In a world divided into three races since ancient times, there have been three kingdoms. The first kingdom is the kingdom of the gods and sits in the heavens ruling above the other two. The second is called Amaryllis and filled with the prosperous...
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"The camp was the battleground of shrieking color, each fighting to be more vibrant than the next."
Under the light of the setting sun, Honey saw the camp and much like everything else in the Wild Woods, Honey had never seen anything like it before. The camp consisted of half a dozen large tents and about two dozen smaller ones, each one sewn from vibrant cloth, surrounding what would soon become a large fire.
The vagabonds lounged around the clearing, some cooking or grooming horses, but all of them smiling and talking to one another. Much like the tents, the vagabonds wore bright clothing that was deemed impractical by the Mutare, but to Honey's Lekki eyes, it was beautiful.
At first glance, Honey had thought these vagabonds were Lekki, much like the ones who had danced in her village's marketplace what felt like a lifetime ago, but then she noticed several of them had the ears and tails of Mutare. However, the vagabonds were noticeably smaller than the Mutare but too tall to be Lekki.
Honey even saw one Mutare looking vagabond with only a single rabbit-like ear sprouting from a head of frizzy hair. Yet, there were still others who seemed to look more like a Lekki than Mutare, lacking the animalistic traits and none of the vagabonds seemed to care about it at all.
It was almost as if they didn't know there was a war between the Lekki and Mutare raging on just outside of their peaceful little camp.
That was when two children ran over to Honey and Dai, their dark eyes wide and glittering with excitement as they wrapped their small arms around Dai's legs, each one wearing an identical smile that lit their features. "Golden Eyes!" the little girl around Dai's right leg said, smiling wildly. She seemed to be a Mutare child, around six years old yet the other, a boy seemed to be Lekki, a couple years younger.
What Honey was startled by, however, was how the pair looked eerily similar, as if they were siblings. They both had thick, brown almost black hair that curled around their ears, that reminded Honey of Aldwin's hair and dark blue eyes.
They had olive skin and wore bright colors as all the vagabonds did, and were bubbling with energy as all children, Mutare and Lekki alike. Dai seemed surprised that the children were now clinging to him, but Honey was treated with another one of Dai's rare smiles as Dai looked down upon the children. For a heartbeat, the Lekki girl wondered if Dai knew them.
"Hello there," Dai said, petting the girl's head, rubbing behind her animalistic ears. "What's your name?" he asked. Well, that answered one of Honey's questions.
"Juno!" the girl said, smiling up at Dai, and Honey noticed she was missing one of her front teeth. "And that's Ascot," she said, and the boy looked up shyly. "Grandmother Danna says you've come back to protect us from the bad soldiers," she said. "Grandmother Danna says that you swore to always protect us a thousand years ago. Is that true?" she squeaked.
"Very," Dai said. "You should know better than to question your grandmother. She's a very smart woman and a very capable warrior," Dai said.
The girl, Juno, giggled at Dai's words, before she nodded her head, giving Dai a silent promise. "When I get bigger I want to protect the vagabonds, too," she decided. "Like my grandmother and aunty and mama used too!" she said, smiling from ear to ear.
