Thread: Tales of Fantasia ~~ Ironic and Isenhart  (Discontinued)

Act 1 The Duranin Once upon a time, there was a beautiful queen who lived in a land steeped in magic. She was loved by her people, the wild elves of the land, who had lived in a state of oneness with their forest homes for millennia. She was respected for her strong and fair rule, revered for her kind and charitable heart, and admired by men across the land for her breath-taking beauty. She was everything that one could ever hope that their queen would be and her praises were sung in every tavern within the kingdom of the wood elves. In a neighboring kingdom, there lived a prince who was set to inherit his throne only when his future queen was found and he had been wed. He, too, was a just ruler who cared more for the sake of his people than his own. He was as handsome as the queen was beautiful and he was swooned over by nearly every woman in his kingdom. Perhaps the union between the prince and the queen would make sense, had it not been for one small detail... The prince's people were not wild. Where the wood elves had chosen to live in oneness with nature, the prince's people had risen and conquered the wilds. The prince's people called themselves high elves, placing themselves above the other elven races in the land. Where the wood elves built their homes amongst the trees and branches of the vast forests that enveloped their kingdom, the high elves cleared large expanses of these forests to erect sprawling cities. Where the wood elves lived in a symbiotic state with the animals and spirits of the forest, the high elves erected walls to keep such things from their precious lands. Where the wood elves hunted, foraged, and grew much of their food, the high elves traded rare and expensive good to other kingdoms for much of theirs. The prince and the queen's people were too different, despite sharing common ancestry. Their kingdoms had maintained a tenuous peace for centuries and none among them could imagine a time when unrest between the kingdoms would be completely eliminated. Despite this, a letter arrived one day for the prince bearing the royal seal of his wild neighbors. It did not contain much - merely a time, a date, and a location at which he should be with the queen' signature. The two met, against the wished of each of their adviser councils, and arranged a political marriage for the benefits of each of their people. The prince would become the king of his kingdom and the queen would continue to rule hers. Together, they would form a singular kingdom of the two elven cultures. Both peoples could only stand to benefit from this arrangement and both elven rulers were eager to see such prosperity brought for their respective kingdoms. The wedding was arranged for a warm summer's day and the prince and queen were married. Together, they brought in a golden age for their new united kingdom, but this attracted the attention of the human kingdoms from across the sea. The humans and the elves had always had a peaceful relationship of trade, but the humans had also always stood to profit from the tenuous peace of the two elven kingdoms by acting as a middle-man of trade between the two when the two elven kingdoms had refused to trade directly with one another. Fearful that the new united elven kingdom would grow too powerful, the human king launched a preliminary assault on his former trade partners. The small trade ports that the elven kingdoms had built on the human shores were locked down. Some were burned to the ground while others were converted into internment camps for the elves that resided in the human lands. Meanwhile, the trade ports that the humans had built in the elven lands were converted into military bases from which raids were launched. For five years, the kingdoms of man and elf were in open warfare. During this time, the elven queen became pregnant and gave birth to a beautiful princess. The new princess was everything that her mother could have hoped - a healthy baby girl with the ethereal beauty of her father's people and the deep connection to the wilds of her mother's people. The elven king and queen could not allow their perfect princes to grow up in such a world as this - a world of fear and war. A summit was held between the leaders of the elven kingdom and the leaders of the human kingdom. An agreement had been reached in which the elves would provide goods to the humans in exchange for a ceasefire that was to last until the princess came of age. At this point, she would be wed to the human king's eldest son so that their marriage may join the human kingdom to that of the elves, cementing the human's place in a global empire of power and wealth. The years came and went quickly and things did not improve. The humans held their part of the deal in that they did not openly attack the elves, but they did not release their hold on the elven camps, nor did they disperse the military forces that they had stationed in their old ports. The elves, too, held their word. Resources and coin were offered to the human kingdom on a monthly basis while the humans waited for the elven princess to come of marriageable age. When that time came, the elven princess was sent to the human lands where she would meet her new husband for the first time. She was less than pleased. The human prince was handsome, but his soul was black and his heart belonged only to his own vices. He cared only of his own lust and greed, which hit a high note when he laid eyes on the beautiful woman to which he was to be wed. The way that he looked at her... she was just a piece of meat to him and that is likely all that she ever would be. The princess began to dread the night that was to come, but no matter how much she wished that this was not her fate she knew that it was for the best of her people. She would not let them down, even if it meant giving herself to this horrid man. That night, the princess was walked down the aisle by her father. She stood beside her husband to be while the king of the human kingdom oversaw the wedding ceremony. Her fate was almost sealed when it happened. An arrow flew by the princess's head and struck the human king in the heart. The assembled crowed screamed as the king fell to the floor and an army of cloaked figures descended upon the collective royalty and nobility. The ceremony had been interrupted and it seemed that these cloaked figures planned to kill everyone present at the event. The human prince, of course, fled the moment that he realized what had happened, leaving his wife-to-be to her fate. Little did he know that the princess was not the helpless damsel that she might appear. Using the magic that she had inherited from her mother's people, she was able to fight her way from the large cathedral, along with her father, mother, and a handful of their personal guards. Outside, the elves were met with the image of a hundred slaughtered horses - their only way of escaping this place in any fast manner. Seeming as though they were trapped, the guards told their king, queen, and princess to run. They would stay behind and stop any pursuers while the princess and her parents fled. With heavy hearts, the elven royalty said farewell to their noble heroes and parted ways. Each went in their own direction to avoid being caught together and recognized, vowing to reunite as soon as was possible in their home back across the sea. It was not a choice that came easily, but the queen insisted that it was the easiest way. Her lifetime in the forest made her the wisest person on matters such as this, so the king complied. Three days passed and the princess had not stopped running. She had fled from the human capital and had found herself at the base of a mountain near a small village when it happened. Tired and hungry, even the princess, skilled in her natural magics, could not hope to fight off the bandits that descended upon her. She had no money - only the impressive golden jewelry that she had been wearing that night three days ago and what was left of her tattered and dirty wedding dress. Of course, for a woman so attractive as her, the thieves decided that she could serve them in other ways that were better than coin. Her jewelry was taken from her struggling form before she found herself being beaten into submission and bound in rough rope. As she was thrown over the shoulder of the largest of the men, one final blow to the back of her head released her from consciousness. Was this really to be the end of the beautiful princess's tale or was this just the beginning of a much grander adventure?