Legacies of light

Φ While in a headlock, I say to Atalanta, “How the hell are you so fast?”

“Maybe your just slow.”

“Shut up, and can you let go of me, I am going to choke.”

“This is what you deserve.”

Elbowing her in the stomach I say, “We don’t have time to waste, I need to go get the fabrics and then make sure Suzuka and Cyrus are still alive.”

“What do you mean still alive?”

“It is just that I don’t think leaving those two together could end well.”

“I don’t see the problem, both of them are quite similar.”

“You would think that at first glance, but I don’t think those two are similar at all. It is like a land creature that can swim, and a sea creature that can go on land.”

“That’s a stupid analogy.”

“Shut up.” Hearing something, I say, “Atalanta, Gryphons are approaching this place.”

“Could it be more of the ones from earlier?”

“I doubt it, they wouldn’t bother to ride through the material-filled airspace of Skydust unless someone was riding them.”

“Let's go look for Cyrus and Suzuka, if anything happens it is better if we are all together.”

“Right.” As me and Atalanta start to run, I see a man in a black hood pass us, his heartbeat is incredibly erratic.”

Φ The gryphons continue to fly towards us incredibly fast and a flock of them land in the plaza. Turning to me Jeter says, “Suzuka go hide yourself and Cyrus, it wouldn’t be good if they saw you.

“But what about you?”

“Don’t worry, we’ll be fine, just go hide.”

Following his instructions, I pick up Cyrus and hide among the crowd.

Φ The dark-skinned woman sitting on the lead gryphon jumps down and loudly says, “I am General Maria Scheffer of the Holy nation Gevurah, I demand an audience with your ruler!”

“How dare you be so rude.”

“You bastards have encircled the mountain.”

“You think you can just land in the middle of our country and demand things?”’

Letting out a little laugh, she says, “Country, this is a mere city there are fewer people living here than there is in our army, don’t falter yourselves.”

“HOW DARE YOU!”

“GO AWAY, INVADERS.”

One of the gryphons lets out a screech. “Koa what was that for?”

“Sorry general, but I refuse to let these people be so disrespectful as to raise their voices at you.” Turning to my people he says, “Remember the only reason we are even being this civil is a courtesy, nothing more, remember your place.”

As my people get even further enraged I calm them down and say, “Everyone control yourselves.”

Pointing at me she says, “So you are the leader here.”

“Yes, I am King Jeter mercury of Skydust.”

"Me and you need to have a talk.”

“I believe we do as well, follow me.”

Grabbing my leg, a child in the crowd tells me, “Don’t go.”

Breaking the grip, I give the kid a pat on his head and say, “Don’t worry everything will be ok, I promise you.” Turning to the crowd I say, “We have all had our fun today, so let’s all get back to work.”

As the crowd disperses, Maria says, “Koa, Gardienne you're both with me.”

“Right!”

She called the man who was rather fierce to my people, and a woman who looked like she had nothing but hatred for us. When they get off I lead them into my house.

After we all sit down in my living room Maria says to me, “This place is quite cosy, nothing I would expect from a royal.”

“Well extravagance is a waste of time, I would rather have a small yet comfy home.”

“I like that.”

Opening the door, I hear my wife come in carrying tea, after serving it to our guests she sits beside me. “This is my wife, Kate.”

“I hope you enjoy, I put my heart and soul into making that gift.”

Maria picks up the cup and is about to drink the tea my wife served, but is stopped by the man named Koa. “General they could have easily poisoned that, please don’t drink it.”

“Koa, you do know that is incredibly rude, especially when that woman said she put her heart and soul into it.” Taking a slip out of the cup, Maria puts her hand to her cheek and says, “How delicious.”

The man called Koa lots like he wants some too, so Kate gets up and offers tea to him which he takes. Then she goes to offer some to the other woman Gardienne.

“You want some too.”

But as my wife goes to give it to her, she swings her hand about to hit her, but her hand is caught by Maria. “Gardienne control yourself.”

“But.”

Staring daggers at her Gardienne calms down. “Sorry about that, she is a bit on edge.”

“No worries,” Kate says.

“But I have a question.”

“Oh, ask away.”

“How does this tea cup work, when I stopped that attack I held my cup upside down but none of my tea fell down.”

My wife’s eyes light up. Grabbing Maria's hands she says, “Well you see the cup is made from a special compound, of about 60 percent benelium, 22 percent rotium, 9 percent opemium, 5 percent kaloium, and 4 percent wocium in the sky forge.

This new compound has a special property that makes any liquid sick to it. So the tea will never fall from the cup, but this effect decreases as the liquid does so when you get to the bottom remnants you can still drink this it.”

“That must have been hard to make!” She says with a half-smile. It seems my wife shook her a bit.

“You don’t even know the half of it. The real issue isn’t even the making it is all my intricate designs, you see I have to hand draw all the designs on the material right before it sets, but the benelium it is made from has a property where it will just randomly set.

So time and time again while making cups, midway through the design it would just collapse it would just randomly set, which meant I had to spend another 4 hours at the sky forge to make my compound again. Simply doing that, made me lose 300 pounds due to heat.

I am a big eater, and I put on weight quite easily. So all of this kept me thin, but then I would just go back to eating 9000 calories every day, and then I burn it off all again in the sky forge, due to all this rapid loss and gain of weight my body go confused and started to self-destruct; it was a horrible case of sky sickness.

Now you might be asking yourself why I would go this far for such a thing. But it is simply because I want to be the best interior designer in the world. You see eventually mess happens which causes very expensive stains, so I have to create houseware which doesn’t break, crack, dent, stain or degrade in any way.”

Getting up, I put my hands over my wife’s mouth and say, “Sorry, she just loves to talk about the things she loves, been a long time since she talked about me like that.”

Turning around in my arms, Kate says, “Don’t worry hubby, my feelings for you are too large for even words to express.”

“Really! Then do you love me more than your work?”

“Would you give up your craft if I asked you to?”

“Hell no!”

“You have your answer darling.”

While me and my wife stare into each other’s eyes we start to feel the house shake. Looking over at the woman Gardienne, I see she is shaking with anger, it seems she wasn’t too happy with my wife's story. Sitting down on the couch we say, “Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it, you guys are a lot more fun than the royals in Gevurah. But I guess it is true what they say about all of you guys being workaholics.”

“Well of course we are, this is the country where we get to follow our dreams,” Kate says.

Sipping her tea Maria says, “Ahh Skydust, the country of dreams and craft. All the citizens work for each other and all the money they make is mostly reinvested into the city so more people can achieve their dreams. To live here is incredibly cheap, the people are all friendly, and the royals are nice people, what an amazing place this is.”

“You make me blush but I feel the same way, I love sky dust as well.”

“Truly is a shame then.”

“Huh.”

“That this little city will soon cease to exist,” the general says staring right at me and my wife.

Hearing this I am shaken, but my wife grasps my hand which clams me down. I can't panic with her around. “Now for what reason may that happen? I believe we have a rather friendly relationship with Gevurah.”

“Yes you do, we happen to love all the exports from your country despite the price tag. But at least on the bright side, we will be able to get access to all those things without the price tag.”

Hearing this I freeze up. “Well, you see that is what will happen in the worst-case scenario, but let's not let it get to that.”

Kate in a commanding voice says, “What do you people want?”

“Show some respect,” Koa says. But Maria just sips her tea quietly.

“You see, up until very recently we were in a war against the country of Varage.”

“Yes, it was CN widely spread that news. They said Varage is a country with lots of farmland and that Gevurah wanted it to become an agricultural colony of Gevurah, to supply future invasions. So, you began a 9-month-long war with Varage. The battle ended incredibly quick.”

“Those ninjas at CN never miss their mark. But you see there is a bit more to the story.”

“What do you mean?”

“Earlier you said that a 9-month war was incredibly quick, but in actually we planned to take Gevurah in 1 week.”

“1 week!”

“Yes, we planned to crush Varage quickly and minimise bloodshed, but an issue occurred Varage fought back with unheard-of strength. Varage isn’t known for its military might in the slightest, yet they pushed us back and after a while, we figured out the two reasons why they were able to combat us.

First, they had been given a large number of weapons and equipment which they used to engage in gorilla warfare. And funny thing about said equipment, it was from Skydust.”

“We did no such thing!!” Kate screams.

Gardienne yells, “BE QUITE BEFORE I LOBE OF YOUR HEAD.”

“Gardienne control yourself, I am not finished.” Turning to face me again Maria says, “Sorry about that one it is her time of the month.”

Embarrassed Gardienne says, “Genera-.”

“Moving on the second reason is that they stole a large shipment of Basileia crystals, which they used to make very potent medicine which allowed them to fight for longer.

And guess which trade route they intercepted then on; yes it was one of the private ones we use with Skydust. Then when we stopped using any of those trade routes, suddenly we had no more interception problem.”

“I can guarantee you that we don’t deal in war.”

“To be honest I couldn’t believe it at first, why would a country like Skydust start stabbing us in the back, especially since they know we could turn them into literal dust. So, I decided to do some investigation, and 5000 dead interrogated bodies later I got my answer.

Apparently, the ruler of Skydust was contacted by a group of young adults who offered to supply them with weapons and information, and the name of the leader of these adults was Percy Mercury the first prince of Skydust, your son.”