The firstborn must take upon the role of the priest, and the royal bloodline comes next. Their parents had prayed again and again to the stars above until their tears had permanently wet the sides of their hands, for another child to ensure the safety of their kingdom.
They were graced with their daughter Merag right after her brother Nasch had been born into the world, the woman who stepped up to their throne once they when they had sunk into caskets that would bind them to the earth forever. She was still young, but she had to lead a country.
Nasch spent his hours studying the scrolls in the great libraries, and hid his face under the ceremonial veils.
Merag strung flowers around her wrists and donned a white dress beneath her armor.
Her hair was long and perfumed, but she kept it tied up for the times she was challenged to a friendly spar. When she united the lands of Poseidon, she slept with a blade beneath her pillow, just in case the guards failed at their duty. She made mistakes, and buried them all.
A queen must see all to rule justly, and so she did, from the tall towers of her castle to when she rode through the streets in the royal carriage. She saw the sorrows of the unlucky, and the joys of the faithful. She saw the smiles that her brother gave to the foreign knight from across the ocean and tried so hard to conceal from everyone else. She saw everything and used that knowledge to her advantage.
Vector, a foolish king drowning in his own madness, sailed up with dreadful monsters and threatened the kingdom she loved. Helplessly, she watch her brother sink into the ocean, lost from the light, away from her grasp. All was a blur, even when the great God rose from the Abyss to shatter the ice queen to shards, and Vector shouted for his troops to draw back amidst fire and smoke. Durbe retrieved her brother's body, clutching him so tightly and not letting him go until she softly whispered to please let her see her brother's face.
Durbe pledged his services to her with a bowed head, for it was what his friend would have wanted.
When she had the need to weep, she dashed everyone from the room, until it was just her and her brother's casket, filled with white lilies. No longer would Nasch stay by her side, distant but ever close, and tell her tales of old legends from the temple scrolls. How she missed the days when he would come up to her with a cat in his arms, and watch her shriek. Bygone days never to be repeated.
Anger, pain, weaknesses, sadness- she swallowed them all in that very moment.
"A frontal assault is the only option," one of her advisors spoke up, in the wide halls of the war room. She hadn't needed to step in there since the bridges linking the lands of Poseidon were erected, and its walls seemed larger than she last recalled. "We may lose men, but we can't stand here with an army on our shores!"
She tasted their fear and loyalty, and closed her eyes, drinking it all in. "We won't send our men out now," she cooly announced.
The uproar was almost instant and roused even Durbe to anger. "You won't fight?" he cried, "You'd let your kingdom be invaded by that monster?"
"If I fight them off and let my men die, will I get back the warriors I lost? Will Nasch come back?" She watched Durbe open his mouth, only to close it again, biting back a painful expression with thorns that surely stung his heart. "I'm sorry," she admitted.
"Don't," and Durbe's reply was too fast, before he caught his tongue and apologized as well.
She didn't accept it. She had no right to.
The Ice Princess was on her side now, having fully cleansed itself of the bloodstains that stained its blue dress. She would use her new ally to her full advantage.
"They haven't reached the shore yet," she announced to her council, "and even when they do, they won't be able to escape. Their Gorgons are gone, Crystal Zero is on our side now. There's no army that can survive without food. Cut off their supply routes. Burn all ships attempting to give them aid. Crystal Zero will freeze the waters around their ships, and build walls of ice that can't be scaled with the equipment they have."
The Lands of Poseidon were united on four fronts, enough that even if one side was blockaded, the other three could still have their ports open. They would not be defeated via siege, as long as they had the territory advantage. No, she would watch her enemies slowly starve to death.
Her advisors called it vindictive. She called it 'patience'.
She'd spill their enemies' blood with time, so she could dedicate the beautiful days that followed to the brother she lost, to the kingdom she created- to peace.