Magic of War

     He sat at the table, slouched and defeated as they surrounded him like a pack of starving wolves. Some of them sat with the bitter taste of silence on their tongues whilst others stood defiant and frozen with a soft kind of hopelessness and even less paced with fury spitting out of their mouths as they demanded the impossible. He just sat there, hands folded in his lap as he waited for silence. 

     He had taken one look at the hopeful, disgruntled, hateful, and desperate and said, “If there were no hybrids, this would have never happened.”

     And they gasped; horror, shock, agreement, and outrage all whirled into one sharp intake of breath.

     “You can’t just blame all of them because of the actions of one!”

     “What about the children?”

     “I’ve always said they were an abomination!”

     He sighed, eyes sliding shut and said, “The actions of one that killed many. The actions of one that started off as a child. Most end up crippled anyway so just,” He paused, wondering if he should try to say it more delicately but then, why should he?  He didn’t even want this, so why should he cater to their emotions? His voice was flat as he finished with, “Just kill them all. Every single one of them, don’t leave a single one alive. Kill everyone that harbors them, kill the parents to prevent any more from being born. Just, erase every single one of them.”

     No one could breathe as the words hung in the air. He didn’t bother to look at anyone, just stayed in the chair and breathed in deeply. Inhaled, exhaled, to inhale yet again. It was calming, almost. A way for him to pretend that no one else was in the room before it suddenly erupted into yells and arguments and everything negative.

     He waited ten seconds, focused on the calming inhales and exhales before he pushed himself up and left. The room fell silent for a few mere seconds as large iron doors slammed shut behind him before it erupted into chaos yet again, but by this point he had removed himself as far away as he could.

     Not that it would last, it never lasted. Not now, not after everything that's happened.

     He’d be back, the next day and the next and the next.

     They’d keep asking for a solution. They’d keep begging him to fix it, to make everything better and all he could offer is the same thing over and over again.

     “If all hybrids were dead, the so called King would have never been alive. None of this would have happened.”

     If hybrids never existed, he’d have never been put in this kind of situation. He’d be somewhere else, being normal and average and human and not treated like some kind of hero.

     But that wasn’t the case and he’s here acting as something he should never have had to act as. It wasn’t in his nature, wasn’t him to play the part they want him to play. It’s something that made everyone unhappy but at the same time they kept trying and trying. Kept treating him as if he was the puppet master who controlled all the strings when in all reality he was the broken marionette hanging on by one thin thread.

     All they wanted was someone to take control and make a change that would make everything work again. To revert things to how they were before the war even started and he- he can’t do that. He doesn’t know how to act the part, doesn’t know how to deal with the intricate parts of politics. All he knows is how to do, how to move without thought and just do. He just knows the straight forward path, doesn’t know how to make things long term only how to give short term solutions and they are expecting him to make a long term solution to an age old problem and he can’t.

     He can’t and all he can think of is that the problem is too much power in too few people and that everyone would be better if that wasn’t even a possibility. If hybrid magic was simply something that wasn’t there it wouldn’t be a problem. It wouldn’t even be a possibility and if it’s not a possibility then none of this could ever happen again.

     And that, that’s only one problem. One problem and it’s the only one he dares to think of because-

     “Magics should be separated from the rest of the populace. Be restricted to only certain locations, certain jobs, and their magic should be contained so as not to disturb others.”

     “That’s outrageous! We deserve the right to live normally like everyone else. Not our fault your meagre little minds can’t handle that some of us are simply superior.”

     “Superior? Your lot is full of power hungry monsters, or are you already forgetting what just happened?”

     “That’s because of hybrid magic, you can’t just blame all of us because of a select few!”

     “Isn’t that what we are doing when we blame all the hybrid inclined for the few destructive members?”

     “Personally, I think we should just sentence you all to death. The world would be better without your kind to taint the waters.”

     And then the room would fill with shouts, walls would shake and violence would creep onto the edges. He would just sit at the head of the table and breathe in and out. Over and over again. He didn’t know how to fix any of this, but they kept looking at him. Kept asking him questions he couldn't answer. Kept hoping that he’d just fix everything for them.

     Hoping he’d fix everything because he did before. After all, he ended the war didn’t he? But that was a war. That was a massacre that they called justice. It wasn’t. Justice that was. That massacre was simply cold blooded murder, but it ended the war and that was because of him and they expect him to know how to fix the problems that arose as a result of the war coming to a chilling end.

     You kill a working government, and you get saddled with the responsibilities and the treaty making and everyone looking at you like you are a hero and he isn’t. He isn’t a hero, and he can’t fix any of this. He didn’t even end the war, not really. Just listening to the arguments inside the court room told him that. He doesn’t even have the slightest idea how to end the war. How to make everything right and perfect again and-

     He’s tired. Just so bloody tired. So when they look at him, hopeful for him to have all the answers, disgruntled at having to listen to another magic that’s not even a proper magic, hateful that everything is left to him of all people, and desperate for an answer he just says, “If there were no hybrids, this would have never happened.”

     And eventually, after months of the same conversation they took his words in consideration and-

     Suddenly, there weren’t many living hybrid magics left in the world.