St. Skylar Stabat

If the day shall come where your heart can no longer beat for this land... If you find that you cannot save Sieri Lycar... Promise me this one favor...

Promise me that you'll save yourself.

Take the love, the blood, and the fierceness with which you defend a people stuck in their ways and give it to yourself. For you, yourself are worthy of love, and of peace.

The queen stared blankly into the skylight as it poured the morning sun into her bedroom. By then, the help had already flooded in upon her invitation. But she laid still, focused on a point in the distance, beyond the sky.

"My queen, are you well?" One of the handmaidens asked.

Her reply began with a subtle shake of the head. "I'm being watched."

Everybody froze in place, concerned. Horrified. Even though she was still learning Reach, she understood it more than anyone else in the palace; second in knowledge only to Deng Jia.

"You needn't worry. My passive observer is long dead."

Nobody understood what the queen meant. But they resumed their duties all the same. Meanwhile, the queen's eyes squinted, trying to give that glint in the sky, the shining twinkle of the past, some kind of definite shape. But it vanished under the weight of the effort.

"You send them the stone and instructions, but you expect them to understand either without a teacher," she muttered to herself. "We're it not for Jia and I, your chosen 'Shades' would be doomed. I trust you understand this?"

The twinkle in the sky didn't respond.

"No wonder you all perished," she scoffed. Finally, she tossed the blankets aside and climbed out of bed. "You needn't worry. I know my part. I'll play it. Even if I didn't want to, this place is doomed if I don't aid in your request. But I'll play the part on my own terms. Because in the here and now, The Dead Seer wants for nothing. I trust you understand this as well."

I am disappointed in you.

I have been advised to address the people after Arya's failed coup, and this is the summary of my feelings on the matter: disappointment. Disappointment in the general belief that peace is such a radical idea that angry little men would rather break their oaths to the crown than try to sew peace for their children. All so that they may continue waging war in a new world. You would allow a despot to squander a chance to be partners working together to shape tomorrow, just because bloodshed is your father's and grandfather's choice of drug.

Enough.

The Eye expands for every world, every reality it invites. It's endless. You could never conquer it all because it is endless. You would squander your freedom on a bottomless pit of blood, all because you know nothing else. We will not be those heathens here. We will be respectful members of Planet Earth, and we will not waste our hard fought freedom by warring for the rest of our lives. The Blood Tithe ends. Let recent events be a reminder of what happens to those who stand in the way of progress.

May the ruins of The Port Of Grendows be a firm reminder that the game you wish to carry on has no equal, no peer that matches me. I was born and raised in this game, and my proficiency in it drew the map you so desperately wish to expand. Every hand raised against me will be severed, every voice struck silent. All threats to the crown and its initiative will be dealt with. You know of war, but you do no know war against me.

To the rebels, the mutineers, the treasonous wretches who live by the grace of my handmaiden, I turn to you. The Port of Grendows will soon be the pier upon which bridges to this world will be built. You will earn your lives by rebuilding it anew. There will be a day when guests from overseas will sail here and we will not greet them with the sight of debris and in-fighting.

That is my command. You will break into teams and begin repairs on the harbor immediately. Those who refuse will join their traitorous general in the void.

This is your mess. Clean it. Posthaste.

Your Queen and Saint,

Sieri Lycar's predecessor, known now as the Forgotten Nation, had an ally to the west that traded slave labor for access to their peers and ships. When the slave rebellion took place out on the seas and Abraham Brir became Slave King, the slaves' first objective in their campaign to remake their home as Sieri Lycar was to return to land and take over their neighbor on the shore, establishing a beachhead. The small fishing nation fell first, and the liberated slaves cut their way from the shore to the Forgotten Nation, supplanting the government after months of fighting.

After Sieri Lycar was born, their hunger for battle grew, and their conquest spread outward on all sides, encompassing the peninsula and marching north. The nation grew exponentially over generations until Skylar Stabat, the current queen, used god-gifted power to move the bulk of Sieri Lycar to the primary variation of Earth. The move was made in concert with Ond, the Serpent that weaves through all creation.

However, while most of the nation was transported to Earth, Ond refused to precisely obey the borders the Lycari had drawn through their conquest. Much of their northern land was severed and an island to the east was lost completely. In the void left in Sieri Lycar's sudden absence, these lands in Ond's Eye were retaken by neighboring nations in the ongoing War for the Eye, and the Lycari citizens left behind were either killed or captured as prisoners of war. In summary, the Sieri Lycar campaign was violently reduced from a rapidly expanding peninsular nation in Ond's Eye, to a much smaller island kingdom on Earth.

Sieri Lycar was born on slave ships.

A Forgotten Nation of slavers trained slaves from birth as fighters in the ongoing War for the Eye. The proposed democracy of Ond's Eye was staunchly anti-slavery, and thus, the Forgotten Nation fought alongside the established Regal Collective against the encroaching forces bent on abolishing the monarchy.

Thousands of the best trained slave fighters were sent on a fleet of ships meant to reinforce the fight across the sea. However, the slaves on one ship followed their commander, Abraham Brir, into mutiny. The mutiny jumped from ship to ship until the entire fleet fell under Brir's command. The fleet returned home and took the peer before marching inland to take the capital, displacing the king and conquering the nation in the process.

He was General Solomon Arya. And as blood trickled from the gash on his forehead, he knew that his once great name had faded into nothing.

That girl, that disgrace that sat upon the throne, was a horror beyond belief to face on the field of battle. The small nation of Sieri Lycar could not afford the size of mutiny he commanded, this he knew. Once they turned against the crown, it was only a battle that would last a week, maybe two, before it claimed the crown, and the bitch’s head that it sat crookedly atop. After that, Arya would rule, and they would continue the Great Conquest on this brave new world. The United Kingdom had been missing its monarch and much of its parliament for some time. Sieri Lycar would step in, fill the vacuum, and carry on East. The Conquest renewed.

A day passed. Only one. And the Rebel General’s easy campaign vanished behind the smoke billowing from sunken ships that never had a chance to leave port. Rivers of blood cascaded down the cobblestone, soaking the soles of the Genera’s boots. The rules of War were broken by a combatant who boasted the strength of gods and made a mockery of prudent positioning by willing herself to any corner of the field that she so chose. Even worse still: there were two of them, these Raptyr. One combatant armed with the spear that killed the Lycari’s great king, and another who cut her teeth on an endless turf war with a wolf the size of a large horse by her side. Yes, they had infantry of their own to protect them…but they only flowed with momentum made by those two horrors.

The Queen and her companion savagely cut down the rebels until they fled for the navy yards, hoping to set sail on ships that were struck down by a spear that pushed through iron like a sheer veil before returning to its wielder as if called, only to be thrown again.

“We must get the ships out to sea!” the rebels heard their General say. “They cannot sink them all. If even one escapes, the men on it will live free of that witch’s rule!”

By that time, his inspirational baritone had deflated into meaningless noise that sat on his men’s ears like false hope.

“No,” Garret, his second in command shouted back to the General as they ran through the streets with the remaining rebels. He pulled the General aside and forced him into the wall of a nearby flower shop. “We must surrender.”

The general scowled and lunged east to the naval yard, “I will not surrender this campaign to those harpies…!”

There was no running. Garret held his general firmly against the wall. “This campaign is doomed!! We all see that, why can’t you?” The words reached the ears of passing rebels and they lost the will to run. Garret was right. The naval yard was miles away from them. It was a mere step through a portal for their enemy. Whatever gates they could conjure for themselves, they could also conjure for the defending armies.

No amount of misplaced faith in a proud general could make this mutiny winnable.

“We wave the white flag.” Garret released General Arya. “We march single file to the palace and beg, on our knees, to be spared–”

Even though the blood spatter obscured his vision, he recognized the spear that plunged into Garret’s back, and out through his heart. The very spear that killed Sieri’s Lycar’s former king, the spear his daughter used to take power and destroy their way of life. 

The spear exited the wound, soaring through the air down the street before it found the hands of its queen once again. “Don’t bother!” The queen called to the general. “There’s only one fate for traitors to the crown.”

The general looked to the shore, and even miles away, the General could hear the screaming. Worse still, he could see the faint orange glow of flames growing larger and larger. The world before them broke like shattered glass, and Abidalla stepped through the fault like a door with the massive beast of a wolf in tow. From the shores to the streets in seconds. She dropped the bloodied insignias of dead lieutenants and ship captains at the general's feet. Just before the portal closed, he could see behind her the bulk of the forces loyal to their queen, slaughtering the rebels like sport.

The general stared his queen down, from one side of the street to the other, and gathered what little pride he had left. “Long Live King–”

The queen lifted her spear and launched it with devastating precision. The name of her father fell like wet, panicked gurgles out of the general's throat through a wound in his neck.

The queen walked the length of the street, supported by her escort. As she entered the street lights, he could see clearly that she was not dressed for battle. She was dressed for bed.

The general remembered to grasp for his bloodied neck, to hold the spear up so that he wouldn’t tip over. But his strength was fading fast, and his knees were the first to buckle, landing in the lifeblood of the ill-fated temper tantrum he once called a rebellion.

“Did you forget that I bested my father?” the queen asked. “Did you forget that I felled him and his campaign? I brought an end to the Great Conquest that scorched the lands of Ond’s Eye, and you thought you could end me with a treacherous outburst? The gall.”

The strength in the General’s hands left him next, and they fell to his sides. But the Queen performed the kindness of supporting the spear's weight. She used the weapon’s shaft to tile his chin upward.  And there, on his knees, bleeding through his throat, did he make proper eye contact with Skylar Stabat for the first time.

“Did you believe that in my quest to leave the war behind, I had suddenly forgotten how to fight them?” Skylar’s disgust was apparent in her voice. “No, Solomon.” She tore the spear from the general's neck and slid the tip across the cobblestone. The stone gave way to a portal…but to where, no one could discern. Not even Skylar. The only prerequisite she gave to the portal’s creation was simply “Not here.”

“I may vow to never again engage in needless conquest, but I WILL defend my nation from those who would harm it. Especially if they wish to poison it with our past habits.” She planted her knee against the general’s skull. “You and your rebellion are free to rest in the same void that we buried my father in.”

The rebels saw the general fall into the portal, pushed by the gentle nudge of Skylar’s knee. He fell, with no ground in sight. And when the portal closed, his legacy as the King’s trusted butcher ended in shame and defeat. Felled by a woman in a nightgown with the greatest of ease

Skylar held her spear to her side and looked to Abidalla. “I’m afraid I have much to do tomorrow morning, with the cleanup, Enid’s preparation, and whatnot. You’re the more seasoned warrior between us: may I rely on you to finish up?”

Abidally pulled the axe from her back and turned to face the scattered rebels. The crowded streets backed away from her as she approached. “Between your forces and I, the rebellion will be flattened by sunrise.”

“Very well.” Skylar handed her spear to her escort, who immediately busied themselves with its cleaning. “I’m going back to bed. This needless riff-raff has exhausted me enough.” She turned and started the long walk back to the palace.  She didn't dare look back–the instant her back was turned, Abidalla and her wolf Okir went to work. She could hear the rebels on the street plead for their lives, begging for the army to accept their surrender. And afterward, she could hear their screams and the sounds of flesh tearing and bones crunching.