Queen and Knight Prologue (Novel)

Sometimes, destiny finds us in the most inopportune times, sometimes it strikes us like a meteor in the night while we rest our eyes, other times it is like a light in the darkest time, and for some, it is even like watching a stampede approach with no way to escape.

The story of the Queen of the Harvest age and her kobold knight, approaches the very example of this. Our tale takes place in the year 803, named by the oracles as the beginning of the age of Harvest.

In the beginning of the year, the new Queen Namelia had her coronation proper after the passing of her mother; Queen Lumina, a passing which had occured only just a month prior.

We start in the throne room, boredom striking Namelia as she leaned on a single arm, a far cry from the pride a true Queen should hold, while the nobility of the Kingdom of Hearth prattled about non-issues while skimming past the issues that should truly be addressed, very obviously hoping to keep these around to use as power bargaining chips.

Namelia had watched these men and women many times by her mothers side, always watching her mother subtly twitch with frustration as she watched the nobility try to worm any power they could out from her, but to no avail. Her mother held an iron grasp on these people but Namelia? Namelia was new, a new queen, someone fresh, new blood, she was warned of this.

"Nobility are sharks in the water, gathering around the taste of blood. Do not fall into their waters or you will be devoured by their corruption." Her mother had said while petting her long flame orange hair which had lacked the red gradient at the end, but as she had grown, the gradient came in more and more.

"I think I finally understand what you were getting at, mother. These people truly will try anything." She said solemnly to herself, in her eyes, these people were not human, just shadows of greed with red piercing eyes which begged for attention, power, money, whatever they could grasp.

Not a single one met her expectations of what made a decent person. "How did you manage to keep this kingdom together mother? It is so, dysfunctional..." She spoke even more solemnly to herself as one noble spoke loud about how his peasantry were unruly, demanding things like less trade taxes, begging for the food tax to be lowered so they may survive easily through the winter.

"How dare they demand to know my reasons behind the food tax! Don't they know? A noble is supposed to take care of their people! They do not understand that I am doing this for their own good! Isn't that right my Queen?" The corrupt shade of a man pointed his attention to the Queen, quieting the stalls of nobility as they watched their Matriarch.

She sighed, eyes bored and sad, but she made a decision to follow her own steps, her own way as a Queen, this one of many meetings over the week made her realize that this kingdom did not need a fragile unity under an iron lock, but a full unification to gather under.

"To speak frankly, I do not." Those few words were met with gasps, "What are you saying my Queen? Are you saying you do not understand the noblesse oblige?" The noble tried to turn this against her, his sharp teeth baring in his soul as he sought to gather power already against her, maybe in an attempt to blackmail or to take the throne for himself.

"No, I understand it perfectly fine, but what I do not understand is why you are taxing eighty percent of their harvests and claiming it is for their own good. Your food storages lack the capability to house many of the vegetables and fruits your land produces for long terms, all except for the storages in your own manor." Murmurs begun to ring out in the stalls, the sharp teeth the noble once bore in his soul began to retract.

"If I am also to be correct, I had investigated the matter of the tax at the behest of one of your townspeople, sending collectors to check in on your income for the winter, and they came back and told me that your food storages for the people were close to empty, and so were your manor's personal storages. If I must speak frankly, Viscount Manrol, I have to assume one of two things. Either you have hidden your true income from the royal family, or, you have been directly stealing from your peasantry in the lie of a 'tax' and consuming all you have taken for yourself and the Barons below you."

"My Queen! I have no clue what you are talking about!" Viscount Manrol had begun to shake while standing, he had tried to bare his teeth early at this fledgling Queen, and now, his fellow nobles smelled blood in the water. They had begun to shout at him, to which Namelia lifted her hand, silencing the court.

"I will not have my court turn into a gossip house, if you will begin shouting, you may leave." With this one move, she had managed to keep the court in silence, preventing sudden alliances while also securing her power in the eyes of the lowly Viscount. His once sharp soul had been dulled in a single move, a fire of rebellion burned in him, but only as a smolder of what it once was.

"I see we are capable of keeping the sound to a minimum, this is good, I have a pounding migraine . This court is adjourned for today. We meet again in a week to continue our proceedings with how this kingdom will grow." She commanded as she stood from her seat upon the throne and walked away, causing the rest of the nobles to pick up their papers and leave.

As soon as she entered the hallway, she slumped against the wall, eyes glazed in exhaustion. It had been a week full of nothing but meetings with these people, and now, only now did she have some time to finally rest herself.

"My Queen! My Queen!" She heard shouting from down the hall as her little knight, a Kobold, ran over to help support her.

"I am fine, Vynal. I promise." She said softly her voice slightly higher than it had been with the nobles and a gentle smile on her lips. Vynal was her personal guard, a royal guard trained from the slums and dirt, a young man which had no family, no home, and only had the dream of becoming the best knight he could.

A dream which came true one fateful day while he was training in the forest with strung up bottles on ropes. The Queen had found him when she was just a princess in the forests behind the castle, surprising her but she watched him move with a smile on her lips. It had been so long since she had seen such a passionate dream in anyone, and so, she embraced it. Took him in, and, in time even felt love for the little knight who had gone from a simple dreamer, to her guardian and closest ally and lover.

"You push yourself too much, my Queen!" Vynal said with such worry in his voice. "I know I do, but I must maintain a status among these sharks as an unyielding Queen who will stand against their stupidity.. Also, Vynal, you remember what I told you. You do not have to call me 'Queen' when it is just us. We are friends and lovers, are we not?" She said with a gentle laugh, showing a shard of free spirit as she stood tall once more.

"Right, I forgot, I'm sorry Namelia."

"It is okay, sometimes when we fall into our roles, it becomes hard to pull away from what we know. Now, If it is not a bother, I'd like to get to my room and get out of these.. regal robes." She said softly as she began to walk with Vynal to her room.

- Written by ZiahVolpe, (thank you for reading!!) ദ്ദി(˶ ˘ ³˘)
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This series will be a novel before we move on to the comic. I'm not sure you guys will like this, but we wanted to try this and check on what you guys think! If you do enjoy it, we will upload it as a novel and a comic together. Thank you :3