The Labubu Invasion

The drizzle was a fine, weeping mist that settled on the city of Marlkan, clinging to every surface. Sergeant Rownym stared at a single cobblestone of Griefstone just outside the window of The Black Bulwark. The stone was dark, slick, and looked as weary as Rownym felt. It was a miniature portrait of the whole city. Gray, wet, and without cheer.

Rownym’s gaze lifted, panning up the wall of the barracks opposite his own. More Griefstone, stacked in blocks. The masons who built this place hadn’t been concerned with beauty; they had been concerned with permanence, with creating a structure that would stand as long as the kingdom’s unending supply of dreary afternoons. Griefstone had a peculiar quality, a sort of porousness that made it seem to be perpetually weeping, even on the rare days the sun bothered to show up. It was as if the city itself was perpetually on the verge of tears but couldn’t summon the energy for a proper sob.

The air that drifted through the open slit of the window carried the familiar scents of Marlkan. First, the mineral tang of the wet stone itself, a smell like a cold, damp cellar. Beneath that was the ever-present scent of coal smoke. And under it all, was the scent of boiled cabbage and old sweat, all mixed together.

He leaned his forehead against the cool, damp glass. His own reflection stared back at him. It was the face of a man who had seen too many mornings just like this one. The lines on his face were deep-set, etched by sun and wind and the constant scowl of a man perpetually disappointed. There were crow’s feet from squinting, deeper lines bracketing his mouth from years of biting back insubordinate comments, and a furrow in his brow from trying to make sense of orders given by generals who had never spent a night sleeping on cold ground. The King’s cartographers, with all their maps of Erinvoor’s provinces and contested borders, had created nothing as complex as the geography of his face. It was a map of a thirty-year career, and every road on it led to this gray morning.

He pushed himself away from the window, the contact leaving a smudge on the glass. It was time for breakfast. The thought brought no joy, no anticipation. It was another box to be ticked on the checklist of the day.

The mess hall of The Black Bulwark was a cavernous space designed to hold five hundred soldiers. There was the scrape of benches on the stone floor and the rhythmic clank... clank... clank of metal spoons against metal bowls. No one spoke. There was nothing to say about the food that hadn’t been said a thousand times before.

Rownym joined the shuffling line. He kept his eyes forward, his posture as rigid as if he were on parade. The line moved with the speed of a glacier. Ahead, a cook stood behind a massive cauldron, wielding a ladle the size of a small helmet. The cook was a large man with a stained apron that might have been white a decade ago. Now it was a collage of past meals. His face was doughy and impassive.

When Rownym reached the front, he held out his bowl. The cook did not look at him. The cook’s movements were a single, practiced motion of dip, lift, and plop. A ladleful of the mess hall’s signature dish, officially titled ‘Messhall Pâté’ on the supply manifests, landed in Rownym’s bowl with a wet, heavy slap.

The soldiers called it Gray Slop.

Rownym looked down at it. The name was accurate. It was a thick, porridge-like substance the color of a cloudy sky. It had no discernible ingredients. It was just... slop. The consistency was that of wet cement, thick enough that the dollop held its shape, a perfect gray mound in the center of his bowl. He could see no chunks of meat, no flecks of vegetable. There was only the gray paste.

He found an empty space at one of the long wooden tables and sat down. He picked up his spoon, a heavy, dented piece of iron that had likely been used by a dozen generations of soldiers before him. He stared at the slop for a moment longer. In his mind, he tried to give it a flavor. Any flavor. He imagined a rich beef stew, thick with carrots and potatoes, the gravy dark and savory. He imagined a sharp, tangy cheese, a crusty loaf of bread still warm from the oven. He imagined a simple roasted chicken, the skin crispy and salted, the meat tender.

He scooped up a spoonful of the Gray Slop. The texture was the first thing that hit him. It was gritty, yet smooth at the same time, a confusing sensation. Then came the flavor, or rather, the lack thereof. It tasted of nothing. It was like eating congealed air. There was only a faint, mineral-like aftertaste, like licking a damp stone.

He chewed methodically, even through there wasn’t anything to actually break down. He forced himself to swallow. The slop slid down his throat, cold and heavy. He took another bite. And another. Around him, hundreds of other men did the same, an army locked in a daily battle against their own breakfast. This, Rownym thought, was the true military. If a man could face Gray Slop every morning without weeping, he could face anything.

The parade ground was a gravel-strewn expanse that separated The Black Bulwark from the rest of the capital. It was a place designed for order, for precision, for turning farm boys and city toughs into a single, cohesive unit.

Sergeant Rownym stood before his platoon, a mix of green recruits who still looked startled by the act of waking up and jaded veterans who looked like they’d been awake for a century. They were formed in three neat ranks, their spears held at the correct angle, their shields polished to a shine. They were a picture of military discipline, at least from a distance.

Rownym began his inspection. His boots crunched on the gravel as he walked down the front rank, his eyes missing nothing. He stopped first in front of Private Obinil. The boy couldn’t have been more than seventeen. He was thin, with a neck that looked too fragile to support the standard-issue helmet he was wearing. The helmet was, in fact, two sizes too big, a common problem with the quartermaster’s one-size-fits-all approach. As Rownym stared at him, Obinil began to tremble. It started in his knees and worked its way up, a tremor that made the oversized helmet rattle with a faint clack-clack-clack. The boy’s eyes were wide with a terror that was entirely out of proportion to the situation. He looked at Rownym as if the sergeant were a dragon about to incinerate him.

Rownym said nothing. He simply reached out a hand. Obinil flinched. Rownym ignored it. He took hold of the boy’s helmet and gently adjusted it, pushing it back so it no longer covered his eyebrows. Now, at least, the boy could see the enemy he was so afraid of. Rownym held his gaze for a second longer. He wasn’t angry at the boy. Fear was natural. It was the job of a sergeant to turn that fear into something useful, or at least to stop it from getting the boy killed. But after thirty years, the task of molding frightened children into soldiers had become as tasteless as the Gray Slop.

He moved on.

His next stop was Corporal Aenzed. Aenzed was the opposite of Obinil in almost every way. He was a veteran of a dozen campaigns, a man whose face was a covered in old scars and whose posture was as solid as an oak tree. He stood ramrod straight, his chin up, his gaze fixed on some distant point over Rownym’s shoulder. His knuckles were white where he gripped his spear. He was the very model of a soldier.

He was also fast asleep.

It was a skill Aenzed had perfected over two decades of service. He could sleep through anything: a ten-mile march, a general’s two-hour speech, even a light skirmish if he wasn’t in the front rank.

Rownym leaned in close, his mouth just inches from the corporal’s ear. He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper.

“The King’s pet corgi has escaped again, Aenzed.”

Corporal Aenzed did not even blink. His expression remained one of heroic, unwavering alertness. Rownym tried again.

“The cook is serving actual meat for lunch.”

Nothing. Not a flicker of an eyelid.

“They’re doubling the pay for everyone under the rank of captain.”

Still nothing. Rownym grunted, satisfied. Aenzed was a professional. His feigned alertness was more convincing than the actual alertness of half the men in the platoon. Rownym stepped back, his face giving nothing away. He surveyed the rest of the men. They were a motley collection, united only by their army uniforms and the misery of the morning. Rownym had molded hundreds of such platoons. He had taught them how to march, how to fight, how to die. He was good at it. And he was so, so tired of it.

“Platoon!” Rownym’s voice was a sharp, commanding bark that cut through the air. “Forward, march!”

The platoon moved as one. Boots crunched on gravel in perfect time. Spears stayed aligned. The lines remained straight. They were a well-oiled instrument of the King’s will. And like most instruments, they had no soul. They marched precisely, joylessly, their faces blank.

Rownym watched them execute a pinwheel maneuver, a complex turn that required each man to adjust his pace perfectly to maintain the formation’s integrity. They did it flawlessly. Predictable. Efficient.

As the platoon wheeled and marched across the damp gravel, Rownym’s focus began to drift. The gray stones of the parade ground blurred, the colors shifting, swirling, until they resolved into something else.

The gray dissolved into a vibrant, living green. He was standing on a riverbank, the grass soft and cool under his bare feet. The air was warm and smelled of wildflowers. The river flowed past, its water so clear he could see the stones on the bottom. In his hands, he held a polished birch fishing rod, its line a thin, silver thread cast out into a deep, slow-moving pool.

A few feet away, a small fire crackled merrily. A fat, speckled trout sizzled in an iron pan set over the flames. He could see the herbs he’d stuffed it with: a clove of wild garlic, a sprig of sun-dried river thyme. The smell was magnificent. The smoky scent of the wood fire, the savory smell of the cooking fish, the pungent notes of the garlic and herbs. The smell was so real, so vivid.

In his daydream, he reached for the pan, taking it off the fire. The fish skin was cooked to a crispy and golden brown. He imagined taking a fork and flaking off a piece of the white meat. He imagined putting it in his mouth. The taste. The flavor. The tender, flaky texture of the fish, the salt, the hint of smoke, the warmth of the herbs. It was everything the food in the Erinvoor army was not.

He imagined sitting on the riverbank, eating his trout, with no one to give him orders, no drills to run, no frightened boys to inspect. Just him, the river, and a well-cooked fish.

“Sergeant! Admiring your handiwork, are we?”

The voice shattered the daydream. It was sharp, arrogant, and instantly grated on Rownym’s nerves.

Rownym turned. General Korjulago had arrived.

The general sat astride a magnificent white stallion named Chargon. Chargon was a beast straight out of the epic poems, all powerful muscle and noble bearing. The horse also looked bored out of its mind. General Korjulago, on the other hand, was a spectacle. His armor was polished to a mirror shine, so bright it almost hurt the eyes even on a cloudy day. It was festooned with ornate golden filigree shaped into roaring lions and soaring griffons, and had never seen an actual battlefield. Draped over his shoulders was a magnificent cape of deep purple velvet, trimmed with what looked like ermine. The cape was draped artfully over Chargon’s hindquarters, which seemed to annoy the horse immensely. Chargon let out a long-suffering sigh, a plume of hot air misting in the cool morning.

General Korjulago dismounted. He attempted a flourish, a sort of leap from the saddle that was probably meant to look athletic and commanding. It was ruined when the corner of his magnificent cape caught on the pommel of his saddle. For a moment, he was stuck, one foot on the ground, the other still in the stirrup, tethered to his horse. After a moment of tugging and a muttered curse, he freed himself and strode towards Rownym, trying to pretend the last ten seconds hadn’t happened.

“Excellent form, Sergeant Rownym!” The general beamed, clapping Rownym on the shoulder with a gauntleted hand. The gauntlet had tiny, roaring lion heads embossed on each knuckle. “Excellent form! The men look... clean.”

Rownym’s face remained a stony mask. He looked from the general’s shining armor to his own worn leather jerkin and scarred boots. He thought of the Gray Slop. He thought of his fishing daydream.

“The men endeavor to meet the kingdom’s standards for hygiene, General.”

The words were flat, delivered in a monotone. The contempt in his voice was thick enough to be a component in the Messhall Pâté. He put every ounce of his thirty years of weariness and disgust into that simple sentence.

General Korjulago, being a man whose entire world was all about his own magnificence, was immune to contempt. He was too self-absorbed to notice it. He heard the words, not the tone, and took it as the highest praise.

“Indeed! Indeed!” the general declared, slapping Rownym’s shoulder again for emphasis. “A clean army is a victorious army! That’s what I always say.”

Rownym was quite sure the general had never said that before in his life. He was also quite sure the general wouldn’t know what a victorious army looked like if it marched up and bit him on his well-polished greaves.

“Carry on with the... marching,” Korjulago said, gesturing vaguely at the platoon, which had halted and was now standing at perfect attention. “I am on my way to the Royal Council. A matter of utmost importance.”

Rownym waited. He knew better than to ask. The general would tell him anyway.

“I am petitioning for a new heraldic standard for the Third Regiment,” Korjulago announced, puffing out his chest. “The current griffon looks far too placid. It has no fire in its eyes! An army’s standard should inspire terror in our enemies and pride in our hearts!”

Rownym thought the Third Regiment would be more inspired by a hot meal and dry socks, but he kept his face blank.

“I’m proposing something with more... teeth,” the general finished. He grinned, showing off his own unnervingly white, perfectly straight teeth. They looked as artificial as the rest of him. “Something fierce! Something bold!”

He seemed to expect a response. Rownym gave him a deliberate nod. It was the most noncommittal gesture he had in his arsenal.

Apparently satisfied, General Korjulago turned and strode back to his horse. He mounted Chargon, this time making sure his cape was clear. He gave Rownym one last, beaming smile, then cantered away.

The Third Regiment’s griffon. That was the matter of utmost importance. Not the leaky barracks roofs, not the inedible food, not the fact that the army hadn’t had new boots in five years. A placid griffon. He felt a headache beginning to form behind his eyes.

He turned back to his platoon. They were still standing there, like stone statues.

“Dismissed,” Rownym said.

The men shambled back towards the barracks with the enthusiasm of rocks. There was no chatter, no horseplay.

Rownym remained alone on the empty parade ground. The drizzle had stopped, but the sky remained gray. He reached into his tunic and pulled out a small, worn, leather-bound book. It was a simple soldier’s logbook, but he had repurposed it. He opened it to a page marked with the current month. The page was a grid of squares, a hand-drawn calendar. Many of the squares already had a large ‘X’ drawn through them. With the stub of a charcoal pencil, he methodically drew another ‘X’ over the day’s date.

He counted the empty squares that remained. Twenty-six days. Twenty-six more bowls of Gray Slop.

A flicker of something crossed his face. It wasn’t quite a smile. It was more like a lessening of despair. The number was a warm ember in his thoughts. Twenty-six days until he could retire. Sergeant Rownym had had enough.