~~CALL ON THE SHRINES~~

The Elders in the land of Ruderkina used to say that legends only become legends when the stories are told throughout the centuries. Others say it was the effect of these people in the stories that made them go on in history.
But no matter how many times I hear these glorified versions of the tale, no matter how many people argue who was the true hero of the ancient lands, I will always look back on those years as a period where time teetered on the edge of the Void, ready to plunge the people of the land into a destiny of either light or darkness, slavery or prosperity.
The quests and heartbreaking struggles echo in my nightmares nightly, the faces of those long dead, whispering their tale.
And so it is that every morning I take up my staff and travel where the wind beckons me, telling the story as it is meant to be heard, letting them know the truth, refusing to let them forget.
I tell it how it really was, and I should know.
I was there when it first began.
And this is what really happened.

PART I
TWO PRINCES

Chapter One

It was a tradition for the people of Lumbia, that on the first day of spring the royal family would go on a Hunt, staying out all day and late into the night, feasting, hunting, and celebrating the coming of the warm weather and rebirth of nature.
Most of the kingdom flocked from their homes around the Ostrofia castle and filtered onto the grassy plain, setting up their blankets and their baskets, watching the children run around and shriek, picking daisies, petunias, and the occasional pretty weed mistaken for a beautiful flower. It was a time for laughter, ease, and plenty.
It was also a time when the two Prince brothers had to pretend they got along, for the public's sake.
As the Crown Prince, Lucian was the pride and joy of his father. Destined for great things with a leader's logic and strategy, his father's height and authorative visage, he was everything his brother was not. He did not take pleasure in the hunt as thoroughly as did his sibling, and he did not appreciate art or religion, seeking only the customs and laws that would help him to rule well, long, and honestly.
He was on his stallion, now, standing up in the reins, one hand pressed to the beast's neck, the other shading his narrowed eyes from the sun as he waited impatiently for the return of the hunting dogs. He licked a bead of sweat from his upper lip, ignoring the younger man on the ground beside him. "Where are those blasted brutes?" he muttered in irritation, half to himself, yet making the question seem like an accusation to the man who had trained them.
"You tell me, you sent them out this time," was the angry reply.
Lucian looked down at his brother, a frown tugging at the corners of his mouth.
Dressed as he was in an ordinary vest and breeches, the Prince Arcanian looked almost as ordinary as the shorter boy by his side, aside from the eyes glaring back at him that mirrored his own: a dark prussian blue, set in a face slightly younger, a shade more handsome, and definitely more tanned. Rough dirt-blond hair framed the younger man's face, chopped at the neck, shorter than his brother's and not as golden.
"You trained them," Lucian replied as if the problem were obvious. "Didn't you teach them to return to their master?"
His brother scowled darkly. It didn't take much to spark his already short temper. "They don't like you."
Lucian lifted his lip at the childish comeback, lowering himself and giving a sharp tug to the reins, turning the horse away. "They're your dogs, they like you…So go get them."
Arcanian's face went red with anger. Whatever curse he had been about to shout, however, was lost in the drumming of the horse's hooves as it galloped back towards the main party.
The boy at his side touched his arm lightly, just barely frowning. "My Lord, the dogs….?"
The Prince turned back to face the way his hounds had gone, trying with difficulty to get his anger under control. "Stop calling me that," he snapped impatiently, brushing the hand away. "There isn't anyone else around to correct you."
His friend smiled, waving a hand meaningfully. "Ark, if you don't stop pouting, then your brother will send someone to 'see what's wrong', and embarrass you."
The other man offered his companion a withering glare. "Oh, stop your smiling," he growled. "I gave you the whistle. You call them back."
"As you wish…" The boy reached into his shirt, drawing out the wooden whistle attached to the cord around his neck. He blew sharply on it, producing no sound, before dropping it, letting its slight weight thump against his chest as he studied the man by his side, his brow puckered with concern. "Why have you been so on edge this past month? You get angry at your brother more than you used to. Is it because of the news that wandering Priestess brought?"
"Priestess," Arcanian said the word like a curse. "She is probably just a batty old fool. Nothing but some nameless Seer."
His friend studied him calmly. "Yet she worries you."
"Yes, damn it." The Prince ran his hand through his sweat-soaked hair, the nervous gesture giving away his inner turmoil more than the words he spoke. "Everyone has heard of the Aulgites and their barbarian leader who calls himself King. We avoid them, they don't bother us. But I have always thought it would be just a matter of time until they set their greedy sites on our land and the port of Naziir."
The servant nodded solemnly and let his Prince continue.
"We are not rich by any means, and Lumbia is not a large land, but just Naziir itself makes it valuable. We use it as a means of trade with the countries across the Porgerr."
"You believe the witch. You think they might try to seize it from your father?"
Arcanian gave his servant a warning look, his muscles tensing. The sun made the sweat on his handsome face glisten. "You know too much for a villager's son. You should keep your quick assumptions to yourself, Kody. It would anger my brother and my father otherwise. You know very well they are trying to ignore this whole thing, casting the woman's warnings aside as rumors." He turned to face his friend fully, frowning. "But I am not so blind."
A smile played on the shorter boy's lips. "You never are."
His Prince laughed once, reaching up to tangle his hand in the boy's tumbling auburn curls that just touched his shoulders, smiling into the intelligent brown eyes watching him. He dropped his hand from the servant's hair, placing it instead on one narrow hip, squeezing slightly as if in rebuke, glancing towards the emptiness of the plains to the east that he knew eventually faded into trees and forest, becoming the Wher. "Never mind. Here come the dogs at last. Let's get back to everyone before Lucian really does send someone out."
Kody nodded, still smiling, turning once to whistle for the oncoming dogs before following faithfully after his friend.

Doveran Ostrofia had resided in the Ostrofia castle for thirty long years, ruling his Lumbia kingdom with a firm but just hand. A man in his middle fifties, his hair shot with gray and his left knee occasionally giving out on him, he was still a formidable man to be respected.
His many years ruling the Lumberian land he had been born to gave him a better knowledge and appreciation of the land and its people. He was a well liked and wise man who tended to make decisions that while didn’t always satisfy everyone, usually ended up to be the best course for the kingdom.

Dorveran turned his attention on his son, his stern countenance softening with pride, making his craggy face with its beak nose and sharp green eyes look less menacing. "Ah, Lucian. We were just talking about you." He gestured to the handful of men around him as Lucian strode boldly into their midst.
The young Prince nodded politely to the other men before turning to the broad man before him.
The Lumberian King was taller even than his son, with large sloping shoulders, muscular arms, and the same blond hair his children had inherited, though his was about the shade of his younger son's. His coarse beard had been cut off at the chin, and his bushy whiskers almost covered his mouth. His face was creased with lines born of stress as well as laughter. Lucian suspected some of the deep grooves were proof of his great grief over the death of his wife the Queen three summers ago. His thoughts went momentarily to his own wife-to-be, the Lady Efelgia, but he brushed her face out of his mind irritably. She was a plain, simple-minded woman that was to be his wife only out of necessity; she was the daughter of an important lord from the western lands of Urdagaday, a land he himself had never visited. He had met the Lady only once, when he had been fifteen and she twelve, and had not been particularly impressed. But politics had called for the marriage, and so he did not protest the betrothal.
Unlike his brother the fool, who roared curses and refusals whenever his betrothal to the Lady Gabrielle was brought up.
Dismissing all thoughts of women from his mind, he focused on his father once more, smiling blandly. "The Hunt has gone well this year," he said. "The feast will be even greater than last summer's, I think."
Dorveran nodded his agreement, clapping a hand on his son's shoulder and pointing with the other to the people collected on the plain a few dozen yards away. "Look on the smiling faces of your people, Lucian. When you are King, you must make sure they are always so happy."
The Prince nodded silently, eyes skimming the crowd. "Of course, Father. A King is not happy unless his subjects are content."
His father made a noise of approval. "You are wise beyond your twenty one years. I see great promise in you, as I have from the beginning." Pride tinged his voice. "But where is your brother? He was with you, I thought."
Lucian shrugged dismissively, still searching for one particular face in the crowd. "Playing with the dogs like a shepard, no doubt. Him and that servant of his that follows him everywhere like a faithful hound himself." Finally he spotted the familiar flurry of petticoats and bobbing pigtails, a smile spreading across his face as he crouched, arms outstretched to capture the bundle of energy that sprang into his embrace, small arms wrapping around his neck. Laughing, he rose, swooping the child in his arms off the ground.
"Lucian, Lucian, look at what I've found!"
A small bouquet of irises was thrust under his nose for inspection, and he sniffed obediently, smiling at the squirming girl. "Irises, Riah. Very pretty. You picked them?"
"All by myself!" the girl proclaimed proudly, trying to tuck the flowers into her brother's shirt collar. Strands of blond hair stuck to her shining, ruddy face, damp with the sweat of running around all day. She swung her legs happily, tugging half the flowers right back out of their cramped position in her older brother's collar and looking over his shoulder expectantly. "Where's Nini? I want to give him some, too!"
Lucian frowned slightly at the use of the pet name, but didn't let it irk him. He was the one who had demanded she stop calling him "Luci", after all. As the Crown Prince, he was above such embarrassing titles. Still, a pang of jealousy could not be hidden as in the next instant the girl squealed and wriggled free, dashing towards the two men walking up behind him. "Nini, Nini! Nini, look at what I picked for you!"
Arcanian had swooped her up in a flash, swirling around and around with her, laughing at her delighted shrieks before settling her on his hip and accepting her gift, conversing comfortably with her child-talk, as Kody looked on smiling, accepting a crumpled flower from the little Princess.
"Lucian."
The Crown Prince shook himself and turned back to his father, making his face serious once more. "Father?"
The King beckoned, already striding away, counselors in tow. "Both of you come with me. Leave your sister with the boy. There's something I think you should hear."
Arcanian heard the words and quickly relinquished his sister to Kody, hurrying after his brother. It was rare that his father invited him in on important conversations, and he wasn't going to miss out on this one.
Kody watched them go, holding onto the small feet dangling against his chest as Riah sat happily on his shoulders, waving goodbye with a fistful of flowers.
Sighing slightly, the servant boy turned and walked the other way, only half listening to the Princess' inane chatter, his thoughts on his Prince.

He had befriended the young man only two years ago, the two drawn together by the grief they were both suffering at the loss of their mothers. Arcanian had never before paid much attention to his servants until he caught Kody crying on more than one occasion.
At first he had been scornful, lashing out in his own pain that he sought to bottle up as his brother had done. "Why are you crying like a child? Only women sniffle like idiots in corners."
The words had hurt, and he'd made no secret of it, doing the forbidden and snapping right back with a few choice words relating to the Prince's heritage.
Too surprised at first to be angry, Arcanian had seated himself on the floor beside the boy scrubbing his face in embarrassment. "All right, filth mouth... so why are you crying? I didn't think boys your age cried."
Another stinging insult, this one unintended. He had glared at the Prince. "I'm not a boy," he had snapped defensively. "I'm only a year younger than you are... Prince," he added almost as an afterthought.
Arcanian had looked genuinely surprised, and Kody had had to hide a sigh. It was not the first time he had been mistaken for someone three years younger. "You're seventeen?"
"Yes," he had said gruffly, beginning to wonder if he would be punished for his actions and poor choice of words.
But instead the Prince only nodded solemnly. "I see. My fault. Why are you so upset, then?"
He hesitated, then finally admitted, "My mother… she died just a few months ago. We were very close…" he trailed off, embarrassed.
But once again the other boy surprised him, a slight, sad smile on his handsome face. "Ah. I know how you feel, then."
And he had left the conversation at that.
But he had begun to seek out Kody's company, finding in him the close friend he had once thought he would never have.
After a year their friendship blossomed and developed to something else, though Kody would never call it love.
Arcanian's affection for him was genuine, but just how the Prince felt for him was a mystery even to the servant who shared his company and his bed.