Dalon's Dreary Day

Mar 2020

Dalon accepted the drudgery of the office lifestyle without too much complaint. Yes, he spent his days scribbling on sheets of leaf pulp and phoning full-of-themselves entrepreneurs, but in exchange he got to order around his subordinates with authority kings would have admired. Of course, Dalon had only one subordinate--the clumsy office intern Lane, who couldn't speak a sentence without stuttering--but somehow it felt like enough.

"Fetch me my sword, boy!" barked Dalon one dreary morning, the gray sky outside promising boredom.

"You mean your pen, sir?" said Lane.

"Of course, we've been over this, Lane! Now off with you. We don’t have all day before--"

Dalon winced when he heard the sound of a pen cracking. He swiveled in his office chair to examine the damage, seemingly a daily chore now. Lane stuttered his apology before stumbling off to the mini kitchen to get paper towels to clean up the ink spill. That had been Dalon's favorite pen! He was quite particular about the implements he used to scribble, and not just any pen would do. Some blotted, others dragged and scratched. Dalon shook his head, noticing the ever overflowing stacks of papers on his desk. He'd need to find a new pen sometime. But, for the moment, one matter was simply much more pressing.

"I'll be back soon, squire!" yelled Dalon, craning his neck so he could see Lane nod. The boy was practically a mute, so Dalon had needed to improvise other ways to gauge his replies. With that, he rose from his chair and set off for the lavatories.

There wasn't anything flashy about the office of the Virginia division of Geraldson Legal, Inc. In fact, Dalon had always assumed they paid extra so the janitors would make everything more dull. The beige painted hallways, gray carpets, perfect monotony of light fixtures, and square, uniformly dirty windows--everything added to the sad office image quite nicely, in Dalon's opinion. The door to the men's restroom might have been the boldest in the whole building, with a rogue smiley face drawn in permanent marker decorating the otherwise featureless figure of a man.

Dalon entered the restroom bouncing rapidly from foot to foot; he always waited until the absolute last moment to go, because he thought it was more efficient that way. With no time to waste, Dalon nearly bounded to the nearest urinal and unloaded. Twenty glorious seconds later, he walked over to the sink to wash his hands. When he went to dry off his hands, however, something odd stuck out to him from the corner of the room. Nestled in the shadow of the air-drier, in the corner of two converging dull-white walls, lay a discarded pen.

"Well, well, well..." Dalon thought to himself as he sauntered forward to pick it up. A pen he had needed, and a pen he held now. Dalon was sure Lane would be glad he wouldn't need to fetch him a new sword, although the boy did sorely need practice hustling. "What a slowpoke," Dalon thought as he walked out of the restroom back to his desk, his new pen in hand. "I'll really burn through my work with this!"

Dalon let himself fall into his office chair, making a pleasant whooshing noise as he leaned back. He hadn't stacked three pillows on it for nothing, although he supposed the concept of planning ahead might have lost Lane if he tried to explain. Exhaling his classic ready-for-boring-work sigh, Dalon leaned in toward his piles of papers and clicked his newfound pen.

A roar of fire spewed out from the tip of the pen. Dalon yelped, dropping the pen, but it just kept spitting flame. Lane looked up from across the room where he was cleaning up the ink spill and seemed to suddenly acquire a clarity of mind that he rarely possessed. He stuttered something about getting help and then scrambled away. The fire spread through the legal documents--indeed burning through Dalon's work as predicted, if not slightly differently than he had imagined. Dalon backed away.

The fire coming out of the tip of the pen pushed it on the ground until it banged against one side of his desk, under the lip, which redirected the jet of flame to the metal file drawer opposite Dalon's chair. Dalon tried walking to the pen to unclick it, which seemed the only logical thing to do, but then remembered that fire is hot and realized he'd need to get crafty. Wheels turned in his mind... if the front of the pen was hot, then he'd need to access the back. The back was against his desk where he couldn't reach it. He needed to move the pen somehow.

Dalon took a generous three steps back, then he barreled into his office chair and sent it spinning. As calculated, its wheels spun beneath it like helicopter blades as the chair rolled toward the pen. One wheel knocked the pen out from under the lip of the desk, the cushions piled high falling off in soft poofs on the singed floor. For a moment the pen lay in the center of Dalon's cubicle, and before the jet of flame could push it out of reach again, Dalon was upon it. Or, rather, he had flopped near enough to it to grab the tip and hastily click the pen. To his relief, the pen stopped spewing fire.

The office lay in ruins, Dalon's prized chair mangled and burnt, his papers now inky smoke, and his file cabinet warped and glowing yellow from the heat. Dalon turned the pen in his hand, regarding it. "Yes," he thought to himself. "Yes! Now this is a real sword!"

Dalon knocked loudly on his boss Sandra's door. No need hiding his plans from her, not if they came to fruition. It would be valuable, however, to secure her loyalty as a faithful vassal, and this was the objective of Dalon's quest.

"Come in," Sandra said in the distracted tone Dalon had come to learn meant that she had spent the last hour looking at dry legal jargon, would speak with Dalon for a minute, then would spend the next hour repeating the same drudgery. Stepping in the door, Dalon wasted no time.

"Lady Ondario," he began, bowing. "I would like to extend a generous offer to you."

"Please don't call me by my last name," Sandra said. "And if you must use a title, Doctor would do, seeing as I have a PhD in civic organization."

"That is precisely why I have come to speak with you, milady," said Dalon. Sandra rolled her eyes. "I shall be endeavoring to establish a new kingdom in these lands, and I would like you to organize all the logistics."

"Wow, very nice," Sandra replied, appearing to lose interest. Dalon knew his one minute time limit was approaching rapidly, so he played his trump card.

"And if you refuse, mortal, then I shall shower you with flames!" Dalon bellowed. As a proper demonstration, he unclicked the pen in his hand. A jet of fire roared out of the tip, singing a few unfortunate papers on the edge of Sandra's desk. Dalon clicked the pen again a second later and bowed. "As you can see, Lady Ondario, no lord in a thousand miles can defeat us so long as we wield this pen. That is why we must join forces."

Sandra sat with shock painted on to her face as if she couldn't comprehend what she had just seen. Gingerly, she reached out to collect the singed papers, stacking them into a neat pile so she could dispose of them. Slowly, she said, "Milord. Your plan sounds infallible. I pledge to serve Your Majesty's grand new kingdom by directing its subjects as your official advisor of civic organization."

Dalon beamed and said, "Simply kneel and we'll be over with the ceremony shortly." Compliance was such a sweet thing.

Sandra got out of her chair and knelt before Dalon, head bowed so she could roll her eyes with some privacy.

"On this day, I do proclaim the mighty kingdom of Dalony born! I do proclaim its official civic organizer: Lady Sandra Ondario! I do proclaim its divinely appointed monarch: King Dalon Fogari! I do ordain this meeting law henceforth, to be carried out by all future vassals of this new kingdom. Ceremony adjourned!"

Sandra stood up, stretching her arms after the uncomfortable kneeling position. "Milord, you are quite wise in your ruling. Would you not allow me to send for our other vassals so they, too, may swear loyalty?"

"Yes, yes, of course," he sputtered with a dismissive wave of his hand. Dalon's mind focused on larger goals now. His kingdom needed soldiers to defend itself, stonemasons to construct fortifications, shoemakers so he could finally upgrade his year-old Nikes. He ignored Sandra as she rushed out into the office barking orders and organizing the seeds of his fledgling realm. A lone king meant nothing in the tumult of a warring world, but a politician king leading a conglomerate of other minor lords had true power. Before anything, Dalon needed allies.

Dalon thumped up the staircase of Udra's Nail Salon with a flowing cape strapped to his back and a staff in his left hand, both of which he had found laying on the side of the road on his short walk over from the office. He figured it would be better to dress up to play the part. The receptionist had looked confused when he stated his title, rank, and purpose of business, but she had wits enough to direct him upstairs to speak with her superior.

Dalon didn't knock because it wasn't a king's place to knock. He simply strode into the dingy room and addressed the elderly lady sitting behind the desk.

"I am King Fogari of the fiefdom of Geraldson Legal, Inc. I seek to forge an alliance with Lord Udra so that, with our combined might, we may more easily conquer our neighbors."

The woman's face remained blank.

"Would you be so kind as to direct me to Lord Udra?"

"I'm Udra," she said finally. "What kind of nonsense are you up to?"

"Oh, my apologies Your Majesty Udra. I never meant to disturb Your Majesticalness!" Dalon bowed hurriedly. Then he composed himself, clearing his throat. "Queen Udra of the Nail Salon Fiefdom! I do proclaim my desire to unite our two kingdoms for the common good."

"I'm sorry. Who are you?"

"King Fogari of the fiefdom of Geraldson Legal! And I do proclaim that I shall call fire to burn you if you do not comply!"

Udra sighed and shook her head, reaching toward the phone. "I'm going to call the police if you don't leave on the count of five."

"No, wait, don't call!" Dalon sputtered.

"Five."

"Please, no! We can make this work."

"Four."

"Lady Udra! I mean, your Majestical Queen Udra!"

"Three."

"I only want our shared strength!"

"Two."

"Stop this at once, I command it!"

"One." She reached for the phone, moving lazily as if playing this game did nothing to clean her day of its drudgery. Dalon heard the little squeaky voice in the phone speak briefly. "Hello, yes, there's a crazy man standing in my office threatening me." More squeaks from the phone. "Oh, of course, thank you."

Udra put the phone down and looked back at Dalon. Her eyes stared into his, such boredom emanating out. Dalon knew a lost cause when he saw one, so he turned to leave the room. He regarded the receptionist as he walked out, wondering why she looked so perplexed. Garbage bag capes weren't that uncommon in these parts.

As soon as he exited the building, he heard the sirens blaring. Three police cars screeched to a halt in a semi-circle in the street, blocking his escape. A tall man with short, wavy blonde hair got out of the far car.

"Hands up!" he shouted, gun pointing at the ground but ready. Dalon raised his hands above his head; even a king heeded a knife held at his neck. "I heard from your colleague that you have some kind of a pen that shoots fire. Hand it over, will you?"

Dalon gasped out loud. Who had betrayed him? Not Lady Ondario, she had been loyal from the instant she became his vassal. There was only one reasonable course of action. Dalon needed to escape, and fast, so that he could recoup his strength and return to find his disloyal vassal.

The blonde police officer advanced slightly. "I said hand it over!"

Even if he used the pen to spray fire at the officer, the blonde man looked capable enough of aiming his gun with his eyes closed. That could be disastrous for Dalon. And even supposing that Dalon could escape, burning a policeman to a husk would seriously harm his reputation. He doubted he'd ever become king again with that kind of track record. So, Dalon obliged.

"Sir police officer sir! It's in my back pocket. I'll slowly lower my left hand to take it out and give it to you." The blonde police man nodded. Gun still a moment's notice from his chest, Dalon reached into his pocket, pulled out the pen, and resisted the temptation to unclick it.

"Toss the pen to the side immediately!"

Dalon complied. Somehow he must have thrown it wrong, though, because as it landed it hit a rock, spun, and slammed into the pavement with enough force to unclick. A jet of searing fire burst forth from the tip, directed toward the back tire of the leftmost police car in the semicircle. The blonde policeman cursed and yelled, "Get away from that car!" His fellow policemen ran toward him. The stream of flame began to melt the tire, the entire car sinking and groaning as the rubber spilled over the asphalt.

In the midst of the chaos, a police officer from the rightmost car lumbered toward Dalon. He grabbed Dalon's hands roughly, handcuffing him before pulling Dalon alongside him away from the pen. Dalon didn't struggle; he was too engrossed looking straight ahead.

The blonde policeman dashed toward the back of the pen while the others formed a defensive perimeter, keeping distant from the car. The metal above the tire glowed hot red now, exposed to the pen's fire for longer than Dalon's file cabinet had been.

The car exploded. Glass shards and metal shrapnel hurtled out from it. The frame bent and distorted, a great fire reaching ten feet into the air from its base. The blonde policeman shielded his eyes from the heat. The explosion had launched the pen into the air, landing it on a sidewalk where it spewed fire on to the street.

After relocating the pen, the blonde policeman ran toward it again. Making a wide arc to avoid the flame jet coming out from the tip, he charged toward the sidewalk. He leapt on to it, knelt behind the roaring fire, and clicked the pen.

At once, the chaos returned to normalcy, which Dalon realized quite pleased him. A crowd of gathered onlookers cheered on the blonde policeman as he walked, holding the pen high. Then he brought the pen down in a dramatic swoop, lifted it high again in the other hand, and snapped it in two.

"You really shouldn't trust your colleagues to act as your faithful vassals, man."

Dalon spun to face the lumbering policeman who had handcuffed him.

"That kid Lane called up real quick. We didn’t believe him at first--I mean, a pen that shoots fire! Ridiculous. But then your boss called too..." he trailed off, chuckling.

His power stripped from him, Dalon knew his place was now that of a peasant. Subservience above all else. "Yes, sir," he said pleasantly. "I should have known."

"Don't go playing mind games with me now," the officer warned.

"Certainly not, sir," said Dalon with his head bowed, twiddling his thumbs to the best of his ability with the handcuffs. "Just another dull, dreary day at the office. Who knows what tomorrow will hold?"