The Swamp, The Jungle, and the Valley (2/2)

"Did I hear that right?" Octavus asked.

"Your ears don't betray." Queen Eun answered.

"Are you saying you've seen an Omen of war, Scholar-King?"

"Yes, that I have..." The towering man left his seat to pace through the halls. The celestial colours of his eyes flickering from the cosmic horror it had seen.

"One morning, the ears of the corns had dried, the oceans trembled within yet the waves above are still... And from the tremble, I saw a winged triad scorching from the Dancing Sun."

"And the omen you've seen communicates what?" The Supreme King felt a subtle tremble from his hand, its been a lifetime since a war was predicted to happen. His scars from the previous ones are still fresh and brutal.

"The winged triad signified three continents, Gwandoya, Siber, and Aegj..."

"Are you certain that the omen speaks of the three continents and not my Merchant Tristate in the south?" The Akan King concerned.

"I'm afraid the omen is clear; a Sand Owl of Gwandoya, a Whiteraven of Siber, and a Joy Pheasant of my continent all burning from the Dancing Sun." King Ethweltexco exclaimed to the dusk, "The snow will melt, my jungles will char and each blade of grass in your valleys will be singed!"

"We will all burn in a field of flames except for the land that already burns…" Queen Eun summarizes, there is only one land that burns constantly aside from the depths of the I

nferno.

"Ocmenia..." The Supreme King filled in, The Headdress of Omen never sees false signs so this is a serious matter indeed. Or else the Scholar King wouldn't bother to cross from Aegis to Gwandoya and Queen Eun wouldn't reveal herself from the swamps if it is not.

"Queen Eun, did you not say that Ocmenia has been sending envoys of peace recently? What do you think is the cause of this irony?" The King asked.

"One thing that made me queen is that I know the swamps very well, from the mists in the skies down to everything that lurks underground. And when I noticed that the diplomats had left an unwanted seed in my country, I knew that they never severed from their old war-hound ways."

"What seed are we pertaining here?"

"I know that you're aware that my people could call down meteors from the celestial skies, Supreme One?" The Scholar-King asked.

"Yes, are you saying that the Ocmenians could do the same through these seeds?"

"King Octavus, they have something much worse." Ethweltexco admits. "A meteor called down could be seen in the sky for minutes before the impact, enough time for a group of Arcane defenders to counter it. But these Ocmenians have volcanoes, they could sprout it up through the seeds in a matter of seconds."

The Supreme King rose from his seat, slamming his palms flat on the marble table.

"Those are heavy accusations of apocalyptic weaponry, I hope you have evidence to support it!"

"We got more than enough to satisfy your perception, Supreme One." Queen Eun calmly held King Octavus' hand to discourage the rage.

"Then, state your arguments." The Supreme King laid back on his seat.

"We got all the dusk reserved for the arguments, child. You must be forgetting that we came here to present an agenda and not a debate of petty conspiracies…" The Scholar King placed a hand on the Supreme King's shoulder.

"Yes, when Ethweltexco said that he saw an omen, he meant that... "

"Our agenda is war, we are going to war and that is our proposal, to you." King Ethweltexco finished.

"You want my kingdom to ally with both of you in a war?!"

"Precisely." Queen Eun answered.

"Bah! Ethweltexco, don't be naive! Just because Sovenia denounces Ocmenia doesn't mean that if we commence war against their nemesis, they won't take advantage and attack our northern lands!"

"Don't bother the northern continent, I could sense a civil war forming within their transparent walls of ice and I know they'll be as busy as us."

"You mean Geraldine Prudence and her gang of 'elite' misfits? Why? That kid is nothing compared to her Sister and The Queen's Glacier Council!"

"Don't underestimate the Golden Lady, child!" The Scholar King warned. "I've got eyes from the stars and I've seen her crafty advances, she had infiltrated provinces one by one. Recruiting from each at the same time. Something that reminded me of her mentor's methods..." He points his tattooed fingers to the Akan King's chest, "You."

"Oh Scholar-King, I never knew that your reputable logic could be tarnished by assuming faultily like what you did just now, even dangerously so." The Supreme King moved the big finger away from him.

"I'm afraid that you're the one who did assume more faultily, Supreme One." King Ethweltexco returned to his seat, with elbows on the table he held his forehead in stress, "We never said that we'll declare war with the Ocmenians."

"For it is with the Alditians." Queen Eun continued.

"Alditians? Where on Viridia are these new countries sprouting from!" The name of the country left a bitter taste on the King's tongue, it is like his kingdom, also named after a divined entity- The goddess of knowledge and dawn who clothe herself with the sun, Lady Aldite. Akantanel and Aldite are the heads of two different Households of Divinity, their Crowns being complete opposites just solidifies the tension.

"It is not only your country blessed by a God who is a Head of a Household, Octavus." The Scholar-King said. "And like any god-touched country, Alditia is also too damn powerful for its own good."

"And how did you learned of this land's existence? We better not be discussing delusions here since war is at stake let me remind."

"For that, comes another story... Inform the Supreme King, Eun." Ethweltexco gestured over the Swamp Queen.

"So, After the establishment of my Swamp country I decided that tending a country alone won't do me any good- I needed an alliance at least, one is enough. But the adjacent countries of the Swamps are not favorable. You see; in my southern border lies the endless wars of the Ocmenian Sands. Up north is the Zhoutanian Cliffs, and you do know how I despise their 'Emperor'. We have the Riverene border by the east, but I wouldn't dare risk publicity just to trade with the Immortal Merchants. That's why all I have is the west."

"To summarize it all, Queen Eun sailed west alone across Fonclere's Ocean to ally with me discreetly." King Ethweltexco informed.

"But before I disembarked on Etweltexco's jungle nation, I first met the Alditians." Queen Eun moved to the edge of the carved map of Viridia. A lengthy insect of countless legs and shells creeped out from her sleeve and then curled itself towards a specific spot in Fonclere's Ocean- north of Witch's Tongue within the Glacial Maze of the eastern Sovenian Country.

"That is where I discovered the Alditian Isles, I sailed within the Glacial Maze then mysteriously ended up in an island-country washed with gold." Queen Eun proclaimed.

"The people there accommodated me well with smiles as bright as the sun. They are highly hospitable, did not waste a single luxury offered to me during my stay. Their land is overflowing with honey, citrus, and gold. Might even contest the riches of the Tri-state... " Then she continues. "Each breaking of dawn, soft strings would play at the first peek of the sun, then the music will swell into large trumpets and terrifying drums the more the sun shows itself. The whole population would rise with the sun then sing, dance, and celebrate while burning gargantuan amounts of offerings from their nourished lands that might even supply my country for an entire cycle." Queen Eun knows that she sounds exaggerated, but it is the truth.

"Sounds like an uncivilized tribe to me instead of a country." Octavus said.

"Far from it, any young civilian in that nation would make your scholars look like fools, they are the land of Lady Aldite after all; their art, writings, weaponry, structures, culture, and pantheon consists solely of the Dawn goddess of knowledge. By the Inferno, even their king is a prophet of Aldite."

"What is the name of this Prophet-King?" Octavus asked.

"King Samar, he wears the Diadem of Dawn, your counterpart." The Scolar King answered.

"You mean he who is hidden among the world is the one tasked to prophesize the salvation of Viridia!? That is infernally useless if he intends to hide with his prophecies!" The Supreme King raged towards the unbelievable madness of fate. The Diadem of Dawn grants knowledge and prophecies bestowed by the greatest observer of all- the Sun. But it was lost after the Great War of Divide like the Red Crown an era ago.

"And that, Supreme King, is the reason why the three of us should prepare for war. We must Liberate the Alditians from whatever force has been holding their Prophet-King's Tongue." Ethweltexco proposed. "And we highly suspect that it's the Ocmenian Dominion who silently oppresses them." He added.

"Ah another accusation? Let's hear it then." The Supreme King asserted.

"On my way to Alditia, I first passed over a volcano in the sea. The ashes of it form dark clouds that sometimes swallows the sun. And providing no sun to these logical beings would turn them into sinister beings, something worse than death as I witnessed. Disturbing enough that it was the reason as to why my stay there was only of short duration." Queen Eun said in disdain.

"These people are being ransomed by a neighboring nation that we casually trade and form agreements with." Ethweltexco stood up, in thunderous energy. "So we ask you, King Octavus Quinquemere, aid us in liberating the annexed..."

The Supreme King stared at the land where the insect curled up. Searching deep within his thoughts as he fill the silence with the tapping of his fingers. Finally, he stood up, tracing his finger on the Mapped Roundtable. From Mother cradle to the Tri-state to Soap Port, then entering his neighboring country through the mountain ranges of the North East border- The Peninsula of Bannar to the snowy land of Sovenia. He traced through its first province, Graygreen, to the Coastal Province of Dirge, then continued to the massive Glacier Maze up north that homes the Alditian Isles, his fingers stopping beside the curled insect.

"I've made up my mind." The king of Akan wiped the dust that his finger had collected.