My first fanfic. Please give me any and all feedback no matter how harsh. Enjoy.
Once upon a time, there was a civilization called "Western". It was a great civilization ruled by wise and benevolent kings and queens. They were a fairly advanced civilization and yet they still coexisted with and respected nature. All were happy and safe under the rule of their kings and queens.
But one day, the kings and queens of Western vanished. The people searched for them for weeks and held hope of their return for longer still but eventually the reality that they were now on their own sank in. The people, alone and afraid, began to turn against each other. Western, you see, was made up of many different ethnicities of people that had lived alongside each other in peace during the rule of kings and queens but, now that their leaders had vanished, old hatreds emerged. They began to blame one another for the disappearance of their leaders and, chaos erupted in their country.
Now, there was a neighboring country of Western that had long sought to expand its territory. They had never succeeded against united Western under the leadership of the great kings and queens. But now, their spies had brought word that the leaders were gone and the people fought against each other. The leaders decided to seize this golden opportunity and began an invasion.
They attacked the borders of Western and met little opposition. They continued to move toward the grand palace of the kings and queens; destroying that, would shatter the people that still stood in their way and secure their victory. Eventually, the invaders came to the palace and found that a small group of Westerners had united under the leadership of the high general – a brave man trusted personally by the disappeared kings and queens – and now stood between the invaders and the empty palace of their beloved rulers.
The invaders began the attack. They were more advanced than Western and attacked the castle with catapults and ballistae as well as a wave of infantry. The defenders were terrified. They easily defeated the infantry but they had never seen siege weapons before and, as huge flying boulders crushed them and many were run through by arrows the size of trees, they became more and more terrified. The general, sensing the fear in his men, ordered that they abandon the castle and charge the enemy but this order was not received well. The Westerners began arguing about what to do. Some braver warriors followed orders, charging forward with the general only to be easily slain by the invaders who far out numbered them. Some men fell back seeking a better place to dig in and hold off the enemy while some simply fled, going to the foothills in fear. Other steadfastly refused to leave the castle of their beloved kings and queens, still clinging desperately to the hope that they would return and save them. Those who remained were slaughtered as the invaders pushed forward, destroying the palace and crushing the thrones of the kings and queens. With this, they claimed victory over Western.
They continued to push forward, destroying all those who had fallen back to old temples and shrines until they felt satisfied that all the Westerners had been eradicated. The invaders claimed dominion over the country and, after many generations had come and gone, the invasion became a thing of the past that none but scholars remembered.
But there were others who also remembered. Those who fled from what had come to be called The Last Stand still lived in the foothills and other dark places of what they still saw as their country. Their numbers and hatred of the invaders grew. They kept the tale of The Last Stand alive, passing it from one generation the next. And they all lived in constant fear of discovery, constant loathing of the invaders, and constant hope that, one day, their kings and queens of old would return so that they may rise up and reclaim Western.