Directly east of the Great Forest of darkness and past that Big Divide whose source was said to be the mountains to the south, stretched outwards those rosefield plains whose grass was said to be flowering blossoms. The rosefield plains, it is said, had once sprawled from tip to tip of our lands. Much like the High Garden, it is said that the rosefield plains was a reflection of what our lands had once been before the Fall.
Although the central heartland of our continent is renowned for its productivity to the degree that it feeds not only itself but other realms, many when asked will recount of promiscuity and flagrant openness, especially during blossoming season. It is no wonder, in truth, for why the historic triad of Fertility, Love, and Pleasure chose to ornate their oracles and temples within those plains.
There is a commonness amongst the rosefield realms; a shared passion, it is said; a shared willingness and cooperative fascination. This is not without saying, that it is a long-known understanding that the rosefield realms have always behaved as if parts of a greater realm, as though they be vassals of a sovereign unclaimed; recordists always positing comparisons with the vassals of Rainbow.
These, assuredly, are exaggerations. The rosefield realms are equally competitive and as war-kin as the rest of the thousand realms; but their shared history does create for a…
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When the first the explorers [sic] from the Far West happened upon our lands, they were amazed by the familiarities; remarking, they had, that it were as if they be transplanted to their own then-recent past. But, of course, once they saw the monstrosities which haunt our lands; the adventurers who tamed these lands; they realized the differences; differences emphasized as contact persisted.
“The land where nothing is accomplished.”, “The land of feudalized nightmares.”, They had many words to say, and they still have countless words to claim.
However, to us this had always been what we knew. This land of a thousand realms of endless counts and petty dukes, with only a few kingdoms far between and those that be are fragile at heart. The nobility feasted; the feudality bickered; the sovereigns ruled their dominion as much as their lords ruled them; the peasantry and bounded serfs toiled fields; with only a handful of common-born souls like myself granted the luxury of sophisticated purpose. Merchants, scholars, artisans, mages, laborers, medicineers, and so forth; these roles shared their places with freemen and slaves.
To restate that previously written claim: this was the all [sic] of that which we knew; of another world, we knew not. This was the ways ordained by the Gods; this was the ways even before the Child who wore that very Crown arrived to enlighten our lands.
And, as the Child who bore the Crown of Smiles enlightened our savage ancestors, the Far West and their thieving merchants who steal so much from our lands at the veriest of least gave to us things to think about; ideas transcribed and studied, telling us of alternatives; alternatives from which we realize that, that all we knew was a lie.
The greatest of deceptions; that the ways our lands are; that the manners of our blood-ordained purposes and born-roles; were the ordinances of the Gods, and not the mortal men who rule in their name as if not being twirled by the words of fays. Although this realization began as skepticisms asked, it came to fruition nigh but six years ago. For if our thousand realms were ordained by the Gods to be what we are, what do the Gods say to Pegasus? Who showed that not only may our ways be changed, they are able to be demolished akin to the crumbling rubble of a failing structure…
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…And it is an unfortunate reality of our thousand realms of man that, beyond counts and dukes, kings were rare and those that were at be were fragile and weak.
It is a miracle of Fortune that the Rainbow Kingdom has endured for as long as it has with continuity; Sunflower, Sunshine, Embergate, and other titled kingdoms like they, while still at be, have contracted greatly.
And if you step out to the streets, from Raspberry to Blackberry to West Cherry and its East Cherry sibling, I would gamble these lands’ platinum that no passerby would remember the foregone Rosefield Kingdom to whom they once belonged. Bewildering it may be for them that once upon a time, said to be a thousand years ago although that is disputed, they belonged to a powerful kingdom that rivaled Rainbow; but it is so. The Rosefield Kingdom did exist.
I even made journey to Divinesgate and directly asked for the ledger of titles from the Oracles of Rulers and Sovereigns; from which I learned that, there exists that title by law. In fact, I learned also that every title in all the thousand realms has a superior titles [sic] to which they are bound by law even if not by fact. And, in truth, from the ledger of titles – which I confess I did acquire dubiously for the oracles did not provide upon request – there exists even potential titles which are valid and recognized by the Temple of Sovereigns which surpass even kingdoms. But that is a different thesis.
We always knew to be true that the thousand realms have not changed since the Child had felled, but this confirms that their over-structuring titles have fallen between claimed and unclaimed; that the kingdoms that arose throughout our histories had already existed by divine law and were titles merely claimed by their respective pieces.
The tiny realm of Coastfield, for example, as weak as that small town may be, could theoretically forge a greater top-northwestern kingdom. For Coastfield County is a title, sovereign at be by fact, that belongs by law to the dominion of the unclaimed title of Duchy of Smilecoast, a title claimable once a single sovereign controls Coastfield and Warmful Smile, and from there by subsuming the entireties of Oceanfield, Nightsea, and other surroundings, King of the Northwestern Coast could be theoretically claimed.
As a commoner born with lowly blood, I know not the depth of this process of cyclic rises of premade kingdoms and beyond nor how one of sovereign blood knows they may claim a title greater, but this does bestow to me hope; that the Rosefield Kingdom whom had existed still exists but the title of which must simply be reclaimed and reestablished. All that may be required to achieve this is a realm willing to take the initiative…
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…The Great Berrie Forest is a curse; not even the fallen races and outcast brethren of the underworld touch it from underneath; no path on the surface and no path underground transpass it. We all are aware of the causes for us who live amongst man and their fears of the retched Tree-Fiends who haunt that forest and others in Hucklebberie, but what horrors must reside beneath that forest that not even feral goblins and our tainted, darkish elf-kin dare ever to transgress is, what I must say, a graver concern.
Though, I digress. Despite what cartographers report upon their maps of the Huckleberrie realm; a realm that contests with kingdoms in girth; the great duchie is not so great. It be as fat as it be skinny, for it wraps around the Great Forest as if a pastrie and not a berrie. Much of the Aelfenie’s sworn dominion is taken bi the domain of the Tree-Fiends that it ought it [sic] simply be reported with contested shade.
If you remove the Great Forest from Huckeberrie’s domain, left would be a much lesser grandiose realm of difficult land. So, it is no surprise the Dukes in Grandberrie has [sic] long ensured an enstretched painting of their dominion to hide this realitee. And it is no surprise equalli that we had gazed to our eastern neighbors and their potential givings…
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…Naturally, the Alweny in their elvish blooded ways grew bored with their power; with their peace. The ‘great’ Huckleberry Duchy had forever coveted everything beyond the Big Divide, envious of the fruits and feed gifted. The free counties of Strawberry, Raspberry, Blackberry, and Cherry were a sore upon their berrien pride. Berries beyond the control of the great duchy of endless berry-named realms.
Humor this is not; for during my time amongst the court of Strawberry, I learned that it was true: the cause for Grandberry’s war against us, against all that would become their ‘eastern tumor’, was because we were ‘berries’, and they were the duchy of all the berries; therefore, we naturally belonged to them.
The Alweny conquered us for our names alone, so they declared as the cause; though, absolutely so, they coveted our labor and fruits. The great duchy is as fat as it is skinny; worthless, forested land haunted by monsters, fiends, and nightstalkers. It is not merely coincidence’s illusion that the great Huckleberry Duchy became great only after they conquered us; only after using us to give to them what they never gave to us.
Stolen story; please report.
But it remains truth most fundamental that Strawberry not but a thousand years ago was a free county alongside our brethren in these rosefield plains; history that the elfish bloods has [sic] strived to erase. A thousand-year occupation, we have endured, and we have survived; for the elvish-blooded Alweny know not man’s resolve; Grandberry knows not our spite to continue; to keep what had once been ours…
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…And one must ask themself, the nature of this resolve; how in the thousand years, a timeless sea of passing journey, that we have managed so; that we have retained our tongue, our customs of rule and governance, and our yearning to be rid of Grandberry’s yoke; that within this thousand-year occupation, Strawberry has not forgotten while our brethren have.
This thesis has already established that our Strawberry has existed since the beginning amongst all the thousand realms; that we were once sovereign; that the Alweny coveted our realms’ fertile lands. But what of before? And, more to be stressed, why did Grandberry not take our lands during when they had done so the rest of what would become their great duchy.
The answer lays simply with the existence of Riverberry: a martial fortress, a border county ruled by generals made feudals. But Riverberry exists as a border march without a border to defend; most amongst us in the burgeoning educated believed that this was to keep Alweny control over us firm. But that is not so. Martial Riverberry is the vestiges predating Alweny’s conquest; it existed well before; and we know fortresses are built to defend, not attack. But to defend against whom?
And there lays the truth hidden in the histories concealed by the elvish bloods: the great duchy did not conquer us thitherto, because they could not; they were weak, and we were strong. There once existed something they feared, something the great duchy was trying to ensure could never cross the Big Divide; that is the purpose of Riverberry: not to keep us in, but to keep us out.
And by now we have assuredly heard of what that was; what the Alweny had strived to ensure that we would forget. The Rosefield Kingdom; the kingdom who had once ruled all the rosefield plains, not only the bulge. And it is clear from rediscovered revelations made a century and half ago of which we amongst the learned must surely be aware, that the titular providence of realms is divine; that a realm, a kingdom, are existences unvanquishable even if titles unclaimed.
And therefore, the four counties of this bulge and all other realms of these rosefield plains even now are intrinsically bounded to our kingdom; a kingdom whose ghost continues to haunt.
And there lays the answer as whyfor Grandberry’s yoke had not consumed our Strawberry; why our stubborn spite has held firm for a thousand years; because, by law of sovereigns and titular rites thereof, their thousand-year occupation is illegal and unnatural, and always was. A truth so fundamental that even the illiterate peasants who toil the strawberry fields may know of its precertainty; that it is well-known our counts have long strived for their sovereignty.
That Strawberry’s sovereignty – and that of all the eastern bulge – is preordained as a certain inevitability from titular providence; for that is the natural state in absence of our rightful kingdom by titular law, to which Grandberry attempts to reject…
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…And therein lays another lie purported by so-called enlightened seperatists; that our sovereignty comes from the count so-declared our ‘sovereign’; that a free Strawberry will only come from his own victories over Grandberry. The counts of Strawberry have long schemed and betrayed ourselves, and though we must remain with absolute loyalty, we must recognize that a free Strawberry will not come from the freedom of a count nor would it free us from yoke.
For here lays on fundamental truths greater that bind even divines; that nature favors the strongest; that monsters prey upon the defenseless; that goblins enslave the naïve; that neither power nor freedom are preordained but taken by force and with will; and that a free Strawberry as natural as it may be will, like a nascent-born calve separated from his herd, will [sic] merely become prey to other realms with claims; for a liberated calve is weak, while the established realms, grown and numerous, are strong.
But here lays further truths most fundamental; that the current way of realms and feudality were never ordinances of the Gods, but ideas of man, thus bound to Change’s winds; that, in the most fundamental of ways, we are a people; a language, a tradition, and a custom with which we share amongst all others in these rosefield plains; for we are, in absence of all yokes, not a realm, but a single transcending nation.
There lays whyfor this manifesto calls not for sovereignty, but for independence of not a county, but of a free state bounded to the will of not feudal customs, but national truths self-evident. And here lays whyfor mostest of all, this manifesto calls on not our count nor any count, but rather we, the people of our nation, to heed this call and fight not to only free ourselves from the Alweny’s yoke, but to free this bulge and to free all the rosefield plains.
By which we shall achieve our Rosefield Kingdom’s restoration may it rid us of all yokes; by whose strength our nation shall be kept free ever onwards; for we are the calves made strong by rosefield’s oned herd…
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« … » Antica stared as blank as her mind had become… She had to contemplate what exactly she had spent the last couple or so hours reading…
Indeed, reading…
This day had even ended when she had returned to the Company headquarters and once this very office, only for Colonel Faulkner to hand her a towering stack of readings to be read—to which was she was ordered to read… And it was very clear from doing this that…she was a far better speaker of local tongue than she was a reader.
Reading and writing and speaking were ultimately separate even if related…facets of linguistic comprehension and cognitive operation, unfortunately… To excel in one did not imply excelling in the others.
However, she had nothing else to do while she waited for her superior officer’s return but to read all of this…stuff, even if the way these writings were written induced a mindache as if her mind had been twisted and knotted… Indeed, both her mask-obscured eyes and head throbbed.
Sighing, Antica finally withdrew her attention from this… ‘manifesto’ whatever-thing of sorts she had…just skimmed through, peering around this quiet space… Colonel Faulkner had said he had to make a few ‘settled arrangements’ and ‘finalize the details’, yet… What could be taking him this long?
Surely, he would not have requested her to stay at this headquarters without already having everything pre-arranged and pre-approved by his own superseding commandants?
« Beh… » she muttered with yet another sigh, her sight returning to both the papers unfortunately still on her lap and the even greater mass on the desk before her…
This collection of packets, booklets, print-pressed papers were clearly organized and segmented… Did he have all of these already prepared just for her or something? Ugh… Nevertheless, it seemed that she would be condemned to continue reading these… Whatever all of these even were—history, opinions, theories, she knew not the descriptors, only that to read any of it sheered her mind in ways indescribable.
“…achieve the restoration of… Yoke—what even is this… ‘Yoke’? Is that the… the…” She could not even transcribe local tongue into her own; so fried thus was her mind. In retrospect, she probably should not have foregone all of her former associate’s…reading and writing…exercises.
However, abruptly, her ears began to hear… « Ģe finalidre… » Indeed, footsteps descending upon the way to that door behind. And, soon enough, that very door sprung right open.
Antica immediately stood herself up, placing all those readings on her lap onto the colonel’s desk to be among the rest, as she turned and stared with attent.
“Ah. Well, someone seems doubtlessly relieved. Enjoyed your ‘studies’, I take it then?” Faulkner, standing in place as the door shut behind, merely stated.
“If to enjoy means to be unable to think anymore, then, yes…” Antica replied with apparent sarcasm. “What was the point of all of these…readings or whatever?” She had to ask, for she needed to know…
Colonel Faulkner causally stepped forward, shrugging a little; “Oh, well… There was a plenty I had to…arrange for your stay here, and seeing that I would be preoccupied and thus unable to explain all of the fruitful facts, histories, and underlying contexts to understanding this…lovely city…”—it was obvious in his voice that he did not find this city to be ‘lovely’—“What better alternative would there be than from what we could call ‘primary sources’?”
“…perhaps something more comprehensible?” Antica flatly answered; her mind was still stuck processing what the word ‘yoke’ meant in the context it was being applied… Never mind that nothing she had read seemed to be empirically analyzed information and was so…oozing with local…denizen perceptions and biases.
The colonel let out a single humored breath; “Myes. Doubtlessly. However, these are all the words which I had to…digest upon my arrival. Therefore, you must digest these in kind.” he simply replied; “After all, to truly understand the…issues we are beset with, you must first understand the…theories and conjectures underneath that make these problems so, and the perspectives thereof.”
Antica grumblingly—ish—sighed; « Satés ĵustos, supposo… » Fair enough, she supposed. Indeed, the utilitarian reasoning was logical and sound, it was more that…if her mind had processed any more of those…denizen readings, she would have certainly ruptured her already beleaguered hippocampus, quite frankly.
Nevertheless, Colonel Faulkner ahemed as he stepped back to the door; “Well, doubtlessly you have had enough for this long day… Let us get you settled in, then.” He thus opened the door, holding it in place; “And just to say, on behalf of the United Central Company’s collective armies, I for one welcome you to our divisional headquarters, Nilia de Relevancia.”