#ethnia

“Stop, or face the full- full…”

“Force?”

Miranda’s eyes brightened and nodded, raising the stick in her hand. “-Force of the Empire!”

“Never!” Leif called back. “I will fight until the last man!”

“-And woman!” Miranda corrected him.

“Right, and woman too!” Leif brandished his sword-stick, and they began to fight to the “death,” that is until they tucked the other’s sticks under the other’s arm and then both staggered dramatically to the ground, saying their respective final words. They laid on the grass for about a minute, before getting bored.

Leif was the first to sit up and shook Miranda’s shoulder. “Do you want to be the Leonster knight now?”

Miranda shook her head. “I want to be an Alster knight. Let’s use the bench as a fortress and play siege the castle, okay?”

“Okay!” Leif smiled, helping Miranda up in her long skirts, before running over to the other side of the garden. Neither child knew others were watching their play.

From the other side of the courtyard, Duke Dorias of Leonster and Queen Ethnia of Alster watched their play.

“It seems the values of Leonster have already been instilled in Prince Leif,” Dorias said with a hint of pride in his voice. “It does my heart good to know that our future is in such devoted hands.”

Ethnia watched the little war games with a slight lurch in her stomach, and the man’s words made it worse. “They’re children, Duke. They know nothing of the horrors of war. Prince Leif is four.”

“I began to learn the basics of knighthood at age five.” Dorias countered. “Perhaps the old kingdom of Grannvale was too soft on their youth. It’s what allowed Emperor Arvis to rise to power.”

Ethnia’s eyes narrowed at the slight towards her old homeland, her gloved hand balling into a fist. “And what of Leonster’s way? To die in anonymity in a land that’s not your own?”

“We will get our homeland back,” Dorias replied. “We will not impose on you much further, your majesty.”