Hello ladies and gentlemen, it has been a while sorry, a friend came from the states to visit. Once again, if you spot any mistake or if you have any question/complaint that would help me creates a better story then comments! Do not hesitate!
*Two days later, at the Royal Palace, in the throne room*
"Majesty, you have received a letter from Alexei, one of the instructor teaching magic. He said that one of the kid gave it to him in the hope to get and audience with you" a servant, looking around twenty years old and with the same green eyes as Alexei spoke.
"Weren’t the rules clear enough? Why would he do that? Does he have a death wish? Give me the letter"
"Naura I am not sure you should even read it"
"Malek, if the instructor gave it to me there must be a reason"
So she starts reading...and after a while "tsk, this kid is too smart for his age"
Without even taking her eyes off the letter "Aaron, reschedule the audience with Malicia to tomorrow and send someone fetch the kid. I want to see him this afternoon"
"Yes milady"
"Naura! What are you doing! This is against the rules! What is in this letter, let me see."
"Here"
After he had finished reading the letter he looked at the Ice Queen with an incredulous look on his face. "Oh... interesting. Does he have a solution? Can’t believe he is five years old"
*Under a tree, outside of the city*
Two men were walking shoulder to shoulder toward a huge tree. The tree is more than two thousand years and it is said it was plant as a guardian for the tomb of the last Fairy Queen and that the ones who dare hurt the tree will be hit with a curse worse than death. As such most people were avoiding this place. Well, most but not all because even from the distance the two men were, they could see a youth lying at its roots, sleeping peacefully.
Standing now close to the youth, the old man clears his voice trying to get the youth’s attention. Seeing that it doesn’t work, he tries again but louder. The men to the left, red from anger of being ignored, gets closer in an attempt to wake him up.
"Kid"
"Kid"
"KID"
Finally awake, the kid looks at the two men. He didn’t know the man that was yelling but recognized the old man being his instructor. Looking carefully at the unknown men he knew that he would be granted to audience.
It is a man in his thirties, well what look like the thirties since most of demon are hundreds of years old, with long, lustrated hair, a long trimmed black beard, red eyes, a skin pale as snow and a black uniform with two moons crossed by a staff and a snow leopard, the royal emblem. Yep, a royal guard.
"The Queen has received your letter and wishes to see you. Here is a token that would let you enter the royal palace. The audience is in five hours"
"I will be there in time. Thank you."
“You better be. Or it may be the last mistake you ever make." On these warm and gentle words the guard turns away and leaves.
The instructor looks at the other man leaving and when the latter is out of view, he let out a sigh while turning to speak to Laz. "Well kid..."
But Laz is already back to the dream world. Desperate and angry Alexei starts to walk away
"Tsk, that kid".
Four hours later, I am standing in front of the Royal Palace with my jaw almost dropping on the ground.
Since we were living at the outskirt of the city and are studying outside the city, we never saw the Royal Palace from close.
It is a big, grey-ish and beautiful castle with gold columns crafted with different mythical beasts. The black wooden doors are giving a dreadful aura that gives an interesting contrast with the stairs made out of white marble. Rows of guards could be seen and none look anything close to a human. One could only imagine how powerful and rich the people inside are.
After showing my token to what looks like a big ass spider, I was led to a waiting room, close to the throne room where I am guessing I would have to wait until the Queen summons me.
While walking in the corridors, there were so many paintings, sculptures and arts that I couldn’t even imagine what the rest of the castle must be like. One sculpture that particularly interested me was a large snow leopard with sapphire as eyes, which seem like following me every time I was moving. The sculpture was giving a similar aura to the Ice Queen and I wondered how it was even possible since it wasn’t alive. The beast was so beautiful and majestic that it took me all my willpower to resist not kneeling in submission.
After a while, a guard came out from a door opposite to which I came from and announced that I would be able to see the Queen. After a small briefing to explain the official manners to act in the presence of the Queen, I enter the throne room.
The throne room, compared to my expectation was quite simple. There are banners on each side, once again representing different mythical beasts and on the walls I could see other paintings. In front of me there are a few stairs with a red fluffy carpet trimmed with gold that is leading to two huge thrones. The first one is a large black throne with white cushions on it and was made of what seems like bones of an unknown monster
On the left of the first throne there is a small table with a chest board on it and then a second throne, as big as the first one but made of what looks like ice and with black cushions.
That was on the ice throne that the Queen was sitting on, looking at some papers. She looks exactly as the last time I saw her except that now she is wearing a black and white robe and a black small crown that contrast with her pale skin. What was strange is that she wasn’t giving off the same pressure that she did the last time. The air was still colder than usual but there wasn’t the feeling of suffocation as if losing your breath.
As I close the distance to the throne, I kneel down right before I reached the stairs, eyes to the ground and wait for her to speak first, as I was instructed.
Facing the Queen, I couldn’t help but feeling vulnerable. I knew that she could kill me in a matter of seconds if she wanted to. Rumors say that when she is pissed off she would just put you in an ice coffin to release you weeks or even months later, if she felt lenient. I wasn’t willing to find out if it was true or not.
Seconds becomes minutes and the Queen still didn’t even give me a look yet.
After what feels like an hour passed the Queen finally starts talking, "Mhmm good. Smart and have good manner!"
As I looked up to see the Queen I realized that she wasn’t there anymore.
"Quite handsome too. A somewhat powerful aura for a kid of your age and I can sense that the amount of Demon blood in your veins is quite high. Oh already at the basic stage heh? Good, good!" said a cheerful voice behind him.
I was astounded. Not only didn’t she sound cold and cruel as her look implied but she also used teleportation, a spell that only those at the immortal stage should be able to use. "H...H...How? Wha…What?"
Giving a rare smile she ignored his shutters. “I have read your letter and I must say that I am quite surprised with your reasoning. We still didn’t plan everything yet concerning the conquering of the kingdoms, but it is true that, as things are right now in the desert, it would be close to impossible to unite the tribes. There are only small oases and none that would allow more than a few hundreds of people. Being nomad also doesn’t allow a strict control over the different tribes. So boy what is your solution?”
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Those eyes. I feel like they are looking into my soul. Never have I felt so small. Is that what it means to be in the immortal stage?
“That would be desert greening, my Queen.”
“Would you care to explain?” she asked, her voice being now a bit colder.
Wow. I guess she doesn’t like having to be taught by a five years old kid.
“If I… If the barbarian that ends up winning the trial could not rule over all the small tribes, then the only solution is to build a place where all the tribes or most of them could reside together.”
Seeing that the Queen is about to object, I just continue.
“You are right my Queen. The oases are too small and without a good source of water it would be impossible to feed too many people. So the question is: how to have a high enough amount of water materialized in one of the hottest place of the continent?”
I wait for the Queen to gives me her solution.
You know having a solution to a problem is somewhat easy, but convincing the other party that your solution is the good one, that is the challenge. So a good way to ease the matter is to make it looks like the idea comes from both parties. Letting her giving her opinion would seems like it’s more of a discussion than a monologue.
“Expending an oasis would need precipitation and the weather doesn’t permit it. The moisture in the air is not enough so a water mage would not be able to just create water from nothing…”
Damnit she might be a Queen but she doesn’t know a thing about how weather works. Well I wouldn’t have too if I didn’t read that strange book. She would just get pissed if I keep asking question and she is not able to answer.
“You are right my Queen but I wasn’t clear enough. What makes water drop from the sky? How do clouds appear? Why isn’t it raining in the desert?”
“Water comes from the clouds. I do not know how clouds appear and it doesn’t rain because the weather is too hot so most water evaporates.”
“Well, basically all air contains water, but near the ground it is usually in the form of an invisible gas called water vapor. When warm air rises, it expands and cools. Cool air can't hold as much water vapor as warm air, so some of the vapor condenses into tiny pieces of dust that are floating in the air and forms a tiny droplet around each dust particle. When billions of these droplets come together they become a visible cloud. It is why it does not rain in a desert; there is no water on the ground that could form a mass of cold air.
And so for the next twenty minutes, I begin to explain everything I know about clouds. From the fact that the desert is on the lee side of the Nesky Mountain range to the fact that what is missing in the desert is different masses of air which would result in precipitation and thunder. (There is a windward side of the mountain where the clouds from the top of the mountains blow and the lee side where it is dryer and clearer.)
“So you mean that if there was a way to change the masses of air in the atmosphere we would be able to control the weather and make it rain?”
I could see the incredulous look on her face and how surprised she is.
“Yes. But here comes the second problem. We would need an air mage to constantly creates the air masses so we could have a constant flow of water, which is not a good idea. What if for some reason he died or someone is controlling him and suddenly no more water? That would be the end of the city.”
“Right so we would need a way to keep the water on the ground so it could evaporate and makes more clouds. A way to create a whole cycle that would only be influenced by nature. ”
“Indeed.”
Again, I can feel her staring at my soul trying to understand and analyze everything that has been said from the beginning.
Should I continue or let her speak her mind?
“So this is why you would need that slave? To creates plants and trees that would help to keep the water on the ground?”
I was shocked.
I didn’t mention Cameron in the letter. How did she know? Why does she even know that trees and plants help stabilize the ecosystem? Could she read my mind? No, she would have done it before and answer my questions about how clouds appear. Was I followed? Was he? Damn that smile of her she knows what I am thinking.
“A guard has reported having seen one of the kids talking to the slave many times, so being curious we send someone to investigate.”
“Oh.”
Not wanting to elaborate more on the subject I just continue.
“Yes, to get a steady state ecosystem, we need what is called pioneer species such as lichens, orchids, mosses and algae. These are species that doesn’t need much to survive and could help more complex species to do the same by creating a nutriment cycling for the soil. After some time it would attract animals. With animals we will get feces that will give even more nutriments to the soil. When the soils is richer than more species of plants will develop and after some time a complete and steady ecosystem will be in place. Water will rain, forest will grow, animal will populate and the desert condition will be no more. That it is what is called Desert Greening.”
Again that looks of her… will I get used to it at one point?
“Desert greening without the help of magic might take dozen of years, maybe even hundreds of years. I think that with the help of my air magic, and plant magic from Cameron we can speed up the process and creates a steady ecosystem in less than ten years. This is why I am asking to remove the slave collar from Cameron and let him participate in our studies. He would be more useful.”
This is the moment I was waiting for. From her reaction I can see that she, at least, didn’t reject my idea. I might not get an answer right away but I did my best.
And as a matter of fact she said, “I will summon you in a few days so I could talk about it with my husband. What is your name boy? And how do you know all of this?”