Finding Contentus

Chapter 113: Unchanging Change

"Believe me when I say, you have the toughest journey ahead of you. You are someone and something that does not exist anywhere else in this world. You, are a dream, you, are hope. You, are peace. You possess a power unlike any other. The power of purity."

"The power of purity? Amend that to the power of pussy. That's more honest, isn't it girl?" Dominique's voice bashed his ears like frigid gongs, dismissing the Gifted One's thunder.

Roi Gabrielle, King of Kimba, had been punished, suspended by sewing needles that pierced through every inch of his skin like a hanging puppeteer. The wires kept him from falling to the snow, and the wires kept him tied to his own statue in Platoo.

Gabrielle looked like a doll, a puppet, an inanimate object that gave the illusion of breathing, of being alive, when he looked frozen stiff like an ancient relic. His body spun clockwise in several, slow intervals at a time, hanging down from the crystal ball scepter of diamonds like a snowman.

How did he get here? How did this happen?

Palé. It was all his doing. He had staged a coup in framing Gabrielle as a liar, a collaborator, an Eifri turncoat that plotted against the Cercians, his own people.

There was merit behind his words this time. He had some weight, some evidence, some credibility from how the fight played out. Kaikara said it himself. Gabrielle had an instrumental role in their resurgence to power.

However, others that bore witness to the fight had different accounts about how Gabrielle did everything in his power to save Kakara's life through his role as the fallen angel of destruction. And it worked.

The Staris clan for one applauded, cheered and cried like their King had showcased the most spectacular, over dramatic performance of all time, a play they would never see or hear about ever again.

The Icis clan didn't give a shit. They didn't care, they never cared. They finally had Kakara in their possession. Carisse, the Icer, was more than pleased. She didn't emote satisfaction on her face, but it could be seen in her eyes, very slightly.

The Démolii clan that made up the majority went back and forth amongst themselves and the rest of their people on what Gabrielle's fate should be. Naturally, killing him would be stupid, since they would lose their harmonious healer.

So instead, Gabrielle decided his own sentence. Public suspension. He let Kimba's coldness batter him like a gavel.

And, he didn't defend himself when Palé pummeled him like a splintered marionette. Gabrielle shut his mind off to the punishment, but he could feel himself being thrashed over and over again with a stick, as though sweets were meant to come out of him after each churlish strike.

Some glared openly at Gabrielle for his false promises, being impatient at his lack of delivery. It wasn't necessarily out of fury, but desperation, like the kind of anger that came from hunger, like beasts that had been prohibited from attaining their meals for too long under the disguise of coexistence when they wanted to exist separately.

The people were quiet. All they heard was Palé's stick hissing before it cracked and formed aching streaks on Gabrielle's body like a wooden figurine in a fire pit.

Some, however, fed him, gave him water and washed his bleeding body after Palé's stick was drenched in scarlet. They warmed his torn body to prevent the jaws of frost from tearing his skin apart like frozen claws.

The frost bit into the bones of their King anyway. Gabrielle was too numb to respond to anything that was done to his body, good or bad. He refused to give Palé, or anyone else that wanted to hear him scream the satisfaction. He tired Palé out who eventually broke the stick, gave a mirthless laugh and retreated into whatever nest he always went to.