everything except himself

So, it’s been a while since I’ve written here. That doesn’t mean it’s been a while since I’ve been writing, though. Unfortunately, I’ve discovered that prose puts me to sleep (yes, literally and on more than one occasion). So I’ve got a bunch of pages kind of laying around half-finished, and, without further ado, here you go:

The boy had been at sea for over a month now. Today, he was a passenger on a military cruiser. A month ago, he was leading a peaceful life on a small island located in-between two very developed embankments. The east bank marked the westernmost boundary of the kingdom of Aretolla, a land made fertile under the long rule of the Aretolla family. The west bank, on the other hand, marked the easternmost boundary of the land of the Ottoruk people. The two embankments provide a common ground between the two entities though, allowing for trade and information to flow across the channel.

Today, trade flourishes in this region; however, this has not always been the case. In fact, before the channel was used for trade, it provided a road for raiders to pillage the settlements along the channel. At that time, the nation of the Ottoruk had not spread to the channel, and even the people living on the west embankment were mostly from Aretolla. But, even if they were constantly being raided, the people could rebuild and move on with their lives — this was the stance taken by the Aretolla family. Because of this callous disregard, the raiders took up permanent residence on an island located within the channel, which allowed them to begin making raids farther and farther into Aretolla’s territory. Ten years of raiding found the raiders at the doorsteps of the royal Aretolla family residency, prompting the family’s immediate withdrawal to a safer place. It was out of this circumstance that a new leader rose to power: Merrian Winchester.

It was Merrian Winchester, a man of the working class of the kingdom of Aretolla, who organized the remaining people of Aretolla, specifically those living on the embankments, to fight against the raiders. It was, however, very much a failed resistance at first. For one, the working class of Aretolla were only a step above slavery and basically farmed to live, paying tribute to the royal Aretolla family for use of the land, so the average man could not afford to equip himself or his family to participate in a war against the raiders. It was because of this that Merrian Winchester sent himself as an envoy to the leader of the nation of the Ottoruk.

In short, the leader of the Ottoruk accepted Merrian Winchester as the acting leader of the kingdom of Aretolla, since the nobility had forsaken its people. In return for control of the west bank and exclusive rights to trade over the channel, the leader of the Ottoruk entered into an alliance with the people of Aretolla. He sent weapons and commissioned the craftsmen of his country to design and construct a war-ship to combat the raiders at sea. However, the design could not be brought to fruition within the land of the Ottoruk and was instead constructed from the materials and by the labor of the Aretolla people, all of which had a significant burden removed from them with the indefinite absence of the Aretolla family. So, after many months, the first war-ship, a joint-effort by the Ottoruk craftsmen and Aretolla labor, sailed down the channel.

It was a great day for the Aretolla people when news spread that the war-ship they had built had successfully sunk 3 of the raiders’ ships. It is important to note that the raiders had only been using the large ships at their disposal as storehouses for their loot, so the war-ship, specifically designed for combat with large ships, had the absolute upper-hand against the raiders’ ships. In the wake of this great news, the Aretolla people were also becoming increasingly successful at defending their homesteads, forcing the raiders to regroup what little they had left at their island headquarters. It was because of this that, in order to seal victory and expel the threat of the raiders, the leader of the Ottoruk advanced a set of mercenaries to the island in the middle of the channel, permanently burying the threat with the raiders’ bodies. As was his custom, the leader of the Ottoruk built a shrine to the god of his ancestors, leaving the spoils the raiders had left behind as an offering.

It was after the storming of the raider’s island that the Aretolla family returned, only to be turned away in a most violent fashion by all of those who had remained on Aretolla soil. For his leadership during those ten long years of hardship and for his key role in ending it, Merrian Winchester was recognized by the Aretolla people as their leader. The tribute system was removed by Merrian Winchester in favor of imposing a small transaction fee on trade to the citizens of Aretolla. The fee supplemented the rather large sum of valuables left behind by the royal family’s caravan, which, as was mentioned, did not quite serve the purpose the Aretolla family had intended in that their possessions had returned to the land but they had only barely escaped with their lives.