The opportunities we may take (Sinbad x OC)

A king's scheming thoughts

Author's Note:

Okay ... after the chapter got almost 12 pages long, I had to split it into two chapters. This is the first part of the original chapter. Tomorrow I'll look over the second one and then probably upload it too.

I hope you like it > __ <

Have fun <3

A king's scheming thoughts

---Kingdom of Sindria, Throne room---

Attentive, Sinbad sat on his throne in silence. He had thoughtfully folded his fingers in front of his face, resting his arms on the ornate armrests, while calmly keeping an eye on the scenery. Once in a while he inclined his head to some citizens of his little kingdom, when they indicated their goodbyes by bowing low in front of their king. Many of Sindria's residents had already left the hall to devote themselves to the final preparations for today's feast, but the knot of people that had formed around Solomon's prophetess remained stubbornly by the young woman's side. Over his interwoven hands, the young king of Sindria appraised the small crowd before letting his calculating gaze rest on Salome. Her brother Malik flanked her dutifully. His appearance towered over the young woman like a guard, ready to intervene at any time if one of the people tried to cross any boundaries.

Other former citizens of Dalmasca had freed themselves from the crowd after the assembly, in the hope of being able to spend a moment in the presence of their holy lady and to have a chance to exchange a few words with her. The individual looks with which they looked at Salome almost bordered on paying homage to her. The king could see how much it meant to them that this young woman was standing in front of them alive, and so Sinbad couldn't help but wondering how deep these people's faith in the Holy King was and how far they were ready to go for him.

Spartos had said during yesterday's conversation that Salome, due to her abilities and connection to the holy King Solomon, had been a highly respected person within Dalmasca as well as Sasan. Even after her supposed death she was no less honored by her people for being Solomon's holy Lady of the rukh. On the contrary: the legends about her and the homage that was paid to her person had become much more concise in the past seven years. Former priests of the temple had began to call her by the title of Solomon's prophetess and chose her to be one of the main characters of their faith. Their guardian of the flow, the bridge to the spirits of the dead, waiting for her to decent back down to the living, to claim her right as the head of Solomons church. She who carried a spark of Solomon's soul in herself. So? Which information from the legendary tales of the holy prophetess actually corresponds to the truth and what has been stretched by the wandering priests in the recent years in hope to get a more reachable figurehead for their religion, Sinbad asks himself in calculating silence.

According to reports that Ja'far's subordinates had compiled in the past few weeks, it had been precisely those priests who had spread the faith of the holy king all over the continents, so there were now after seven years many followers of the Church in several countries. It was said that even the high magi, Lady Scheherazade from Reim, had received one of the temples priests in her midst and tolerated the belief in the holy king despite her normally quite traditional and private characteristics. Sinbad had never been too interested in religion because he hadn't seen the need to be dictated by any avoidable gods, fate, or whatever else they wanted to call it. He was the one who shapes his fate according to his own will, after all. So, he hadn't paid any further mind to the spread of the faith after he had been convinced that they didn't have any connections to the dark rukh. A big mistake, as he had discovered a few weeks ago, because even in his kingdom it was more wide spread than he had expected. The opportunities that comes along with having the unofficial head of said growing religion were exquisitely versatile. Besides, hadn't he recently discovered that, surprisingly, he was also a person who played a role in these writings of the holy king? And wasn't the name King Solomon a name that appears quite often in various dungeon-manuscripts? The language of the scriptures in the sanctuary of the temple in Dalmasca was the same as in the dungeons. So what did Dalsmasca, King Solomon and the dungeons have in common? There were simply too many parallels to ignore.