To End a War: II.II
On the morning of the 23rd, birds were chirping songs of joy and delight in the warmth of a spring sunrise. The inhabitants of Eoberona were setting up for the day, either by setting up shop, or slowly dragging themselves out of bed. Mostly the latter. The castle dwellers, however, were sleeping soundly in their chambers, seemingly forgetful of the what laid ahead that day.
All except for their Genie, of whom was anxiously waiting in her room for any other sign of life. She sat down at a coffee table and pulled out parchment and a quill from a drawer and started writing to her brother back in Altridi.
“Dear Fawdaa,
I feel like you would find great joy in what is about to come about on Iainus and if you manage to convince Haya, you will be able to watch it unfold back home.
As you may or may not recall, when we were meeting after the thwarting of Morzal and Steelbrand, mention of “Eshington” and someone named “Chase Goodman.” This man has placed the country Eshington under dictatorship since the start of the war. Her Majesty, Queen Warda Pineash of Eoberona, has decided that we should try to save the citizens of Eshington. Her Majesty has called for a meeting with the other leaders of Iainus’ countries to properly decide what shall be done. I presume that you will find this enjoyable because of how much these people don’t communicate, especially over the past 20 years.
Also, how are things back at the burrow? Has Fan managed to conceive yet? I know you two are worried about her being infertile. Perhaps talk to Nafsi about whether she can foresee a family for you. She told me that she sees one for me. I don’t understand though. She said, and I quote, “I see six; green, pink, orange, silver and gold. I also see more of a feminine influence over the household. I am also seeing large gaps of years.”
I don’t understand what she means. I might be terrible at basic comprehension but please let me know what you understand from this. Perhaps you could ask Nafsi to explain, however, I doubt that she would tell you anything. She likes to remain cryptic until after the event she foresaw, especially when it involves our personal lives.
I will write to you as soon as I get the chance again, but I will be incredibly busy and exhausted after everything. I might have to be returned to the burrow in a golden carriage, being hand fed by the Burrow’s maids. One will never know.
Your sister and most important thing in your life, regardless of what you wife says,
Maeraka.
She rolled the letter up and placed it into a golden cylinder tube. She closed the lid and placed the tube into the fireplace in her room; upon contact, the usually red flames burst into a deep blue. Maeraka sat crossed legged in front of the fireplace and looked longingly into the fire, as if it could bring her closer to her brother.
From outside her walls, Maeraka heard noises of commotion and arguing. She got suspicious and reached for her sword on her dresser and stood up. She opened her door ever so slightly and peered into the corridor, still unable to see where the noise was coming from, Maeraka creeped out the door, but stayed close to the walls for protection. As she closed the door, she then saw three silhouettes at the end of the hallway.
They were yet to see the Genie as she crept closer, sword in hand. As she approached the group she placed her golden sword on the neck of the closest, of which prompted in a shrill scream, as one would if in the early hours of the morning someone placed a sword to your neck.
“Charon?” The genie raised her eyebrow
“Yes. Yes, it is. Can you please take whatever is on my neck away? And if you like, just let me know who you are?”
Scylla and Edvard (of which both was with Charon) looked at the two and shared a look. Scylla smirked and said, “Take the sword away, sure, but don’t reveal yourself to him. I want to see how long until his brain, or lack thereof, figures anything out.”
“Thank you Scy, but jokes on you, I know it is a male with a sword. So, it won’t be too long until I figure out!”
“You are a bit off there,” Edvard placed a hand on his fiancé’s shoulder. “I apologize if we had woken you, but the twins were arguing about something but I’m not too sure what. They were about to get into a fist fight, but I stopped them.”
“We were arguing about Ron taking my jacket, y’know, because I need it today, but he claims he didn’t, but I had my doubts because he could have taken it by accident and I wanted to check his room just to make sure, but he wouldn’t let me go in.”
“Because you were going to make a fuss and wake everyone else up!” Charon threw his hands up.
Starting to feel out of place and slightly uncomfortable, Maeraka started walking away and over to the dining room at the other end of the palace. Since she was out of her room, she might as well see if the chefs had prepared breakfast yet. Unfortunately, she turned around only to lock eyes with the queen herself.
“What are you all doing making this racket at such an hour?” She walked across the hall ever so gracefully. She was already in formal attire: her long brown hair was neatly brushed, every single wisp of hair was neatly in place; she wore a pink floor length gown with off the shoulder sleeves, hand sewn from the finest silk and donned jewels from the many mineral caves of Eoberona. The top of her head held a crown made from gold and quartz, worth more Citrine than what most people would ever come across in their life.
“Scylla started it!” Charon accused.
“I think you did!”
“It was you that said that I stole your jacket!”
“Well you screamed!”
“Because someone put their sword to my neck!”The queen pursed her lips, “If you two keep going on like this, you’ll wake up the whole palace. Just get dressed before something bad happens. Edvard, just get ready and Maeraka, why did you threaten Charon with your sword?”
“I heard commotion and I was curious and I didn’t see who it was in the dark and I had my sword with me just in case because I didn’t know what was going on, but I heard people arguing and I had my sword with me in case they were Shadowmen or something because they don’t have any limits. But I placed my sword on Charon, because he was closest and then he screamed, and it was very loud and kind of frightening. And incredibly feminine for someone like Charon.”
“Just, go and have breakfast, I need you and the other girls to be at the foyer as soon as possible, I need you five and Rose at the foyer more than anybody else. Edvard, once you and everybody else are ready, meet at the foyer. I’ll be leaving in an hour and it will take about an hour to do the pick-up, so expect me to be back at around 8:30.”
"Five minutes until the Queen is back! Everyone to the foyer or you lose your feet privileges!” The eldest princess yelled out and she raced down the white, marble stairs that led to the inner entrance of the palace, trying not to trip over her blush dress.
Rachel rushed out of her room, “That is a very odd threat, but strangely,” she finished tying her tie, finishing her suit ensemble, “it works!”
At the front of the stairs, all twelve of Warda’s favourite people (minus Jadine, of whom was at school and too young for something like this), stood in line: Rose and Eliza were front and centre, with the 10 others on either side. For the most part, they wore black. In forms of suits (like the males and Rachel), dresses (Giselle, Octavia and Satya) or black combat suits that they somehow managed to get away with wearing (Dontae, Scylla and Aurora).
“When will she be here? She’s taking forever” Scylla was bouncing on the balls of her feet.
Octavia whacked her in the chest, “Be patient, even Miss Wilder is being more patient than you, and we all know she is incapable of not bouncing off the walls. And,” she lowered her voice, “Don’t talk like that about the Queen, you tongue will soon reek of treason if you keep that attitude up.”
Rose cleared her throat, “Mother should be here very soon; she just messaged me that she entered Mirefield, so expect a horde of paparazzi and government officials here in around 10 minutes.”
Edvard muttered a small “what fun” which led Dontae to nod her head in agreement.“Sorry about being late, we had to go through the underground parking,” Warda arrived fashionably late at a rebellious 11 minutes later, leading a hoard of important persons and their security out of a corridor to the right of the stairs. “Right, introductions, introductions,” The Queen got herself into order. She started to introduce her most trusted to the guests, starting with the closest to her. “This is Satya Malviya, Giselle Blanchard, Rachel Wilder, Maeraka Saidi, Aurora Söderberg, Princesses Rose and Eliza Pineash-Huber, Octavia García, Scylla García, Charon García, Edvard Söderberg, and finally, Dontae Baatjies. Dontae is from Eshington and fled some years back with her sister, Jadine, of whom is currently at school. We are ecstatic to have someone like her with us on this mission.”
“Rachel Wilder,” Page Saye, president of Credal, piped up, “Are you by any chance related to Lane Wilder from that popular circus?”
“Yes, he is father, I help him sometimes. With the lighting that is. My friend, Lola Goodwin is one of the trapeze artists, she’s the one that turns into the different white birds. My mother also used to help out with all the safety before the Shadowmen took her life in war.”
“I’m sorry for your loss, I do hope that the circus is still safe, regardless of your late mother’s presence.”
“Don’t you worry, the last time we had an incident, it was the strongmen trying to see if they could balance on tightropes,” Rachel let out a small laugh at the memory.
“Let us go upstairs to the dining hall, I think that we could all use some food and I know that the meals on aeroplanes are not the best, regardless which class you are in,” Rose offered.
Warda smiled, “Agreed, we asked our chefs for a full, Eoberonan breakfast,” she made her way to the stairs, motioning for everyone else to follow. “Eggs, fresh bread, quartz tea with flakes of gold, gourmet porridge, finely cooked meats, potatoes, peas, fluffy waffles and pancakes, freshly squizzed juice-”
Eliza stopped her mother mid-sentence, “Mother please! If you keep going on like this, we will be starving so much that we will not even make it to the door!”
After stuffing themselves with luxurious food, the group started to discuss how the Shadowmen, Leo Steelbrand, and the Djinns were teaming up and how they used this opportunity to try to unofficially end the war in the palace’s largest conference room.
“And then Maeraka went all begone on them and then Aurora screamed as if someone made her wear anything other than green and then boom! Everyone was either dead or knocked out,” Rachel was telling everyone about what happened with Leo and Morzal in a very animated way.
“Where are they now? Are they in custody?” Maya Pope was a little jealous that she was invited to this fiasco as president of Jashington and all that, but she still wanted to make sure that they didn’t mess everything up.
“Yes, we have them,” Eliza reassured her, “They are in the maximum-security prison in Leeside. 24-hour constant guards and solitary confinement, opposite ends of the prison. I checked everything myself and only I can open the doors. But we haven’t called you all here to discuss the past. We have a country that we need to save as soon as possible.”
“I think that maybe we should get to Chase Goodman first. When he is in our custody, he cannot command his armies or citizens,” Page’s words surprised most as war and chaos is not in her countries nature.
“I agree with President Saye. Adding onto that however, we should also seek out children and the sick before we attack as well,” President Sang Hye-Kyung of Lechoaland suggested.
“That’s if they even allow people to be sick and don’t just load them onto a ship, sail out to sea and throw their bodies overboard,” Charon pointed out.
“That’s a little dark, but unfortunately, quite true,” Donate agreed. “I remember this young girl, around 14 perhaps, got a cold, she would cough a lot, but that’s the worst of it. Give her water and she’s be fine. A few days later, some soldiers knocked on her door. They took her away and gave her husband lashes for not alerting the “authorities”. I’m not sure how many lashes though, maybe 15-20. But there have been many cases when a child is born with a disability or when someone gains one later and they are 'taken away'.”
“That’s horrible but did I hear you say that a fourteen-year-old had a husband, or did I mishear you?” Satya questioned
“In Eshington you get married off as soon as the government thinks you are ready. For girls, it is as soon as your period starts and for males, it’s as soon as they start growing facial hair.” The room stared in horror and disbelief at Dontae. “Also,” she added, “Women must get pregnant within the first four months of their marriage or they get lashed.”
Eliza sighed, “I guess we have to add pregnant 12-year-olds to the list of people we need to get out first.”
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