The Literary Magazine 2019 "Voice & Choice"

The captain whipped what Silfur thought to be a tear from his face. He flicked it at Silfur.
It landed on his cheek. It was blood.
The captain charged with a Viking axe in hand. His eyes bulging with veins in his
neck pulsing in rage. His glowing armour illuminated the night as he clanked his way
forward, bearing down on silfur. A wild, crazy smile adorned his face as he swung. Silfur
dodged. He swung. Silfur dodged. He swung, Silfur, ducked under the blow, and shot a
punch up into the captain's face, shattering his nose.
Now covered in blood, the captain roared and swung again. Silfur dodged. Silfur rolled
past the captain, jumped to his feet, slammed his fist into the captain's shoulder,
spinning double kicked him in the hip and side, reached down and pulled the captain’s
own dagger from his boot. He then slammed his heel into the captain's knee’s driving
him to the ground. He slammed again, now using the edge of his flat palms into the
captain’s pressure points, making his arms drop to his sides. He circled the captain, now
head down, mouth open in a circle of pain.
“Look what you have done!” Silfur shouted, “You have robbed your own people, your
own kind of their speech, their rights, their voice. And now they scream louder. This is
on you.”
Silfur punched the captain in the stomach making him double over.
“What would you do?” Silfur yelled to the crowd.
The crowd yelled back with an incomprehensible wall of hate. Silfur looked out at
them. He remembered the faces of the people on the rock. The speech he repeated. The
speech that ended with “What would you do?” Silfur stopped, he stood, he did nothing.
More echoes, more silence.
Silfur dropped the knife he was holding, poised, the point on the man's neck, ready to
stab through the throat. A drop of blood slid down the knife. Silfur watched it slide down
the smooth steel. The knife clattered to the ground.
Silfur dropped to his knees next to the captain. He was crying now.
Silfur wrapped his arms around the captain and cried into his shoulder.
More echoes, more silence.
Silfur stood for one, last, final speech.
“You all came, searching vengeance, punishment, payment, and justice. I can tell you.
Like this, you will find no justice. Justice is doing what is right. This,” Silfur motioned to
the captain kneeling, “This is not right. This is not justice. Killing will not help. We must
find peace, be free discuss, and work together. Before we were silenced, but now, we can
be free. Do you really want, your first act as a free people, to be mindless murder? Or
would you rather it be the reforming of a nation and the improvement for all.”