Dark Crow Rising

"Prince Lathameturn! Prince Lathameturn!? Greatest God, where is he?" my younger brother's bodyguard, Galanmarck, calls out.

"Do not hurry too much on my account. I find myself in need of this comfort and quiet goes well with it." I tell the Valkinvar turncoat as he vanishes deeper into this modest building. Minding what Suhurlodst Academy of Arcane Learning and Understanding calls its finest building. I quietly chuckle at such plainness and attempt at extravagance. I've seen fancier holiday homes built in the flatlands of the Moonlit Plains.

However, my younger brother seems to be finding this building to his liking. There is plenty of room for his relics of fallen kingdoms and forgotten peoples. He insists much of it is from the periods beyond the Time of Liquid Mountains, but, I struggle to believe. Rarely a day goes by where some dig has not made a discovery of the horrors of that time.

Dearest, beloved brother insists I stop funding such expeditions for enough of the land knows of our ancestor's pain. But, I refuse to do so, for all the freedoms we enjoy, we cannot be anything but slaves to our distinct past. The Grand-Kingdom of Ibenorocco holds us in chains and the people must know why. Thank Jhrarda indeed my younger brother was able to escape the fate I had to endure.

I have those slug-chasers reeling, though I need them to be readily on their backs, bellies exposed. It almost makes me laugh, even with their declining power, one must be attentive. Some businesses are cheaper to get into than others, though, that does not mean it will be so easy. So, so very easily could the past return to us in vicious reminder.

Shoes drag on the slabs of finely cut and polished geode of deep purples and bright reds. Despite the aches that assail me, I rise to my full height and wear a smile at the sight of my brother. Oddly enough and I have never gotten over it, as Lathameturn likes to remind me, he is my superior as well. I should offer my respects, especially with why I am here but I will pass on the interaction.

If only partially.

"War-Prince Lathameturn." I greet with a slight nod as he frowns.

"Royal Admiral Jhrartur." he says back, his eyes focusing on his close friend as he backs away.

"Leave the poor man alone brother, come, come." I tell him, giving Galanmarck the freedom he needs to go off elsewhere and carry on with his babysitting. I bet he never thought that would happen when he found himself with a life debt to my younger sibling. Cooking and cleaning like any other maid but he holds the power to shoot right through a mountaintop!

Not all that grand given what I know, admittedly, but, comparable is his position when the regular maid is considered.

"You are here with a demand or a request?" Lathameturn asks and I huff a slight smirk on my way back to a chair. The reinforced stone core giant creaks like a simple oak office supplement. These trees can dig their way through mountains and bloom so deceptively small on the mountain peaks. And, here I am, testing its strength when a stone giant does nothing.

"Whatever is required to get it from you." I answer, moving my sheathed sword between my legs to better use its weight-handling abilities. The flooring cracks and the famous self-repairing nature of a Suhurlodst dormitory fails to kick in. Hmm, I wonder if the building will still be able to handle this damage. Can a building forget?

"I assume this is to do with what caused Father to speak to us." he says and I nod, the recollection sending a shiver down my spine. It is not often His Lunar Majesty talks to anyone beyond the halls of the Finger's Reach Palace. Much less to give the order to call off an affair he's before shown little interest in. Such a perplexing man, our father, the most powerful man on the continent physically and politically but nearly unseen in both fields.

"It is, yes, and knowing you as well as I do, am I to guess you are not entirely clear as to what is going on?" I ask, paying attention to the breaks in his stoic expression. He rolls his eyes towards a different direction and fails to hide the slight rose bubbling in his cheeks. Mutters of a truly incomprehensible nature blabber out.

"The present-day is not my strongest area of expertise." he says like it may be a secret.

"I know." I remark, smiling deeper while my brother loses his focus on the many statues he's gathered. I frown at one of them, for it is the still recognisable carvings of a man the world knew as Thunder. Somewhere out in this world, the power of the greatest of heroes is waiting to be taken. Or, it has, south, so far south you need to fly to reach the lands of the Eusorochii.

Much like when the giant awakened, I could feel it. So many remarked on an odd sensation that day, thunder, we could all hear thunder on a clear, Orbital-Halo-blessed day. Only, it didn't rumble, it screamed with feminine passion and love a name so obscure and blatant at the same time. Lightning.

"So, brother, we are currently dealing with an unknown threat of immense scale. Like a babe is next to one of your relics, that giant treats the mountains of our land. As is the dust that collects on them in their buried isolation, the land is becoming sand that catches onto flaming wind." I explain and he nods, his magic grabbing onto a tablet and something to write with. The familiar noises of what I often delegate fill the room and armour suddenly shifts.

"You call upon me, War-Prince Lathameturn?" Galanmarck asks as I feel the magic in his marked hand call upon the proof of his Imdvarce heritage.

"The Royal Admiral requires additional troops. You will take command of my forces and serve as my voice and presence in their deployment." Lathameturn explains and Galanmarck drops down in utter submission.

"So it will be done, My Prince." he answers and my brother's magic fills the part our physical hand really should do. The first Valkinvar to serve the Seven-Peaks Union of Jherikra rises, a confident smile on his features. While I am sure he wants his sword to display its real power, it arrives as the shed feather will once age plucks it from a wing.

"I will need a technical document of some kind regarding your landships, brother." I point out as I am not all too familiar with his alterations on the New Story hull. Why he felt the need to expand upon my warship design, I do not know, but, he clearly has different intentions for them. Rather disgustingly, he countermanded my desires for a military built around our land's power. He made them driveable.

"Of course, I will supply you with what you need to know about my Legged Wheels." my brother explains and my dominant side's eye twitches. He even deigned to give his alterations a name that paid no heed to the poetic genius of what I named the New Stories for!? Oh, brother, I thought we were beyond such insults... Tch.

Little cunt.