The Tributes (Sable)

The Black Queen's Reign and Power

Boiling all the more common rumors around the Black Queen down, the basic story was that the Empress was incredibly beautiful, an irresistible seductress, and capable of powerful Black Magic: A Black Magic that gave the Empress the until-now-unknown dark talent to read minds.

She could, it was told, ferret out your most hidden weaknesses at any point, and then use them against you in the most painful way possible. All she needed to defeat you, to completely crush you, was a few words. And that was a skill no wizard, warrior, spy, or sorcerer – in any known kingdom – had ever professed to have.

It was this ability of hers that made people and kingdoms alike cower from her.

It was also what made her so terrifyingly undefeatable.

Because, of course, there had been attempts to assassinate her. Even good rulers had fallen prey to assassins and disgruntled subjects with hidden weapons and harsh vendettas. So a ruler such as the Black Queen – one who had snatched the throne from the former beloved King of the land by murdering him in his bed; one who had only seemed to inspire fear and loathing in her subjects for the entirety of her reign – would, of course, face the same attempts on her life.

And she had faced such attempts, according to hushed gossip: There had been many attempts on her life ... in the beginning.

But (obviously) not a single one of those attempts had succeeded. And the tales of what had happened to her would-be assassins had quickly lessened the stream of killers down to one or two every couple of years... if any dared to attempt it at all anymore.

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AN (feel free to skip): 

I know mind reading seems like a tame power in fantasy fiction - what with other characters in books being able to control an element or an entire species or something. 

But I always thought reading minds was rather remarkable and understated: I mean, for any other power, there is a certain physics behind it. You shoot laser out of your eyes? You're basically able to condense and direct energy with your will via your eyes. You have super strength? Wow, your muscles must be dense.

But mind reading? How does that work? And I don't mean the actual act of mind reading, but how do you manage to use it. Like, at any given moment, you are thinking a mile a minute, and in a stressful situation, you are thinking of a million different things at once. So how does a mind reader sort through all that to get the info they need? 

Not to mention, how do you stop yourself from caving into the emotions of the other person while you're reading their mind? How do you even separate info from the noise? What about if this person keeps singing a song inside their head and focuses fully on the lyrics? How will the mind reader be able to use their ability to find stuff out then? And what about perspectives and misunderstandings? 

And good luck to you if you try to read the mind of someone who has anxiety or depression.

(For those reading this who have anxiety and/or depression, or anxious and depressed high and low episodes, I hope that last sentence made you laugh or smile a bit. Never underestimate how badass you are for dealing with it day in and day out, on the good days and bad.)