Story:Kings of Strife/Part 39

Part Thirty-Nine
The town of Rigor was just as Vainia remembered it: small, crippled, and populated by wide-eyed fools. Even so, when her airship finally landed off the coast of the town of rigid bones, she couldn’t help but see it as a haven and the sanctuary for her flagship.

Once the airship was safely out of harm’s way, her men had devolved into little more than shattered and fearful servants to her name. The retreat had been treacherous and riddled with danger. In order to outpace the Inusian pursuers, the soldiers on the Typhoon Wind had to throw overboard most of their munitions. Still they weren’t fast enough to escape unscathed, but before long the ship had entered Mortisian waters. The Inusian airships drew back, but made it clear that they would not move. Returning to Shorica that way anytime soon would be impossible.

In order to escape immediate detection, Vainia had the ship slowly lose altitude until it barely coasted over the sea. When it was past the rough waters of the mid-coast and was safely in the safe zone of Mortis’ part in the Queen’s Gulf, she had it start to float and use its devices to sail as a ship.

Her men were exhausted, bitter, and disappointed. She could hear it in them, but most of all she could feel it. When she walked by, they cut their eyes at her and mumbled. Cries of “For the Queen’s glory” had lost most of its fervor. The wounded ones wrapped bandages around their injuries or cut their cloaks apart to use as tourniquets. Moans and cries echoed throughout the airship’s deck from the intensively hurt ones kept in the cabins below. Her Eternal Corps members were better when it came to keeping their morale up, but she could see frustration on Azor Atrai’s heavy lined face and Tlerius continued to look towards the horizon with concern. He hated that she had left behind all of her men, including the other Eternal Corps members. She knew this would breed no love for her in him, but that was fine. She needed his blade, not his love.

Her soldiers were beginning to resent her for her actions, much like she resented herself. Vainia considered this and found it irrelevant. Their love would return, or it wouldn’t, but they would still serve her. They feared her. She alone had rose out of Phenicks unscathed, and she had taken Shorekeep within days. She had power, and Vainia knew power kept a man’s eyes forward and his knee bent.

Only Tasshon seemed to still have support for her. He stuck behind her like a tall shadow, making sure to wear his imposing red cloak and stay near her at all times. Did he fear for what the soldiers could do? It came to her that while he had seen her fight in the battle, he knew not of her rune powers, nor of her true fury. None of them did.

Still, Tasshon was being protective and supportive. She needed that now. His strength reminded her of Taoris. That concerned her.

He walked right behind her as the airship moved slowly towards the shore of Rigor. Two small skiffs sliced through the water with two tall men with spears in their hands. They held them to the tall airship and commanded to know from where it came.

Vainia walked right to the apex of the ship, Tasshon and his crimson cloak flowing behind him. “Move apart and let us pass,” she replied.

“Who are you?” The man with a horned helmet on the closest skiff lowered his sword and looked up to Vainia. His wide eyes squinted, and he spoke with a heavy Mortisian accent. Although she was irritated, Vainia’s chest swelled. ‘It’s been so long since I heard another Mortisian speak.’ The sharpness of the ‘R’s, how quick the words rolled off the tongue… How glorious.

“I am your future Queen. Nolstuvainia Sestrum, first of her name. Daughter of King Mateulikus and Queen Varinamious.” She shrugged off her red cape and removed the tie holding her hair in a ponytail. After a moment of brushing her hair with her hand, Vainia let it fall on her back and pushed it off her face. “Do you not recognize me?”

The soldier squinted at Vainia and tilted his head. He obviously didn’t believe her, but if she was right… “Prove it.”

The princess sighed and ran her hand through her long, frizzy brown hair. “Nachtiubre…” She muttered to herself. At her side still, Tasshon picked up her fallen cloak and folded it up into a square. He opened his mouth to speak, but she held a hand out. Behind the two, silver cloaks and normal Shorican men both came up to the front of the ship, their duties temporarily forgotten.

“''Yojn vei Nolstuvainia Sestrum Sonario, gehenn skor-alt-rako, demaurutii, ruri ahn tuumis alt kreius, Valtiuv avn Kvanriel, gew Visael Sonario. Conryel an frietuvre.''” Vainia spoke in a heavy, foreign tongue. The words flowed from inside her throat, harsh and powerful yet full of grace and passion. The language of her ancestors returned her energy back to her, and when she had finished speaking, a dark and vicious mood was upon her.

All of the Mortisian men lowered their spears as she talked. They all recognized Refined High Mortisian. The squinting soldier bent his knee first, and the others followed him. “Only members of the royal family speak Refined High,” he said with reverence once he bowed his head, “And only the fierce Princess Vainia would proclaim her name and condemn me as an eater of shit. Hreatho! We will guide you to Grainis!”

Vainia nodded. “Thank you, sir. Rise, and hreatho.”

The Mortisian men rose to do her bidding, and Vainia turned to her own soldiers. She glared at them all staring. “Well? Start moving us towards them. We should be in Grainis soon. We’ll be safe there.” All of the men scrambled at her command, some fire and passion restored to their bodies. Tasshon and Tlerius stood near her, still. The sole Baron handed her the discarded red cloak, but Vainia held out a hand to refuse it. “I won’t wear any colors until we get to the palace.”

“What language was that, Lady Vainia?” Tlerius was a hardened man and his black beard lay on a square Shorican jaw, almost as bristled as the fur on the collar of his cloak. He likely had been in no countries besides Shorica and Inusia.

“As the soldier said. Refined High Mortisian. I told him: ‘I am Nolstuvainia Sestrum I, holder of blessings and curses, destiny defier, heir to the throne and the world, Queen and Empire, descended from Morning Star King Visael I.’” She smiled with a sliver of dark humor. “Then I called him an eater of shit.”

Despite himself, Tasshon gave a robust laugh, and Tlerius looked down with a smile. The leader of the Eternal Corps looked back up as his smile soon vanished. “We did not know you were… the princess of Mortis.”

Vainia waved his concern off. “It matters not. I am your queen nonetheless.”

“It explains a lot, doesn’t it?” Tasshon contributed. “The wordiness. The posture.”

Tlerius nodded. “I suppose. I was wondering how such a young girl had knowledge of so much in the world…”

The two men continued to talk behind her, but Vainia quickly tuned them out. On the nearby shore, she saw all of Rigor pass by before they left it behind to travel to Grainis, the capital city. From here she could smell the familiar scents of a Mortisian city. The mediocre sewer system, the overcrowded streets, the untended and crumbling buildings, piss and ale and fuel near the docks and the airship factories. These cities had a pungent and distinctive odor very much unlike the unifrom, strong, organized steel smell of Inusian metropolices and the salty yet warm and clean air of Shorican cities.

Mortis was different. Mortis was ruined.

Idly, she wondered how the people of Mortis would react to her return. It would be embarrassing to come back home for the first time with her tail between her legs, considering her return before Shorekeep’s fall was kept mostly a secret. As with the soldiers escorting the Typhoon Wind, most of the smallfolk and military would see her return as a joyous occasion. After all, she had left the country four years ago by now, in the dead of night and without word to anyone.

What she didn’t have to imagine was the reaction of her parents. They knew she wasn’t dead, and they would not be pleased by her return. Especially not after she had attacked Inusia not once but twice. Inusia – their allies in the World Government.

‘That’s right. They are allied with Inusia.’ To say her parents the King and Queen were controlled by Inusia would be more accurate than to say they were allied with the nation. Either way, they would not respond positively to her arrival. Vainia could feel her mood dropping exponentially. ‘In fact, they were conspiring directly against me.’ The World Government planned for her to be assassinated and directly caused the massacre of Zeta Academy students. She couldn’t forget that.

Her ship and its escorts arrived at the wide docks of Grainis within the hour.

Just as she predicted, the streets were packed with citizens who were anticipating her arrival. ‘Word travels fast, and joyous word outpaces the wind.’ If only it could have been as joyous for her as it was for the peasants.

The six escort soldiers provided a ladder and raised their spears high in the air for those aboard the Typhoon Wind to unboard onto the dock. The princess stepped out first, followed by her Baron of War and the two presiding Eternal Corps members, then her soldiers in a long, single-file line. Once they all left the ship, the six Mortisian soldiers walked in front of her, spears pointed to the mass of people around them.

All of the people screamed and fell to their knees once they saw her. “Princess Vainia! The heavens have brought you back to us!” one man said. Another woman with a child on her breast held the child forward, not even caring that her sagging bosom was free. “Kiss him! Bless him! He will fight in your army when he is of age!” Those few peasants wealthy enough to own a Datalog or a phone took pictures of her as she walked. Cheers, screams, and proclamations of eternal loyalty exploded through the path away from the dock, and continued even when they arrived in the streets. People flooded out of their homes and stuck their heads out of windows. “Princess Vainia!” “Valtiuv Vainia!” Soon the cries of joy and adoration became a chant matching the rhythm of her steps towards the tall, faded golden palace of Grainis.

Vainia did not look a single citizen in the eye, nor did she smile at the attention. Right now, she did not deserve their love or their glory. ‘I have failed them. I have sent men to their death and would send them to their deaths as well, if it meant my goals would be achieved. Why do they love me? Why do they praise me?’ She knew these were just idle doubts, considering her entire goal was to create a world where Mortisians weren’t crushed beneath priviledged fools like the Inusians. And she knew they loved her because of this goal, because of her talents and her demeanor and the fact that she was not a fool like her father. They praised her because of her power, and her mental acuity and her disdain for suffering.

Even knowing all this, she felt relief when the tall golden gates of the castle came into view in the street. She was glad when the noise of the townspeople became mere background noise inside of the gates. She was happy to be returning to her home at the palace with all of her men behind her, even though she knew what lied ahead was not something she would enjoy.

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