Someone Else's Kingdom, BOOK II - Scene LVII

Queen Tunida stood silently as the ground murmured beneath her feet. The city of Woodville gently rumbling as the tremor passed; the calm ocean roar in the distance familiar once again in the quiet aftermath. It was the second tremor in as many days, and fortunately, like earlier ones, only nerves were frayed. The queen's normal stoicism having a touch of sullenness, her eyelids and eyelashes drooping ever-so-slightly, like heavy boughs. Her flowing red dress; a dampen to its lustre. Worried by the groaning earth, a few serving maids came rushing out to attend her, but she ushered them away, preferring the ocean drone.

Meanwhile, a mere mile away, her husband, the King of Tunid was busying himself to leave, overseeing his small ship. A pilgrimage was in the reckoning, and though uneasy storm clouds hung over his kingdom greater things were at play. All necessary preparations had been made, yet still, the ship that lulled on the earth-churned sea before him looked inadequate. So small beneath the larger world. Likewise, there was a dull feeling of desertion inside as he stepped aboard, grieving to leave his queen alone and so abandoned. Nevertheless, with the wider world in growing chaos the time had came. Word had already went out to his brother, Prince Twayen, that, as always, he must remain on Outer Tunida - no matter what befell the inner island. The perimeter needed its royal and ancient guard more than ever, as ominous omens loomed in the heavens. The rumbles of the ground felt most heavily in the stomach. Marrying mindful worry to the physical world, in knots of living, fleshy matter.

Naturally thoughts then turned to his youngest brother, Prince Reach, out defending the realm on the eastern front. Manning the eastern lands that separated the warring spectres of gods and men. He had doubted these myths so many times himself, so strange they'd seemed, but now he regretted his lack of faith. His ancestors had been wiser than he'd been, and he'd failed to rule as they'd taught. His liberal ease and younger reluctance to spill blood now a glaring weakness, as viewed from the bloodier moment of total war.

As his lonely ship cast off the queen watched voiceless from the palace gardens. A perilous journey across the waters - hopefully to join her cherished son, on his dangerous isle of exile, in the northern mist. With everything she loved most dearly now out at sea she thought less of herself and her island, even as invasion and conquer grew ever close. The sea seeming to swallow her soul as she opened herself to the sorrow; the grey clouds darkening above her regal brow.