250 Words: End of Empire

As the leviathan pulls back, drained of the blood from Empire's lair, it rakes and scratches the land, cursing it and leaving its soul in tatters.  

As Empire's armies leave she begins her second phase; this new beginning or legacy that stays behind to create disturbance and to kill, whether in the immediate aftermath or later in wars between new nations created or over time as her poison slowly acts against the ungrateful inhabitants left behind after her beautiful creation has been undone. 

Though this bloodshed supplies her lair with a lesser flow, it is more than enough to please her schadenfreude tendencies.  The blood of population interchanges, of old and new people clashing and of new nation civil wars is as sweet to her as that of her own beast, even if not as plentiful.  She takes pride in her trail of destruction, purring at the thought of what her way of life leaves behind as a tainted gift.

But, mostly for now, though, Empire can only mark out her old lands, both taken and controlled by, for further pain or for guilt and a kind of empty tenderness for something lost brought by the further growth of her bitter seeds while she waits for man's desire for her to come into play when her generals will lay with her in a bath of blood once more, feed her more, touch her the way she likes and place a new and bloodied standard upon the wall of her lair.

250 Words: Empire

She wades thigh deep in blood, sending thick but graceful waves ahead of her into the dark.  A constant drip from the cavern’s roof reminds her of all she has encouraged men to do.  Forever the blood falls and splatters - once every other second, for centuries at a time: enough to make a mere mortal go insane.  Such a sound to her, though, is music.  It keeps her alive in hope and in nourishment.  Cupping her hands, she drinks ravenously from time to time.  That is, when she stops fantasising about the next surge forward or rebellion crushed resulting in mutineers on the gallows.

At times it pours down.  When it does, she occasionally wonders if it will ever drown her.  But she knows it will not.  That, even when the blood does run dry, it will at some point pour once more.  Because men lust after the things she needs, she will always receive them sooner or later.  Her invisible, intangible, un-knowable web is spun close to the most foolish flies who happily wrap themselves up in it, knowing not what they do.

A sudden gush and she can hear the battle’s roar.  She lets loose a cry, thirsting for more soil to loom over, casting her shadow over the people for as long as it lasts.  The flag is raised and, in ecstasy, she falls backwards, submerging herself in the new effort to make her glorious.  And she floats happy, smug and quite bloated for some time.