Kanah Belflower

Captain Jon Vaeris Rells stood in the great hall of a fortification that he had been tasked with presiding over. It was his job to ensure the survival of the soldiers and civilians under his command, those souls who fought so hard to keep the dream of a peaceful land intact. Yet, when the pivotal moment in defending that peace arrived at his doorstep, the key to winning lay in the hands of someone whom his own men believed to be the enemy. What would he choose? What would save his people and stop the threat posed by the mountain raiders? What was right? The captain sighed. He'd always thought that power would bring him greater freedom: the freedom to make decisions that no one else could, the freedom to help those who needed it when they needed it . His thinking had been wrong. So terribly wrong. For the decisions he made would always fall back on him, leaving scars on his reputation no matter the outcome. Every victory brought loss, each choice set in stone left behind a trail of ...

Heavy rain poured over the southern reaches of the king's land. Poor weather was nothing new for mountain dwellers, but the chilled air normally marked a drier season amongst the Kradellan peaks. Little could be heard over the roar of the wind, and seeing through the deluge was near impossible. Tree branches whipped back and forth, tossing leaves and stray branches aside at startling speeds. To find yourself out in such a dangerous storm would be akin to suicide. "Adrian! Felix! Are you out there?!" A small boy shouted into the pounding rain, desperately hoping for a reaction. A response, a signal, a change in the wind, anything to let him know that he wasn't alone. But the howling wind drowned him out, rendering his pleas pointless. After a minute of desperately scanning the treeline for signs of help, he sloshed through the growing pools of water in a direction that he hoped would lead back home. His mother had warned him about straying too far from the village, yet...

"He wants me to do what ?" The captain's shouting had drawn the attention of the few soldiers not already staring at our scene. I stood before their war table, held at the end of a spear, while a Tritonian military commander half-growled into his palm to prevent the volcanic rage within him from erupting. The strategic minds nearby looked ready to remove my head for use as a mantle ornament, and, ironically, the only person who seemed even remotely calm was the guard to my left; the one whose incredible memory had put me in this situation to begin with. He busied himself with picking his teeth the entire time, so maybe that could be better attributed to a lucky guess. "Commander, these Confederates can't be trusted!" One of the strategists seemed a bit overeager. I suppose I couldn't blame him, considering the circumstances: for decades, Tritonians and Bovicans were taught early on (and often not so subtly) to despise one another. Each saw the opposing s...