Take Me Away, Dark Lord!

She took a deep breath, filling her small lungs, and targeted the nearest cluster of terrified, trembling citizens, a group of merchants cowering behind a fruit stall.

Seraphina raised her tiny hand, plastered the most devastatingly cute, bright, bubbly, missing-tooth smile across her face, and waved frantically.

”HELLO!” Seraphina screamed at the top of her lungs, her sweet, high-pitched, incredibly cheerful voice echoing like a silver bell over the silence of the avenue. ”THANK YOU FOR HAVING US! YOUR CITY IS SO PRETTY!”

The entire Capital Avenue seemed to freeze in time.

The terrified merchants blinked. The cowering mothers stopped pulling their children back. Thousands of heads snapped toward the source of the sound.

They did not see a blood-soaked barbarian warlord.

They saw an angel in a yellow dress, hanging out the window of the terrifying black carriage, waving at them as if they were her best friends in the entire world.

The psychological dissonance was catastrophic. The carefully crafted narrative of the ’Monsters of the North’ encountered a fatal syntax error.

’Wait,’ the collective consciousness of the Capital citizens stuttered. ’The terrifying Reapers of the Abyss... brought a toddler? A happy, waving, incredibly polite little girl? Monsters don’t bring toddlers on campaigns of terror. Monsters don’t let little girls hang out of windows in yellow dresses.’

Seraphina didn’t stop. She locked eyes with a terrified-looking woman holding a basket of flowers.

”I LIKE YOUR FLOWERS, MA’AM!” Seraphina yelled cheerfully, blowing a highly exaggerated, two-handed kiss toward the crowd. ”THEY SMELL LIKE VANILLA!”

The dam broke.

The overwhelming cuteness of the interaction completely shattered the fear of the populace. The tense, horrified silence of the avenue evaporated, replaced by a sudden, massive, rolling wave of unscripted bewildered delight.

”Oh my goodness,” a noblewoman gasped, dropping her fan, pressing her hands to her cheeks. ”Look at her! She is so cute and precious!”

”The cute little lady blew us a kiss!” a merchant laughed, the tension leaving his shoulders entirely. ”Who is she?”

The woman with the flower basket, completely overcome by the sudden shift in atmosphere, didn’t cower. She reached into her basket, pulled out a handful of bright pink rose petals, and tossed them joyfully into the air toward the passing carriage.

”Welcome to the Capital, little Lady!” the woman cheered.

It was a chain reaction.

The crowd, realizing that the terrifying Vanguard was currently serving as an armored escort for a ray of literal sunshine, lost their minds. The fear vanished, replaced by the universal, biological human imperative to adore a cute child.

Cheers erupted down the avenue. Not the formal, political cheers, but genuine, warm, delighted shouts. People began waving back frantically.

”Look at her little dress!”

”Awww~! Just see how cute she looks when she smiles!”

”Like a little squirrel eating nuts!”

”Welcome! Welcome to the South!”

More flowers were thrown. A shower of white lilies, pink roses, and yellow daffodils began to rain down from the balconies of the towering marble buildings, drifting gently through the warm air, landing on the black mythril armor of the Vanguard.

The Black Bastion was entirely, fundamentally unprepared for this.

Sir Boris, his massive, scarred face set in a terrifying scowl, was suddenly struck square in the face by a delicately woven crown of daisies, thrown by a giggling teenage girl from a second-story window. The daisy crown landed perfectly on top of his iron helmet, resting there like a halo.

Boris froze, his warhorse stopping. He went cross-eyed, looking up at the flowers on his head. He didn’t know what to do.

His military training covered ambushes, fireballs, and demons. It did not cover floral accessories.

He slowly, awkwardly, raised a massive hand, and offered the giggling girl a tiny, jerky, incredibly confused little wave.

The crowd roared with laughter and applause. ’The giant monster waved back! He’s wearing a flower crown!!’

Sir Lucas, the master assassin, was currently suffering a physical malfunction. He was trying to maintain his lethal glare, but a young boy had just run up to the side of his horse and handed him a candied apple on a stick.

Lucas was sitting rigidly in the saddle, holding his broadsword in one hand and a bright red candied apple in the other, looking like a man who had lost control of his life.

Sir Gallahan, however, embraced it.

The pristine knight caught a thrown white rose out of the air, placed the stem between his teeth, and offered a dazzling, devastatingly handsome wink to a group of swooning noblewomen on a balcony.

The Emperor’s grand, terrifying psychological parade had been completely, utterly ruined. The Vanguard of the North looked less like the harbingers of doom and more like a heavily armored, slightly confused parade float for a fairy princess.

Inside the carriage, Duke Kaelus von Nacht was dying.

He was sitting rigidly in his leather chair, pressing the palms of his black-gloved hands firmly into his own eye sockets, experiencing a wave of second-hand embarrassment that it was practically fatal.

’My reputation,’ Kaelus’s internal monologue wept, listening to the cheers, the laughter, and the sounds of his elite commanders accepting baked goods from peasants. ’Three centuries of Northern terror. The legacy of the Reaper. The blood-soaked history of the Nacht bloodline... completely eradicated in four minutes by a yellow dress and a missing tooth.’

He peeked through his fingers.

Seraphina was still hanging out the window, waving like a manic beauty queen, catching a thrown dandelion and tucking it behind her ear.

”Thank you! Thank you! Papa Duke says hello!” Seraphina yelled to the crowd, actively dragging Kaelus into her web of wholesome diplomacy.

The crowd cheered louder, craning their necks, trying to catch a glimpse of the ’friendly’ Archduke inside the carriage.

Kaelus groaned, sliding lower in his plush leather chair, desperately trying to hide his terrifying frame from the adoring public. He could practically feel the Emperor’s spies, stationed in the crowd to report on the fear of the populace, currently scribbling frantic, deeply confused notes.