Chapter Text
The Red Kingdom was… demolished, to put it very bluntly, which was typically Nom's preferred way of going about things.
It saddened him to see so many dead, because of course it did, but Nom couldn't say that he wasn't used to the feeling. You got accustomed to that in a war zone, particularly when you'd been fighting in one for your entire life.
Nom surveyed the rubble dully, looking for wayward signs of life, and startled at ginger hair poking out from behind a wall. He only knew two redheads, and of them, only one belonged in the Red Kingdom.
"Mae?" He shouted, cupping his hands over his mouth and walking to the remains of the wall. The mystery figure immediately popped up like a groundhog, shock written all over her expression. Mae's face was slightly scuffed, littered with dirty smudges and bearing a scratch next to her ear, but nothing looked major.
Mae hopped over the wall and slammed directly into Nom, screeching. "OH MY GOD, YOU'RE OKAY!"
She got a laugh out of him as he hugged her back, a rarity. At least Mae was okay—he didn't have much, but outcasts had to stick together. It was good to see that the rogue wasn't injured too badly from the fight, even if most of their comrades seemed to be dead.
Reluctantly, Nom pried the ginger off of him. "We have survivors to look for," He scolded lightly, and she immediately nodded enthusiastically and moved to walk at his side.
They dug through the rubble and checked inside the still relatively intact houses, but found no signs of life. If there were only two members of the Red Kingdom left, that would be… bad. They'd have already lost.
It was only when they decided to check the castle that they finally happened upon some survivors. Two, to be precise, but any help was good help. The first was the necromancer, who Nom knew as Sausage. He'd never much liked necromancy, really, and by extension wasn't the biggest fan of its wielder, but there was no time for complaints.
The second person was someone by the name of Ser Bek. Nom vaguely recalled that around the time he had come to the Red Kingdom, she had already left to go and train at the Knight's Academy. They'd never had the chance to become acquainted.
The quartet stuck around in the remains of what was once a garden, now demolished almost entirely. There wasn't much else to do, at the moment, other than get to rebuilding. No one was particularly in the mood for that.
Soon, though, they were interrupted by another voice.
Immediately, all of the present members of the Red Kingdom were standing on edge, weapons drawn. The owner of the voice quickly made herself known, a woman with brown skin and bouncy curls of dark hair, eyes the color of the mud-soaked rocks Nom used to skip on the river.
She threw her hands up and surrender, giving Nom the chance to properly survey her. She had carefully laid a staff littered with seashells and what appeared to be the rope of a fishing net on the ground—a mage, then. Her outfit was a pretty dress varying between the colors of sunlit waves and sea foam.
"Please don't hurt me!" Her voice was high when she was nervous, though he couldn't tell if that was just all the time. "I swear I come in peace!"
"Are you from the Blue Kingdom!?" Bek demanded, spear pointed threateningly. Nom shifted the weight of his own spear in his hand.
"What is the Blue Kingdom!?" The woman shouted.
At least a little convinced that she wasn't some kind of spy, the quartet lowered their weapons, though they all stayed outside of their rightful sheathes and inside of the hands of their owners. Nom pointedly kept his spear pointed over the woman's staff, guarding it. "Your name?" He inquired.
She fiddled with her hands, eyebrows creased in stress. "Shandrea," She answered.
At last, the tension diffused. Nom begrudgingly stepped back and allowed her to pick up her staff, putting his own weapon in the carrier over his shoulder. Shandrea soon told the gathered people that they could call her Shan if they wanted to, and that was that.
They soon gained two additional members of the Kingdom: A rogue calling themselves Kitty and a knight named Apo who reminded Nom disturbingly of himself before he'd come to Red.
Inevitably, Nom's thoughts came back to Katie as they so often did.
He hoped she was doing alright, that she hadn't been swept up in the battles, but he hadn't seen her when he was out there, so it was just as likely that she was alright and still standing. That was all he could ask for in life… well, Katie, Graecie and 4C. As long as they were okay, it was fine.
They all settled relatively well, which was shocking even to Nom. Shan and Mae got along nicely, playing off of each others' chaotic energies, and Nom absently thought that they'd probably be the death of him sooner or later. Nom found himself staying close to Apo.
"Where do you come from?" He inquired curiously, absently tapping his fingers together. The crest on Apo's chest plate wasn't any kind he recognized.
"Thornhelm," They answered, eyeing his spear. She held a spear as well, though the blade was different—curved on one end and flat on the other, better for slashing than some other kinds of spears might be. The shaft was a deep purple that matched their armor. "It's a kingdom about two weeks south of here. Are you local?"
He nodded. Local in ways different to the kind Apo was asking for, but technically, he wouldn't be lying. "Mhm. Born and raised in Bannerfall. I've only been elsewhere on missions, though I don't do those anymore."
"Why not? Aren't you a knight?"
He shook his head, crossing his arms. "Not anymore, no, but I used to be. These days, I'm a mage who just so happens to use fighting to do my magic. Most have just called me the lightning mage, others who know my proper technique call me a bladesinger."
Apo looked slightly bewildered, but didn't press further. "Okay."
The rest of the few hours before everyone went to the throne room were filled mostly with pure, unfiltered chaos. Shandrea… her magic was certainly interesting. Nom had never interacted much with the water mage that the Red Kingdom used to have, content with thunder at his fingertips.
Unfortunately, this did not work to his advantage.
"WHAT THE HELL!?" He shouted, voice going embarrassingly high as he was tossed around in a bubble of water. Apo screeched much the same, jolted around close to Nom, and very soon after, poor Mae got dragged in. Mae seemed to be having a good time, though, so who was Nom to judge?
It felt weirdly good to be so lighthearted, even among strangers, laughing and screaming as they chased each other around and tossed magic at each other.
At last, they all sat down in the ruins of the throne room, digging mostly intact chairs out of the rubble. Nom and Mae had to stand, which was fine by him. Bek had offered her seat, but Mae had graciously declined.
Explaining the whole war thing was easier than one might have expected, though Kitty still didn't seem to understand why people were fighting over something so petty. Nom thought that was quite fair and reasonable. He didn't know either.
"We do have to elect a monarch," Mae said, her voice lilting with feigned casualty. Monarch elections were odd in Bannerfall. Every two weeks, the crown changed hands—Nom didn't know how they were supposed to end a war with such unstable leadership. He'd seen a peaceful monarch and a warmonger one after the other too many times to count.
"We should test out the throne," Kitty pitched, a tone to their voice that Nom had mostly assumed was supposed to mean a joke, but the others at the table decided it couldn't really hurt. They took turns sitting on top of the throne.
Mae looked beautiful as always, perhaps even more radiant. Ginger curls spilled down her front, emerald eyes glinting softly. The crown, on top of the throne, complimented her well. Nom knew that it could shift shapes the same way the crown of the Blue Kingdom could—their most recent monarch had worn it more as a circlet than a proper crown or tiara.
Apo was a more stern looking figure, but clearly shifty and nervous in ways no one but Nom seemed to notice. Her feet stayed firmly on the ground, spear draped across their lap, knuckles white around the shaft. They vacated the throne very quickly.
Shandrea reminded Nom most closely of their most recent monarch—pristine, peaceful in attitude, graceful. Very much like Graecie, now that he thought about it, just more outwardly bubbly. She seemed like she'd made an okay queen, but Nom wasn't one for assuming one's character.
Bek mostly answered the questions as to how the selection was going to go down. Nom tuned the conversation out, busy mentally praying to whichever god would think him worthy enough of listening to. He almost missed the paper and quill appearing in his hands.
Though the offer of royalty was tempting, Nom had decided to opt out. He wasn't the kind of person who could help so many people go from the ground up. He'd barely been able to do it himself.
He'd been through enough of the selections to know how it felt, but evidently feeling the physical burden of luck and chance being tossed around you by the Divine was not a sensation most at the table were used to. Apo looked like she was about to be sick.
Just as fast as the swirling had started, it stopped dead and a name rung through the air, a whisper on the wind that Nom had never been able to determine the precise cadence of. Shandrea.
Shan gasped as her hands flew up to her mouth in shock. Atop her head appeared the crown. The gold seemed to have trouble deciding a firm shape for her, twisting through several designs until it found one that Shandrea seemed to like—a circlet, inlaid with a single bright red gem which Nom had never been able to identify, that perched beneath her curls with a regal kind of grace.
The room stood in silence for a second before someone shouted "Huzzah!" and the rest of the gathered people followed suit immediately, joyous cheer filling the air. Shan smiled and went to take a seat on the throne, seemingly very happy with this development.
Just then, as the celebration died down, a raven perched on Nom's shoulder. He struggled under the new weight, but thankfully, it was a small one—perhaps a not-quite adult bird, the kind that wasn’t a quarter his size.
This wasn't uncommon for him—he was friends with the local raven population, even though they seemed to be slightly too intelligent even by corvid standards, and they liked to deliver letters and shiny things to him.
"We have mail," He called, and waited for the room to fall silent before he read out the letter. "Residents of the Red Kingdom, the people of the Best Ki Blue Kingdom invite you to a cordial discussion in No Man's Land, on the bridge over the river. We will bring all of our numbers, but do not expect for you to do the same. Hope to see you there, regards from the Blue Kingdom. Do we go?"
Everyone turned to Shan, who briefly seemed surprised at the attention before remembering that she was the queen and these kinds of decisions were up to her now. "Yes," She said. "I think we should go and see who we are in competition with. All of you may come if you like."
And so the new Red Kingdom, built of outcasts, rascals, and travelers from far off lands, set off to the bridge.