I found Adastra a few days ago and become completely addicted to it and I'm hyperfixated now so enjoy this I guess lmaooooo
The story is in close third person, or limited omniscience third person, where the scope is kept around one character but the perspective is still third person. I really like this style of writing so idk, I decided to do that here too.
In these sections, I'm going to put the English translations of various Latin words and phrases. Across the story, Latin will occasionally be spoken by the Wolves, Com and sometimes humans. All Latin will always be presented using italic font. Please understand that I know very little Latin, so a lot of this will be very loose translations taken from a few minutes of Google searching :)
Imperator (Im-pair-ah-tor) = Emperor, or commander. A title sometimes used to refer to the Roman Emperor.
Scrinium (Skuh-rih-nee-uhm) = Loosely: Cabinet, or chest. Used in this context to reference a political Cabinet, or collection of Ministers who run important government Departments. Almost always consisting entirely of politicians from the ruling party.
Deus meus (Day-oos may-oos) = A phrase, meaning 'My god' or 'Dear god'.
Imperatoratus (Im-pair-ah-tor-aah-toos) = Emperorship
Carta Colonia (Kar-tah Kol-oh-nee-ah) = Loosely: Charter Company, which is a company dedicated to the colonisation of a location. In this context, it is an Adastran state-ran company which sends anyone from across the Galaxias to settle on moons and planets in order to colonise it for the Adastran Empire.
Prologue - Amicus
9 Years after the events of 'Adastra'
Amicus stared off into the distance, the light from the tall windows illuminating the floor as if tiger stripes had been painted across them. The cold, smooth metal of his throne rubbing against his fur made him shift uncomfortably every few seconds in his seat. It's no wonder his father hated being in the throne room. Though, he had to admit, it was calming to be in such a quiet and beautiful place. He could hear birds singing in the early morning cold of Adastra, their sensitive bodies taking advantage of the pleasant weather to hunt before the moon became too stifling for them to exercise in.
It was one of those calm, relaxed days with not much to do for Amicus- a bill was going through Parliament, there were no laws to review for him and no meetings or conferences for him to go to, as far as he knew. Just a laid-back, boring day filled with nothing, more nothing and just a small hint of nothing. Even though Amicus was proud of himself for bringing peace to the Wolven Empire in the 9 years since he had ascended to the throne, he was sometimes exasperated by the lack of anything happening recently. After the events of the Great Reformation, and the subsequent power struggle between the Government and the Triumvirates, nothing had really happened on Adastra. Nothing interesting anyway, not to Amicus. No crises, no wars, no fighting, no resistance from the Wolves' Children... everything had gone exceptionally well for him. The people loved him, they loved Marco, they loved the reforms and they loved the prosperity that Amicus had overseen.
But Amicus was bored. Ruling over a peaceful, rich and growing empire was nothing like what he had imagined it to be. Marco consistently told him that he was just a warmongering fool, and at this point Amicus was honestly considering starting a war just for the fun of it. At least he'd have something to do then.
He sighed and leant back in his throne, childishly placing his chin onto the palm of his hand, as if to present to the immeasurable amount of empty space in the throne room that, 'Hey, I'm bored!'
Suddenly, the throne room doors burst open, and a Wolven ambassador rushed in.
"Imperator Amicus!" He yelled, out of breath. Amicus barely moved- whatever it was that the ambassador wanted, it wouldn't be anything interesting.
"Yes, Festus?" He said, the top of his head only moving as his chin stayed firmly resting in his palm.
"The Scrinium require your presence in their meeting this morning."
"Are you joking?" Amicus finally looked into Festus' eyes. The young wolf looked down at the ground, hands held behind his back.
"Yes, Imperator. It is incredibly important for you to be in this meeting."
Amicus sighed and agreed to go, hopping off the throne and landing softly on the ground in front of it, making the ambassador jump at the sudden move. He muttered something like 'Deus meus...'. Amicus gave a smirk and stood next to the door, which Festus swiftly opened. Let the ambassador mutter all he liked- Amicus was not Cato, and he was determined to not end up like his late predecessor to the Imperatoratus.
He walked out of the throne room, posture held strongly and muscles rippling in the sunlight crossing him every time he passed a window. The entire hallway was lit in the dawn light, oranges and reds providing a beautiful, constantly moving scene of battling colours on every wall that Amicus and Festus walked past. He admired how the palace looked- it wasn't every day that he got to appreciate where he lived, but today was one of them. Except, according to this wolf ambassador, that time was up- something had happened, but Amicus wasn't convinced it would be worth his time.
He heard someone talking from around the corner, speaking in a strange accent in a language Amicus could only understand certain words of.
"No, idiot. I just got called to a meeting. Oh my God, no I'm not trying to ignore you, I swear! Com just asked me to wake up, so here I am I guess. I hope it's not anything bad... Adastra has been in relative peace for a long time now. Yeah. Yeah, alright, I'll speak to you later. Yep. See ya."
Amicus recognised the voice, even though he couldn't understand the words. Weird that the Lingua wasn't translating it, but since the person's intent was to speak in English, he assumed it just hadn't tried to. He felt his tail pick up behind him and begin to flick back and forth, which Festus noticed and gave Amcius a strange look for.
"Are you excited for this meeting? For all you know, something terrible might have happened!" Festus snapped, then covered his mouth. Amicus stopped and stared at the wolf, who retreated into himself as he realised what he'd said. "I- I'm sorry, Imperator, it was not my place. I've just been very stressed recently."
"It's okay, Festus." He heard the wolf sigh in relief. "I'm not excited about the meeting, no, it's just that I heard-"
"Amicus? There you are! I was wondering if they'd woken you up too, big guy." Marco said, finally appearing from around the corner. Amicus' tail picked up speed as he gave his boyfriend a strong hug. Festus' eyes widened and he kneeled in respect to Marco.
"Imperator Consort-in-waiting." He said, bowing his head. Marco wrinkled his nose in distaste and asked Festus to stand again.
"Please, just call me Marco. I hate official titles." He said, kindly. Amicus grinned as he held onto his boyfriend tightly, who looked a little squished inside of all the fur and muscles surrounding him. "Amicus, you're kinda squeezing me to death." He remarked, nonchalantly. Amicus instantly let go and his eyes widened, grabbing onto his shoulders looking around him, as if to check for any broken bones.
"I- I haven't hurt you, right?" He asked, anxiously.
Marco rolled his eyes and rubbed his face with his hands, laughing. "No, Amicus, I didn't mean actually hugging me to death." Amicus said a quiet 'oh', and gave Marco another hug. He was clearly still traumatised by the events of nearly a decade ago, where Marco had died at the cruel hands of a fatal-to-humans flu. He had laid Marco to rest in the amphitheatre, placing a ring of flowers around his body in a desperate plea to the Parents for a miracle to revive his lost lover. In a stroke of rare Parental intervention, Marco woke up 2 days after his death and returned to Amicus, who hadn't been able to stop over-worrying about everything that could possible happen to his boyfriend since.
Marco grabbed Amicus' paw and started to lead him towards the Meeting room, followed closely by Festus. Neither of them knew what was happening and, despite asking Festus, who was clearly shaken by something that had happened, they got no answers on the short journey to the room. After a few minutes, they reached the Meeting room and Amicus pressed his paw against the panel on the side wall, which slid the door open. They stepped in and immediately, Amicus' blood pressure spiked at the scene in front of him.
The Minister of Agriculture Rural Affairs, Sadie, was yelling at the Minister of Domestic Security, Cameron, who was yelling right back. A folder flew through the air as Virginia, the Prime Minister of Adastra and Amicus' sister and right-hand woman, ducked in order to avoid it. Cassius, the Minister of Economy and Unemployment, and Amicus' brother, had thrown the folder, and was now screaming at the other Cabinet members, only adding to the cacophony of shouting, arguing and objects flying through the air. The other people in the room were cowering behind their chairs and pillars in an attempt to avoid getting involved in the argument. Marco and Amicus watched the situation unfold for a few seconds, as Festus stood, jaw dropped at the chaos, before Marco attempted to calm down the room.
"Uhh... guys? What's going on?" He said, but even Amicus couldn't hear him despite standing directly next to him. "Guys! What the hell is going on?" He yelled, this time audible but completely ignored by the other cabinet members.
"SHUUUUUT UUUUUUUP!" Amicus roared, the room instantly falling dead silent. Even Marco seemed shocked. A minister dropped his pen in shock, and the sound reverberated across the entire room. The hollow, metallic sound of the metal hitting the floor shocked everyone into action, and they all instantly fell onto one knee, their heads dropped.
"Imperator Amicus." They said, in unison. Virginia stood up first, then the others stood up after her.
"What the FUCK is happening?" Amicus demanded, stomping into the room with Marco in tow. He sat down roughly in the largest seat, reserved for the Emperor, and Marco sat directly next to him, in the seat for the minister of Foreign Relations- Marco may be the Earthen Ambassador, but he also held a political office in the Wolven Empire- technically, Marco was soon going to be the Imperator Consort of Adastra, leading to very close relations between Earth and the Wolven Empire. Politically, since Marco held huge political influence over the United Republic of Sol (URS, AKA the government of the planet Earth), there would be somewhat of a Personal Union between the Wolves and the Humans- that is, if Marco were ever to actually exercise the power he wielded. Virginia sat to the right of Amicus, and Cassius sat directly opposite him. The other ministers did not have specific seats, just whichever seat they sat in was to be theirs for that meeting. The others in the room shakily took their seats, with a little arguing between them- though this was quickly shut down by a death stare from Marco.
"Well-" The Minister of Education began, but stopped.
"Yes?" Amicus stared into his eyes, and it was as if the life had been sucked out of the wolf. He visibly deflated and stared at the table, head down in shame. The Minister of Transport sat with his tail not hanging down below the chair- Amicus assumed that was because it was held between his legs, intimidated by the Emperor. "Anyone else want to explain?" He asked, looking around the room. No one spoke up. It was a room of children who had just been told off by their teacher for hitting each other, and no one wanted to take the blame for it so no one said anything.
"Amicus..." Virginia began. She sighed, then stopped speaking, just like the MoE. "Something terrible has happened."
Amicus looked worriedly over to Marco, who shrugged. He was just as clueless as Amicus was, it turned out. "What... has happened, Virginia?"
She grimaced and typed something on her tablet. She swiped up on the screen, which sent the contents of the display onto the screens in front of all of the chairs. People's eyes immediately flicked down to the screens, but no one said a word.
"What is this?" Amicus asked, starting to get nervous. "Virginia, tell me what is happening."
"Just watch the video, brother." She shook her head, as if it were too bad to say out loud.
Marco had already stopped slouching and was watching intently at what was happening on the tablets. Amicus looked down at his chair's tablet too, and he was immediately confused as to the problem. "This is just a video of Lu-" He began, but was shushed by Marco.
"Amicus, watch." He said quietly, and the Emperor fell silent along with the rest.
The video was of the city of Lux, a rich and influential city on the moon of Adastra. It had been falling into irrelevance under the rule of previous Emperors, but under the guide of Amicus the entire moon was prospering and gathering wealth. Adastra was now a galactic financial centre, along with its booming colonial industry as people from across the Galaxias travelled to Adastra to be employed in the state-ran Carta Colonia, where they were sent off to nearby planets and moons in order to expand to Wolven Empire. Lux was a large spaceport for Carta Colonia, and the city had experienced urban sprawl for that reason. Amongst the expansion of the city came the modern jewel of Adastra- the Central Business District of Lux. Dominated by tall skyscrapers and glittering windows with modern roads and fast inter-city train connections, the Central Business Distract of Lux, or the LCC (Lux City Centre), provided a huge amount of money to the Adastran GDP. Not only that, it also proved that Wolven society was attempting to move away from its isolationist tendencies and enabled massive galactic trade routes between the moon and the rest of the Galaxias.
But something was wrong.
There were flames erupting out of a part of the city, thankfully away from the vulnerable skyscrapers, but spreading nonetheless. The fire wasn't anything small, they shouldn't ignore it, but Amicus didn't understand why it was such a big deal as to call forth the entire Scrinium to a meeting, or why it had caused such a big argument. As if reading his mind, Marco asked Virginia the exact same question.
"That was taken 2 hours ago." She stated grimly. "The situation is entirely different now."
There was a collective gasp across the room as she presented the live video feed of Lux. Amicus stared, unable to believe what he was seeing.
The fire had spread, that much was obvious, but it was impossible that it had spread that much. A huge portion of the city was on fire, and in the centre of the flames was a wide circle of completely razed buildings, charred bodies and small explosions as the batteries of cars finally overloaded from the temperature. One of the skyscrapers had began leaning over onto its side as its base was being eaten away at by the fire, and it had been halted only by tipping into the skyscraper next to it. A solemn silence fell across, the room, and Amicus began to shake as he witnessed the Jewel of Adastra burn to the ground. He felt Marco grab his paw, and he squeezed his boyfriend's hand tightly as they watched the horrific video.
Virginia finally took mercy upon her brother and paused the video, just as the toppled skyscraper began to cave in at its middle, inevitably falling to the ground.
"Imperator Amicus." She began. "There's been a bombing in Lux, in one of the hotels. Though we don't know for sure, we have reason to believe it was not accidental and was indeed malicious."
Amicus' ears began to ring loudly in his head, and his vision blurred as tears began to form in his eyes. He looked to Marco, who was staring in horror at the paused video with tears streaming down his cheeks and a tightly-held jaw, grinding his teeth.
"Furthermore, brother-" She said, and for the first time she faltered. "Furthermore, there was a political speech going on in that hotel today, at the time of the explosion."
His veins ran ice cold as Marco finally looked up at him, fear and questions plastered across his face. Amicus had forgotten that it was today. The speech. He was supposed to be there, but it wasn't on his calendar. He knew it was strange when he woke up and there was nothing organised for him to do.
"That speech." Marco said, shakily and out of breath, with little sobs occasionally inbetween. "That wasn't-"
"It was." Amicus confirmed, his heart sinking deeper and deeper into his stomach. This couldn't be happening, it wasn't possible.
"That speech was made by Neferu."
Continued in Chapter 1