“Have you ever felt the world to be so small?

That around every corner one could stumble,

People whose ancestors were the same and all,

Many new cousins, and more aunts and uncles.” - From a collection of poetry titled “All Men are Brothers” by Siegfried Hans Valerdorff, Jarl of Eyjafjord circa 508 VA.

“Oh yeah, heard of it from my old great-grandpa when I was a kid before,” said the bartender, who while sporting a healthy tan, was still a good bit paler than most people of the region Aideen saw in other nations. “Supposedly, us fair-skinned folk came from the south, where we escaped the reign of necromancers to find a new home in these lands to the north.”

“Uh-huh, and then?”

“Legend has it that our ancestors had a difficult time finding a place to call home at first, whether it be ideological differences or the locals not looking kindly upon them, until we reached these lands,” said the man spiritedly. Probably he was happy to regale his customers with old stories, or probably he just thought her to be a pretty face and was trying to get closer to her. Aideen didn’t care either way. “The honored ancestor who brought us here, may the deities bless his soul, found how the people of this land shared our worship of the Lady of Life, and negotiated to allow us to stay here.”

“So your people settled down here as a whole, huh?”

“Most of us did, though some had parted ways with us before then as well,” said the middle-aged bartender. He was old enough to have fought in the civil war three decades ago, and likely had, considering the scar he proudly sported on his arms and the few missing fingers on his left hand. “Come to think of it, lass, you’re a pretty fair one yourself. Might well be that our ancestors know each other.”

“Not the first time I heard someone say that since I’ve been here,” Aideen replied nonchalantly as she downed her mug of ale. The ale was a bit watery, and more bitter than she liked, but it was decent enough for a small-town’s brew. “What about that war going on a couple decades ago? What was that all about?”

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“Oh, that shit. Ugly business because our so-called king back then got in over his head, that’s what,” said the bartender with obvious distaste as he spat into a receptacle hidden behind one corner of his bar. “Fought in that mess myself, it’s where I got these, see?” he said as he displayed the scars on his arms and his missing fingers to Aideen. From the look of it, the scars were deep ones, which would explain why the otherwise burly man seemed to find even light things like bottles of liquor a bit straining to lift. His arm muscles likely carried plenty of damage from back then.

“Anyway, as I was saying, ugly business. Our ‘king’ back then didn’t like it that people were more devout in their worship of the deities than they were to him, so he set out to outlaw the worship of everything but him in the Regency,” said the bartender as he poured and passed Aideen a new mug of ale. “Take three guesses how that went with most folks.”

“Horribly?”

“Got it in one, lass. All the priests practically called him a great heretic and most anyone devout joined them on that call. That mess must’ve lasted at least a couple years or so, the king's got his nobles and their paid thugs on his back after all, against the rest of us small folk,” he said in a wistful tone. “It was ugly fighting, several whole villages were put to the sword then torched as an ‘example’ by the king’s forces, but all that did was just to piss us off even more. Eventually we ground them down and gutted the king alive as an apology offering to the deities.”

“After that?”

“Everyone conferred and chose one of our own, a good man, also of southern heritage like us, to be our new king. He was baptized by the priests and became one over the past couple decades,” said the bartender in more wistful tones. “A good man, that, shame that the deities called him to their side so soon. He got us through a hard generation as we rebuilt and kept things running. The new king’s a tad young, so we’re just hoping he does as well as his old dad as he grew up.”

“Here’s to a good future then,” said Aideen as she raised her mug in toast, which the bartender and many of the drinkers cheerfully toasted her to.

******************************

In the end, Aideen had not stayed for that long in the Holy Kingdom. She spent a couple months, most of which was time to cross the nation from its southernmost to its northernmost reaches, while she checked what she saw along the way and kept note of it for the future.

She saw the new capital of the nation in the process of construction atop the tall hill roughly in the center of the region, not far from the ruins of the old capital a short distance away from the foot of the hill. The old capital had mostly burnt down during the civil war, which necessitated either a rebuilding or a new capital. Clearly the locals had opted for the latter instead.

Most of it was much like what the bartender had described to her, a land that only recently recovered from the horrors of civil war, and went through tough times as they rebuilt. She could sympathize with the locals, and even understood their stance against outsiders somewhat. After such a war they were wise to be wary of people who might want to exploit their weakness after all.

Above all, she had also confirmed that most of the modern-day populace of the region were descendants of those who had followed her uncle centuries ago in his exile, and was somewhat glad to see that their lineage lived on to the present day. After all, they were still distant relatives to her, even if many times removed.