Blood and Water: An 'Into the Badlands' Fanfiction (ON HOLD)

Chapter 1: In the Dead of Night

Chapter 1: In the Dead of Night

"Tomorrow is tomorrow.
Future cares have future cures,
And we must mind today."
― Sophocles, Antigone

Five years later...

It was late.

Antigone knew that it was late. She did not know how late it was, but she knew that it was too late for her to still be awake.

She finished looking over the last proposal, one from Butterfly territory, and sighed heavily, rubbing her temples. She looked over at the clock.

Two-thirty AM.

Too late.

But there was still so much work to be done. Her people were counting on her. They trusted her, and in this world, trust was hard to come by.

The world as people knew it more than five-hundred years ago was gone. In the cold, dark aftermath of the apocalypse, a feudal society had developed to replace the anarchy left by the war. In the twisted deadly hierarchy of a rural area known as the Badlands that was separated into territories: Armadillo territory, Butterfly territory, Pickaxe territory, Narwhal territory, Peacock territory, Grasshopper territory, Fox territory, and Phoenix territory. Barons were the leaders. They also controlled land and monopolies over commodities, and were served by a massive workforce of slaves known as cogs, as well as a prostitute class known as dolls. Each baron maintained power through an army of assassins commonly known as Clippers and Butterflies.

Phoenix Territory's army and soldiers were known as Firebirds.

The Firebirds were a military-like defense army whose goal was only to defend their homeland, promoting peace, justice, and equality throughout the Badlands. They refused to engage in any shady deals or fight in any wars unless it was absolutely necessary.

This made them the target of several ruthless Barons, as well as the target of some of their own people, who claimed that they were weak.

Antigone would never forget the day that she lost her entire family in a single instant.

It had happened in the middle of the night. She and her sister were eleven years old, chasing each other around the ballroom. One moment, they were happy and playing. The next, Antigone was unconscious. When she awoke, her mother and father's dead bodies were lying at her feet. Her sister was nowhere to be found.

The Firebirds had come rushing in shortly after, saying that the territory was under attack. Antigone had no time to grieve or process her trauma. With her parents dead and her sister missing, she had become the Baron and sole leader of Phoenix Territory at just eleven years old, making her the youngest Baron in the history of the Badlands. She had not wanted to become a leader, but she had no choice. Her people needed her and she refused to let them down. She was forced to mature at a young age. Many people tried to take advantage of her, especially men, and she was pressured into getting married so that Phoenix Territory would have two leaders, like almost all of the other territories.

She kept finding ways to avoid marriage throughout the years, putting it off, saying that she would get married even though she had no plans to do so. She knew that she was making the right decision. She would be able to do far more for her people on her own than she ever would with a man to hold her down.

She was seventeen years old now and still unmarried. She intended to keep it that way for as long as possible.

Antigone looked carefully over Butterfly territory's proposal. The usual: they wanted ash. Ash was a commodity that only Phoenix territory possessed, which was where the territory got its name. The ash symbolized what came before the phoenix was re-birthed into a powerful bird: the hidden potential for greatness. Every time that people looked at the phoenix symbol on Phoenix territory's flag, they always thought, "Never judge a book by its cover."