I finally met you, my real enemy, not The Queenshield, not the steward or the royal guards, especially not myself. The one I have to kill is you and your f*cking lord!’ Ibarra thought.
After confronting his enemy, Ibarra killed himself, knowing what exactly to do.
- Writer
