Guts And Glory

ACT V: CHAPTER FOURTEEN: WHICH WITCH

                  

                        ACT V: CURTAIN FALL

                        CHAPTER FOURTEEN: WHICH WITCH

            Piper has always played games.

            It's how she operates, functions, controls-passing GO and collecting her penance, declaring checkmate with a broad smirk-but she soon grew bored with childish games of Uno when she was young; around the same time that she realized the kinds of prizes that she could have but was unable to declare her own. Childish mumbles of 'well done' and 'good game' became tiresome, wholly unsatisfactory to Piper who had been bred to aim for the stars and get there. It started off harmless, as such things always do-whispered taunts to nannies to do something fun for once, snickering beneath hands placed over her mouth and innocent eyes once they saw themselves fired-before Piper got a real whiff of her control, of her power, and then the fun began.

            This is a game. It's a carefully convoluted scheme wherein Piper spent a year of her life wasting away in the four walls of a hotel in Africa. Becoming Queen doesn't bring about the end of the game, it's a beginning, a new chapter, an upgrade to a new game, new players, and new rules. That said, Piper is itching to get her hands on new players, on people willing to play on in this game-Felix's demise having put her on the back foot, especially now that Troy still hasn't clued up on the right way to align his priorities-though it will take time to get these new faces to stop seeing freedom as a tangible object Piper is waving over their heads, beating them down into an existence where obedience is the only thing to be rewarded, so far from the truth she simpers at the overheard words whispered between Troy and Noah.

            Piper doesn't work under false pretences, the rules are explained-maybe not in a legal binding contract-but in the small print between every smile, word and action, if one can be bothered to remember. It's hardly Piper's fault that an effort isn't made to be perceptive, to understand that it's simple, it's easy to get far in the game if one tries hard enough. The forewarnings are disclosed before they've signed themselves away to take a seat on a wheel that Piper spins.

            Rule number one is to please, rule number two is to keep quiet, and the final one is to do as said with no questions asked. When she hears Troy complaining of the game to his younger brother-whom has barely started, always having been witness to it in progress but this is his first round as an active player-Piper scowls as this game has been the best thing to happen in Troy's life. It bought him Felix, an eleven year old Piper strong arming the polar opposites into being friends, the love of his life as his waxing poetic bullshit proclaims him to be. Piper doesn't want to have to remind him that without the game-the blood sucking, life ending existence she will lead you into-he wouldn't have ever been stupid enough to think with his cock long enough to delude himself into believing love was actually real for someone like him-so undeserving that Piper can barely control her sniff of derision.

            As the brothers prepare for Piper's coronation assembly, pushed into a spare bedroom in Piper's currently overcrowded place of accommodation, Finn slowly approaches behind her, heavy hand on her shoulder-forcing her back and reminding her that her makeup is complete, her hair perfect, dress pressed with sharp lines, that it's not worth getting angry over Troy in this minute. Piper can kill him today under a royal decree, having kept her word to Felix and Eric and gotten him out of jail, never outlining anything else that had to be fulfilled on her part.

            Pressing a kiss under her ear, the heady scent of Finn's cologne envelopes the pair into a small bubble of privacy, which is swiftly broken the next time Troy opens his mouth. "You're lucky she trusts you."