A Paradise Lost

Best Offense Is Defense

Queen Raya looked at herself in the small round mirror that Felipe gave to her on her birthday after the servants braided her hair. She had a bigger mirror in her room but she preferred to use the small mirror since it had a sentimental value to her. She noticed that her face was getting fairer every day. She looked at her whole body, she noticed an improvement on her skin as well. She’s getting fairer every day. Queen Reyna’s advise about submerging your skin on goat’s milk was effective. It showed noticeable results. The wounds on her hands had slowly healed.

“What if there are fleets coming to our island, how are you going to prevent casualty among our islanders knowing that we don’t have cannons to attack them first?” Bayani asked a tricky question to Felipe that was meant to trapped him and put him into shame.

“The only weapon you can use against your enemies are mirrors.”

“How are we going to attack our enemies with mirrors?” Caylao asked intrigued.

“You point a mirror to the ships of your enemy while they are still far from your island. The heat from the sunlight reflected on the mirror will burn the ships of the coming enemies. It’s either they will be burnt alive, or they will drown before they will arrive in your island. There may be some who will survive and swim towards the shore. But their chances of winning the battle will be so small.”

Everyone laughed.

“You are not only good-looking but has a good sense of humor. Remember, we are talking about a life and death scenario and not vanity galore.”

While they were busy arguing, they didn’t notice that Queen Raya was observing them and was listening to their argumentation. She pointed her small round mirror at Bayani’s shirt. His shirt started to burn. He took off his burning shirt. Then he turned to Queen Raya who was smirking at him.

“Why is your shirt on fire?”

Bayani was so annoyed. He preferred not to answer to avoid insulting the queen.

Queen Raya pointed her small round mirror on the unburnt part of Bayani’s shirt. The shirt started to burn.

“Igniting a fire is a basic form of human survival. It can also be use as a weapon against your enemy. Do you know why you didn’t notice that your shirt was burning? You were so focused with your pride that you let your guards down. Pointing a mirror to burn your enemy is an underrated method but yet so effective. This method is so effective if your enemy attacks during the day and the weather is sunny. This also requires preparation. You need to start pointing the mirror to your enemies while they are still approaching towards us. This will burn the enemy’s ships including their weapons. There may be some who will survive but it will hold them defenseless without their weapons. Once again you failed to follow our number one military rule which is comply first before you will complain. If only we have used this method when the Spaniards tried to conquer us, we could have prevent casualty among our islanders. We cannot afford to make the same mistake twice. We must be alert at all times for we never know what will happen next if we let our guards down. You must not be afraid to learn new things. Remember the day when you think that you already know everything is the day that you learn nothing at all.”

Queen Raya went back inside her palace. She asked Kaalam to make 500 human-sized mirrors. She explained to him why they needed to make so many mirrors and he loved her idea.

“Why hadn’t we think about it before?”

“We were caught off guard because we never expected that one day a foreigner will dare to invade us. With the number of gold, precious stones, and other natural resources we have, I’m pretty sure that those Spanish bastards will come back to our country with stronger force. So it’s better that we must be prepared at all times.”

“You never cease to amaze me, my queen. You always think ahead for a solution before the problem occurs. I have serve 3 generations of the royal family but so far, you are the best leader we ever have.”

“Thank you, Kaalam. How’s our preparation for the annual conference?”

“Our workers are working hard and fast so that we can finish all our task before the annual conference.”

“That’s great. I would like to do a quick inspection in their progress.”

“Of course.”

Queen Raya took her white stallion to inspect the progress of her islanders with Kaalam.

“Nice! Good job to all Maharlikans! I was amaze by their progress. I hope we can make it before the conference. I would like to make our surroundings more creative. I would like our gardeners to trim our plants into beautiful shapes like basket, circle, butterfly, and any shapes and figures you can think of.”

“That’s a good idea, my queen. I will tell our gardeners immediately so that they can start trimming our plants into beautiful shapes.”

“Awesome.”

“Would you like to add to the design of the houses and the palace?”

“I have nothing to add.”