Hey guys! Dark here with another chapter for Remnants!
Now, I'm pretty sure in another chapter, Remnants is completely non-canon. As in, everything in Remnants does not tie in with Rise Out Of the Ashes. I say this because this chapter is one hundred percent non-canon (you'll find out soon). In the end, it's WAR who owns ROOTA.
This part took me a while to write. I wanted to make sure everything was okay and not to make it looked rushed.
What really inspired this chapter was Queen of Peace by Florence + the Machine. I love them so much, I have all three of their albums. And since they recently released How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful, I've been doing nothing but listening to every song on the album. Flo's voice is so powerful along with the instrumentation and the production! Definitely check them out!
And thanks WAR for the shout out. Hope everything goes your way and we get an update on ROOTA soon!
As usual, I don't own the song and ROOTA belongs to WAR.
Enjoy!
This is a tale of loss and love.
In a kingdom far away, lived a king and his queen.
They were an odd pair, those two.
The king was a powerful lion. With a mane red as blood and deep, piercing teal eyes, he was considered handsome among the female citizens. He was kind, compassionate, and ruled his kingdom with integrity.
Before, he had been a prince to a different kingdom. However, the kingdom fell, along with his father, the king.
After, he took the role of his father and those before him.
He set out on a journey with a rag tag team to defeat the evil that had taken his father away from him.
It wasn't an easy journey to begin with. There were fights. There were trials. There was betrayal. There was forgiveness.
And in the end, the king had defeated the evil.
He was a hero. He was a king.
The queen… was different.
She wasn't like the other animals in the kingdom. She was often mistaken for a Wood Forger.
Human. That's what she was.
Not much is known about her or her origin. She was with the king and his group for a while. Then she disappeared. But she came back to help the lion.
Together, the lion and human vowed to be together. Not long after, they became king and queen.
For years, the two have successfully ruled their kingdom.
Where ever they went, they were seen hand in hand. There have been songs dedicated to the two lovers. They were the true definition of love.
However, while the king and queen were happy with each other, something was missing.
A child.
It proved to be complicated, as how the king and queen were two completely different species.
For a while, they lived without children.
One day, the queen went out for her nightly walks. The night seemed to calm the queen when she couldn't get a good grasp at her emotions. The king offered to go with her. She kissed him and said she'll be fine alone.
While the kingdom did have a steady economy, there were parts of it that suffered. For those who lived in poverty, the king would invite them to the palace and join him and the queen for dinner. He promised he would somehow provide them with the necessities they needed to live a prosperous life.
But for now, the poor lived in the slums. Which is where the queen was now.
It broke her heart to see so many not being able to afford the proper needs to live. However, she noticed that the poor weren't sad. They had each other. And they were happy.
Just like her husband, the queen will try to do her best to help them.
As the queen walked along a row of houses, she heard someone running.
Stopping in her tracks, the queen took a fighting stance. While the king had his swords and the soldiers had their guns, the queen had a power of her own.
She looked around the area. It was silent, save for the sound of the wind.
The queen was ready to go back to the palace when she heard something crash.
Quickly, she ran into an alleyway where the noise was coming from.
She stopped in her tracks. Before her, was a child, a boy, scrounging around in some garbage. He couldn't be more than six years old. He hasn't noticed the queen.
It was a tiger, much like the king's brother. But this tiger had white fur instead of orange.
The queen took a step towards the boy. She stepped on a discarded paper, causing a rustling noise.
The boy looked up from the garbage and looked at the queen in shock.
Immediately, the boy bowed, showing respect.
Surprised by this, the queen stepped towards the boy, kneeling down, meeting his eyes.
The boy looked up at the queen with ocean eyes.
"Why are you here?" the queen asked.
"I don't have a home," the boy said. "My dad died from sickness. As did my mother. I don't have anyone."
The boy looked like he was ready to cry. As did the queen.
Without thinking, the queen stood and held out her hand towards the boy.
The boy hesitated. He wasn't sure what to think. Or how to act.
Finally, he took the queen's hand and they left.
It was late. The king was worried. He paced around in their master bedroom. His wife shouldn't have been out this long. While there were no murders in his kingdom, there were thefts and other petty crimes.
But he did wonder if someone had it in his or her mind to attack his wife. She could defend herself well, but she wasn't invincible.
A pang of guilt struck him in his stomach. He still remembered when he attacked his wife with his sword.
Before, after they were reunited, he cried and asked for her forgiveness. She did forgive him.
Where is she? He thought.
Before he could come up with a plan, he heard knocking at the door.
The king rushed to the door. When he opened it, his worry dissipated when he saw his wife. He embrace her, telling her he was worried.
As he broke away from her, he noticed something white near the queen's legs.
He looked down, seeing a white tiger looking up at him while half hiding behind the queen.
The queen explained to him what had happened to the boy's parents.
In response, the king knelt down to the boy and asked him if he was hungry.
The three of them went into the kitchen and had a late night snack.
When the king and queen put the boy in a servant room that was vacant, they stayed with him until he slept.
The king and queen went to their bedroom and talked a long time until they came to a conclusion.
The next morning, when the boy was eating breakfast with the king and queen, they both asked him if he wanted to live with them.
The boy said yes.
Finally, the king and queen had a child.
An Heir to their kingdom.
The boy looked up to his new parents in awe. While he missed his ma and da, the king and queen did a great job making him feel like he was loved.
It was because the king and queen did love him like he was their own.
He would play swords with the king. With wooden swords of course. He would join him in his meeting with the other animals, observing the king make strategies on a map.
With the queen, she would lift his toys with her ability and the boy would chase them, laughing as he'd try to catch them. More often than not, the queen would find him looking intensely at any object, as if he was trying to move it with his mind. While he was disappointed he couldn't mentally move them, the queen would cheer him up by taking him to the palace garden and lift him over the ocean of flowers. This always cheered him up.
On some nights, while the king and queen were asleep, the boy would enter their room and crawl into their bed, putting himself between the two. This would wake them, and they would smile while snuggling close to their son.
They were a happy family.
But all good things come to an end.
The boy fell ill one day.
A fever than burned with such intensity.
The clerics would come in and out of his room daily.
But no amount of herbs and healing did the work.
The king and queen would stay by his bedside. The king would spend his days holding his son's hand, whispering stories of adventure. The queen would lie down next to her son, planting kisses on his heads.
They worried for their son.
But, the queen worried for both her son and her husband.
As their son's health grew weaker, the king would seem to separate himself from others. Even his wife.
Once, the king got angry at a cleric who tried to use a new herbal remedy which did nothing to help their son.
Every night, the queen would silently sob for her dying son and her husband.
She wanted them to be happy. She would do anything just to have things back to the way they were.
Then, one day, it rained.
Everyone mourned that day.
A few months after the rain, the queen woke up from her slumber. Instinctively, she reached to her right, but felt air.
Still in her silk nightgown, the queen exited the bedroom and went to the place where she knew her husband would be.
Opening the door to her son's room, she found her husband sitting on the bed, holding a toy.
He didn't look up as she sat down next to him.
Some say the king has gone mad in his time of suffer.
It seemed as if no one can cure him from this grief.
After all, his only son was cut off from life itself.
Both he and the queen suffered.
The queen reached out and gently rubbed his shoulders. He still didn't look at her.
She felt hurt.
"Darling," she inched closer to him, placing her head on his shoulder. "You can't be like this all the time. I know it's been hard on us both. I still believe he'll come back one day. But we have to accept what had happened."
She was the Queen of Peace. That's what most of the citizens called her.
When the king was absent, she would fill in his role.
She does her best to try and please the citizens. She tries her best. But without her husband by her side, she couldn't do much.
The king dropped the toy. He looked at his wife.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I just miss him so much."
"So do I. But we need to move on. He'll live in our hearts forever."
The king nodded. They both stood and went back to their bedroom.
They would look forward to tomorrow. And they would live.