Mia

The truth is ugly and often hurts.

Mia triggered those around her with her refusal to couch her insults. Every remark succeeded in cutting the receiver exactly where it hurt most.

Her justification was that everyone deserved the truth. Only by recognizing his faults would a person be able to improve themselves.

However Frank, Mia's ex-boyfriend, used the excuse of honesty to rationalize being hurtful towards her. He claimed he was behaving no differently than Mia, but Mia didn't feel bad after speaking honestly to others.

Frank was a jerk. Mia told him so as she broke up with him.

For What Reason A Choice

Whenever she thought about the past, a heavy sadness weighed on her. Her term as Empress had been glorious and she was widely acknowledged as the greatest monarch in living memory.

Now that the peaceful successions had ended, and the municipalities were constantly at war, she regretted not holding on to power. It was the irony of their political system that those most worthy of holding power were those least likely to retain it.

Of course, giving up power had not been her first choice. She'd done so out of spite. Anything to get back at that ex-boyfriend of hers.

Mechanical Soldiers

She built fabricated soldiers made of tin and rubber and whatever at hand materials she found at her disposal. They tinkered about her kitchen and living room and she kept building them one after another until she had her own army.

The mechanical men proved willing to follow her commands, but being willing is not the same thing as possessing a will or consciousness. She’d order them to kill her ex-boyfriend and they would bump into the dresser or break into stilted karaoke.

She would never be alone again, but being alone is not the same thing as being lonely.