Chloe had a sense of adventure.

It wasn't always her fault, sometimes these things just kind of crept up on her, like now as she stared out at the milky blue of the ocean. Its waves lapped up softly against the ports of the docks and she sighed wistfully, longing to touch her toes into the waves and feel the cool kiss of the ocean on her face. She was half-way to the door before she really knew what was happening, an hour later Ari and her were sneaking out of the perimeter of the castle and into the early dawn light as it broke over the hills.

She breathed the ocean air, tasting it on her tongue and she laughed into the sunrise and held out her arms. This was where she was meant to be, the sand felt soft under her toes and the sky stretched on for miles, the red mountains were behind her and in the distance there were things jumping out of the water and she could have sworn she saw a tentacle rise out of the water and almost wave at her. The white edges of the waves crashed against the rocks and she laughed almost giddy as she glanced back at Ariadnne in pure joy.

Ariadnne was wearing a simple set of pants and a top with flat shoes but she looked even more beautiful to Chloe then she did at fancy state dinners with her hair done up. The wind was whipping it around her face and her cheeks were red from the biting wind but there was an easiness to her movements that wasn't present in the awkward teenager that existed in the palace.

The rocks were the wrong colour, the sea was too blue and too murky but the whole thing just called home as the waves rocked softly to some unheard melody and the opening of caves caught her eyes.

"Princess! This was such a bad idea, I never should have let you leave the palace."

"You don't have to come, Ari." Chloe called carelessly as she slipped out of the delicate slippers that were constantly being flicked onto her feet, they had been hell to wear in but now she couldn't get enough of them. Her dress had been tattered and rather then let it get fixed she had hid if so that at a time like now she would have something practical to wear, the entrance of the cave was cool and slimy, her hand trailed across it's rough edges as she stepped in. The walls were covered in drawings, crude images that plastered the walls as sunlight trickled in thorough holes in the ceiling, spikes lined a pathway and ahead there was what looked like a meeting place.

"This was a very, very, very bad idea." Ariadnne whispered, her voiced echoed through the caves and her footsteps were loud as she hadn't removed her shoes. Chloe rolled her eyes as she stood at the entrance, gapping in amazement at the almost Native American art and the torches that hung in holders on the wall.

"Wow, what is this place?"

"It's an old meeting place, elders used to come here and discuss the future of our planet."

"Used to?" There was no mistaking the hesitancy in the younger woman's voice, her hair was braided down her back, having grown remarkably recently.

"History is very sketchy about exactly what happened in this place, some say it was a curse, others say a virus… Whatever it was it spread across our leaders only, they went mad with power and sin. You can't even begin to imagine… Up until this point our history had never known violence, destruction, rape…. Our very own leaders created hell on our Earth, several books quote the time as 'a time of plague and destruction. Cities did burn as we stood by and watched awaiting orders to kill, take and maim.'" Ariadnne's voice held horror and sorrow, Chloe hadn't really thought about Krypton being a planet with a different history, sense of morals and cultural history then Earth.

"So, you never really knew what happened."

"Whatever it was started in theses caves, everyone attempts to avoid them at all costs. See, a thousand years ago Krypton was a very different place… We in fact had a princess, she was from Earth. You wouldn't recall it and we don't speak of it… She was married to a man called Kralc, he was our ruler and leader… There were 8… I suppose you would call them clans, spread out across the country. Each had their own specialty, hierarchy and army, even though they were never really used against each other and they all had this… The council.

"One winter, they came here to discuss the marriage of Kralc and his wife, they felt it was time to open Earth's knowledge of their existence and then the illness struck them. Kralc's wife came in only to have him kill her in a jealous rage, over an affair she was not having. All the other leaders did the same thing, murdered people close to them, made unfounded accusations and then declared war on each other.

"It lasted two hundred years, young, fresh-faced men would leave for war and never return as each generation grew more frenzied then the last, more crazy and reckless…"

"What happened?" Chloe whispered, the spirits of the old kings suddenly felt so close to her, she felt a tingle in her spine like she was being watched.

"We killed them," Ariadnne told her truthfully, "some were smothered as they slept and others simply disappeared… We elected new rulers and the world remained was reborn."

"What does this say?" Chloe asked running her hand along a ridge, the art standing out to her for some reason. She turned back to Ariadnne and leaned with her back to it. Ariadnne looked at it sadly, shaking her head as her eyes ghosted over it.

"That is the greatest mystery of all, after Kralc took a new wife this appeared… Some say it was his dead wife, other's say it wasn't but it has a warning for the one 'who dares to stand where I stood' and that she and he will never die, will re-unite. It's for the more romantic of us."

Chloe sat back, reflecting on how the words seem so familiar, only to have a sharp sting on the back of her neck, she cried out and her hand automatically went to the back of her neck.

"OW! What the hell was that?"

"Princess?" Ari looked over from her seat, which Chloe hadn't really noticed she had taken until now. Something moved behind her and Chloe opened her mouth to yell out a warning, but her voice and mouth weren't moving and her world turned to black as the creature launched itself upon her friend…

"What do you mean, you lost them?" Kal asked calmly as he gripped the hand rest, he leaned forward angrily as he seemed to almost get eclipse the soldier. The soldier, for all his training, winced slightly and readjusted his gun.

"We lost track of them around the seabed, Her Majesty took off running and…"

"Are you trying to blame my wife, your queen, for losing a small band of supposedly professional stealth soldiers?" Kal's voice didn't waver of change, but the icy chill to its contents was enough.

"Kal." Oliver's voice rang in his ears and Kal turned to face his friend with a raised eyebrow, his friend was looking at him as he always did when he was trying to read his friend. When he knew there was something Kal wasn't telling him.

"You are dismissed for now soldier, but trust me I will find a way to punish you and your merry men for this mistake." The soldier turned and walked out of the hall stiffly, Kal turned to face his friend feeling a hundred years older then he should.

"What's happened?"

"My father collapsed in the garden today, turns out that he's dying Oli… And he didn't want to tell me, but now he has to because he's also been keeping the fact we are at brink of a war off out of my knowledge too." Oliver flushed guiltily and looked away. "I thought as much, how could you not tell me?"

"I was honor bound." Kal breathed sharply at the word, an honor contract was not entered into lightly and was often only used for very extreme cases.

To honor bind yourself to someone was to give them your full confidence, in some cases it could eat someone up inside, they begin to fall sick as the silence eats them up slowly. From the inside out. Only the very up of the political sale were able to do it, most trustworthy and understanding of the risks, it had been available to everyone in younger times but it had caused what was almost a plague to break out. To speak of an honor bind to someone who did not know what you were speaking of could, especially concerning royalty, kill you.

"Oli… What's going on?" Oliver was hit by a very long ago memory, Kal was about 10 and his mother had fallen in the garden, losing what was meant to be the next heir to the line. Kal had run to Oliver's house when he had overheard someone mention that some one was dead, and thinking it was his mother he had gone to the only person he knew would feel the loss as deeply as he had.

Oliver had hated the look on his face when he had realized he had lost a brother or sister instead of a mother, it was heartbreak in its purest form. Kal had asked if he had done it, revealing that he had in fact wished that his parents never love anyone else but him and each other. Oliver had stayed up all night holding the sobbing boy and whispering that of course Kal had done nothing wrong.

"It's the West, they have announced they want a queen."

"What does that have to do with us?"

"They said this the week before you married Chloe, they are announcing a war unless you marry their princess and divorce your wife."

"Can they do that?"

"Can you stop them?" Oliver countered as Kal shook his head, realizing the enigma his second-in-command had placed before him. His gaze unknowingly traveled to the ocean as it smashed up against the rocks, he could remember when he was younger his father used to take his down to the ocean and they would go riding through the waves. There were many pieces of advice his father had given him over time, from past leaders to the reason behind the family crest. But the greatest piece of advice is engraved above Kal's bed.

Men and country are only willing to fight and die for the right queen.

Kal had done many stupid things in his life, sleeping with the princess of the West was one of them. She was a deadly beauty who had giddily wrapped Kal's mind in an aphrodisiac so powerful he would have killed his kingdom had she bid him too.

He had never told anyone of that particular affair.

He had disappeared for a few months with her, abandoned the outside world and focused solely on a woman who wasn't fit to be a queen.

The thought flickered across her mind that Chloe was fit to be his queen, Kal ignored the arousal that seemed to spark within him and focuses on the waves. Until he noticed the commotion at the steps and then the flurry of activity as the doors swung open to reveal 2 soldiers, Jason and Whitney he thought their names were, carrying the unconscious queen and his healer in their arms.

"Sir, we found them down at the council chambers."

"And?"

"The old council chambers, sir." Kal felt a chill creep up his spine.

"And?" He insisted again as Whitney's Adam's apple bobbed before he replied.

"They were like this when we got there…" The sentence was left unspoken, hanging in the air like a dense winter fog.

The illness had returned…

I am the worst writer EVER! I totally abandoned my story and just...

Nignfpen.

I hope everyone can forgive me. I have no reason that doesn't sound like an excuse and if there is one thing I hate is when writers do that. i hope everyone bares with me for this, I'm still looking for a Beta if anyone wants to run through so far and send me a good edited version...

But if you're still reading this story I am eternally grateful.