Someone Else's Kingdom, BOOK II - Scene LV

King Brijsk's horse clip-clopped through the Nic - the vague and narrow borderland between his kingdom and King Kaspria's Eastern Kingdom. His two loyal knights never far behind, galloping along at equal pace. The speedy journey like a quick whisper on the wind, reaching across a landmass now almost totally framed by conflict. The western and eastern seas like wings of a giant butterfly, flittering with war.

The ground beneath his horse's hooves was firm, and the very lightest of rain added sparkle to a glowing sun, holding promise of a better day. Confident in the endeavour, he rode on with clear-minded vision. The previous nights in the Once Wood forest had brought troubled portents to his dreams: rainy teardrops, like exponential numbers in the worried skies of his mind; or, as countless stepping stones across rising waters - dark and boundless and impossible to skip. Now though, he understood lines needed to be drawn. The thought of peace had brought sense to his mind, and with this sense he now intended to bring peace to firmer realms. He was not alone in these thoughts, though the few that shared his vision were to be doomed by similar fate.

Under darker clouds, in far off Caster, the shores were flush with yet more ships, readied to bolster the coming onslaught on Brynnyfirdia. The thoughts not peace, but total conquest. Peace simply an ideal that only followed the oneness of victory.

In the Maiden Lands a single ship sat sullen in the harbour. Its pretty hull and sail heavy on the water with the guilt of theft. Slowly, under cover of secret proclamation, the maidens held captive in Queen Aglaia's palace were transported to the ship. A vessels of vessels.

Finally, ripe with fullness, it left the harbour and headed out onto the misty sea. Disappearing from the motherland.