Kronshi
Sky Blue
Majoraa
High Moon
Emberdawn2
VirgoDrago
CitrusArms
Soldat Elf
Estylwen
Such pristine walls.
Such beautiful, untouched things.
She reached out with a hand, blue arcs crackling over her forearm.
What mark could she leave upon this?
…
Kreszenz Leichenberg had chosen to walk. The cost of a carriage was prohibitive if one’s starting destination was the very edges of the Forbidden Realm, and anonymity was, in theory, a better defense against bandit attacks than an armed escort. Her father had disagreed, of course, but her mother, the bluer-blooded Leichenberg, understood the desire for a child to see the world at her own leisure. She ought to experience the world before swearing the oath to protect it.
So the young daughter of a fallen House packed up her finer clothes, drew a cloak over her shoulders, plotted a course different than the one she had taken when her parents accompanied her to obtain her grimoire at the edges of the Common Realm, and allocated a month’s worth of rations to make her journey to Kikka.
In practicality, there were bandits desperate enough to attack even lone travellers. Of course, it was the season for Magic Knight prospectives to be heading towards Kikka, their pockets filled with travel funds. Perhaps those bandits had some reason after all, though Kreszenz didn’t dwell on it when she dropped a lightning bolt or three in their general direction.
That, perhaps, was the most excitement she got out of her journey. Maybe in the years to come she would look back fondly upon the days she spent crossing ravines or striding up switchbacks, the nights she spent upon crude mounts or by gurgling falls, but after having seen three villages and shared the road with a dozen other travellers before their paths diverged, Kreszenz found that they all blurred together. Just villages in desolate places, self-reliant but bland. A few held landmarks worth raising a brow over, but what of it? The Castle stood tall in the distance, a mountain all on its own. Her steps drew her ever closer to that grand fortification, where the future of the nation was decided far beyond the voices of the populace.
No wonder that in every village and town she had passed through, Kreszenz heard at least one loud-mouthed buffoon speaking ill of the Royals and the Aristocracy. Enemies within and without, yet those walls remained so pristine still, as if it hadn’t seen conflict since the inception of the Kingdom.
Kikka came to focus as she crested a hill.
At the base of the castle-town’s walls, there was someone in the drab clothes of a custodian, removing what stains others had left.
That explained it.
…
The crowds were almost overwhelming. A life spent in the far west and a month-long trek had meant that even at most, Kreszenz saw maybe thirty people in a place at a time. In Kikka though? There were hundreds, each of them shuffling along or picking fights or selling their wares or making friends. She could throw a rock up in the air and it’d land on two people, that was how many there were in a single street. The queues snaking up to the application tents were a hydra in reverse, dozens of lines merging into each other before they connected to only one of five tents, while the smell of cooked food, after weeks on nothing but hard bread, cheese, and river-water, was so enticing that she reckoned that she’d be able to gain an easy five pounds…if she had money to spare.
But, of course, she did not.
Her boots had worn down to the thickness of sandals. Her cloak smelled of earth and the tang of ozone. Her hair was in such need of washing that she had half the mind to save herself the trouble and cut it off. Deep in the recesses of her pack was coin and fine clothes, but those were for emergencies and the future, not to be squandered on frivolous displays of vanity. So Kreszenz kept her eyes forward, her face up, her strides long and purposeful, as she marched with the countenance of a noble even in the garbs of a vagrant, her gaze settling in with unnerving focus upon the officials in the distance, before gradually ‘resting’ in an expression of imperial disdain.
Far too much time passed before Kreszenz Leichenberg received her badge. She swore that the queue seemed to have traverse the width, rather than the length, of the line before she was at the front, but there was nothing for it now. The Exams awaited her and the chattering and cheering and brass band cacophony was making her nauseous, so she stormed for the portcullis without another word.
Or well, tried to.
Twenty paces in, and there were yet more imbecile children clogging up the streets, and Kreszenz was seriously beginning to consider taking to the rooftops instead.
