“As things were we might not survive the winters” said a man “Please ma’am, those bastards are over charging us…”

“Mind your tongue cretin…!!! You are standing in presence of her highness the queen” said a gallant woman dressed in amour from neck to toe she stood at six feet 5 inches, a monstrous height. The armour she wore looked ridiculously and impractical in all as aspects, any soldier would find this more a punishment than a duty. The heavy armour was made of multiple pieces, first was a breastplate covering the shoulder and massive breasts from the front and back, it was tightened using metallic laces at the sides of the two halves (front and rear halves). On her powerful shoulders rested round pauldrons, her powerful biceps and triceps were covered using rerebraces tightly wound using metallic laces, she wore a vambrace on her forearm, over which were sturdy looking gauntlets which were flexible at the joints of fingers. The forearm itself could act as shields blocking the most powerful blows. Massive plackart to protect her abdomen off which hung the slim fitting faulds. The tassets were like metallic belts which hung in form of strips from faulds whose lengths extended till her knees, they would have looked enticing on a belly dancer but were looking menacing on the woman. The lower parts of her armour consisted of cuisses covering her muscular thighs hinged to it was the poleyn protecting her knees which was in turn hinged to her greaves which covered her shin. The sabaton for her foot made it seem like her feet were bigger than most men, even for her height. The armour was entirely white with a golden gorget around her neck which looked like necklace, she had not ‘adorned’ her helmet as per regulations of court; showing her beautiful face and the only place from where one could identify her flawless russet brown skin and emerald green eyes, which were an extremely rare combination. The beauty brought out by them made people forget the metal monster the knight was. Standing tall, next to the queen, holding her head high and chest puffed in the form fitting armour she was like the epitome of elegance and strength. When she screamed at the man, shivers were sent up people’s spine, but the man was not perturbed cause he too was not ordinary.

Head full of greying hair, forehead with a couple of creases, a slightly wrinkly skin, a pair of eyes which showed experience beyond his age, fair skin, standing at 6 feet 2 inches, slightly potbellied the man a little out of shape (dad-bod). He was regally dressed in closely woven silk antariya in the lower body, a plain belt to tighten the antariya and naked torso adorned with necklace which has a string with pearls, golden armband, golden earring and a neatly folded 1.5-meter-long purple cloth on his right shoulder. Though undaunted, the person knew the error in his ways which he rectified saying “My apologies her majesty”. The man was of unquestionable loyalty, wherein some people claimed that the soil of Bhasmachal was irrigated by the sweat and blood of Marcus. “I spoke in excess…” cutting him off mid-sentence the queen raised her hand indicating him to stop. Queen, the most powerful person in this kingdom legally and martially. She wore a long white translucent gown which extended from the top of her shoulder all the way down to her ankles. She wore white brassier and white boxer type panties below her dress. The beauty she portended was ethereal, angelic even; sitting there, legs crossed on her golden throne, on top the throne was a stalk of wheat and an eye of fish. Her name was Sylvia Rheinland, the ice-beauty, slayer of foes, the one who survived and the queen with on heir.

“Her majesty, you know very well that we have not been able to grow even a single grain in our field, even deserts have proven to change over a course of 5 years of treatment we have been performing for the past ten years. There has been a major exodus of people from the land because of this, to the extent that we are less than 35 % of peak population from 12 years ago. We were among the largest island nations of the world, even those damn Sundari-dveep women used to pay respect to our position, now we have been reduced to a mere vassal of Kingdom of Bharat, dependent on them for even buying the most meagre amount of grains. From the largest exported of grains in the Sarayu Ocean we have become a major importer of grains. This way we are driving ourselves into extinction, our fiscal deficit has been increasing and we have practically no tax payers. Only the loyalists, the ones who have decided to die with the nation, are the ones who are left in our country. Those nobles from Bharat with whom we have been trading for the past 50 years, turned out to be crooks kicking us in the stomach when we are down.”

Marcus Aurelius's sapphire blue eyes looked pensively at the beautiful woman sat on the throne, the court which housed them right now, was just a poor reflection of its past resplendent self, was 150 m long and 70 m wide, painted white interiors with 18 pillars arranged in two parallel rows along the side of a 16 m wide red carpet which was 100 m long starting at the entry gate of the court to the throne which was placed 3 m above the floor, to give a view of the entire hall in front of the throne and 18 seats were placed in front of those pillars where the ministers, in charges of various departments sat there. If one looked around the podium one would see two things in common among the ministers, one was their greying and receding hairline and the ever present fire in their eyes, signifying their will to sacrifice themselves from the country.

“Come to the point Marcus” said the queen authoritatively, concisely, her fingers curled into a fist listening to her minister pound away painfully at the sensitive topics.

“My liege, my point is to use our entire military might to finish off that bastard who is the root of our troubles” even the female guard was silent on this statement.

“And?? sacrifice the entire country in the process??” her right eyebrow raised into an arch showing how futile the plan

“My liege, the way we are right, we will be killing our subjects off anyway. No other solution exists for this. Please try and understand!!” said Marcus, his ageing eyes turned a bit wet “None of us will flinch if we have to sacrifice ourselves for this kingdom” he said pointing to the ministers present in the court.

The queen sombre expression in her eyes looked at the determined faces of all present in the court, over the past decade they had seen their beautiful kingdom turn to dust. She could she helplessness and fierceness, old age and strength, burdened and determination in them. She closed her eyes, she knew of their loyalty, she knew of their strength, she knew of their plight, she knew of their head-strongness.

“No” she said calmly at first

“But, your highness…”as soon as Marcus uttered those words, with jerk of her neck she faced Marcus directly, looking directly into his eyes and she then said “Leave…”

“But, your highness…”

“Leave!!!” she screamed at the top of her voice at the ministers in the court, as she said this; an air pulse wave starting from the throne went outwards in all direction, blowing the windows, the carpet, the gate of the court open. So much that the guards standing outside the gate were scared out of their minds and fell down confused.

Marcus knew right now was not the time to debate further and thought to himself “Kid, we have delayed things based on your father’s pipe dream for too long. Either you buck up now or be ready to face the extinction of the kingdom”

As he was walking out of the court Marcus started reminiscing. He was the prime minister to the previous king as well, loyal fellow and best of friends, he cried a lot that damn day. The previous king, Julius Rheinland, inherited the throne from his father, he was an able statesman, a man with a lot of cunning and kind hearted. He built this country for all the classes of people so much that 14 years ago when the offer to make free accommodation for poor people in form of allotments was made by King of Bharat himself, he offered to fund man power for the construction, provided they were local. Thereby increasing the standard of living and employment rate. This would be a huge project spanning many moths and requiring thousands in man power. The cash required even to fund the man power was significant, but he was happy to open the royal coffers if it meant improving his people’s conditions. “Sigh… we were about to surpass our golden period when the cursed demon arrived out of nowhere 13 years ago”.

Marcus decided to walk back to his manor after a brief detour, being the closest advisor to the king, his accommodation in capital, during the months court was in progress, was nearest to the royal accommodation in the palace grounds.

He decided to cool off and headed for beach the when he saw a man decently muscular and bronze skinned who was a few inches taller than him. What caught his eye was the large ominous looking dark axe strapped to his back and the stump on his right shoulder. He moved on after seeing the person, but for some reason the face of the man was etched in his brain.

“Hey Tara” Kush asked the beautiful woman next to him “Why did you pick me up from the beach? I mean a good deed is fine and all… it seems… like a dangerous decision to me. I mean please don’t misunderstand I am not a crook, nor do I want to teach you to be careful and …”

“Heh… I don’t really care if even now you turn out to have ill intentions. There are seldom people I encounter whom I need to be vary of” said Tara with pride in her voice

Kush was surprised at the response because you could not make out strong a person was from appearances so making this claim was in a way conceited and risky, but that did not mean he was any less grateful for the help, so he said

“Thank you for your help and for taking care of me when I was unconscious, I will do anything to return the favour”

“Nah!! It wasn’t me who should thank, my friend was the one who rescued you, it was all part of her, ‘Visitors are equivalent to Gods’ or something crap. Though you were more like a stray than visitor”

“Can you direct me to her I would like to thank her too”

“Nah… she’s a bit busy, I sucked all her free time for a week atleast, but she would appreciate the thought. You are free to do what you want, the rooms paid for till you stay”

Kush not thinking much of it continued “Anyway thank you for your help anyway, if nothing else how do you think I can get off the island?? Can you direct me to in the direction of mainland?”

“What will you do with the directions?”

“I intend to swim till there”

“Puhahahahaha…” she broke out in a laughter in middle of the streets

“What are you a caveman? Take a boat their”

“I would be endangering the passengers on the boat then”

“How so?” she asked

“I am wearing a set of weights on me right now”

“Oh yeah, the ones you were talking about before. How are they anyway relevant?”

“They weigh 50 tonnes”

She raised her eyebrows in surprise; the amusement knocked out of her. Cause that was a significant amount weight to have on and walk as normally as he does “You do realise what 50 tonnes means right?” she asked not believing for a second he was telling her the truth.

“Yeah, these are a bit special, they lose their weight proportional to the amount of mana I inject in them”

Both her eyes opened wide for a moment as she lost control of herself for a moment and then said “You are consciously ejecting mana from your body at all time, even talking to me?”

“Yeah I need to since these are a part of my training”

“You reached here by swimming all across the Sarayu ocean in those things???”

“Well yeah pretty much, but our home’s in the middle of Bramhputra Ocean. My father set this as my training routine”

Tara stopped in her tracks. From the looks of his face and texture of his skin and un-cracked voice it did not seem that the boy was more than fifteen. At best he must have just come of age, it was that she remembered the axe, the ominous black monolith. She felt dread just from its sight and it was fucking heavy for its size, though not too much for her. While she thought all this, she asked “who did you say your father was again??”

“Oh… I am the son of Sagar and Alicia Samudraputra”

Tara was stunned and lost control of her reactions again, a first for her atleast in her memories, but she contained herself quickly. Kush was looking around and did not notice the change in expression. She thought to herself “Sagar Samudraputra??? ‘THE’ Sagar Samudraputra the traitor of humanity… nah… he’s been dead for a couple of centuries atleast. It must be some crazy fan boy and to put a kid as young as him through such an ordeal must be a nut job. Although there were some rumours about a crazy powerful person destroying the 100000 strong personal guard of king of Jared in a single punch, killing the crown prince leaving the king of Jared speechless. To the extent that there was no retaliation from the king at all. Some did say that appearance of the person matched the appearance of the great traitor of humanity. Wait a minute, wasn’t the name of woman the crown prince had caused trouble with something Alicia… what was it again? Alicia... Alicia... Alicia... what was again? yeah!!! Alicia Gangotri. She was the mermaid princess of the ocean of Ganga right??? Don’t tell ‘THAT’ Sagar Samudraputra got involved with Alicia Gangotri!!!

If this is true, this might be… wait a minute… didn’t he say that there was this crazy couple in Kishunpali who were killed by the united alliance forces… weren’t they Sagar and Alicia as well??? My spies did tell me that there were rumours of the man destroying an entire 100000 strong legion of soldiers in a single punch. Ok Tara calm down… either this guy’s a dumbass who doesn’t understand his father’s crime or he’s lying. He simply would have put together the two names from the news as well, but this crazy training regime, it’s too elaborate for a scheme.

If this dumbass really doesn’t realize who his parents are then maybe… just maybe… uncle’s predictions might come true”

A bit of excitement flashed through her eyes as she saw him like a piece of meat to be devoured and licked her lips. Kush just turned around in time to see her lick her lips and shiver ran up his spine, ominous Goosebumps ran all over his body as he bowed at his waist such that he made a right angle with his legs his eyes at the road and head pointing towards Tara. Seeing this Tara was taken aback for a moment and before she could ask anything, Kush blurted “I am sorry Tara, I cannot accept your advances, I can only cross the lines with those I love”

Tara flabbergasted with the outburst, at first she did not understand what he was saying then she realised where she was and looked at surroundings; they were standing in the middle of a street where people were looking at them, the statement from him made it look like she getting dumped in the middle of street. Slowly perplexity was replaced by, realization then humiliation which was then replaced by anger and then rage clearly visible on her face as she curled her fingers in to a fist and punched Kush across the cheeks sending him flying across the street.