Caesar's Christmas

The king of the rocks hid down in his tunnels. The renegade bands had been crawling the city surface unrelentingly for days. A light snow had fallen, and Caesar knew that if he left his safe home behind, even to sing, they would find and follow his tracks.

It was a lonely day down in the caves, and without anything interesting having happened there was not even any carving to do. And it was the worst day of the year to be lonely, too. Caesar hadn’t much of a mind for calendars or knowing any day from another, but somehow deep in his mind he had remembered that as a boy, though he didn’t remember a boy as anything different from himself, he had never been alone on this day. It was a day he had given gifts to others, and his parents had given gifts to him.

People wore funny hats on this day, too, he remembered. They were like red cones with white little balls on the end. They there the only fuzzy things left in the king’s memory, having lost almost all his hair himself. He thought that maybe he had one down in one the unused tunnels. He could have a celebration!

The king bounded down through his domain from tunnel to tunnel, not able to remember where he had left the stretchy and fuzzy trinket, or even what exactly it looked like. His search took him down into rooms he had not used since the last time this day had come.

It was not a good time of year to be out and about anyway. The days were all shorter than normal and darkness often came down while he was still just halfway through his song. And it was no use singing if he couldn’t see the audience anyway, so he would be obliged to step down and accept the sorrowful nods of all his adoring fans. They understood he couldn’t just go on in the dark. He had to find his way home.

And then there it was, in the third room that Caesar searched for the second time. Tossed off in a dusty corner, the reddish silly hat. He gripped it up between his massive fingers and tried the delicate task of fitting the hat onto his head for the next ten minutes. At last, it slipped down his lumpy skull and clung on with elastic tightness.

Caesar had no mirrors down there. He had always run to the river if he really needed to see his own face, which was only to make sure that it was fine if he ever got really ambushed by the renegades. But he could not go up to the surface. There were the renegades there, and they had the shiny guns.

Caesar tried to remind himself of this, but he could not find any good reason to wear the hat if he could not see what he was about. Just when he was sure he was going to have to run outside if this day was to be at all festive, he remembered something more. There had been something about socks. He thought he had one of those somewhere, though it wasn’t much good above ground in terrain like that.

The king rummaged around his treasuries and libraries for half an hour more before he found it, in the same room, exactly where the hat had been. It was giant and pink, of a stretching knitting. On it were some letters that he could not read anymore. It wasn’t a word, the king was sure of that. Clearly, he thought, it must be a name, though whose he could not imagine. He slipped it on over his right foot and admired it. It did look something of a happy thing, though only suitable for this special day.

But that only reminded him that he still did not know what his hat looked like. He had to find out. He had to.

There would still be a little daylight left out there. He could make it down to the river. Even if it had done that thing where it turned to slippery, see-through rock it would still let him see himself. That was a strange thing, too, that he could see through it and still see himself and it, all three. But that was not the strangest thing the king had seen in all his domain, and it troubled him not the slightest, so long as he didn’t fall through it.

The king hopped along his tunnels with the stocking and the cap right to the base of his ascending shaft. He cocked the side of his head towards the opening at the top. There was no noise.

He climbed the shaft with only two arms and one leg, since he did not want to get the sock dirty, and so it took him a while longer and was a good bit more exhausting than it ever was. Once he got up he looked around. It would not do the hop around without using that foot any longer. Anyhow, the snow was white, and so it should not make him dirty to step in it. He crawled out of the tunnel and checked again. There was no sign of renegades.

So the king took off to the left of his usual path, running straight for the river. He could just dart down that way, carefully hidden among the rocks, and sneak back. Actually, he would take a more roundabout way back, maybe, so that if they followed his tracks they wouldn’t see him.

Making an odd trail of uneven footprints he bounded along, bouncing lightly with each step but keeping his head down in what must have been a most odd combination of hilarity and terror.

When Caesar crested the last hill that ran down into the river he remembered one more thing. Many years ago he had done a thing that began with the same letter as pillar, but he couldn’t remember what. It had the middle sound of tunnel in it twice, and somewhere once it had the starting sound of gun. In fact it ended with the gun sound, too. And it was named after a funny flightless bird, too. They had done a thing like it with something called sleds, but the gun sounding thing hadn’t used them.

This sort of day brought back so many memories to the old king that he wished it would happen more often. In any case, penguining (he had remembered) was quite fun (and actually consisted of sliding down a snowy hill in just the snow jacket, without a sled), and so he leapt at the edge of the hill on his chest, hoping he would slide down like he had when he was a boy. Instead it turned into a crazy roll and tumble, but he didn’t remember what penguining had been anyway, and he found the tumble enjoyable, so to his mind it was exactly what he expected.

Then he realized the hat had nearly come off, and he daintily slipped it back down to his eyebrow ridge with his massive forefingers.

The king peered down at the ice. But he did not know what to think.

It looked strange, different, of course, to have a red and silky thing with what was now a greyish ball on the end, dangling by one side of his face. It did not make much sense. But then, this day did only come once a year or so, maybe it was okay to not make sense. Perhaps that was what this day was all about, doing things that don’t make much sense at all, like giving things away.

They had done more than just penguining and silly hats though, and even more than the socks. There was something more missing. They had sang back then, too. Not the one song he could usually remember and that he usually sang. It was a different one. He had sung it in something like the theater once, with lots of other boys. Maybe he’d remember over there.

Caesar looked up. The sun was still in the sky, and he had to go home by a roundabout way anyway. With greater urgency than his last trip the king bellowed his way across the snowy landscape towards the theater. He had a compass in his mind that always pointed to it and to his home, so he could find them any time. He found himself humming a tune with words he could scarcely recall, one or two at a time. The stage would help him recall.

He climbed over the back like he always did, and more of the memories came. He had entered from stage left, and walked in to the middle. The king did just that, and stood staring out. Only his parents were there this time. In fact, Marcus was there, standing next to him. He must have sang that song back when he was a boy, too.

Then they began to sing. Marcus was the high voiced one and Caesar had the low voice. It was something about harking to a herald that was singing about something Caesar thought he remembered but couldn’t get on. He found himself mouthing the word “watermelon” like he had been taught to when he couldn’t remember the words.

Then all at once the situation changed. They had heard him and followed him in. A dozen of them stormed up on his seats from above and charged in from the side entrances, guns fixed on Caesar. Caesar looked around at their gleeful faces, faces that he remembered from this day when he was a boy. People who got lots of things from others but never gave much themselves had those faces, the king concluded.

They say that some people learn best under pressure, and that is exactly what Caesar did. He remembered the song! Not that he knew what the words mean exactly, but in some small degree.

Hark the herald angel sings

Glory to the newborn King

Peace on earth and mercy mild

God and sinners reconciled…

And so he just went on singing, recalling words as fast as he could sing them. The renegades all looked around at each other. This was not at all the song they had been expecting. It was one they all knew, somewhere deep inside, that they had heard before. Some heard it in survival villages far off that they raided in previous years, some from their childhood, and others just from contraband recordings. They knew what it meant even better than the king, though they did not like it.

Gradually they each lowered their guns, then once the invisible awkwardness built up for them they all scrambled out of the building in many different directions.

The king concluded that this day was certainly about, at least in part, doing things that did not make sense. It was about sparing things of pain that you could cause them, and about giving people things, things they didn’t even expect or deserve. That was something, but hardly worth celebrating as wildly as he thought he had as a boy.

That song was strange, too. It sounded like it was quoting something else, something that Caesar vaguely remembered, too. It was something he had back in the tunnel. The sun was coming down now, anyway, and it would get cold, and he had none of the warm brown stuff he had drank on this day in the past, so he charged off at his tunnel, ignoring the retreating renegades that scattered in front of him. They didn’t seem to mind him on this day, and he never really minded them when they weren’t shooting.

He leapt straight down into his tunnels and started going down in. Then he remembered the special lights he had seen on this day, and pressed his electric bars together to turn on all his lights. He would need them to read by, anyway.

So the king tumbled down to his main chamber and drew out the little black book he kept hidden away behind the bomb. It was something started with an L and the second one in it. There one was. But it was the wrong words. He flipped farther in and found another. This one worked better. He read all the words by memory, not really knowing exactly what shepherds or sheep were, but something filled his imagination. And as he read on he realized what this day was really all about.

He had been right all along. It was about doing things that didn’t make sense because other people didn’t deserve to have you do them. Things like giving gifts or singing songs or baking cookies (he had just remembered those, too) were nice things. But the ultimate thing that didn’t make sense was right here, and this was the reason that they all did things that didn’t make sense. And it seemed that silly hats and stockings weren’t even in there at all, though they didn’t make sense and certainly were fun and nice. This was where it was really at.

Glory to God in the Highest, and on Earth, Peace, Goodwill toward Men.

Caesar the Troll: The End

His armor was too strong for their guns, his power too great to be stopped. Behind him all the legions of renegades would come. If their black captain could defeat the king of the rocks, there would be no victory for the people.
And Caesar stood on the bridge, blood spewing from his wounds and covering his body. Not at all man-like in appearance, beyond any man in his strength, the only man who could save the people now.
The black rock of the bridge crunched into powder as the king stepped toward the black captain. Miniscule particles of dust blew away in the nearly silent wind. The enemy moved slowly forward, his armor flashing a dark reflection of the ruined ground before him. He stood over Caesar's cornerstone, on the first support of the bridge. The king strode onward, until he stood barely a leap from the enemy captain. Silently they stood staring each other down, all songs and laughter ceased.
Sparks jumped off the wires at the base of the bridge. The circuit was shorted out.
Caesar leaped into the air, ready to drop on the captain. His feet were ten feet from the ground, coming down when the captain launched his first shot out of the nail gun. It drove through Caesar's left arm and threw off his landing. He crunched into the black rock, scattering shards in every direction, and lay there moaning. He crawled away from the captain as fast as he could, barely out pacing the slow walk of his enemy.
Then suddenly the king rolled backwards over his own back, swinging his right arm at the head of the captain. With another shot the long nail drove through Caesar's right arm. The king cried aloud in his pain, nearly drowned by the growing laughter of the captain.
Caesar stumbled away from his enemy, running backwards over the bridge. His mind was going with his blood, which had stained the black stone red in trails all the way across it. He had only stumbled so far for three seconds when the cannon sounded again, and a nail drove through his legs.
Silently the king fell to the bridge, his body stretched across it, his breath fleeing him, darkness swirling in his vision, and the laughter of the dread captain sounding in his ears. He lay there, on the people's rock, unable to sing, unable to move, unable even to breathe. His eyes shut with pain.
In the swirling silence and dreadful noise the king discerned the sound of his enemy approaching. The heat of the black stone seared Caesar's back. A quiet wind stole across his face. Blinking his eyes open a moment the captain was over him, his gun charging up again. The sun spun away from Caesar's mind.
The captain stepped to one side, and the heat of his black boots radiated toward Caesar's side. He heard the gun clank on the ground. The whine that preceded a shot, and then the hiss that followed it. The nail drove through Caesar's side; he gasped as his lung was pierced, and then his heart. What blood was left spurted out the final wound.
All the world was silent and through the thin air rang out the victory cry of the dread captain. "Hail! The King of the rocks!"
The base of the bridge crackled. One final thought jumped out of the king's darkened mind. She was safe.
The crackling grew to a tremor, to a blast, and the bridge was torn asunder. In a jet of flame and smoke and dust the whole bridge was blasted to pieces as the wires connected. Black rock and the grey rocks of Caesar blasted together into the sky. Above them all flew the body of Caesar, slowly twisting and tumbling through the air and ash. Higher into the sky the bodies flew, followed by the rocks and debris. They flew higher than the cheer of victory from the people below, but not as high as her wailing.
Minutes later rocks were still falling to the earth, and the clouds of ash still filtered down. Many crashes were heard all around and in the camp of the people as rocks crushed vehicles and smashed the guns. Their black rock blanketed both shores and smothered the river's surface. Grey chunks sent steaming gusts of water out of the river. The crack of the captain's bones echoed as he smashed down on Caesar's cornerstone, and afar off was heard the thud of the body of the king.
And to this day even the stones cry out, to the praise of Caesar, and the story of the King, who died for a people not his own.

Caesar the Troll Part 24

Sorry about the delay in posting this morning, folks. I had accidentally turned off my internet with my Bible this morning I think, and then couldn't figure out why it wouldn't come on. A few restarts and troubleshoots later my bro asked me if I had turned off my internet. I said "no, why would I do that?" and then saw that my network key was off. Yeah, nice...

The king leaped up again, and with one throw launched the bar of steel through the whole machine, sticking it out the back.
The lights died, and the breath ceased.
But the king's last enemy was not yet dead.
From the top of the beast emerged a new champion, clad in armor of blackish hue. Caesar stood unarmed at the mouth of the dying beast, as the captain of the enemy drew out his weapon. A gun typically held over the shoulder, it launched steal rods three feet long. The captain of the enemy carried it at his waist. Standing over the trembling Caesar he pointed the gun at the king and launched his first rod of steel.
Caesar rolled to the side and dodged the massive bolt. There was no combating that. Caesar turned for flight and bounded down the street. The black renegade stalked after him, laughing. Caesar struggled along the broken and street, his wounds taking their toll on his strength. Another rod flew over his head, and as he leaped away the terrible laughs of that enemy bellowed down after him, a wicked song that drove the king mad.
Caesar turned and launched a huge rock at him, but he did not dodge or break his pace and the rock rolled by. One of the rods whizzed a foot by Caesar's head, driving through the smooth grey stone wall behind.
The king turned to flee, running for the bridge. Her daddy was still there pressing the plunger and twirling his wires, but to no available. The wires had shorted just before the red sticks on the king's cornerstone.
The king reached his bridge and was nearly across when he saw her. She stood so innocently, with her fellow people all around. They charged their guns and leveled them at the king, lest he should cross their bridge and undo them. Too proud were they for a man like Caesar to rescue them. Too proud to call him a man. Too afraid to let him save them. Too foolish to let him be their king. They had no chance against this terrible enemy, with the power of death in his hands.
The king turned to look upon his final foe. Not at all tall, neither imposing, but slowly walking and silently slaying. As he walked he drove his stakes into any men left breathing on his side of the river. Having finished the last of them he turned and strode toward the bridge, hungry now only to kill all those on the other side. His armor was too strong for their guns, his power too great to be stopped. Behind him all the legions of renegades would come. If their black captain could defeat the king of the rocks, there would be no victory for the people.
And Caesar stood on the bridge, blood spewing from his wounds and covering his body. Not at all man-like in appearance, beyond any man in his strength, the only man who could save the people now.

Caesar the Troll Part 23

His song shook the walls around him, but the enemies would not flee this time.
The mighty beast crawled still along the road, speaking nothing

Caesar continued his march of destruction, smashing everything that bore renegade insignia or threatened him with a gun. On his right appeared a band of men with their guns, and together their beam of heat forced Caesar back into cover, hiding behind a wall. They approached triumphantly, until they heard a long drawn out note echoing off the walls, accompanied by a bass groan. Too late they looked up and saw the building falling over at them, and under it's weight they were all crushed
Out of the pile of rubble that was made a grey arm was thrust, followed by another, and then the full body of the king, who had not dropped even one note of his song.
Rockets began to drop in all around the conqueror, blasting the rubble pile away even as he got out. Looking up he discovered its source. The great beast still crawled down the middle of the road, beginning to launch its rockets as it came in range. Caesar ignored it and went back to his bridge. People were still fleeing over it, but now they were pursued by crowbar wielding renegades. They had not even time enough to turn around before they were smacked down into the river.
The last of the people got over the bridge, and the king looked over to that shore. There was the girl's daddy, pushing down on a plunger shaped like the letter T. The king watched as sparks jumped off a wire a the base of his bridge. The wires were shorted before they could reach the red burning sticks. Again and again the man pushed his switch, but to no avail. The cornerstone would not be broken.
A ball of fire landed a few feet away from Caesar. The great beast had spoken.
The king's song had ended, but he began it again. Blood poured from his brow with all the beatings, but through his bloodstained vision he perceived that dragon crawling at him, eyes ablaze and mouths ready to breathe.
Slowly it seemed it was that the king marched toward the beast. His knees quivered with the walk. He carried on his back bar of metal fallen from the buildings. All the rubble had been cleared by the repeating explosions of the dragon.
Down the street crawled Caesar, the king of the rocks, and all around him rockets exploded, shaking his footing but not his resolve. His song rolled over the street against the dragon, daring it to fire more. Now it belched out fire and flame, but the king could not be undone. Toward the gaping mouth of the beast the king pressed on, with the bar upon his back.
Bloody and burning Caesar arrived at the face of the beast. They both stood still for a moment. Caesar brought his bar back behind his head. All the lights of the beast flashed on, but instantly Caesar smashed through its face with the bar. It screamed with pain, lurching forward and blowing all its light and fire at the king, who was knocked down on his back.
The king leaped up again, and with one throw launched the bar of steel through the whole machine, sticking it out the back.
The lights died, and the breath ceased.
But the king's last enemy was not yet dead.

Caesar the Troll Part 22

At the sound of his name the king stood to his two feet, and all the guards around him turned.
A beast more mighty than any before, covered with eyes and belching out smoke from several mouths, with awful light and brilliant darkness spreading terror, rolled toward the bridge that Caesar had built. And running towards it were all the people. But the king cared not for all of them. But only for one.

Caesar looked his guards in the face with an expression of grim desire that caused them to cringe. He reached with his right hand for the top of his head, and with a mighty yank tore off his crown. They dropped their guns.
With a single swipe the king swung his crown through the bars and wires of his cage, casting them to the side. He leaped out and roared, casting his crown to the ground. His guards fainted dead away as he lurched forward in dead sprint for the bridge. And he sang his song again.
Dust and gravel hopped from the ground as the king's feet thundered across the open square toward the bridge he had laid. His song shook the skies and in his eyes was a flame of fire. Scores of people were fleeing over his bridge to safety, but he ran ever towards it. His feet smashed over broken metal and shattered glass.
Caesar this time needed no weapon. He needed neither rock nor bomb, no iron beams or shiny guns, no pink poison tubes or glowing fruits. His wrinkled body stumbled over the battle plain at lightning speed. And his song was building as he sang it slowly.
The black rock that covered his bridge broke and scattered under his weight as he bounded over the bridge on all fours. He leaped over people running by, catching beams of light meant to scorch them. Flaming rocks came clattering towards them only to be turned into the river by the body of the king.
Nearest the bridge was a small creature with only two eyes and a short nose. It had two mighty spinning legs in the front and a tiny one in the back. In two bounds Caesar was atop it. With one punch he smashed through its scales and drew out its master, casting him to doom in the river.
From all around the terrible lights were all focused on him, burning the king most awfully. But still he fought on. He lifted the shell of the beast and through it down the road, bouncing and crushing his enemies.
Caesar leapt from building to window and window to street, finding each of them that carried the guns and beating them against walls. He would jump through bricks and with lethal accuracy whip the grey blocks at his opponents. His song shook the walls around him, but the enemies would not flee this time.
The mighty beast crawled still along the road, speaking nothing.

Caesar the Troll Part 21

As Caesar lay there in despair, imagining all the glorious days he had lived before the people came, thinking of his precious hairbrush that was covered over, and his carvings now annihilated, he wanted to cry, but had no tears left. And then as he lay with his head on the floor he saw her. She was still smiling as tears rolled down her face. She approached the humming and crackling wires, trying to reach through. So the king pushed he hand away, and tore a few of the wires. He reached his own hand out, and the minute she grasped it her tears were stopped. And the king was glad.

Caesar languished in his cage for days. He was given neither food nor water, and continued to wither in size and strength. The people had bound his head with an iron band to hold together the wounds in his skull, but soon the band itself became greatly painful. For a while they had wrapped his wounds in bandages, but just before they had fully healed they had stripped them off, which actually served only to make the wounds more susceptible to infection.
Each day the little girl came to him, and in whispered voices they would sing that song that he still had not forgotten.
For three days the king lay in his electrified grave, with two guards posted around him, lest he should try to escape. It was foolish to imagine that any of these obstacle could have stopped the king of the rocks, but the people imagined it so, for he was still inside their cage.
Caesar lay in his cage, listening to all the sounds and watching the roads. He watched as huge tubes and slabs of the smooth grey rock the people made were carted over the bridge of which he had laid the cornerstone. They moved large guns, and trucks of people with the shiny guns. Great beasts with the flaming noses and bright eyes crawled over his bridge and around his cage. Giant carrion birds with unflapping wings and terrible infinite cries flew over and around, dropping their flaming eggs onto the rocks. And on the third day they set up sirens all around the camp, and tripled the guard around the king.
Then came the crackling explosions. Huge black clouds growing on the eastern sky, obscuring the rising of the sun. As Caesar watched he saw hundreds of the smaller beasts with four spinning legs which could hold a dozen men in their stomachs fly by over his bridge. Bright lights and incredible noises echoed from across the river. Screaming and wailing drifted by. And then that one voice that could send the king from his throne into the mouth of the beasts crying in the wasteland that had once been the capital of all men. "Caesar!"
At the sound of his name the king stood to his two feet, and all the guards around him turned.
A beast more mighty than any before, covered with eyes and belching out smoke from several mouths, with awful light and brilliant darkness spreading terror, rolled toward the bridge that Caesar had built. And running towards it were all the people. But the king cared not for all of them. But only for one.

Caesar the Troll Part 20

The road the people had built ran straight to his home, but the rubble heap was gone. Caesar ran for where the entrance should have been and smashed through the black rock that made the top of the street. Underneath he found that grey rock that only people could make. His shaft was filled in.
In grief Caesar ran to the left, following a fork in the road, running for his theater. His song had stopped.
He stumbled along over the smooth road, unaccustomed to such easy routes. The run was shorter, though more awkward, when he arrived.
Where his theater used to be.
Instead of his theater, with the ruins of his parents' bench and Marcus' seat, there was a black road, running nowhere as yet. Off to the side lay a field of large stones, no two left atop on another. Apparently the people hoped to build something new with them.
Caesar fell to his knees, then on to his face. And the king wept there, on the ruins of his castle. His body was racked with the awful sobs that barely made a sound. He could not even grip the ground in his anguish, the black stone being too smooth.
The people found him there, nearly asleep after having cried for so long he was exhausted. He had thrown away the bars of his cage somewhere in the stumbling run, and lay there weaponless. The people came again with their crane and hoisted him up. He was much too dangerous to leave at large, so they lay him in the bed of an open bedded truck and drove away. Then they dropped him into a new cage, and this time made sure to run live wires around all the bars, to deter him from breaking out again.
As Caesar lay there he watched the people recover from the aftermath. Few of them had died, and none had been captured, or at least those that had had been left behind as they all fled from the wrath of the king. Preparations were being made for future defenses, and Caesar watched as a wire was laid at the base of the bridge, against large piles of reddish sticks. How could they hope to burn a bridge made of the king's stones and their own magical, smooth black stuff?
As Caesar lay there in despair, imagining all the glorious days he had lived before the people came, thinking of his precious hairbrush that was covered over, and his carvings now annihilated, he wanted to cry, but had no tears left. And then as he lay with his head on the floor he saw her. She was still smiling as tears rolled down her face. She approached the humming and crackling wires, trying to reach through. So the king pushed he hand away, and tore a few of the wires. He reached his own hand out, and the minute she grasped it her tears were stopped. And the king was glad.

Caesar the Troll Part 19

A few updates for you all:
1. Red Rain Fanfiction is winning the Marathon Week Poll, but only by three votes. Any Caesar fans out there could reverse it by just recruiting a couple more readers... or else Caesar might be left at a very long cliffhanger.
2. My name change poll is leaning slightly for my real name (and I haven't even voted yet...) so I am wondering what individual voted "Noooooo!" on there. Dying with curiosity, almost literally.
3. I started another one. I realized the homepage of my blog can be very daunting at time especially now that I post three times a day. Should I opt for using See More buttons so that everything that is new each day can show up on a single screen without scrolling way down?

An explosion shook Caesar's train car as small bombs were launched over the river.
Then with a mighty surge, Caesar ripped out the bars of his cage. One by one he tore them out, and the last two he smashed with his fist to bend out of the way. Then he took up a long bar of steel in each hand, and charged out.

 That same ridiculous song rang out, muddle over with explosions and the crackle of the shiny guns. The people were being driven back over the bridge en masse, but the beast with the fire nose sat their guarding it, anything that passed. The renegades had come to exterminate, but they had failed to reckon with Caesar.
The king sprinted from his car, waving the massive, shiny steel beams above his head. The people paid no attention to him, being much too concerned with the enemies across the bridge to care about the zoological curiosity. Caesar bounded towards the bridge, his song just breaking for the first long note.
The enemies on the other side noted the strange thing that came running at them with some pause. They had heard rumors of the king of the rocks, but now they saw him. And they laughed. They fully understood why it had been such a game to torment the massive creature.
Caesar bounded across the bridge, moving so quickly that their guns were of no effect. He charged straight for the massive beast with the bright eyes and flaming nose. It was a strange faced creature to say the least, its nose sitting atop its head, and with a glass pane in the middle of its face. It crawled forward on massive belts like centipede legs.
Caesar planted his feet directly in front of it, and watched as the nose turned towards him. He looked through its glass forehead and saw a man back there, laughing. So its brain was run by humans. All the better. There were two in fact.
The one on the left sat moving some rods around, apparently controlling the nose. Caesar lifted one of the steel beams and launched it straight through the glass, shattering it all to pieces and impaling that driver.
The other driver's laughter ended very quickly. He drew out a electrical pistol, designed for paralyzing enemies and shot at Caesar's head. He watched as the blue, crackling electricity enveloped Caesar's body, and Caesar stood still, staring into his eyes. The driver's shot ran out, and Caesar resumed his song, launching his other steel beam into the man's face.
Suddenly numerous shots from the shiny guns were striking him from both flanks, the renegades having arranged themselves for maximum damage. The king rolled under the body of the monster he had slain for cover. Then with his knees against the ground he pressed his back and palms into the under, and with a surge of the song he lifted the machine into the air.
The firing nearly ceased in amazement, and then half of it ended forever as Caesar through the whole monster at those to the right of the bridge, crushing and scattering them, dragging some down into the river.
He charged against the others, the song building and turning, with a monstrous tone it had never had before. The guns lit up his chest, but Caesar cared little. He ran into the crowd of them, and with single punches collapsed their bones, grabbing some and throwing them twenty yards into the river.
Several renegades had captured a building and began shooting at him from three floors up. Caesar ripped out a chunk of the building's stone foundation, then launched it straight for their window, sealing it up.
Then they fled. But Caesar would not leave them to their own devices.
After the bridge had been built an immensely long street had been laid straight in the same direction, straight towards home and the crater. Swarms of renegades fled down the street, wondering why they had never head of this mood of the king of the rocks.
The king pursued them, brandishing a twenty foot I-beam in both hands, ripped from a building. As he caught the tail of the retreating column he swung the rod around, wiping out a dozen of those fleeing, but the banner was still in the front, and Caesar would not let it get away.
On the side of the street Caesar saw another, smaller monster, begin coughing out that smell that he liked. He ran for it, and just before it took off he caught its rear and tipped it over. The driver tried to run, but a single punch from Caesar sent him flying back. Caesar went to the front of the monster and ripped out its guts, in particular one large block with a shaft coming out.
He held the heart of the machine above his head and ran after the renegades until he had closed enough distance. Then he launched the chunk of hot metal after them, and with all its bouncing it smashed many of them.
Then Caesar merely ran and leaped after them, killing with a stroke of his arms each one that had threatened his subject. He pursued them an hour of running, and as they grew faint he gave them more casualties to remember. Then his home was in sight. Or should have been.
The road the people had built ran straight to his home, but the rubble heap was gone. Caesar ran for where the entrance should have been and smashed through the black rock that made the top of the street. Underneath he found that grey rock that only people could make. His shaft was filled in.
In grief Caesar ran to the left, following a fork in the road, running for his theater. His song had stopped.

Caesar the Troll Part 18

Annoncement: I am considering changing this blog (and it's URL) to be under my real name. Please give your opinion on that in the poll I have going for a few more days so I can take your thoughts into account!

Men from every side leaped out, carrying the shiny guns. Caesar moaned and fell to his knees before they had even begun shooting. The girl cried out in protests but to no avail as she was quickly caught up by her daddy running through the scene. The others kept a constant beam of hot light on Caesar, who only lay still and twitching under their shots.
After half a minute of constant bombardment the men stopped shooting, reasoning that the large creature before them would be dead. Instead they heard tiny scraps of song coming from his mouth continually, even as smoke rose from his old burns again.
They approached the king carrying a collar and a long chain. He was too weak to resist, even if he would have, as they clasped the collar about his neck latched the other end of the chain to a truck. Then they tested to make sure the collar worked, and Caesar felt all over his body a super-intense version of what he felt when he pressed the bars together in his catacombs.
The truck started, kicking out the smell that the king both liked and hated. The king was too weak to stand and walk, so the truck dragged him over the rocks and through the streets, over the bridge, and into the heart of the survival camp. There they found an old train car, built like a flat-bed except with a steel cage over its top. They picked up the limp body of Caesar in a crane and dropped him into the cage. They were saying that they wondered of what he was made.

They kept Caesar in prison for eleven days, during which he recovered sufficiently from his burns to stand, though he had not the heart to. Once the girl came to visit him, weeping and sobbing. She grabbed at the bars and yanked as hard as she could, hoping Caesar would do the same. Instead Caesar reached out of the cage with one finger, which was almost to thick to fit between the closely-spaced bars, and touched her on the forehead. He looked at her, his expression showing that he could not break out from here, and that she should neither worry nor fear. Before she could respond her daddy came and snatched her away, afraid of what that beast must have done to her mind.
One more day Caesar sat in sad silence. His cage was set within close sight of the bridge, almost able to see where he had been captured. He ever looked that way, towards the dawning of the sun. Early in the wee hours of the morning on the third day, he heard cries of alarm. Then a siren and the hum of those guns. He curled up in his cell, hiding his face and most tender hands. Then he heard the feet go running by, and the hum the charged guns made, and they did not shoot at him.
He looked and saw  most terrible sight.
Rolling through the streets on the other side of the bridge were massive machines, with two bright eyes and nose on the top that spun and shot out flames. And men, many of them, charging through the streets. And then that awful banner, the one he had destroyed, but a newer and larger one.
Caesar watched as many people began to try to run across the bridge, but as soon as they were out of cover the bright-eyed machine would spit fire on them.
Caesar stood up.
The girl's mommy was running at his cage, looking to see where her girl was, but she was not there.
Caesar looked around desperately. She had to be safe.
The people didn't know how to use their guns, and the renegades kept coming.
Caesar grabbed the bars of his cage.
An explosion shook Caesar's train car as small bombs were launched over the river.
Then with a mighty surge, Caesar ripped out the bars of his cage. One by one he tore them out, and the last two he smashed with his fist to bend out of the way. Then he took up a long bar of steel in each hand, and charged out.

Caesar the Troll Part 17

I wonder if any of you are beginning to catch the deepest theme I wrote for this work...

Caesar landed on his half-melted back with the girl in his arms half a mile away, watching some rock still fly over him, and the ground before him still collapsing into a massive crater. The two lay still for a few seconds as the last of the ash, dust, fire, steel and stone flew by, and with one long note, the song was done.
As soon as the last note died the girl began to sob, the fear of the last few minutes catching up with her. The sky was black all around, the earth still shaking. All around the concussion of the explosion was tearing down buildings from top to bottom as they fell under their own weight.
Caesar picked the girl up off of his heaving chest, his tears belying the pain that he did not express vocally. By reason of his incredibly thick skin, no bones were broken, and he was still able to move. He got down on all fours and looked at the girl, motioning with his head that she should get aboard.
Still sobbing and heaving she climbed up and wrapped her legs around his neck, her feet just barely meeting under his chin. She hugged her arms around his forehead, just barely completing the circumference.
The king crawled across his domain, now forever marred with a massive crater, and all the stones had been moved. He did not have the strength to stand or run or leap or bound, and so trudged on his hands and knees for hours under the shade of the ashes and dust that made the sky perfectly black at noon and after. For three hours he crawled so before the theater came in view, as finally light began to push through the dust cloud. He turned around and made for his home junk pile. He could not keep his precious subject safe forever, that they now knew. He needed something that would keep her safe against all enemies.
He left the girl at the top of the pile, half concealed in the ruins. Still to tired to climb, he allowed himself to fall the whole distance to the bottom of the shaft, then crawled his way down the tunnels. He for one moment considered pushing the bars together again for light, but then remembered that there would be no light even if he did. Onward he crawled.
There, in his bedroom chamber, he reached deeper than he had in many years into the nook that once held his bomb. He drew out a black book that fit nearly in the palm of his hand. He hadn't been able to turn pages with any success for many long ages, but he had carved what he could remember of the book onto the wall. He had defended his cause today.
Caesar climbed out the top his shaft using only one hand, the other clutching the one thing that could keep her safe forever. He gave it to her, then showed her to climb on again. She climbed up for his head, and together they rode towards home.
Home had grown much nearer to the Caesar's tunnels in the past few days. The people had grown past the bridge that the king had laid and built many buildings and streets on the other side, pushing the rocks whither soever they liked.
Caesar set the girl back down on the ground, and they walked toward the growing home. They passed a few nondescript grey buildings, built of a stone only humans could make that was smooth and hard. Caesar and the girl walked toward the river.
As they approached the bridge they were surprised. Men from every side leaped out, carrying the shiny guns. Caesar moaned and fell to his knees before they had even begun shooting. The girl cried out in protests but to no avail as she was quickly caught up by her daddy running through the scene. The others kept a constant beam of hot light on Caesar, who only lay still and twitching under their shots.

Caesar the Troll Part 16

For you Caesar fans, this is your warning that you are already a vote behind Red Rain. I know from my blog stats that Red Rain is more popular by pageviews, so it will take some doing to get a week of straight Caesar. I'll admit that Caesar is my more precious work to my mind, because of some its autobiographical elements, but I may yet learn to work that into the new tale of Criminal Q.
Caution: Do not read this post unless you are fully caught up through Part 15. 

Caesar quickly launched the others, all with equally lethal results.
A lull in the song.
Renegade gunmen began streaming out of the tunnels and hidden rooms, armed with fully powered guns. Caesar charged about for a quarter of a minute, trying to avoid the heaviest knots of gunners, but their numbers only increased.
Then he spotted her. She was tied to an old pillar at the edge of the arena. They hadn't hurt her, apparently, hoping to make a good ransom deal for the wayward child. She sat in stunned silence as her king bludgeoned her captains to death with a steel beam which bent with use, and as he endured shots from thirty-nine guns at once. She watched as smoke gushed off of Caesar's melting skin, and then she caught the song.
The song was reaching near the two minute mark when she joined in, as she continued to watch as even Caesar's granite shield began vaporizing under the intense barrage. Caesar stood in the center of the arena, smiting anyone that dared come near with his I-beam, running about in circles and claiming the lives of his slower opponents, yet they had finally grown wise to his tactic, and stayed out of range.
One minute and fifty seconds in Caesar changed his tactic. He launched the I-beam through the air and smashed half-a-dozen gunmen against the far wall with the thrust. Then Caesar drew forth his greatest weapon, and his most prized possession. Snapping the cords of glowing tiny fruits he held his now second favorite thing in the world above his head, thinking nothing of the shots that scourged his skin with flame.
One minute and fifty-four seconds in Caesar began to laugh at his opponents, jeering at them as he sensed their demise. They thought he was crazy as ever, and laughed as well, seeing their shots begin to take toll. The laugh of ignorance.
One minute and fifty-nine seconds, Caesar began to sing the scales. Taking his precious bomb above his head he slammed it into the ground, the nose-cone impact starting it's timer. All the laughter ceased, and time itself froze for two seconds. Caesar turned and ran for his subject, singing the climax of his song. The renegades were running away from the middle of the arena as well, but Caesar out paced them and cast them aside with a single swing of his smoking arms. When he reached her, he curled up over her body as he hit the grandest note of the song, two minutes and four seconds.
The blast went off, carrying on a wave of light a cloud of dust from the middle of the ancient, colossal arena, followed by a torrent of flame. The sound of it drowned out the triumphant notes of the king, and the concussion blew over the stones. The very walls pressed together and exploded outward, careening through the air, bouncing off of ancient rubble and crushing heaps of trash. The last remnant of the pre-war skyscraper was snapped off by a flying stone arch, and it's last chunks of steel fell over the ruins. Caesar landed on his half-melted back with the girl in his arms half a mile away, watching some rock still fly over him, and the ground before him still collapsing into a masive crater. The two lay still for a few seconds as the last of the ash, dust, fire, steel and stone flew by, and with one long note, the song was done.

Caesar the Troll Part 15

You have no idea how many times I sang the trolling song while I was gone. I also may have a few new readers who read and enjoyed an excerpt that I brought along and shared with a few buddies. Hopefully you will soon begin to see some of them around here.

Caesar climbed the ruins of the shell of a tower, up until he reached the bar. It was only a foot wide, about as wide as Caesar's foot. At first he the bar cautiously, but balance was difficult. The king lurched back to the one vertical bar to which he could cling.
Then Caesar charged out on the bar, feeling it wobble under him with every step. He reached the end and leapt off, snapping off the ridiculous banner of the renegades as he did so.


Caesar flew through the air, maintaining complete silence as he watched the banner flap back up above his head as he outpaced its descent. Caesar watched as his shadow appeared on the ground, at first a tiny speck, then a lengthening and deepening blackness of horrific shape, the sun, beginning to set, extending the length of his sword and shield.
By time he struck the ground he was noticed, and the guns were being disconnected from their charging stations. Then he began to sing. And as his notes rang out and echoed off the stone walls of the arena he charged for the nearest shiny rack of guns. They were plugged in with thick black chords which revitalized the hot light they stored inside.
Six of the unfortunate renegades had quickly managed to untangle their guns. They stood, still by their station, spraying the king with the intense beams of light and ions that had previously rendered the monarch innocuous in battle.
Caesar caught a few of the beams on his granite shield, and before they could see their doom the singing emperor was upon them, and had smashed them each with a steal I-beam either collapsing their rib cages or crushing their heads.
Caesar charged for the next station, where ten of them had drawn their guns. They spread their fire this time, but with Caesar's leaping and bounding they could not long train their beams on the king. Before they knew it was over it was, and this time, for maximum damage, Caesar crushed the rack that powered their guns. His song was only half gone.
A quarter of the way around the circumference of the arena a few more genius renegades had set up with longer-range guns. While Caesar was still dispatching the charging rack they lit up his back with beams of a different hue, meant for longer distance. Caesar turned and send fright into their veins by tearing out a few seats of the arena and launching them the whole distance and height. He followed closely after, protecting himself with Marcus's seat.
The I-beam was beginning to bend with its work, and Caesar was still encumbered by the glowing rods. Once he reached the foot of the seating, already enduring shots from around him in other parts of the arena, the snipers were already fleeing. He took one of the lights out from under his arm and launched it after the farthest sniper. It rocketed through the air and broke on his head, sending him to a rough landing on poisonous glass. Caesar quickly launched the others, all with equally lethal results.
A lull in the song.

Caesar the Troll Part 14

Just as a warning to you all, I will be away from my computer for pretty much all of next week... so there might be no posts at all for that time. I am working on how to remedy that, but it may not be possible.

Then Caesar turned to stage left, and charged off-stage, leaving his crowd of fans still cheering.
The trail was almost twenty minutes old, and every moment counted.
Following a trail over bare rock and rubble can be difficult, especially for one such as Caesar, but the task did not daunt him. He knew where they would have gone. He had followed them there once before.
Over heap and under sagging building Caesar ran, clearing ground at twice the speed of the men, despite his encumbrances which he carried. He made some, but only little, effort to avoid making much noise during the first part of his headlong run, but when their fortress came into sight, he took pause and care to avoid drawing unnecessary attention to himself.
To Caesar, their fortress was like two theaters put together, wrapping completely around, and build all over the outside with tall spiraling arches. Built all of stone and able to seat many times more than Caesar's throne, it lofted into the sky as the second tallest building nearby. Under it lay many tunnels and catacombs, where prisoners and beasts had been kept before.
The only thing within sight that was taller than the ancient arena was the remnant of a modern building from before the war. One side of a skyscraper had survived, leaving a strangely shaped tower of I-beams and rubble. The building had been built in defiance of gravity, and, before the bombings, had had one wing of offices jutting out over the arena, hanging only onto the side of the tower. The only remnant of that wing was one long jutting bar of steel that launched itself halfway over their fortress. From it hung a banner of the renegades, bright red with flairs of yellow and a stripe of black.
Caesar climbed the ruins of the shell of a tower, up until he reached the bar. It was only a foot wide, about as wide as Caesar's foot. At first he the bar cautiously, but balance was difficult. The king lurched back to the one vertical bar to which he could cling.
Then Caesar charged out on the bar, feeling it wobble under him with every step. He reached the end and leapt off, snapping off the ridiculous banner of the renegades as he did so.

Caesar the Troll Part 13

They left the smoking body of the king to whimper on the stone floor, five rows down from Marcus' seat, with the rubble of his parents' seat all around him.
Caesar heaved heavy breaths lying and crying on the overgrown stone floor of his throne room. He looked up into the stage where Marcus sat, a grim expression on his face. Marcus sat there, his head in his hands, until he made eye contact with the king, whose burns had made his skin so soft that pebbles were becoming ingrained.
The king stood on his feet, smoke still rising from his back and the nape of his neck and his chest. He turned and ran out the back of the theater, landing on all fours by jumping over the back. He bounded over rocks and rubbish all the way back to his tunnels. He jumped in headfirst, landing on his hands and rolling into his catacombs and plunging through the darkness to the lights. He pressed the two bars together so that he could see his way further, and ran back up to the first of his halls
There the king took down his tapestries, the colored fruits that tasted sour when they were lit. He pulled down the whole chain of them, leaving that room dim. He ran to the next hall and pulled down the purplish bars of light that had some of the poisonous gas inside, and carried them under his arm down to his final room.
He came to his last room, and took up his chisel, slamming these words into the rock:
They took her.
He cast down his chisel and reached deep into the nook where he kept his two most precious possessions. With one he brushed his hair, and the other he put under his right arm.
The king charged back up his catacombs, and parted the bars again. He ascended his shaft, and then stood atop his pile of rubble that covered his home. He ripped out of it a short I-beam, which he tucked with the poisonous glowing bars under his arm. Caesar then ran back to his theater, into his castle. He climbed immediately to the center seats, the fourth row from the bottom, and ripped Marcus's granite chair out of the ground. Then he sneaked backstage and assembled his costume.
He strapped most everything on his back with the strings of glowing fruits. In his left hand he put the remains of Marcus's chair, and in his right he clasped the thin I-beam, rusted all over.
He leaped out from behind the curtain that only he could have seen and came to center stage. He looked to Marcus and his parents, who were both standing and clapping already. And Caesar sang the song one more time. The whole crowd cheered wildly and gave him a standing ovation.
Then Caesar turned to stage left, and charged off-stage, leaving his crowd of fans still cheering.
The trail was almost twenty minutes old, and every moment counted.

Caesar the Troll Part 12

Caesar built part of brij. People built rest. They burned us, and Caesar could not sing.

Caesar spent the next few days alone in the tunnels, unwilling to despair of his situation, but unwilling more yet to ascend to the ground level. The odds grew higher with ever passing moment that they would find his rubble shack pile that covered the shaft down to his tunnels.
A few days later Caesar could stand the tunnels no longer, especially since he dared not turn on his lights. They made a humming noise that could be heard at the surface, and he couldn't think of being discovered. He crawled and leapt his way out, sneaking through his rubble pile and sprinting for the theater. He had to sing again.
As he approached he saw many of them surrounding the building, slinking towards it with guns fully charged. He dove behind a rock pile just before they could turn to investigate the sound, but as it was they were too engrossed in their sneaking to notice him. They were perfectly silent, and yet one noise pierced the air.
His song, in a high pitch.
And then it was too late. The song cut off with a higher yet shriek and a few of the crackling sounds the guns made when fired. The shots were in the air.
The king leaped out of hiding and sprinted the distance to the back wall of his theater. All of them had gone inside. He climbed the back wall just in time to see a few of them grabbing his most loyal subject and yelling back and forth. Apparently, they figured the people would pay quite a price to get her back.
The king stooped down and ripped out one of the stone benches of his theater, his parents' seat, and threw it down on top of three of the gunners. He followed the bench closely with his own body, jumping the whole height and landing on all fours. The first renegade to approach caught a backhand that sent his bruised body fifty feet away and up onto the stage.
The girl cried out for Caesar, so glad to see her king.
Caesar looked at her with pity as he heard the guns charge up.
With a zap and a crackle twenty different guns were all trained on Caesar, streaming streaks of charged ions carried by intense, hard lasers into his lumpy skin, turning it black where they were concentrated. He would have cried out, but the king would not disgrace himself before his subjects. Instead he curled up and covered his head with his hands to assuage the paralyzing pain. While he was so transfixed they carried her away, and for a nearly a minute thereafter they took turns keeping their guns fixed on him, and when the rest of their party had gone far enough, they stopped, took one final volley all together. They left the smoking body of the king to whimper on the stone floor, five rows down from Marcus' seat, with the rubble of his parents' seat all around him.

Caesar the Troll Part 11

I would like to publicly apologize to all my readers who end up crying at the end of all my posts, haha. Maybe this one won't be so bad... we'll just have to see how I write it. By the way... does anyone know how I can make the "Labels" I am putting on my posts now useful in some way... as in like a button that sorts my posts or a link that goes to only one kind of post? [Note: after writing this, I think I have to say that even I have a lump in throat... so it may be a bit rough on some of you...]

Caesar had dove back into his rocks as soon as he heard more voices come out of the camp. He hadn't known any people to be kind to him, and, perhaps rightly so, he doubted that these would be either. They had bigger machines than they had ever had. The renegades always moved on foot.
The king made his way to his throne, the theater, and there he mounted the stage again. He began his song, but failed mid-way through the first long note. His harmony was gone. He tried to imagine that she was there, as he had imagined his parents and Marcus for many years, but her voice would not come through.
Finally Marcus cried from the theater seats that Caesar should go home and rest his voice. After all, he had forgotten to brush his hair that morning anyway. Happy for that bit of advice, Caesar dismounted the stage and bounded and crawled his way back into the rubbish heap that led down into his shaft.
Having completed the descent he went straightway to the powerful bars that could light up his tunnels. Normally he didn't light them, but he had carving to do. As soon as he saw the little glowing colorful fruits, he turned away, just looking down into his deep tunnel. He arrived at the second to last room, the hall of his own records, and taking up his chisel again he banged into the wall:
Caesar's frend left, mor people cume. Caesar hides again.

Caesar spent the following days mostly in the catacombs, rarely venturing out to sing part of his song. A smoke with a smell that Caesar vaguely like would waft by every so often, but though the scent was pleasant it sent shudders into the king. He knew that it came from the huge machines, and that they must be moving his rocks around. But he could do nothing, and so he sang, or tried to, and then returned to his tunnel.
One day he went out abroad a little more, and saw that the girl's home had grown, pushing to the edges of a river that ran through the city. Buildings, without glass this time, were going up, and there were more of the horrible machines and bright guns then ever. On the way home from that expedition, the renegades found Caesar and lit him up with all that was left in their guns, then fleeing. Caesar didn't bother writing that down.
The next day, the king went out again and laid the foundations of a bridge across the river, pushing huge stones under the water of the river. He intended to finish it the next day, but when he came back, he saw a huge black slab laid across it. The girl's people had finished the bridge, never knowing how the stones had got in the river. Caesar went to sing, but the renegades shot at him again, so he fled down into his tunnels. And there he carved:
Caesar built part of brij. People built rest. They burned us, and Caesar could not sing.

Caesar the Troll Part 10

And to the beat of the snoring they fell asleep...

The next morning Caesar awoke first. He crawled to the main power switch, and pressed the two thick bars together, shaking a little with the prickly feeling touching those bars gave him. She would want the lights on whenever she awoke.
Caesar crawled and bounded to the surface, where he sniffed the air. Smoke, but a clear sky. Dew was still on the ground, but he could see that many of his familiar rocks had been over turned. Someone had been there, and there had been battle. Renegades fighting over some treasure, no doubt.
When Caesar returned to the bottom of his deep catacombs, he found the girl delightedly running about reading all the records she could, apparently unable to be any happier. Then she saw Caesar, and proved that she could.
He took up her hand and began to lead her to the shaft that ran up to the surface of the city. She climbed onto his shoulders and asked the king to take her home.
Caesar was confused. Was not this home? She kept babbling, something about not knowing where home was, but wanting the king to take her there. Caesar held her in front of him to show her his confused face, and seeing his confusion she pointed up, saying her home was that way
Up to the surface the two went, and when they reached the top the girl ruffled her nose at the smell of smoke still rising around them. She patted Caesar's head saying something he couldn't quite get. Then she began singing that song, and he understood, running and bounding to his theater. The whole way smoke rose around them, choking the girl in the midst of her long notes, and even some trouble for Caesar.
They arrived at the grey stone semi-circle, an island in the midst of the sea of smoke. There they sang once more, and Caesar was ready to begin again, but the girl just tugged at his leg, pointing to stage right. She said home was that way.
Caesar could not understand, but followed her nonetheless. She led the way between rocks that to her were mountains that to Caesar were half-height walls. Then he saw what she meant.
A small camp, trucks, machines. The king helped her over one of the towers so that she could see her way home with ease.
The girl ran all the way to the survival camp, recently arrived out of the North. Caesar followed two of his steps behind her, ten of hers. When she ran through the circle of trucks there came from within the ring a cry of surprise and joy, followed a moment later by questions that were one word long. Caesar?
The girl led her daddy and mommy out to the outside of the ring to introduce them to her king. But all that greeted them were rocks.

Caesar the Troll Part 9

Well, folks, I am back from my  crazy adventures in the wilderness, and glad to get back to my writing. It's been a very interesting last few weeks, but with this event gone-by, mayhaps now my worry nerves will stop firing so hard. Glad to get back to the story of Caesar the Troll... though I am having a bit of trouble starting this section. The trouble with serial fiction is that every other day you have to come up with a great opening line again...

Caesar . . . carved "Caesar met new frend. Now he is king again."
The girl tried this words on her lips, and when she got through them, hugged the hulking monarch tightly. She looked up at his lumpy head, but though she tried to smile, she instead opened her mouth in a massive yawn. Caesar smiled; she was tired. The king took his most loyal subject by the hand and led her to the last chamber of all, a cave carved by the king's own arms, and lit with a single bulb dangling from the ceiling.
In typical child fashion, the girl let go of his hand and rocketed into the room when she saw more writing on the wall. She began to read the first few words, but then stopped, stumbling over a rather longish word. She read:
He was refused and hated by men, a man of sorrows, and knew bad times.
I was brutish and ignorant, I was like a beast toward you.
Be to me a rock of safety, to which I can always come
They are not in trouble as all are, they are not hurt like the rest of people.  
They mock and speak with hate, highly they threaten chains.
They are like men who swing axes in the woods full of trees
They burned all the meeting places
Defend your cause, remember how they mock, their clamor, and always calling out with ugly glee.
He answered, “I tell you, if they ware silent, the very stones would cry out."

The girl didn't understand the thoughts written there and looked at Caesar with confusion. He just smiled and turned her away. He took an old piece of cloth that usually was his blanket and spread it on the ground, folding one end together for her pillow. She lay down on it, he hair falling all over her face. Caesar rumbled back up the catacombs a ways, from whence came a crackling sound a few moments later, and all the lights died out. Then Caesar came along and folded the excess of the blanket over the girl, who watched him with her eyes wide open, catching no light. Then Caesar lay upon his mattress, a relatively flat spot in the stone floor, and to the beat of the snoring they fell asleep.

Caesar the Troll Part 8

And now, a return to Caesar the Troll, the lovable yet ugly menace to all things that hate nasty singing.


Then she saw the walls of the chamber, and grew very excited.
They were covered from floor to ceiling with writing, something she was just learning to decipher. She let go of Caesar's hand and ran to and fro throughout the chamber, jumping up and down trying to see more of the writing. Caesar stood by smiling inside, glad to see his youngest citizen enjoying herself at something so mundane.
The girl ran over and began tugging at Caesar's thigh, a demand Caesar did not understand. Finally he bent down to see her face more closely, trying to guess her intention, and instantly she climbed up lumpy back and onto his shoulders. She wanted to read what was written at the top.
Caesar was glad to please her so easily, and began immediately scaling the walls by pressing his arms and legs against each side. She giggled incessantly as the stone floor receded beneath them. As they approached the ancient wiring and hot metal near the ceiling, the girl's hair began to stand on end, drifting upwards, to her increasing delight. Seeing that Caesar crawled down the wall somewhat. He remembered what happened any time he touched those while the fruits were glowing.
She read voraciously, pointing her hands out in front of Caesar's face when she wanted to move onward. For ten minutes they crawled that wall, as she read every word that was small enough for her understanding, saying each such word out loud as was her habit from learning to read. Near the top of the first walls she said a word that Caesar understood, "Rome."
Caesar began nodding vehemently, nearly shaking her off, to her fear and giggling delight. He began pointing all around, as well as upwards, repeating again and again, "-ome," saying with difficulty this one word.
She directed him to the floor, reading each word she could, and every time the name of the city of Caesar was given the king would begin to nod and say his word over and over, which made the girl glad.
Together they passed to the next room, and spent the same time there, repeating the same ritual of word-saying. They passed at last to the final hall, in which was carved in a very rough hand the story of Caesar's life since coming to "ome," to his city.
These words were all very simple, and spelled about as well as the girl could read, and she read the story out loud. "Caesar came back to his city, but he had no people. He had no frends. Since he couldnt repare the hole plase, he saved only part. He saved the theater, and there he sang the old song. Today he sang again, three times. And again he sang, twice. Today they came and shot at Caesar, and Caesar was burned. Caesar sang once. Caesar built a house today. Today Caesar sang, and Marcus gave him a standing ovashin. Today they tore down my house. Today Caesar sang once and built a bridge. They blew up the bridge, and Caesar sang four times today. Today Caesar did not go out. Today Caesar wired his catacombs, and was burned. Today Caesar found bright fruits while out in the woods. Today Caesar sang only once, then he found glowing glass. Today Caesar chased them back to their rock ring, their burns were not on. Now they no come without burn on. Caesar sang three times today. Caesar dug new tunnel today. Caesar sang agen and agen."
Once the girl had read all this, Caesar picked up his old metal chisel, rounded on the end and nearly flat, but still powerful in his grip, and carved "Caesar met new frend. Now he is king again."

Caesar the Troll Part 7

Sundays... are days when I often don't post. I hope ya'll can be okay with that.  Today is the day for Caesar the Troll, so without further rambling from me I will release to you the next scene with the lovable mutant and his latest subject.
 The king had a solution for that.

He knelt down in front of her and looked into her eyes, his own appearing only like little bright reflections to her, and motioned to her to sit still. She looked back at him with wide eyes, nodding slightly, still adjusting to the dark. He plunged off down the dark hallway, leaping like a mad ape from wall to wall when they were close together.
Caesar quickly reached the little turn-off from the main path that led to his engineering room. He hadn't done this in a long time, his hands were unfamiliar with the motions. Just as he was ready, he heard a little sob echo down from the catacombs above. With horror he realized that she was afraid he had left her. A king never deserts his people.
The king quickly seized the two metal bars that extended out stones around him, and bent them back to touch each other. When they touched he jumped and twitched involuntarily, but afterwards he heard the familiar hum of his lanterns.
He ran back up into the catacombs, watching lights flicker on over his head and at his feet as he ran. The power was slowly coursing through his old scrap metal, lighting the tunnels faster than he could run. Such a wondrous thing to Caesar's mind, he wondered which of his people may have invented it while he was away from his capital. He could never remember what he had done during that time, but he was sure that he had always been king of the city.
When he finally caught up with the light he found the girl had completely forgotten her fear of a few minutes ago. She was sitting in the first catacomb, which the king had lit with tiny colored fruits he had found on pine trees. The fruits only grew on trees that near cities that had been bombed in winter, so he assumed that they were somehow the result of the explosions leaving their gleam frozen for ages to come. They were very strange fruits to his mind, but were most interesting to him because they tasted differently when they shiny as opposed to when they were dim.
As soon as he arrived the girl leaped up and grabbed his hand, which she could just barely reach. She wanted a tour of the wonderful chambers of lights. As soon as they passed through the narrow door to the next room, which was lit with long purplish lights. These he had found at the bottom of huge piles of steel and sharp glass. He figured these long tubes, which he had discovered, quite by accident, contained a noxious gas, had captured the light of explosions, the redness of rusty steel, and the bluish hue from the nasty glow that many bombed liquids gave off.
Then she saw the walls of the chamber, and grew very excited.