Ghost and the Writer

New Era

Verde's memories were a tale that spanned over fifteen millennia. He had lived on the ground, been one of the winged beings who battled the creatures of old and had been among those who killed the olden gods. He saw the remaining ones perish as the gates closed. He had also been among those who built the floating islands and found out that living now meant battling. Verde served Solus and its people by arranging, managing, and sorting out various things no one wanted to. In other words - he was the first government official Solus had.

When the olden gods died, the king, the hero, the grand commander, the priest, the healer, and the top weaponsmith had the charisma and the influence that marked them as the next gods of Solus - they inherited the authority, gained true immortality and were worshipped by the people.

While the king felt unsettled with sharing his authority at first, the group of kings ended up getting along swell and started to guide the people. Unlike most gods of olden, they did not move away to live in seclusion, but took on the role of kings, living among the people and gradually growing corrupt from their worship.

Each found a hobby to indulge in and left the management and decision making of Solus mostly to Soleans themselves. Or mostly - to Verde, in other words - the guy among them who didn't shine brightly enough for Sol to recognize him as another king.

People didn't recognize Verde much either. He kept coming to work, mostly took on the role of arranging for the army's needs, and gathered up other officials, who then pulled in others too. Unless someone started to make really dumb decisions, Verde did not step in. Even if he had to step in, that mostly came as a written note, which couldn't quite be shrugged over, coming from a ten winged individual. Often, rather than writing the memo himself, he just told his friend, the finance minister, to write one instead.

There were only about twenty useful ten-winged individuals around - those who fell a little short of becoming gods. The government had two - Verde and the finance minister, the rest either managed the floating islands as dukes or served in the army. Of course, there were also eleven useless ten-winged individuals around - children of kings. Luckily most of them were girls and thus were married by some useful individuals, such as the dukes. The most useless of them all was one prince, who - while shiny and admired, was a hot-headed warmonger. It took effort to either distract or repel his plans. Verde was starting to run out of ideas when a curious policy was passed about regulations for starting a campaign, then another policy on various common-sense rules for wartime conduct. They were so common sense that Verde was, at first, not sure what it was about when signing. But It was a solid document they might as well have - no demerit there. Knowing who was pushing for it, he figured he might as well see where it goes.

By that point, Verde had long since realized there was an 'extra' government worker in the office. At first, a bright seeming, young, six-winged man had joined - Donau le Polino. He was a small official but showed excellent reasoning skills, had a good handle on the situation, and had a naturally helpful disposition. He took on more responsibility naturally without anyone assigning him more work.

Donau grew an extra pair of wings, and they did assign him more important tasks. He started showing a few unorthodox, but also genius ways of thinking. Most of his policies did not pass, but Verde felt it was almost a pity. Yet then more people showed support, and while it seemed inconspicuous by all means, the timing and lack of communication between Donau and some supporters felt suspicious. Verde looked into it and found traces of charm magic.

He got interested and soon discovered an interesting lady, who just so happened to have picked up some magic recently as well - Donau's wife - Fraise. He didn't approach her at first, just did some research, and soon came to the conclusion that she was behind the brilliance her husband showed. She was also the one who had grown an extra pair of wings first. Verde learning this bit made her discover he was snooping around, and the aether pattern he had started to notice in the office made a neat circle around him. She was cautious.