Chapter 1

A New Life

Inei poured over the piles of documents that lay in front of her. Papers pinned with pictures of candidates for nation leaders. This is what she did: mill through hundreds of candidates to figure out who was worthy for powerful, democratic positions. Mintaka was still unsteady, it's people not very level headed and had been led by a crazy, psychopathic clown that had wanted to ressurect a freaking god. Even HE should have realized trying to control Malpercio would've ended in failure, but he was just too blinded. Inei milled over these thoughts while picking through some more documents. She picked up one that had a picture of a female almost exactly her age. The female's name was Fiza, and her pictured showed a woman of dark and ice blue hair and cold, light eyes. She scanned the file and saw that under Geldoblame's rule gained respect with her fighting prowess, but never advanced in rank with her refusal for the empire's ways. She remained a footsoldier her entire career. Inei set the document aside in the smallest pile that lay in front of her, the ones she thought might stand a chance.

Done for the day, (finally) Inei went straight to an open bar, where almost everyone ended up by nightfall. Rebuilding a nation is no easy task, and nearly every citizen took part in some way. Whether it be exploring the new land not now around Alfard, cultivating and growing the strange crops, or working at desks all day trying to figure out where the country is headed. Whatever the job was, almost every citizen earned a good drink at any of the many pubs that had opened up. Inei walked inside and sat down right on a barstool, pulling out her recently issued ID card and laying a few coins on the counter. The bartender nodded, and asked her what she wanted.

Much more relaxed with a drink in hand, Inei took this chance to reflect on what she was doing now. Just a year ago she was only helping out in the field, aiding in culturing and taking advantage of the new land. She had been recruited for her new office job when she was taking in load of crops to the city when she was stopped by a couple of the higher-ups guards. Of course, the only real higher up now was still just the Emporer Lyude, though he was a huge change from Emporer Geldoblame. She had, for some inexplicable reason, started a conversation with the two about the state of affairs with national leaders. It was no secret that there was a lack of leadership in Alfard, although Lyude was trying is best to weed out the good leaders from the bad. The problem was too many of the old leaders were complaining about losing power and still had influence, but they weren't really interested in the nations welfare and were causing problems among the people. The result was that the ones that DID lose respect and influence over time were able to be released from their duties, but it was still taking awhile. Others, afraid of losing their position, behave in front of the people but are putting on a false front. Inei expressed that picking new leaders could take quite awhile, it is not something to take lightly and that Emperor Lyude most likely had his hands full with all sorts of matters. She said more than that, but apparently their conversation had reached Lyude himself and, after he had a bit of research done on her, he inadvertantly recruited her to sort through the leadership candidates. Inei had, on more than one occassion, wondered why on earth an outcast like her would be responsible for sifting through the documents, when her overseer explained that it was BECAUSE she was an outsider and had an objective view on things that she perfectly suited for this sort of thing.

Whatever.

Still, today she actually found a couple of decent candidates, and she was getting excited to give a full report to the man himself. A new system would be instated, and she could go on with her life.

Of course, first she had to figure out what she wanted to do with her life. Being a hermit was nice, but maybe she could expand a bit. Most people try to search for a soul mate and live happily, surrounded by people...

The thought made her laugh. Go from avoiding this place like the devil to living in what is expected to be one of the biggest, most thriving capitals ever? Sure. When Hell freezes over.

Inei decided that the time will come when she knew what she would want to do, so, disregarding her thoughts, she downed the rest of her drink and walked down the street to a small, humble little home. Mintaka was still a 'golden city', but the vast building that was Geldoblame's abode during his reign of cruelty was torn down to base materials to build better homes for what had been considered the 'lesser' citizens. Instead, the much smaller, but still kind of large building was where Emporer Lyude now lived. Inei took a look at the chopped down building before entering her home for a good night's rest.

It would be another two weeks before Inei finished looking through every single candidate on her table, written a report on each, and filed them to be looked over. Now she just had to wait. Her work done, she was granted one weeks leave of Alfard, if she so wished. Just because her race had been 'grounded' didn't mean they still utilized the power of flight, it was still the fastest way to go from nation to nation. The citizens who had the time and willingness to walk and explore their new home did so, but for the respective nations leaders who needed to get together for meetings and discuss things, the faster the better. She thought about maybe visiting Anuenue, since she's never been before and they seem to be flourishing the most. Returning to the earth has only served to bolster their reputation as most beautiful country, increasing their variety of fruits and flowers. Yes, she decided. She could learn much about cultivation and living off of fertile land in Anuenue. Inei packed some light luggage and left to get on a citizen-based Goldoba. It was a three-week journey to walk, a week by animal transport, and an hour and a half to fly to Anuenue. When the countries fell, Alfard had fallen on the end of what seemed like a chain of countries. Now completely landlocked, Alfard and Anuenue were the closest to each other. Alfard being the most southwest of the countries, and Anuenue a short journey to the east. A three-hour flight more to the east was Sadal Suud, which now lays on a beach. Not terribly far off the coast from Sadal Suud lay Duhr, the now Ocean-surrounded island. It's not so close that you could swim to Duhr, but you can still see Duhr on the horizon from the beach. Just a couple miles next to Duhr lay Diadem, whose clouds have disintegrated to a pretty pink sea mist. A strip of land has turned Diadem and Duhr into literal sister islands, and they are learning to adapt to their new living situations. What people don't understand is Diadem's inexplicable ability to attract their mist, since it leaves Duhr well alone.

Another question on everyones brain was where Mira had disappeared to. It had seemingly vanished, leaving all of it's inhabitants in various other countries. This could never really be explained, but the mostly likely reason is that it simply shifted into a different dimension for good. Too many people had mulled over this, Inei finally decided. She short-flight based Goldobla was wide and could seat many people. Some areas were sectioned off for national leaders, since no private ships were currently being used. She had remembered hearing about a speech that Queen Corellia had made, where she said that being close to the people was important in times like this. Inei agreed, but she still thought it could be kind of dangerous to use public transportation. She reached the attendant that asked for her ID and handed it over. The attendant paused for a moment before handing it back to her. Inei was annoyed. It was still almost brand new, but it surely wasn't fake. Just wanting to sit down, Inei chose a lonely seat in the back corner of the vessel, but she was almost immediately interrupted again by a second attendant who approached her. Not used to dealing with people, Inei simply stared at the woman.

"Are you Inei?"

Inei simply nodded.

"Could you come with me please?"

Inei rolled her eyes, not really wanting to look at the woman, but gruntingly followed her. She was expecting to be led out of the vessel to stay at Mintaka for who knows what reason, but instead, the woman led her to a door in a private section. Inei blinked, not sure what to do.

"Your presence was requested."

Inei felt her mouth go dry. This was a trick. Who could possibly want to talk to her?

The attendant opened the door and let Inei walk through.

Unreasonably nervous, Inei walked into the room and turned the corner to see who had summoned her. She was shocked to see a blue-skinned human with bright red eyes and blue and red streaked hair. He gave her a hard look, narrowing his eyes in a piercing glare.

"What is it, Folon?"

Inei felt her heart skip a beat. The voice was soft and meak, yet confident. It was...angelic.

She had just turned to corner. The small cabin was double seated, the seats facing toward each other. She had only seen the person sitting on the left bench. She turned more to her right to see a red-haired, red eyed young man with soft features and wearing the Imperial crest.

Emporer Lyude.