The Last Great Battle (NaNoWriMo story, on hold)

Chapter 1

Meltoa is a small planet in a small galaxy that lies many millions of light-years away from Earth. However it does share many similarities to our small blue planet in relation to its sun, length of days and years, water concentration and landmasses, as well as geological and temporal regions.

            The major landmass lies in the middle of its western hemisphere and across the equator separating the northern and southern hemispheres. This continent houses three countries that know nothing of the continents, waters, cultures, or civilizations outside of their own. None of these countries are seafarers, outside of small fishing populations, or adventurers looking out for untamed lands. No, these countries cannot see past their own history of war with each other for centuries upon centuries.

No one knows how the wars started or even seems to care. Each citizen of Glenece to the north, Montara in the middle, and Saharen to the south, knows only the wrongs the other countries have done to them. Glenece is a green country full of forests and plants of all varieties. It sits in the north of the main continent of Meltoa and has a highly structured, highly regimented government with a King at its head. Saharen in the south is Glenece’s complete opposite; a sandy, desert country whose people live in small oases and is run in a broader, more free environment by its Queen. Montara is a collection of towns and people groups who all live in the mountainous region between Glenece and Saharen. Their ruler is a hereditary prince-like position, called Duke.

The Third Age, when our story takes place, began with the end of the Second Great War. Montara had endured thousands of years of subjugation under the rule of Glenece and was seeking its freedom. Saharen sided with them to beat their great enemy, Glenece, and eventually tried to take over the mountain kingdom itself. Thus the war began and ended only with the almost complete destruction of each kingdom. Montara had won its freedom from both countries and a tense peace continued from then on for almost two thousand years of the Third Age.

Now the story begins…

***

14th day of the 3rd month of the year 1793, in the Third Age

Saharen Royal Palace

Reanne’s chambers

            Reanne, the now seventeen-year-old princess, sat on her large window seat, staring out at the palace grounds stretching out to the horizon. She brought her knees up to her chest and hugged them tightly with both arms.

            A small scratching was heard at the door. Reanne sighed and called, “Come in,” without looking away from the window.

            “Highness?” Reanne’s personal secretary and best friend, Pelot, entered the room.

            “Pelot, you do know what day it is, do you not?” She asked quietly.

            “I do, Highness.” Pelot walked quietly around the room, setting things to right, because he was of a special race that only lives in Saharen, called Catarian; they are half cat half humanoid beings. They stand upright, speak the common language of Meltoa, and are covered in cat fur with cat faces, ears, and tails.

            “Then you know that today is not a good day,” Reanne responded.

            “Well,” Pelot sighed, “unfortunately it is not going to get better. That is what I came to tell you.”

            Reanne finally turned to look at him. “What? What could possibly be worse than what already happened on this day?”

            Pelot refused to look at the face of his true queen but still felt the heat of her glare. “Well, yes…the Queen,” he paused to swallow, “has, well…”

            “Spit it out, Pelot!”

            “You are betrothed…to be married…you are betrothed to be married.”

            “What?!” Reanne flew off of the window seat to stand in front of Pelot, her hands on her hips and her chest heaving with her anger. “Married? The Queen,” Reanne turned to spit at the word, “is going to force me to marry before I enter my majority, is that it? What has my father to say about that?” At Pelot’s look, she sighed and waved his answer off, “Of course he said nothing. My father has said nothing since he married that witch only a year after my mother died.”

            Reanne sighed deeply and moved back to the window seat, curling up in it again.

            “So, who am I to marry?” She asked after a minute of silence between the two of them.

            “That I do not know,” Pelot called in answer from the dressing room where he was hanging up Reanne’s clothes that had been strewn across the floor. “I was only informed that you were to be married and that I was supposed to inform you of the fact.” He leaned his head out of the doorway; “I suppose you would take the news better from me than from her.”

            “Pfft!” Reanne snorted. “I don’t take crap news from anybody. In fact,” she got up again and walked toward the door, “I am going to go tell them that.”

            “I w—“ Pelot held up a hand to stop her but she had already left, “would not do that,” he finished to the open air.