The Queen's Wife (girlxgirl)

27. The city of Birds

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⚠️ awful conditions, sickness, disease, bruises, injuries, malnourishment and starvation, mentions of death, fear of death, ⚠️

The city of Birds is quite odd.

Everything is built out of yellow sandstone, from the houses to the roads. There is nothing but the beige yellow color, looking quite monotonous as the wind passes through the dusty desert city. Cattle walk on the streets next to them, heading for the next field in the mountains far away or their little yard behind some rough cube house. Even the cows are covered in beige dust from the sand that surrounds the city, huge dunes casting long shadows in the tireless heat of the slithering desert. There is not a drop of water in sight, nor any farmable land, and yet this remote city is populated by a group of ten thousand starving men and women.

Maud, who has lived all of her life in the north, is unfamiliar with the hot desert climate that exists in central Red Lion. It's too much, too hot and too dusty and too bright. It's dangerous too. Where they to stop for even a moment, they'd be at risk of starving to death or dying of thirst. Water is retreated from the wells far far away, and food from the farmlands behind the three stone mountains seen in the distance. Here in the city there is nothing but cattle, sandstone and the cruel wind. Why people have chosen to live here and not in some more agreeable place is not something Maud has understood quite yet. She would have begged her husband or father to have them move out of here since the moment she would've opened her eyes. Alas, ten thousand men and women still roam these useless streets, eyes wide open as they stare at the royal caravan passing through.

Maud is hidden away in her carriage, covered by the four walls of it, as the entire thing moves up and down with the bumps of the road. People chatter outside her carriage louder than ever before. This is their first time seeing royalty, or perhaps seeing anyone from outside this desert at all. Maud wouldn't be surprised if that were the case. Here there is no education whatsoever, no jobs aside from cattle farming and mining in the far-away desert mines. Clearly none of these people will leave this awful place any time soon, and nobody ever has. Adelio rides ahead with his men in toe, spreading some sort of fear among the public, as they seem to quiet down a notch. Perhaps because they have heard of the cruel crown prince before, or because he is carrying a heavy sword in his belt, riding on a horse dressed in metal armor. A prince like him could easily slaughter all of these people without any repercussions, and that's the most terrifying thing of them all.

"That's the new princess, right?"

Maud is surprised that news has traveled to this remote corner of the world so quickly. Here she sits, the veiled and hidden royal inside a dark carriage, as they stare at her with wonder from the hot outside. As if she were some sort of beautiful, untouchable goddess and they were but mere rats beneath her feet. What would they say if they knew she had once been one of them? Would they believe that? No royal has ever touched poverty as they have, apart from her, and that's increasingly something Maud wants to utilize in their favor. She is the new princess, hidden away from the public and yet showcased to the world of Red Lion in a ridiculous parade like this one. While the people outside her window seem hollow to the bone, starving and tired, manipulated to the wills of those who rule above them. Maud is probably the first princess to pass through this city who feels such horror for the people that she sees. Mainly because she is the first one to see them as actual people.

Or maybe she is wrong. Adelio's mother must've been dragged through this city at one point in her life, after marrying the king. Maud doesn't know much about her, but considering Adelio's personality, she must've been a kind person. His radical and kind thoughts can not have come from his father, after all, who is an absolute maniac just like every other king on this ghastly continent that they live on. Maybe Adelio's mother felt the same way as she did when seeing these people, who surely didn't look any different twenty years ago. What happened to her? She had a son, and three daughters, and eventually died of what Maud would like to call "suspicious causes". Her whole story scares Maud, for she is now in the exact same place as she was. What if she ends up the same way? Unimportant, forgotten and worst of all, dead.