Hello All! This is a new story that I am writing in the hopes that it gives me enough inspiration to finish my other one. I've had this idea in my brain for a while now and I finally have the time to write it! I hope you enjoy and remember to Review and Subscribe!
Once long ago, in a time forgotten by most, there were five kingdoms, beset by wars. These wars were not just between them, but within them as well. A plague had wiped out the all the ruling aristocracy, and every slightly powerful noble or wealthy family wanted the throne. Every hour of everyday, the citizens fought for power, to control the thrones and lay beyond their boarders. There was bloodshed and death for decades, crops were destroyed, children orphaned, and disease and misery spread like wildfire until pain and suffering was all that was known. Hope disappeared and there was no human alive that believed in peace.
There was, however, and old, old wizard who did. He had lived for centuries and had gained enormous power and wisdom. Before the wars, he trained young wizards so they could know the same power as he, but they were tempted away from him by men and women promising them the world when they became king. Now he spent his days traveling, healing the sick and looking after the young orphans. He taught them how to hunt and fish, to help others, and how to connect and love one another. He remembered the days before the wars, how people lived and loved and were happy and prosperous before greed slithered into their hearts. He tried, desperately tried to keep hope alive and bring peace to the kingdoms. But sadly, he wasn't enough. As a decades passed and the bodies piled in the carnage and the children he had taught were turned into soldiers or worse, he despaired that the kingdoms would ever reach peace on their own.
So decades of watching the hell around him, he decided to fix the lands himself. He gathered all his magic, every last drop from everywhere in his body and took from all the magical creatures of the land and cast a spell. He creates the Suites, the magical marks that would appear on the appointed leaders of the five kingdoms. These three marks, combined the brand of the kingdom with a title of King, Queen, and Jack, would bring balance and harmony. The power of the throne could no longer be taken by anyone. A king that did not have a mark would not be followed for long and if the true King should challenge them, the impostor would always lose. The marks would choose the best rulers for its kingdom, regardless of class or political connections or even gender.
The King would always been chose first after the previous king died or was unable to rule. The Queen was selected next to complement the King's ruling style and personality. Finally, the Jack was chosen to make sure the rulers had balance. If the King and Queen were frivolous and passive, the Jack would be aggressive and pragmatic. If the ruling couple was too serious and narrowly focused, the Jack would be easy going and wide eyed. All three would be important and powerful within a kingdom, all with great value. All three ran the kingdom. But all major decisions always, always had to be approved by the King. If the King didn't agree with a plan it would never prosper.
The wizard prided himself on a truly brilliant solution to the five kingdoms' dilemma. He however, knew he wasn't perfect and that his plan could fail. Human nature could change, or the mark could make an error in judgment. As a failsafe, there would always be two jokers for all five kingdoms, and they and only they would have the power to take a mark away. They both would have to agree and both their intentions must be pure. Jokers would not have marks, their identity must be a secret but they would know who each other is. If one thought that one mark was wrong, magic would bring them together, and they would act. This addition made the Suites the best political system ever to grace the land.
But there was a cost to create this, a cost the wizard knew well. He had used up all the magic in himself and had drained his life force. He couldn't live much longer. And the magic from the creatures he harnessed for this spell meant that they could never be seen by normal human eyes ever again, just the ones with magic in their veins. However, the wizard understood and accepted this sacrifice, and after writing the sacred scrolls that explained the suits and the system he created, he died, a magicless old man, eternally happy that he fixed the kingdom's problems.
There was, however, a problem that he didn't realize. The magical marks that appeared on the rulers factored in political and platonic compatibility, not unfortunately romantic. Even though the King and Queen were expected to be married still, he didn't change that from the older days, but their happiness together as a couple was not considered. Love was the tiny detail forgotten in the spell.
And so, as the years went by and the magical marks changed from body to body, concubines and lovers were almost always present in the castles, even if only behind closed doors. To the subjects of the kingdom, the King and Queen was the model of the perfect couple, the definition of love and matrimony even though behind the brass gates and down the ground hall, the Queen would be in the rose bushes with the servants while the King slept in his separate suite.
This mistake the wizard made, this oversight was the cause of much heartbreak and anguish, and is the reason for our story.