Disclaimer: This series is an LGBT slow-burn fiction that contains heavy politics and sensitive themes like profane language, murder, war, cultism, fictional religions, non-consensual events, PTSD, racism, substance abuse, misogynistic undertones, a...
The nip in the air chilled the desert-born to the bones, too late to regret on not listening to his aunt when warned of Sovenia's cold climate. But his pride won to prove the superiority of their race, now he wished he had swallowed it back when they were still in humid winds. He's been on the sea for 44 nights and he misses his warm home greatly; the Crystal Towers, the Volcanic Gardens, the Sand Rifts, and the bleeding of auroras had never felt more like home before.
A ball of golden fire hovers above his palm wisping his bare chest warm. Ocmenian clothes are helpless against Sovenia; a transparent gold-gilded, diamond-dusted silk vest soft on his torso and salamander leather trousers tight on his legs, that's it, no more.
Other Ocmenian sailors aboard pulled the traditional Banha Drums to sound their arrival, others knelt beneath a statue of Eldro- for giving them minimal storms on their voyage through Fonclere's oceans. He laughed to himself on how he isn't alone shivering as others were less clothed like him. As the saying goes: "Ocmenians wear more tattoos than clothes." And wherever they go, it has always been stubbornly true.
He observed everyone from the front deck of the "Laguna", a Steel-Clad Ship made entirely of swords and whips from those fallen for his family's cause, refined from the volcanic forges and moulded into a weapon clad turtle-ship. The Laguna had cruised on both water and lava, known as the blinding crown of Ocmenian naval fleet, though now it sails alone.
It was the throne's gift, named after him when he graduated from the College of Gwandoya six summers ago, now, he's the youngest diplomat on the whole continent.
He stepped on the ledge to welcome himself to the frozen country, where millions of his kin resides as war-ghosts.
He may be raised in Ocmenia but his grandmother is a Sovenian native with a youth spent in Dirge, so somehow, he don't feel too alienated. Maybe it's the Ice dome of the city that shines like the crystal towers back home, or how the snow here resembles the white sands of his childhood village.
As his attention strayed from the far coastline, his ears perked up, sensing low murmurs somewhere beneath the ship. When he peeked down the ship's bow he witnessed two boatsmen wrestling each other like little fishes too busy floundering and not aware of the ship on their way.
His lungs widened with his eyes, strong legs blurring quick through the gangway to alarm the shipcrew of what he had seen.
