8 boys had fallen only two were left. They ran through pockmarked field desperately charging a wall of thick gray smoke. With reckless abandon they swung their fists wildly through the air, clutching their wooden sticks tightly. They hoped more than anything to connect, to hit something. To win, to live. One of the boys was older, though not by much, a mere year or two. At their age though that difference meant much so the younger boy listened to the older one, he obeyed each stout command. “Charge!”. The older boy had felt much fear before but now that too was gone, only desperation stayed. They charged on the hot steel barrels which flew through the air in a dervish's spin. The barrels popped and bucked, spewing a torrential blast of lead. The boys charged harder still even as they heard violently torn by the deadly hail. The charging boys caught glimpses of shiny brass between each thick plume of smoke. Percussion came not from the guns but from the dancing metal. Each bang reverberated through the two boys, making them feel its terrible vibrations. The older boy went first, running headlong into battle. Behind him the younger boy, whose shorter legs could carry him far less quickly, scurried to catch up. The younger boy didn't even notice as he stepped over the older boy's form in the thick gray smoke. The older boy's now still face did not smile. It could not for he had tasted one of the flying chunks of lead firsthand. He had run, with his eyelids willed open, as fast as he could to avoid just this. As luck would have it though he did not. He was maybe 8 or 9. His jet black hair was glued to his scalp by the grimy syrups war provokes. His upper teeth arced in a horrific smile. His lower teeth and jaw lay pulverized among the grass. The force of the impact had torn his face. Skin hung loosely just above his cheek's ridge, its edges tattered by dire force. There was a line down to his nostrils and back up past his eyelid on the other side. Below it, ghastly bones, and brains, and meat. Above it soft young skin and frightened eyes. His upper gums stayed intact, what little of his face was left stared up in a most ghastly frightened jeer.

Nine danced around a mound of upturned earth. No grass rose, no life at all. From the dirt - a simple wooden cross. Its thin arms reached out to the sides against the dark gloomy sky whose whistles brought no music – only a harsh winter wind. The glint of the tin roofs that so merrily did cheer in light now too was a dull sombre gray. Roosters whose squeaky turns pointed sails were eerily still. A man held him hat to his chest while another spoke kind words of blessings. He shook his cane, onto the dirt leaving a gooey white film on the dirt. The man with the hat took out a bottle from behind his grey suit jacket. He too made noises of remembrance and dour mourning before he upturned the cloudy, slightly yellow bottle, wetting the mound.

The fiery liquid soaked the dirt and sank down through it to be drunk by another. The nine that danced danced harder still. Music accompanied their scornfully rhythmic steps. One of the nine held in her hands a cylinder which boomed. She pumped it into the air and down, it bellowed all the while. The dance sped up. Notes rang out as the man with the hat turned the bottle on himself. Battling tears he emptied it. The nine danced still. More tears were cried and more notes filled the air. As the nine danced the hours away their prancing feet dug channels in the quickly desacralized earth. The mat with the hat could bear no more so he left. The man of words instead bled, his own skin to bits. Red cells flooded the dirt, darkening it. Soon though he could little more so he left too, just the nine stayed still. Or rather they danced. As hours melted into each other so too their movements seemed to do. The austere skies stayed gray, defying the nine who danced. They did not care, harder and faster they went into a shamanistic trancelike state. Each one lost control of their own limbs and did instead as they were forced to. So they danced harder and faster still, fighting back crocodile tears. Instead vegneful joy they sought to find.

As the noon turned into night and the night turned into day the nine who danced did not stray. The skies whose sullen appearance had cast doubt now opened, finally jovial too. The sun's bright light shone on the upturned earth. By now that liquid that he'd poured was gone and soon green buds would sprout anew. The nine did not stop for just as they could not in the past so they would not now. Below them vibrations made their 'father's wrist budge against the dirt. He'd always wanted them close and now they were, and they would stay with 'daddy' just like they had back then. He always liked them on top, so he'd like it now too – but this time not alone, no together they jumped and danced and stomped. They did not stop even when their cheerful notes did, quietened by their electronic mortality. No, they danced. They danced through warm and dark and bright. They danced through the cold, the wet and the windy. Whatever they did they would not stop. They had sworn once they'd known to dance this was together and so they would, until the time came.

First it came for the eldest daughter. She felt the urge and went to work. She stepped onto the now beaten mound of upturned earth and squatted. She left daddy dearest a present, just the sort that he deserved. Then the twins, together as usual. The other twins after, normally too, in their case quite apart. The dearest, the clearest, the smartest and the prettiest. Each one in turn left present, quite large.

The sun shone more brightly now than ever, baking the goods and the mound into a great big chocolate chip. The nine skipped away, joyed and free at last, as vultures and wolves which emerged from trees and bushes sought now, as different ones had in their childhood, to feast.

TWO

Her tooth bounced off the floor one final time and came to a halt, spinning. The palm which he had hoisted upwards just moments ago now stayed frozen in the air. Like her face, the back of his hand began to redden as the blood rushed in. A torrent of emotion washed over them both. First the anger which had driven him so brutally mad entered her. She said nothing, she did not cry. She just stared at him shocked. Her eyes began to water though as the all consuming rage started to build up as the realization of what had just happened set in. She clenched her teeth, imagining that his face was between them and that she could just bite him out of pure spite. How dare he do something like that, how dare he hit her? His expression stayed frozen and emotionless. What he had done hadn't sunken in yet. The moment it did was visible to all, especially her. The anger which had betrayed her and taken over him so violently just moments ago now dissolved into a pathetic look which pleaded for sympathy. He would receive none. Though his hand stood down and by his side its damage had been done and would not be taken back. She shrieked with anger. In her fury she thought to kick, knowing well her heels' might. The blunt but small stiletto point rapidly pushed and then pierced his tough skin. She kicked again and again, aiming each heel's point at a different fleshy part of his cruel violent legs. His look of sympathy turned to anger once more and he began to kick back. Each impact of his foot against her body sent drops of blood flying and splattering onto the floor. Each one screamed at the other with furious vengeance. Each wanted to hurt, to punish and destroy the other. So they did "Why can't you just take me for what I am... she screamed at him through her hoarse pained voice. “Maybe you're just like my mother... he said, punctuating the sentence with a forceful kick to her abdomen which elicited a crack and a yelp. ...Maybe I'm just like my father, too bold... his voice boomed. He punctuated it with another kick...Maybe I'm too demanding, why do we scream, why?” he said, slowly breaking down from anger. But the wrathful injuries he had inflicted on her could not so easily be forgiven. His pleas, pathetic as they were, angered her so much more. With all her might, through all his gifted pain she stuck her stilettos into his leg once more, making sure to twist this time. He could feel the flesh of his leg being pinched and pulverized between the two wooden spikes and so fell to his knees. He squealed when the twisting spikes were violently pulled out by his fall.

Angrily, he fell to her side and they held each other, mournfully cooing. She reached into a chest pocket, brought out a fiery gem whose dazzling interior burned with furious flames, and dropped it on the ground between the two of them. No tears nor words were left.

Once upon a time there was girl. She lived in a picturesque Tudor cottage at the edge of a wood. The wood was big and it was scary. It was often dark and adventures through it could become quite hairy. The girl lived alone because of her cruel cruel queen. The girl was young, but not too young, no. Indeed she had four and twenty years of lore behind her in those days of yore. The cruel queen had ended the lives, all too abruptly, of her once lovely family. Her brother and mother, her aunt and her uncle and even her sister too, all impaled on spike at the castle's foreboding walls. The girl had not approached the castle in a long time, she feared still. The girl often wondered why they had not bowed when the queen had asked but fear kept her from questioning too much. They had all been killed in the summer, those lively green leaves, like their shining smiles were now gone. Instead barren branches rose up against a pale blue sky. The girl's family had been poor, they had very little and lived mostly off the land. Their power, their strength, came in numbers. The hunter. The gatherer. The cultivator. The carpenter. The smith. Each member with their skill contributed to their almost singular life together. There was only one thing that they all worked on together, the family's flock of geese. When the cruel queen had come she had demanded most of their lives too, dictating that only 6 be left for the girl to live, for she had bowed as she had been told to.

The girl looked after those six geese for they were now all the family she had left. She had little other choice. Day in and day out she worked to feed and care for her geese. She chased off foxes, falcons and  other predators. She made sure that the geese were fed, she made sure that they were warm. In return the geese lay eggs for her. Each day each goose lay at least an egg or two, a miraculous production. So the girl sold these eggs. She cut a tree and made some planks. With ground white stone and oil she made a sign to sell her eggs. She gathered the eggs and stockpiled them, selling them in great numbers to many nobles. The money she received in trade she used to live, what little was left went to the geese again. So productive were the geese that she never needed more, relying only on those six. For six years this went on. Each day six eggs awaited her, until one day things changed.

One day she went out to the goose shack and found not six great white goose eggs but instead egg shaped balls of shiny metal. Her jaw dropped at the sight of the gilded eggs. She had heard the legends and stories of a strange Greek slave's goose who'd lain golden eggs but those were just stories, this made no sense. She stood still at the entrance to the goose shack. Her eyes vacillated between the geese and their eggs until they gently shut for her to say a prayer of thanks. So she began to keep those eggs.

As time went on the geese lay more and more golden eggs, eggs which she hid to keep her secret safe. She stockpiled them, until she had a great room full making sure she would be set to live or indeed to rule, that the cruel queen might get her just desserts. When the time came she took a table to her geese with a great deal of feed. She grabbed one of her geese by the neck and began to force figs, exotic fruit for which she had paid a great price, down its gullet, then another goose. Thrice a day for seventeen days she did this until her geese could barely even walk anymore. She knew she had to for if she didn't and the queen discovered her geese the queen would have her head and the goose eggs too. This way she would not, could not know.

Finally when she knew they were fat enough and that she had sufficient gold colored eggs she brought a sharp blade to the throat of the geese to end their lives. It was with some sadness she did this, knowing their history and how those six geese had lain enough for her to live. This had to be done though. She knew the price she could fetch for their livers to the queen. She knew the queen could not say no, but she knew too the value of this most exotic and rare fare. So once they died she sold their livers.

With her sack of gold in tow, returning to the place of her family's demise where she went to sell, she came back home. On her way she met some bandit men who made very certain to lighten her load for they “could not leave such a lady to carry such a load.” The girl shattered to lose her gold, but she knew her secret, the eggs she still held at home.

She hurried back to her cottage, bracing herself against the winter's cold biting air. She rushed to her hidden eggs and took one out. The floor beneath them seemed to dissolve slightly, but she paid this no heed believing it to be nature's will.  She beamed gleefully when she looked at it, baring her teeth in a wide smile. She hid the egg under her outermost layer and rushed out once more. Finally she reached a jeweler.

“How may I help thee?”

“I wish to sell this golden egg!” the girl said.

“Let's see here”. The jeweler reached out to touch and look at the great and heavy egg before him. Gently and with great care he examined the seemingly valuable object and then burst into a most raucous laughter.