Chapter Text
Prologue
Bluedoria stands next to her mother as the air grows thick with the dust of the marching army behind her, staining the once pure air of the no man's land they find themselves upon. Usually she had preferred her usual beautiful blue floral dresses, but today, she had been forced into gilded armor. A white breastplate with gold filigree lining it, connected to custom fitted pauldrons and left purposefully open in the back; the armor of her people, a suit she had yet never worn until today.
She nervously thumbs the wand in her belt, unknowingly growing a strange mix of geraniums, willows, and red columbines in her hair. Her pale blonde strands were tightly braided for battle against her own will. As soon as each flower grows, it wilts and drops a petal or two before withering in place, and being replaced by another, with each red petal mimicking the torrent of blood soon to paint the barren war ground. Her father, noticing her unease, clears his throat and nods in the direction of the reluctant general, breaking the attention of her mother from the battlefield for but a brief moment.
The Queen, adorned in armor that had long been deemed ceremonial until now, leans down from atop her mighty stallion leading the army, and silently places a hand on the shoulder of the quivering princess. Normally, this token of comfort would have eased every fear or doubt that ached the young heir, but today, it is the claw of the reaper that loomed over her shoulder. A chill reverberates through her very bones, goosebumps adorning every inch of her skin. She stares unblinking across to the opposing force, a line of soldiers just as wide as her own, the infantry layered just as deep. Above them flies the birdlike spearmen of the Tekeryt, a kingdom from the northern mountains that, just days ago, closely held their friendship.
They hold still, suspended in the air in military formation, forming lanes of trained soldiers ready to divebomb them at a single twitch from their commanding officer. In the sky behind the menacing airforce, the twin moons sit like jewels upon the celestial ribbon that encircled the planet. The planet's rings lay on their side, just over the horizon, holding the lunar marbles that gave omen to the tragedy just about to take place. The larger, Lorelei, is in it's waxing crescent, while it's sibling, Mataan, held a foreboding salmon hue. Quarus had once taught her that the superstitious would see that as an omen of betrayal; fitting, given his army's presence, now stood opposite them.
Quarus sits dutifully on his mount in attire very reminiscent of his usual vest suit, though it had been adapted into a much more battle ready tone. Thick leather straps fasten small plates across his body, protecting his limbs, shoulders, and core, but completely absent at his joints to allow free movement. A mechanical shield holding a pouch of pressurized poison gas was attached to his offhand, the one holding the reigns to his abominable steed. The beast, a monster of his own creation by the name of "Brutus," is a horrific chimera resembling the unholy cross between manticore and dragon. The abomination's lungs bellow at the simple movement of breath, and smoke rises from it's flaring nostrils, anxious for the thrill of combat, yet loyally, he awaits his master's cue. Quarus surveys the soon to be battlefield, like Bluedoria ahead of him. He too stares across the wide open fight space, disappointed in his father's brash decision of war. These kingdoms, his alchemical paradise of Argen T'oré, and the wonderfully arcane Kryl'ya, had coexisted for generations, but only now do they war.
He grips the pommel of his poisoned short sword in rage at the injustice of the present confrontation, and the faulty decision that led them here. His eyes, though they could not see each other, had locked with Bluedoria's. Their entire lives, they had been at each other's sides, two friends fated to meet each other from the very conception of time, but now they stood apart as enemies, forced to be so by their rage-blind parents. As they face off at one another, they know that only one army would live after today, as both cared not for prisoners, and fought solely for scorched earth.
Each stands at the head of their royal armies, and, in some sick coincidence, the same thought completely fills both of their minds, unrelenting and unchanging: "How could it possibly have come to this...?"
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