“So you’re saying that incredibly bizarre story is completely true?” Ophiuchus scoffed as he tapped the memory shard they’d all just finished watching. They’d witnessed the entirety of Nadia’s meeting with Arcadia, and honestly, not many of the rulers could properly comprehend what they’d seen. Ophiuchus was simply the first to be verbal about his complaints and skepticism, as he never was one to hold anything back when he thought something wasn’t quite right. “And what’s with the arrogance on that man? He had no right to be talking to you that way. Don’t tell me you agreed to his request and let him take Cirrus off to some random planet?”
“I assure you what I gave him permission to do is none of your concern,” Nadia retorted coldly, Ophiuchus giving her a tight smirk as he leaned back in his throne.
“Sure. I get it. I suppose even some people are capable of catching you off guard, hm, Nadia?”
“Quit it, now’s not the time to be pickin’ fights,” Nikiva snapped, glaring daggers at Ophiuchus as the king of the stars closed his eyes with his smirk still visible, leaning back to get comfortable on his throne’s cushions without saying another word. And Nikiva turned away from him to face Nadia expectantly. “Is what Ruba said true? Is that kid really stronger than you?”
“Yes, I am under the impression that he is,” the Queen of Lilino nodded, seeming to recall something as she stared off into the crystal table. “I tried to kill him, actually. I threw a fully charged ice spear at his head with frostbite on it, so even if he’d somehow been able to block it, he would’ve been infected by the frost and would have eventually been immobilized regardless. And yet he merely blocked it and tossed it aside, all of my ice disappearing into vapor the moment he touched it. He wasn’t affected at all. I realized then I wouldn’t be able to beat him in a fight.”
“You… you tried to kill my son?” Cadence gaped, Nadia slowly turning to give him an awkward stare.
“Ah… yes, my apologies. I had my reasons…”
“I understand he’s always been very disrespectful, but that’s no reason to try and kill him!” Cadence stood from his throne, finally looking energized in this conversation as Nadia averted her gaze.
“You wouldn’t understand. At the time, I thought he’d attacked Lavimo.”
“Hah! Then why don’t you show us some memory shards of that too, hmm?” Ophiuchus laughed, snapping his back off the chair as he laid his hands on the roundtable. “What are you hiding from us?”
“I’m with Ophiuchus on this one,” Nikiva agreed, Nadia looking between them with an angry glare. She wanted to say something, to tell them she had the right to her privacy, but she didn’t want to sully her reputation, either. It was a frustrating situation to be in.
It wasn’t until her husband, Didimitri Korule, laid a hand on her shoulder from where he sat in a smaller throne behind her, his gentle encouragement being enough to center her thoughts as Nadia regained her composure. “Fine. However, I’m trying to keep this under wraps, so this information simply must not leave this room. In any case…” she sighed, straightening her back as her hands tightened their grip around each other in her lap. “Lavimo has… developed the concept of corruption, it seems. He nearly destroyed part of the palace trying to attack Arcadia. Which, Arcadia was quick enough to move them outside and put up a forcefield around them both so that his corruption couldn’t spread, but the entire mass of land within that space looked completely ashen and barren… exactly like an apocalyptic landscape,” she revealed seriously, eyes finally centering as she turned her gaze over every single person in the room. “However, I don’t think it’s quite the same as what the apocalypse does. For example, Arcadia healed the entire slot of land and restored everything back to how it was before in a matter of seconds. No matter how powerful he is, I don’t think he can do the same with planets who have actually been corrupted by the apocalypse, otherwise all our troubles would have a solution.”
“Hah… that’s equally as absurd. What am I listening to today?” Ophiuchus laughed to himself, leaning back in his chair as Kal’s eyes were stuck on Nadia.
He shouldn’t say anything. In these meetings, only the leaders of planets were allowed to speak. Not even their spouses or heirs were supposed to say anything, and Kal was nothing more than a guard. But Lavimo… when it came to him, he couldn’t help it, because the boy felt like his responsibility. He might just be projecting too much, but he really did see so much of himself in that boy. The thought of him unlocking a dangerous concept like that and knowing nothing on how to handle it didn’t sit right with him at all, and he just couldn’t keep his mouth shut. “So how is Lavimo now?! Is he okay?”
“Hm?” Nadia looked up, her stare cold and icy as she met Kallan’s red gaze. “Shouldn’t you know your place here, you foolish guard?”
“I give him permission to say whatever he likes in this meeting,” Cadence interrupted her without regret, green eyes zeroing in on hers with equal intensity. “Now answer my loyal guard’s question. I’d like to hear it.”
And the two rulers had a staring contest of sorts, both of them eying each other with testing gazes, as if they were seeing who would be the first to back down. Cadence, however, was known to be the strongest of the five leaders in this room, so Nadia eventually lowered her gaze when she felt like he was about to passively activate his concept… which would benefit no one.
“Fine, I locked him up,” she waved away, eyes turning to look at Kal while she addressed him.
“You locked him up? Seriously?”
“Well what else do you expect me to do? He attacked a guest for seemingly no reason, nearly destroyed the entire estate if it weren’t for that esteemed guest’s prowess and capabilities, and then was knocked out by the said guest and hasn’t woken up since,” Nadia scoffed, waving her hand in the air without a care. “What if he goes berserk again when he comes to? We have no idea what will happen, or how out of control his powers will be. That’s why I locked him up with concept resistant chains. And I don’t know what Arcadia did to him… all he did was tap him on the forehead and Lavimo was out like a light. Though I do find myself thankful to the man, because he didn’t harm my nephew at all. He has my respect… so, Cadence, I promise you that I will never try to kill your son again unless he gives me a reason.”
“Somehow, that’s not very comforting,” the King of Salaven glared at her, but Kal was still stuck on the fact that Lavimo was locked up. Surely that was a bit uncalled for? He could see why she’d done it, since he did sound like a loose canon right now, but still… that didn’t sit well with him, either. He’d have to go check in on the man as soon as he got the chance.
And Nadia’s gaze was still stuck on him, flippant in her words as she looked between him and Cadence. “You know that I only break my word if I have a good reason to. As of now, Arcadia’s looking to be my son-in-law, so he can do what he likes. I appreciate his attitude, and I think we’ll get along just fine in the future. I can’t wait for us to be the in-laws we’d always dreamed of being.”
“Don’t patronize me, Nadia,” Cadence groaned, sitting himself neatly back in his throne as the woman smiled at him.
“I’m not, I mean it. We’ve been friends for long enough, so let’s just put this behind us. I’m sorry I tried to kill your son, but just know that I swear I will do my best to protect him in the future.”
“Will he even need it? You just said that he’s stronger than you,” Ophiuchus jabbed, though Nadia merely shrugged.
“I haven’t the slightest clue how far his powers go, just that he’s the rumored miracle worker we’ve all heard about spread throughout all sorts of different planets. All of those legends and rumors of a mysterious person going around healing continents and killing mythical beasts and moving oceans is all him.”
“And… okay, let me try to understand this better,” Lizana spoke up from her silence, finally seeming to have processed the fact that her son was alive as she leaned forward. “You say he uses the concept of anything?”
“So I’ve been told,” Nadia agreed, though Lizana still looked rather at a loss.
“Where is your proof for this?”
“She doesn’t need it,” Cadence sighed, moving his hands up to massage his temples. “My son has been using the concept of anything since he was thirty-five. Why do you think I locked him up and put him under constant surveillance? He was never sick, he was just always so reckless with his life. I thought he was surely going to accidentally kill himself, but no matter what I said, he was always set on using the concept of anything and nothing else. I thought that if I didn’t do something to stop him, I’d lose the only family I had left, and you saw where that got me,” he sighed, Lizana looking rather taken aback by that statement.
“He was never sick? You lied about your daughter’s condition?”
“Lizana, if not that, what should I have told you? That my child was trying to use a taboo concept and was most likely going to die in his attempt to master it?” Cadence retorted, waving his hand in the air as he leaned his head onto the other. “No, saying that he was sick was much easier.”
“What I’m more curious about is why you never told any of us your child was a man,” Nikiva interrupted them, looking awfully annoyed as she leaned onto the arm of her throne. “You seem pretty good about using the right pronouns now that four hundred years have passed, so why weren’t you this accepting when your son was still alive and with you?”
“Ah, you’re misunderstanding!” Cadence stood up from his chair once again, hand on his chest while he faced the roundtable. “I have no problem with children or adults or people in general choosing to change their gender! That’s none of my business! It’s just that Ruba said he was going to be a woman, and so did Seffi, so I was certain he was just in some sort of phase! I mean, how could prophecy be wrong?! Not to mention, Cirrus was fated to fall in love with Arcadia the woman, not Arcadia the man! I feared that if I let him transition, my child might not get the happy love story the prophecy predicted, and then the whole thing would fall apart! I was just trying to think of his future!”
“Hm… you know, that’s actually a good point,” Nadia froze, pausing for a moment to think to herself. “My mother never makes mistakes… but I know for a fact she prophesied Arcadia to be a woman. She also said Cirrus would fall in love with a girl, and yet my son is very clearly only into men…”
“And you still let all those poor girls try to woo him?” Nikiva threw out there with a laugh, the Queen of Lilino smiling a bit smugly while holding her head high.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“Ah, yes. He always rejected them so nicely. I do love watching young hearts get broken.”
“What is wrong with you?” Lizana faltered, feeling entirely defeated by this cold group of people as she turned towards Cadence. Usually, he was the only sensible one in this room who actually had a good heart, she felt. But now she’d discovered he’d been keeping all these secrets from her… what was she supposed to think now?
Ophiuchus, however, was getting impatient. He’d shut himself up and decided to listen to this spectacle, gathering information where he could, but all he’d received from this was that Ruba was more of a snake than he’d thought. The obvious answer was that the old crone had decided to play with fate to get the outcome she wanted by saying certain things were in the future, despite being nothing but lies. By getting Cadence to believe that Arcadia was a woman in the prophecy, which then led him to panic when Arcadia expressed the desire to be a man because he didn’t want to mess up the prophecy and doom them all, Ruba had ended up getting the exact outcome she wanted. Because, let’s face it, if she hadn’t said what she said, and if Cadence hadn’t been tricked by her and had never refused Arcadia his gender, then Arcadia would have never sought after the concept of anything, would have never mastered it, and would have never become as powerful as he was… that wise old bat sure was manipulative. That’s all Ophiuchus had learned from this pointless back and forth. It was about time he got things back on track.
So the King of Betalina knocked twice on the crystal table, gathering everyone’s attention as all the rulers and leaders of kingdoms turned to face him. “You know, I love idle chatter, but I think we best focus now so that we can all go home,” he announced pleasantly, smile still stuck on his face as he spread his arms wide. “What are we going to do now? Even if Lavimo suffered from it, we still gathered a lot of information from his little venture with Kal. And now, thanks to scientists from Lilino and Salaven, we’ve discovered that the truth behind the human transformation is actually black leeches that you can’t feel touch you. Sounds like a lot of information, right?” he laughed, eyes turning rather cold despite his smug grin. “Too bad we need more. So what are we going to do about it?”
“Hm. Well, the obvious answer is to send Kal back into the field,” Nikiva shrugged, leaning back into her chair without a worry. “Every time he’s led someone out to find something, he comes back yielding results. No one’s better fit for the job than him.”
“Huh? You’re not going to kill me?” Kallan blanched at such open praise from the militaristic leader of Monotum, although his shocked statement quickly turned heads.
Nikiva just looked disappointed, while Lizana looked more concerned. In fact, the Queen of Ovin was very hurt to hear that he thought that’s what would happen to him. So she leaned forward across the table, shaking pleading eyes at Kal, as she countered, “No, no, of course not. Why would we kill you?”
“Exactly. You haven’t even met your prime yet! So man up and stop being suicidal!” Nikiva barked, Kal staring at her somewhat incredulously as Ophiuchus just laughed.
“My, my, ladies… a man won’t just stop being suicidal because you tell him to,” the leader of the stars gave a condescending grin, both women turning to glare at him and his smile.
“Not another word, Ophiuchus,” Lizana warned, the man giving a careless shrug before Nadia called attention back to the room.
“On another note, I plan on sending Nefion out to sea to track down more mythical beasts, to hopefully find them and help them before they are targeted by this organization. Based on what we know, it seems like whoever is behind this is specifically trying to infect mythical beasts, so we must make an effort to protect them and recruit them if possible,” the Queen of Lilino orchestrated, Cadence nodding upon hearing that.
“Of course. I’ll send Vivienne and Artemis with you.”
“I’ll send Kimith and Nivi along with Kal,” Nikiva announced, the leaders turning around to look at each other as they developed the teams.
“Kallan, I’m going to send Listina with you as well. Will the four of you be enough?” Lizana questioned, Kal turning towards his King as Cadence considered it.
“Hm… I’ll send Adona with them, too. Five should be fine, since it’s just a scouting mission. If they find anything, we can always send more,” the King of Salaven conceded, Lizana looking very pleased with that statement.
“Good. That sounds like an excellent team. But who else should go with Nefion?”
“I can send someone, too,” Ophiuchus spoke up, ignoring the way both Nikiva and Lizana turned to glare at him for speaking. Instead, he merely waved at them both, before pointing to himself and smiling. “Sorry, but I’m a King and leader of equal power to you, so you can’t exactly shut me up forever, can you? In any case, I want to send my son, Atlas, with Nefion’s team,” he smiled, Nadia giving a reasonable nod as he continued. “Theoretically, mythical beasts are usually passive creatures who don’t attack unless provoked or if they feel threatened, so a bigger party might actually be worse when it comes to those special beings, especially if our goal is to recruit them. We have to take into consideration that they’re usually solitary creatures. I think Nefion, Vivienne, Artemis, and my son will be more than enough, especially with Nefion at the helm. I think it will comfort you that Atlas knows how to open portals, so if anything risky happens, he can immediately come get me and I will give them assistance.”
“I would prefer you not to kill a mythical beast if you can help it,” Lizana frowned, Ophiuchus merely waving her away with a casual hand.
“Yes, I know, I’m not heartless. If they’re being mind controlled, obviously I’m going to try to help them before turning to drastic measures. Goodness, Lizana, I’m not some psycho.”
“You make me wonder, sometimes,” Nikiva slouched, all while Kal was stuck in his mind.
Was he really acting suicidal? It was just that he hadn’t actually tried to kill himself in decades. Sure, he might not particularly care if he lived or died, but he wasn’t actively trying to kill himself anymore. Though, honestly, he was still surprised he hadn’t been voted off here… he was so certain this would’ve been the end for him. The end of the line… had he been hoping for it? Was that it? Well…
…maybe he had been.
But it didn’t matter anymore, he couldn’t die here. He’d been given yet another task, so he would fulfill it to the very end before he even thought of throwing his life away. Because work came first. Work gave him something to do, something to preoccupy himself with. Of course, if he died on the job, then… well, that was that. Not a big deal. Not a big deal… of course it wasn’t. He could feel himself barely walking through the motions as the meeting came to an end, Cadence teleporting him out, as they’d been the only two people to show up representing Salaven.
Damn… he wished he had a reason to live. Of course, he had plenty of reasons to die, but he didn’t really want to die anymore. He’d overcome that feeling, hadn’t he? But still, he hadn’t found a reason to live. Instead, he was just existing, doing what he was told, drinking alcohol or having sex until he couldn’t think anymore. When would he want to live again? When would life finally feel like it was something worth living like it used to be? When would he stop walking through the motions, when would the colors start feeling bright again, when would he be able to feel passionate about something like he had been in the past? When would he be able to feel anything besides this eternal numbness he’d been living with since the moment he was born? The only time it’d ever disappeared was when…
Kallan!! came that loud, screaming voice in his head, as annoying as it ever was. It popped into his mind the moment he stepped into his room in the royal palace. He had a whole wing to himself, as did Vivienne and Adona, where they spent time when they weren’t working. His room was only clean because the maids cleaned it for him, though if it’d been just him, the whole thing would’ve probably been trashed.
“Ugh… Leo, what do you want?” he winced, his voice coming out tired and grumpy, although Leo always sounded happy when they talked like this.
I was listening in on your meeting! Thanks for all the intel, I appreciate it.
“You… you what? Hey, do you know how illegal that is?” Kal snapped, though Leo’s only response was that annoying little giggle that made him want to punch his lights out.
It’s not like it matters. If I hadn’t faked my death, I would’ve been there too. It’s nice to know you’re taking on another job though, isn’t that exciting?
“...it is what it is.”
Oh my, and you get to hang out with Kimith and Adona! So much fun!
“It’s not fun, it’s work.”
Work can always be fun, Kallan. Back when we worked together, I always made work fun. Wasn’t it fun? I’m such a fun guy, right?
“All I remember is you being annoying as hell. Now get out of my head and leave me alone,” Kal snapped, a small silence taking place afterwards that made him think Leo really had left.
For goddamn’s sake, he was such a handful. Though it wasn’t the first time he’d eavesdropped on Kal when he was in an important meeting with important people talking about important things Leo definitely shouldn’t be hearing. His power let him do that, and it was fucking annoying. He could target a person’s mind, and through that, he could hear whatever they heard by interpreting the signals that moved in the person’s brain. And through that, he could put out more auditory signals into the target’s mind, making them think they were actually hearing something. It was the worst thing in the world and Kal hated it. He just wanted to be left alone. Though, after a moment, Leo spoke again. And, well, Kal had figured he hadn’t actually gone away.
If you want a hint on where the enemy might be right now… Feather had some information he wanted me to give you. And, you know, with the mission you just got, it could help.
“...”
Do you want it, Kallan? Hehe, you know, I could just keep it all to myself! Because I’m evil, muahahaha!!!
“Just give it here, dumbass,” Kal snapped, collapsing onto his bed as Leo laughed at him.
Okay, okay, get this! Listen closely, okay? It’s somewhere on Miukoo. You know where that is, right? Well, Feather placed a tracker on one of the people he came into contact with, and that’s where he’s at.
“Huh? But I thought Feather only came into contact with that one guy, the shapeshifter? We have him in custody in Lilino.”
Hah… well, ah, not anymore?
“...”
Kallan? Sorry, I know it’s bad news, but don’t be mad! You should be happy!
“You’ve gotta be fuckin’ kidding me,” he groaned, fists moving up to rub at the top of his head while he felt like the weight of the world just got dumped on his shoulders. It was already bad enough that the one butler Artemis had managed to subdue had killed himself… or so they thought. It was rather unclear. Nadia had taken Kallan down to interrogate him by any means necessary, but by the time they’d arrived there, he… he’d completely turned to dust. There was the shape of a corpse there, but when the Queen had reached down to touch it, it crumbled into something unrecognizable. And now he was being told the other one had escaped too?! Was Lilino’s prison really that faulty?! And Leo was only making things worse with that stupidly chipper voice of his that just kept droning.
Nonono, don’t be mad, be happy! Think happy thoughts, happy thoughts! What do dark and grumpy guys like you think of to be happy? Children falling? Birds running into glass? The wind knocking someone’s ice cream over?
“Shut… shut the hell up, what are you even going on about?” Kal groaned, running his hands through his hair while he glared up at his ceiling. “Aghhhh fuck you, now I’ve got more work to do! I’m going to Lilino.”
Ahhh, sorry Kallan, good luck! Have fun!
“I never have fun.”
Hahahah, well… you should really try to…
“Shut up and leave me alone. And stop eavesdropping on me.”
Fine fine fine, I’ll leave you alone… for now! I’ll be back!
“Leo, literally just leave me—”
Bye, I’ll talk to you later! I’ll be eavesdropping every moment I get! Don’t die, have fun! Go eat some ice cream and hope the wind doesn’t knock it over!
“Leo!”
Ahhhh fine bye!
And it really was quiet after that. But that was how Kal preferred it anyway. Leo was just annoying, that’s all he was. It didn’t matter what they used to be. And thinking about those kinds of things especially didn’t matter right now, when he had to go to Lilino and investigate how the hell the shapeshifter had gotten away. Fuckin hell… he never got a break, did he. But it was better that way. As long as he had work to do, he had a purpose. So he’d just keep working… endlessly working, until the day he died.
The rulers are all pretty important to the story, so I'd keep an eye on them! They'll all get their highlights with time. Let me know which one is your favorite so far in the poll! Who had the most interesting first impression??
Which ruler had the most interesting first impression?
