Signed center right, on fallen tower: “Paul Endres Jr.”.
From The L#ST B#YS: Paul Endres Jr.’s Children of the Burden. Year 15 Post Burden:
The Miraculous Victory of Octavian the Pale
New Boston?s need for leadership was briefly answered by the Hamiltonians, the strongest of the many tribes who had formed after Ocampo?s defeat, thanks largely in part to Gurn the Colossus of Winthrop. If the lost boys aimed to conquer Boston, it was only at the Hamiltonian’s permission, or death. Atop tank treads and flanked with their prized tigers Kaiser and Cuddles, Helena and Archibald Hamiltonian hosted an open contest against the champion Colossus, a display of their power and influence. Doused with paint, as was the custom for challengers, only one faced Gurn that day, the prudish D.G. Armstrong, who was now going by a much different name… OCTAVIAN THE PALE. Armstrong had led the “Scalping” Seventh Regiment for the United American League (U.A.L.) during the War and had become something of a folk icon for having at one point recovered Ocampo?s head from the Ishmaelian Society (before losing it to the Whigs.)
The logistics of the actual fight remain unclear, only that Octavian was triumphant. His disciples claimed it was a hard-earned victory replete with brute strength and sharp wits, akin only to the biblical David and Goliath. Others have claimed Lord Monmouth was instructed to shoot the Colossus dead before the fight began.
It was in the endorphin rich aftermath of this miraculous achievement that Octavian would, with a simple promise, solidify both his rise and fall.
?Follow me and live forever.?
Both meant and taken as a literal promise, it sounds like something out of fairy tale, I know. Forever the appropriator, Octavian rehashed a speech he had given some ten years earlier,
“We are no longer Bostonians! We are no Americans! Forget your old denominations! Be absolved of their weight. Let us be fused together on the smoldering heap of the past. Today we are baptized in paint as Children of the Burden! Follow me and live forever!”
As a historian, it is my duty to remain as unbiased and as removed as possible from the content of my work, though as a Bostonian please indulge a brief interjection: Octavian sucks.
