Prompt #3
The Earth Kingdom:
I knew little about the Earth Kingdom before I visited the nation, escorted by the chief's youngest son himself. Throughout the journey from Qaanqa to the shores of the southern Earth Kingdom, I kept fantasizing about the prince, especially when the climate started to change from harsh and cold, to soft and temperate.
The prince walked around ships scarcely clad, wearing short trousers only. I did not mind, and when I think back of it, I still do not mind.
What I felt for the prince at that moment, could hardly be described as love. I was lustful, I desired him, but I did not feel 'in love' when I spend time around him. It did not harbor affection for him either, I only felt affection towards my father. My father, in turn, only felt affection for me, as his one true love had taken herself away from him.
The affection for my father is what brought me to the Earth Kingdom, the fact that the prince went with me was purely incidental and not the other way around, like some people claim nowadays.
What I knew about the Earth Kingdom were things my father had told me. He told me that the people of the Earth Kingdom didn't differ much from the people from the tribes, except that they were more unhealthy and a bit strict when it came to social life and social structure. This turned out to be the truth, once I started journeying through the Earth Kingdom myself.
Other things my father told me where that the people of the Earth Kingdom were full of hate to all outsiders, but ignorant at the same time. He told me that they saw themselves as superior to all other nations.
In my journeys, this proved to be a false statement, even though my father was partially right when it came to ignorance and feelings of superiority. Most of the Earth Kingdom citizens were living in their own, small world, one which hardly reached the borders of the province in which they lived. You could call this ignorance, I call it being blissfully unaware of what lies beyond the borders.
Why do I call it that way?
The citizens of the Earth Kingdom minded their own business, but helped anyone who needed their help. I would have called their blissful unawareness ignorance, had they been meddling with affairs that didn't concern them. They wouldn't have been able to know what was going on, therefor they would qualify for being ignorant. They didn't do such things, however, and so I disagree with my father on that point.
I found out that my father was in the wrong too when it came to the feeling of superiority the Earth Kingdom citizens would have harbored. All of them thought, allegedly, that the Earth Kingdom was vastly superior to the Confederacy of Water Tribes. Now I come to think of it, it might have been the other way around.
I only heard Earth Kingdom citizens brag about their country, when I asked them why they weren't cooperating with the invading forces (read, the forces of the water tribes). I don't think that has something to do with feelings of superiority, those citizens were well-aware that they were on the losing side, I think it has to do with a healthy love for you own nation.
That is how I think, nowadays, but not when I set foot on Earth Kingdom soil for the first time in my life.
Whilst the prince was off to talk with his father, the chief of the Southern Water Tribe at that time, I spent time watching the soldiers in the army camp. Some were sparring, others were cooking and some were even cleaning themselves in full sight. I don't regret looking around and absorbing everything I saw.
What I remember from that brief moment I was in that army camp, was how my people treated a prisoner of war. It was a young fisherman, who had been the first Earth Kingdom citizen to be taken captive in the war. My father encountered the man on sea and took him captive.
The way the men treated him felt normal to me at that time, only know I realize how horrible it must have been for the poor man.
He had been beaten, kicked, mutilated, defiled and dishonored and eventually killed; they killed him when I left the camp.
I'm still taken aback by how the man accepted everything that was happening to him, how he never screamed or complained. The soldiers joked that the prisoner liked what they were doing to him, but I know they knew what was going on.
I will conclude this part with a statement that has been made ages ago, but still is, and always will be applicable to the citizens of the Earth Kingdom:
They are as strong as stone.
