Oh how lovely to once again feel the rush of the wind against my face.  There are the night sounds too, of course, but this of the rising air is intoxicating to me.  I had forgotten how much I loved to fly.

But I know that I do not fly, I but stand at the edge and hear and feel, though not with my true self.  This self I have chosen sighs of its own accord it almost seems.

I open my eyes in the Captain’s quarters.  I am only standing on his balcony hung on the side of the tallest tower of the capital city, not flying at all. I have hid myself in that damned cave too long.

A smile twists my lips as I turn and walk inside.  I confess, I’ve left the captain’s quarters a mess.  The dead whore in his bed will be particularly difficult for Allston Soulaucy to explain.  But it is all arranged. The madam will remember that the Captain of the City guard gazed at her with favor and that his man, me of course, paid the blood price for her.  Even in the capital city of the most righteous of kings the most disgusting perversions can be had for the right price.

There is a knock at the door.  “My Lord?  Do you have need of me?” calls a voice, quavering slightly.  I think the captain is not so kind to subordinates as he might be.  One wonders if they will miss him at all.  Likely they will easily believe the worst of a man they despised already.

“I don’t need you,” I croak, “Go away.” I catch my reflection in one of the captain’s many mirrors.  I am covered in the whore’s blood, literally from head to foot.  What if the man suspects?  What if he comes in?  I tense to deal with him like I did the woman, but relax as I hear retreating footfalls.

I must do something about all this blood.  There is a basin and water.  I wipe the gore from my body, the worst of it, I take more care with my face and hands.  I will need to presentable when I leave with the marvelous suit of armor I found treasured in an armoire.  Fit for the commander of the king’s personal guard unless I miss my guess.

Paladin are strange folk.  It may well be that it would please the captain to know that he will never face the disgrace of the allegations.  He will answer no more questions ever again.

More likely he would be tormented that he will never clear his name, not from where he lies in the belly of the wurm at the heart of Ashimura, not where his bright armor will lie in my horde when his flesh and bone have nourished me and only his armor is left intact to be eliminated.

I close my eyes to remember the delicious surprise.  “Enough of your games, Giard.  I will speak to the Wurm at the Heart of Ashimura myself.” He had said and when I begged him for patience he had run me through.  The cold steel of his sword had caused me such delicious agony.  His boot had shoved this poor shell into the soup of my resting place making the transition of my consciousness simultaneous.

I’m sure he thought he’d killed weak Giard.  Oh the delicious irony.  I saw the fear before I slipped beneath the water.  These poor eyes witnessed his shock and horror as the massive bulk of my true body rose from the depths and I beheld him through two sets of eyes, one above and one below, when a blast of fire from my maw crisped him to tasty deliciousness.

I don’t know where the idea that dragons enjoy virgins ever got started, I’ve always preferred my prey with more meat and wrapped in shiny metal.  Oh I had my fill when I ate two whole armies (Not really, I had my choice of the shiniest bits and left the rest to the crows,) but I imagine that’s how the legend went until this new king, calling himself the dragon, built his citadel upon the great volcanic rock that I crawled beneath to digest my meal.

I look at the whore, torn and bloody, on the bed.  A sad thing really, she looks more lovely dead than alive.  There is some recovery of innocence in death, I think.  When I choked the life out of her she did not fight as hard as her young body should have.  There was a sad resignation that made the killing so much less enjoyable than the arrogant captain.  Ah well, she is mere window dressing.

None will mourn you Allston Soulaucy, and when they hunt for you, they will not find you.

No, the world won’t end if the unique form of government designed by the founders of the United States is destroyed, but it will be a much worse place, lacking hope.  Many, even most, may think I exaggerate for effect.  However, I don’t think it is an exaggeration, first, to say that our constitutional republic, founded on the rights of the individual and strict limits on government, has made the United States unique in its individual freedom and generous in its dealings with the world, and second, that our uniqueness hangs by a thread.

I was listening to a radio show that presented a survey of college students in prestigious universities as freshman and as seniors and discovered that the seniors knew less about our system of government than the freshman.  In fact it isn’t general knowledge that we do not live under the rule of a Democracy but rather we are citizens of a constitutional republic, or did.  In the words of Ben Franklin when asked about what sort of government they’d crafted, Ben said, “A Republic Madam, if you can keep it.”

Far worse than oversight, our educational system is in the process of eradicating the knowledge of our origins and indoctrinating our children, at every level, into a socialist, materialist, Marxist system that has nothing unique to offer, certainly nothing good for humanity.

Power has been and continues to be concentrated in the hands of a few, along with wealth.  Socialist warriors, who rail against the rich, are the foot soldiers of a bureaucratic class that agitates for ever bigger government as it favors ever larger companies replacing cronyism for capitalism.  Recently the pretext Capitalism has been shed as the current regime simply nationalizes one industry after another and shows no signs of stopping.

Kiss your child.  You may be looking at the last generation born free.  The debt accrued by our over-reaching and wildly unconstitutional government is mind bending.  For all you who babble about sustainability have a look at our country’s finances. 

We are insolvent, our borders are porous, we are bailing out the EU while they have been trying to destroy us financially.  Are we mad? 

I think of the many things we are, the most pressing is that we are and have been misinformed.  I do not believe that the current regime is legitimate, who would have voted for blue dog dems who vote in lock step with a Marxist/Leninist like Nancy Pelosi?  They are not in anyway what they represented themselves as being to get elected in conservative districts and their vote for a radical leftist for Speaker of the House is clear proof of that, their later betrayal of their oath to protect the Constitution from enemies foreign and domestic only confirms what that vote reveals.

Our president, who presented himself  as being some kind of Constitutional scholar, has not stopped (teleprompted speeches to the contrary or not) his attacks on the Constitution from his first 100 days.  It may be that he is not even qualified to be president according to that document which may explain why he holds it in such contempt. 

It may be that he holds you in contempt as well, he presented himself as a moderate uniter and left you to imagine what that might be.  He let you Hope and imagine in your own mind the Change you wanted to see.  Instead he has not stopped removing your freedom and selling you into national debt with deficit spending that is unsustainable on the order of months not years.  Let’s face it, he does hold you in contempt.

Well there, if the United States of America ceases to be, if we implode into a wasteland of warring barbarians picking through the bones of a once great society or live (if you can call it that), exist rather, as slaves of Imperial China it won’t be the end of the world.

Our government has run off our constitutional rails long back, and there is only a very short time until it can not again be put right.  Become informed, organize, and by all means vote.  You owe it to your children to get this vote right.

In the words of Franklin, “We have a Republic IF we can keep it.”

LSO