Merlot hunched over his manuscript, tallying the wreckage so far. Lolita was still terrorizing her committee members. Jared had bolted from the refugee camp to shack up with Pat. Osa had crowned himself the ruler of Cascadia. Plenty of drama already. The worst hadn't even hit the page. What baffled him was why his mother kept clipping his creative wings. She said he was being too harsh against her native country; he said he was just being honest.
Uncle Sam had considered war with the Red Dragon—cheaper airfare, easier headlines. He chose the Blue Dragon instead, because its breath sent chills down his spine. So Merlot was deployed to fight it, not as a hero, but like the Dark Magician from Yu-Gi-Oh!—summoned into Uncle Sam's duel, armed with grit and a government-issued wand. Borealia, ever polite, earned her exemption. Politeness only stretched so far. Smiles were useless when the world was ablaze, and whiskey was out of reach.
Borealia wasn't helping Sam slay the dragon—she was selling weapons to the shadows behind it. Making a killing while he bled. He didn't care what she called it: neutrality, diplomacy, humanitarian restraint. It stank of profit. She liked her view from the snowbank—dry, smug, and tax-free.
Borealia had perfected the art of smiling politely while Uncle Sam played the neighbourhood thug. She wasn't innocent—not with all those unmarked graves beneath her feet. Staying out of SEATO had let her keep her hands clean; NATO mercifully was a headache. She prayed hell wouldn't break loose over Europe—because then neutrality would stop being a costume and start feeling like a draft notice.
Uncle Sam, counting pennies instead of principles, hoped the next war would erupt somewhere with burden-sharing. The budget‑friendly shield would get repossessed. Allies would have to pony up and abandon the comfort of half-measures. No war debt dangling over his head, no polite excuses from the cheap seats. If shots were fired, they'd be standing in the line of fire with him.
Merlot couldn't even afford scotch, thanks to tariffs. Bourbon? Forget it. Imported cheeses, fancy chocolates, artisanal maple syrup-the small luxuries that made surviving the draft worth it, vanished from his budget along with his patience. If his mother kept her northern country's cuisine a secret, he wouldn't be mourning what he couldn't have.
Borealia complained he'd started the trade war. Please. Sam had been starting wars before Borealia polished her silver for her tea parties while the world bled. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan—pick a decade, and a mess he swore was "under control."
Borealia held the hose but never turned the water on. Flames consumed the White House—her "tea-drinkers" did the work; she offered moral support and matches. She claimed she wasn't angry with Sam back then, but still screamed, "You burned York in 1813, you bastard—long before the White House went up in smoke!" Uncle Sam was a bastard, sure. At least he didn't pretend otherwise.
He assumed she had to avenge her precious Parliament building death, like Harry Potter avenging his parents after Voldemort's curse. Only Sam's wand was a bayonet. His spellbook was full of executive orders.
Borealia seethed when Uncle Sam gunned down her hog, caught snout-deep in his potato fields. Sam called it trespassing. Clutching hoofprints as evidence, Borealia vowed war—her indignation echoing across the borderlands. The tea-drinkers intervened: "A war over a pig? Ridiculous. Now, if a Hesperian had carved off your ear for smuggling—that's nine years of wrath, especially if the ear's still floating in a jar."
The tea-drinkers were a bad influence on Uncle Sam, forever lecturing him about which fights he should or shouldn't pick with Borealia—fights she had started, of course, by not watching her pigs. Borealia didn't own San Juan Island, not after she let her swine run amok like a drunken invader. She got to keep Victoria—an island Sam didn't care for anyway, since it was named after the tea‑drinkers' favourite monarchs and smelled faintly of their porcelain loyalties.
Borealia accused Uncle Sam of keeping slaves. "Slaves?" He laughed darkly. "They're voluntary workers," he said, smoothing the flag on his lapel. So what if one of them ran away? He'd searched for them out of concern, not coercion. They wanted to travel to other states, not that he was keeping them in bondage. He wasn't holding them back; he was just... protecting his investment.
Borealia reminded him that her land had offered refuge. Slaves fled north through the Underground Railroad, chasing the dignity of freedom. Uncle Sam fumed. She claimed slavery ended in 1834—not by conscience, but by command. The empire signed the decree; Borealia just followed orders. Children under six were declared "free," while their parents remained property—justice, served with a wink and a loophole.
She claimed she was a sanctuary for escaped slaves; they laboured under apprenticeships—the same programs she ran in residential schools for children who "chose" to attend. Nobody was kidnapped, she insisted. All voluntary; if you ignored the power imbalance, the pressure, and the cultural erasure. Loyal citizens learned that she had abolished slavery; however, reality was dirty as black snow: freedom came in installments, with parents chained to labour. Children funnelled into programs designed to erase their identities. Facts children never learned in school, not under Borealia's funding. Truth would tarnish her reputation as the "nice" neighbour. Better to be remembered for civility than for profiting off coerced labour disguised as opportunity.
Borealia had screamed across the river in Windsor City at Uncle Sam in Detroit City to turn down his music—she didn't want to hear "I LOVE YOU, AMERICA!" blaring through the border breeze. Sam cranked his head from the window: "Maybe you shouldn't have burned the mansion if you wanted peace and quiet."
The Cossack Bride refused Tsarina, not after the church had burned down, taking with it the last remnants of Lolita's name and the dignity it once held. She sought independence and a seat at Uncle Sam's treaty table, a messy alliance she hoped would shield her from Tsarina's grasp. Experience had shown her that men who counted warheads before sense were entertaining… until they detonated themselves.
Tsarina, enraged, saw the Bride's move as a betrayal, accusing her of cozying up to Uncle Sam, that slick-tongued merchant of liberty, who'd promise her the stars and leave her with nothing but a pawn shop receipt and a suitcase full of IOUs. Tsarina made the first move-no warning, no backward glance. Didn't want her to become the next small-town bride in Uncle Sam's shotgun wedding.
The Red Dragon stood firmly with Tsarina. He had warned that a geography-based club could only ignite global fire. Borealia bristled at the complaint: the club had endured since 1949; it would not coddle a rejected suitor.
Uncle Sam knew Tsarina had to let go. She was the one knocking on the clubhouse door, begging entry. The other members found Tsarina far too intimidating to sit beside. Borealia wouldn't sign off—not after decades of watching Tsarina turn half-truths into hurricanes. Tsarina fumed: the open-door policy didn't allow him to be locked out while the Cossack Bride was waved in.
Borealia replied coolly: Last she checked, Tsarina wasn't a member and held zero votes.
Tsarina snapped: The Cossack Bride is banned from joining when the only free seat is beside Uncle Sam—where politeness goes to die.
The Bride spared no pity for Tsarina's rejected application.He lacked Uncle Sam's gift for turning felonies into filing mistakes. She'd been waiting for that chair since 1991; freedom comes without a return policy.
Tsarina wouldn't hear it. The Bride had no business at the table—not with Uncle Sam hovering, grinning like a loan shark charging interest on "protection." Protection she didn't need. She already had her knight in dented armour, the one who'd left permanent marks across her fields long before the club even existed.
The Bride shot back: Empty promises are all you've ever offered. Your empire crumbled, leaving you smaller than the man selling security subscriptions.
Tsarina would prove he wasn't weak, marching his ambitions across her borders, daring anyone to call his bluff. The Cossack Bride had underestimated a man who refused to look back.
Borealia, eager to play heroine, swooped in with a glittering offer: illegal guns from her secret stockpile. "For your protection," she purred, as if handing over murderously illegal toys were an act of charity. Uncle Sam sulked. Where was her stash during his quest to defeat the blue dragon? Why did Borealia see the Cossack Bride as a charity case, while him, the self-styled saviour of liberty, she wrote off as hopeless? As if she'd placed her bets on his defeat—waiting to say 'I told you so' the moment the Blue Dragon scorched him.
Merlot had started a fire in his novel before, with Pat's church building burned down. Watching the news, in his living room, the flames on the screen and the flames in his pages merged.
The cruel choreography of fires, speeches, and missed chances. He, a broken vet in sweatpants—taking notes for the next chapter. Somewhere in the smoke, Lolita's eyes glared, furious that she had no hose to throw, no authority, no say.
The chill came, not from the window, but from within.
The voice in his head whispered—not like a thought, but like a line he hadn't written: You're not the author. You're the draft.
Merlot blinked. The manuscript stared back, pages trembling in the lamplight. He wasn't sure if he was writing fiction anymore—or if fiction had started writing him.