Disclaimer: I don't own DP.

BGM: "Never Wonder Why" by Altaria

Prologue

Once upon a time, in a world very different from and yet akin to our own, there were three very different places, and in these places-

Oh, shut up! Who's telling this story to whom, you pests?

Thank you.

Now, first among them was the prosperous Viridian Kingdom, a land of hills, lakes and forests. Its people were shepherds and hunters, crafters and healers. Magicians, smiths and artisans competed to produce the best new machines and spells, their livelihoods turning by the vagaries of the market.

In the mountains to the north was the Principality of Aragon, named for its immortal sorcerer-king. Its people were as immortal as he, and could not be killed by old age, by sickness, nor by any mortal hand. For all that, they lived under a constant curse of darkness and stagnation, and any new ideas that appeared were quickly and violently taken out of the Dragon Prince's misery.

To the west lay the Low Wilds, commonly known as the Blasted Pit – quite literally, due to the steep cliffs falling off the eastern borders of Viridian and Aragon. Its people were wanderers, dozens of interconnected tribes who scrabbled what they could from the semiarid waste, trading with their neighbors only days before raiding their stores. They were, by and large, as fearsome as the steppes in which they lived, warped and changed by generations of living off a land shaped by chaos itself.

Aragon, grasping tyrant that he was, had set his sights on the lush forests and fields of Viridian. However, only the heads and elders of the border tribes of the Low Wilds knew the hidden route that could bypass the perilous cliffs. He bargained with them for safe passage over the border in exchange for tools and weapons that would never dull or break. He could not leave his capital, and so sent his best spy. He would appear in Viridian as no more than a wandering tinker, a drifter come to the capital for the new kings' coronation.

Three days after Aragon gave the order, the king of Viridian was dead.

The king left no heirs, had no relatives closer than a nephew and a few third cousins. The nobility of Viridian squabbled over the throne like the proverbial vultures, and all the while the noose drew tighter.

The youngest son of the headman of the Storm Shaped tribe discovered the agreement. His father and the elders' council had all agreed to this- this travesty! The Storm Shaped tribe had traded with the traveling merchants of Viridian for centuries. His own mother had been the daughter of a minor noble, and his sister was married to one of the richest merchants in the country.

He took any record he could find and his father's second-best horse, and set off for Viridian. He traveled as swiftly as he could, stopping only when the midday heat became too much and to rest his mount. He just had to find his sister's husband, and they would help him, he just knew it.

This was cold comfort when his horse died when the dry riverbed he'd been traveling in suddenly flooded. Perhaps, he thought as he shivered, soaked and scared, there was a good reason why my father would not let me travel past our borders yet. Or do anything more complicated than watching the goats…

It took him nearly two months to reach the capital. He arrived to martial law, a curfew and a draft. War had been declared – on all the myriad tribes of the Low Wilds.

The Dragon Prince watched as Viridian and the Wilds tore themselves apart, and laughed at the foolishness of mortal men.

A/N: I'm starting yet another new story. *hits head on desk* Sorry... I've had ideas for a fantasy AU rattling around in my head for months, and I've gotten enough together to build a story. I figured this was as good a time as any to start it.

By the way, points if you can figure out either who the narrator is, or who the chief's son is. The answers may surprise you. (No, I have no clue what the points will do. Except maybe measure how impressed I am.)