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Kalaeda
Lucy Katt: Thanks! Sorry for the wait!
Shadow Dragonlady: Thank you!
clair-a-net: Yes. The idea came from Songwind, a popular author on FanFiction who wrote amazing originals including one called “Double Life” about a popular novelist who really “dreams” up her stories. Sometimes, if they need to be in both worlds at the same time, both forms can be awake. This happens most often with Remi, since he is more active than Saria.
Chapter Two: The City of Warring Peace
Alisheta
Morning broke over the horizon of Novraska, City of the North. This place had come to be home to me, in the years I had lived and helped govern there. Now, for all of the Rim, it was the symbol of our perseverance. The last city to not fall at the hands of the Inners. The last stronghold.
The news had come to me late the night before, and this morning I would announce it to the people of the city. Haliaraska, City of the East, had fallen. Haliaraska, where I was born, was the military city. It was the reason we had stood so long in this forsaken war. Now, it was gone, along with the last few traces of my family.
Out of the four great Commanders, I was the only one left. I was the one who the future of the mages rested on. I who was not even sixteen. When Saria told me we were destined to die the day the first city fell, I did not believe her, but now it’s truth rings very clear. Just as Saria battles illness to stay alive, I, too, battle. And I was losing.
A rap on my door drew my attention away from the window overlooking Novraska. “Come in.” I called softly, wondering who it could be so early in the morn.
“Ali?” A familiar voice called, “It’s Kefien. Can we talk?”
Kefien. He was a survivor of Chilkalraska, City of the South, which had fallen first in the war. A childhood friend who had left Haliaraska to learn the arts in the south. Since he’d come to Novraska, he had never been far from my side. He stood tall taller than me, but far to gentle for the harsh life of his birthright. When we were young, we were engaged, but now that we both had little family left alive and a war to be won, marriage was simply out of the question.
“Yes, what is it?”
He took a seat at the table before my dieing fire. “The war, of course. What will you tell the people?”
“The truth, naturally,” I remained where I was, half watching him, half watching what remained of the night fade.
“The truth that they are going to die at the hands of the people they once thought they held a treaty with? What will that accomplish?”
“You ask the wrong person, Kafien. We live in the City of Learning, you must ask the scholars who know more than a soldier like me. Though, the truth is all I can give to them. And my strength as a mage.”
“Then, you will not tell them the lie you have told when the cities before fell, ‘With strength we will win’? You will tell them that we, the great mages of Kalaeda, will fall at the hands of mere humans?”
“No, I will not. It is not a lie, it is a goal, a goal we can still achieve.”
“It is a dream, Alisheta! It is a false hope you delude yourself and the people of the Rim with. We should surrender, and spare what remains of our people. They will gather all their troops and attack Novraska, by the light of tomorrow it will fall.”
“You rave as a madman, Kafien. Yes, chances are slim, but are we not the descendants of Haliane, the great Battlemage who once protected our people when we were small and at the hands of the humans? We have his strength in us.”
“It is you who rave.” He told me calmly, glaring piercingly into my eyes. “You who has never seen the human’s brutality. How swiftly they come upon a city in their airships when we were unprepared. How the city turned to flames and into dust taking small children and the elderly and the humans took the rest. You are blinded by a belief others have abandoned in favor of the truth.”
What he said was true. Our war now was simply a repeat of one centuries past. Four mages drafted the peace treaty that had formed the rim as our homeland. It is the story of Haliane, the warrior, Novra, the scholar, Chilka, the dreamer, and Renea, the crafter. Chilka wanted peace, and dreamed for it to come true. She went to Novra, a renowned learner, and asked him for help. He drafted the treaty and asked Haliane to deliver it. Because of the dangers of the war, Chilka asked Renea, a woman crafter, to make something to keep him safe. Haliane delivered the treaty and then the four were called to the human land to sign it. Chilka dreamed a place for the treaty to be kept and Renea built it. Novra recorded all that happened and gave one copy to the humans, another to be kept in Novraska. The four became legendary and the cardinal cities were erected in their honor.
They had ended the war once, then perhaps I could too. So I would try.
I wanted to tell Kafien that, but was stopped by a shattering. Magic waves rippled through the air, twisting and contorting with pain. The fabric distorted, formed around me, and engulfed me as I struggled to free myself from it. It tore at my inside and quelled my heart until it stopped pumping precious blood. I wanted to scream but the magic held my voice. It was desperate, the magic, a sign that something was wrong. Through tearing eyes I saw Kafien in similar distress.
Then, as suddenly as it began, the waves settled into it’s usual net of magic. It no longer wrapped itself around me in distress, and released Kafien as well. As I gasped for breath all color drained from my old friend’s face. “Alisheta,” he gasped, “They’re here, the web of magic knows they are disrupting it.”
My eyes, closed in thought, snapped open. In a flash I grabbed my formal over robe from a chair near the door and followed him out into the hall. He made his way to the gate from the barracks to town, and paused. I paused beside him, mouth wide with shock.
Before me, the last city of our people was burning to the ground.
This story kind of reminds me of Tales of Symphonia. Especially the story Ali told. The Tales little story goes something like this…
There was a great war between two countries that had been raging a thousand years. The war caused the Great Karlhan Tree, the source of all mana, to whither away and die. When the world was about to be destroyed, a great hero, Mithos, rose and stopped the war by getting the kings of both countries to sign a treaty. Mithos had three companions. A human warrior named Kratos, a half-elven mage Yuan, and Martel, Mithos’s beloved older sister who stood by him in his journeying and protected him from harm…
Of course, four thousand years later, when the game begins, a different type of war takes place, but you’ll have to play this amazing RPG to learn more.
Next time: History is doomed to repeat itself, just as it did so long ago. Humans, unable to survive in the magic field that covers the land are trapped in it’s center, but now they have the means to wipe out the cursed magic and let their technology take control. Novaraska is the last, Alisheta is all that stands in his way. Chapter Three: The Fall of the Rim.
Lockea
