The War Mask

Introduction and Background Info

A/N: this is the big fat chapter of background information which no one wants to read but has to be done. I am so, so sorry. Now read it.

The Eleven Kingdoms are spread across one huge landmass. What is outside of this landmass has never been queried (why would it?) because everyone’s mothers did a fine job in telling their children not to poke their noses into things which don’t concern them so it is generally agreed upon that the edge of the landmass is where the world ends and that’s that. Because of this, the centre of attention is the Kingdoms, which curiously enough are not divided by race, gender, clan, war, or history, but by colour.

If you were a bird flying over the Eleven Kingdoms, you would see a beautiful spectrum of colours in all their beautiful glory. First, imagine a big black ink splot, then 7 straight lines of colour sweeping outwards until their true, solid selves are revealed: brown, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, and pink. It is like an eight-petal daisy with a black middle and differently coloured petals, only where the spaces between the individual petals would have been is a great merging of colours – not enough to disintegrate the original colours but enough to make a smooth and complete circle of a thing which can be referenced to a rainbow. Now you has seen the centre and surrounding pieces, but you haven’t seen the other half. This other half is completely white, with fading edges of the spectacular colours eventually coming to a blindingly white scene which envelopes the colours all around the vast circle. And because you are an especially sharp-eyed bird, you can see that there’s a wall of heavy grey fog way over after the white, and that is where the world ends. You don’t ever venture there.

Now that you have a firm image of the colours in mind, imagine that the Kingdoms are very large in territory. They are large enough to each house a desert, a large lake, several high mountains, forests of various species, wide open plains, and most other habitats imaginable, all spaced out nicely and neatly within their bounds. 

And now you’re not a bird, but a human from the planet earth where the 21st century began a little over one decade ago, because the following comparison is easier to make. The weather is much the same in the Eleven Kingdoms as it is on Earth today, take all the pollution and human interference, only the unique colours of each of the eleven kingdoms seem to change the original sky’s or cloud’s colours. Say, in the Yellow Kingdom, yellow snow, yellow clouds, yellow mist, yellow rain, yellow everything. Only one blistering yellow-white sun with a diameter of 12cm in plain old everything-but-American terms marks the constant for every kingdom.

All in all, the Kingdoms is a young land with little discovery and exploration. The most intelligent and human race, the Wanderers, has not yet risen (or fallen) to using other things or creatures for their own needs. There is no definite clan or group for these Wanderers, nor a permanent settlement for they, true to their name, wander all around nine of the eleven territories because, let’s face it, to look at one colour for all of one’s life can drive a person insane.

These Wanderers have no real uniting leader, nor a superior authority. They are generally peacefully docile herbivores and stand (and sleep) on four muscled legs. They interact with words as well as motions, sounds, expressions, and touch. Their skin's colouration, from the time of their birth, is a pitch black, eventually fading with approaching adulthood into at most three colours (these are limited to their parentage) such as grey, blue, green, indigo, or sand. Those born into the Red Kingdom or develop primarily red skin tend to be more battle-hungry or chaotic, and so forth for other coats.

And by the time you finish reading this, little Ky-de-to would have raced away from his mother in the early hours of the morning and made it in time to the burrow of his role model (who shall remain unnamed) and sat himself down for a story or two. Yet the previous paragraphs took you so long to read that Ky-de-to's mother would have in that very time called out to her son and, after much warring and anger, raged out to the skies that he was no longer her son and that he could forget about ever coming back. Luckily, Ky-de-to had no intention of ever returning anyway.

Congratulations! You have now completed the most unpleasant and part of this story! Now get your fine self some tea or coffee for finishing it.

Though I most naturally write in 3rd person, I will try to write in 1st person. The 3rd person may occasionally escape me in future chapters.

And now get back to studying. >:(