A dull sense of pain was the only thing El could feel when he woke up. With closed eyes and a blurry head, El rubbed his temples. The blanket draped over him disturbed as he started to rise. Off to his side, he could see Ianna sleeping on the ground next to his bed, hair disheveled, and tear stains on her face. He felt like he had… forgotten something…
Sensing the rustling of sheets Ianna jumped a bit as she looked around before seeing El groggily looking at her. In what could only be said to be an explosion of happiness she jumped at him yelling, “ You’re finally awake!” El could only look up at her as she buried him and pondered. ‘What was it…’
A tinge of pain came from his left side as in her excitement Ianna accidentally touched his arm. The bandage on his arm coming unraveled, he was able to see the mark left from that place. With an even fiercer pain, the memories came back to him and while faded they were still powerful and deep memories.
“Oh! Your arm, are you okay? I didn’t mean to hurt you. here let me re-bandage it for you.”
As she did so El’s face became cramped. Tears suddenly clouded his vision and Ianna became worried. Thinking she might have accidentally hurt him she stood up wanting to go call the doctor in case something was wrong. Before she could even start, however, El jumped out of bed clutching on to her. Although he acted much more mature for his age, he was still five. The thought of being separated from his family again hurt him and he wished for them to never leave him.
After hearing that El had awoken Require, Elena, and En quickly came to his room to check on him. They were all greatly worried about what had happened, but Requille held a certain amount of excitement as well. He was curious as to what gift El had received for such a big marking to appear. While most gift’s left a noticeable mark they were relatively small or located in inconspicuous places. In many cases it was seen, that the bigger and more complex the marking, the better the gift.
In the torch-lit caverns, the god of spells stood. Laughing as he looked around the ruins around him. The ice reflecting the light around him, creating chaotic patterns on the walls. As he did so a figure appeared beside him.
“Making your trials unnecessarily hard again I see.”
“Oh! I didn’t expect visitors today, eh~.”
The god of warriors and the god of spells stared at each other with drastically different looks. One had a look of mad amusement and the other a stoic face with but a hint of annoyance. Seeing such a thing one of the gods simply sighed,” I know. I know, I should keep playing around to a minimum. It just gets so boring sometimes you know! Plus it’s not like I didn’t reward him!”
This didn’t earn him much in the eyes of the warrior. Clutching his head and with a sigh so deep the honorable disposition slipped, “I hope you did more than that. He was just a child! What were you thinking…”
“Oh shut up. If you’re so worried about him then here. I’ll send down something a little extra.”
Looking around him he searched before his eyes landed upon a book. With a waving motion, it flew up to his hand opened to the first page. Pondering on a few things he simply nodded before tossing it behind him. The expected thump of the heavy book never came and the book was nowhere to be seen.
Clinging on to his mom El simply followed her as she did her jobs in the castle. After meeting with everyone in his room, they quickly realized something was wrong. He just stared at them as they spoke and there was no showing that he had understood but the expression of pondering on his face. They were confused and worried as to why he didn’t speak. No matter what they did they couldn’t get a response out of him. That was until they tried to leave the room saying that he needed rest. He jumped up before clutching Iannas’s hand and not letting go with a strength he shouldn’t have possessed.
Realizing that they had to leave someone with him until he became better, they stuck him with his mother. Ianna had to complete her duties to the palace and could not take care of him as she had to leave the grounds. The king was too busy and En was doing experiments. Other than the two minutes he made to check on El he was busy, saying as he ran, “If I don’t go back to the lab the castle might blow up!”
Normally Elena wouldn’t have allowed it as she had many meetings to attend to, foreign nobles, friends, trade deals, and even war planning. Be that as it may, she could see that he was unstable, and not wanting to hurt him more she chose the better of the two evils. Thankfully all that was scheduled today was a war briefing and training. And so she came into the meeting with a child clutching her dress.
As she entered the dim room, the five generals and multiple officials of the kingdom stood around a long table. On top of it a scaled model of the kingdom and the area of war spanned the entire table. Seeing the small prince following the queen into the room their face portrayed looks of confusion. He was simply a child not yet introduced to politics and not just that, since when did the queen spoil him so?
Elena gave them a quick glance as she took her seat in the front of the table, “It’s been two weeks since the last briefing. What’s the situation on the field?”
One of the generals shook himself out of thought before quickly answering, “It’s been a long war and it’s going to become even longer. They have moved to be on the defensive. utilizing the forts across the river.“
“I see… How many troops do we still hold? Enough to hold a standoff?”
“Five hundred thousand or so. They have roughly seven hundred thousand, though they’ve been pulled back. So yes, we could possibly even call for peace negotiations.”
“Ha, Relz keeping a peace negotiation! Throughout the history of our wars, we have had dealings with them. Each time they got on the back foot they backed up before attacking years later. We didn’t have enough power to deal with them as we are a small kingdom. That will change soon, however. Get ready to accept any peace treaties, as by the time they regain their strength we will be stronger. Strong enough to finish them this time.”
The amount of time before Quille is ready is far, so… let’s see how long we can string them along…
