Φ While in a headlock, I say to Atanta, “How the hell are you so fast?”
“Maybe your just slow.”
“Shut up, and you let go of me, I am going to choke.”
“This is what you deserve.”
Elbowing her iomach I say, “We don’t have time to waste, I o go get the fabrid then make sure Suzuka and Cyrus are still alive.”
“What do you mean still alive?”
“It is just that I don’t think leaving those two together could end well.”
“I don’t see the problem, both of them are quite simir.”
“You would think that at first gnce, but I don’t think those two are simir at all. It is like a nd creature that swim, and a sea creature that go on nd.”
“That’s a stupid analogy.”
“Shut up.” Hearing something, I say, “Atanta, Gryphons are approag this pce.”
“Could it be more of the ones from earlier?”
“I doubt it, they wouldn’t bother to ride through the material-filled airspace of Skydust unless someone was riding them.”
“Let's go look for Cyrus and Suzuka, if anything happens it is better if we are all together.”
“Right.” As me and Atanta start to run, I see a man in a bck hood pass us, his heartbeat is incredibly erratic.”
Φ The gryphons tio fly towards us incredibly fast and a flock of them nd in the pza. Turning to me Jeter says, “Suzuka go hide yourself and Cyrus, it wouldn’t be good if they saw you.
“But what about you?”
“Don’t worry, we’ll be fine, just go hide.”
Following his instrus, I pick up Cyrus and hide among the crowd.
Φ The dark-skinned woman sitting on the lead gryphon jumps down and loudly says, “I am General Maria Scheffer of the Holy nation Gevurah, I demand an audieh your ruler!”
“How dare you be so rude.”
“You bastards have encircled the mountain.”
“You think you just nd in the middle of our try and demand things?”’
Letting out a little ugh, she says, “try, this is a mere city there are fewer people livihan there is in our army, don’t falter yourselves.”
“HOW DARE YOU!”
“GO AWAY, INVADERS.”
One of the gryphos out a screech. “Koa what was that for?”
“Seneral, but I refuse to let these people be so disrespectful as to raise their voices at you.” Turning to my people he says, “Remember the only reason we are even being this civil is a courtesy, nothing more, remember your pce.”
As my people get even further enraged I calm them down and say, “Everyone trol yourselves.”
Pointing at me she says, “So you are the leader here.”
“Yes, I am Kier mercury of Skydust.”
"Me and you o have a talk.”
“I believe we do as well, follow me.”
Grabbing my leg, a child in the crowd tells me, “Don’t go.”
Breaking the grip, I give the kid a pat on his head and say, “Don’t worry everything will be ok, I promise you.” Turning to the crowd I say, “We have all had our fun today, so let’s all get back to work.”
As the crowd disperses, Maria says, “Koa, Gardienne you're both with me.”
“Right!”
She called the man who was rather fiery people, and a woman who looked like she had nothing but hatred for us. When they get off I lead them into my house.
After we all sit down in my living room Maria says to me, “This pce is quite cosy, nothing I would expect from a royal.”
“Well extravagance is a waste of time, I would rather have a small yet fy home.”
“I like that.”
Opening the door, I hear my wife e in carrying tea, after serving it tuests she sits beside me. “This is my wife, Kate.”
“I hope you enjoy, I put my heart and soul into making that gift.”
Maria picks up the cup and is about to drink the tea my wife served, but is stopped by the man named Koa. “General they could have easily poisohat, please don’t drink it.”
“Koa, you do know that is incredibly rude, especially when that woman said she put her heart and soul into it.” Taking a slip out of the cup, Maria puts her hand to her cheek and says, “How delicious.”
The man called Koa lots like he wants some too, so Kate gets up and offers tea to him which he takes. Then she goes to offer some to the other woman Gardienne.
“You want some too.”
But as my wife goes to give it to her, she swings her hand about to hit her, but her hand is caught by Maria. “Gardienne trol yourself.”
“But.”
Staring daggers at her Gardienne calms down. “Sorry about that, she is a bit on edge.”
“No worries,” Kate says.
“But I have a question.”
“Oh, ask away.”
“How does this tea cup work, when I stopped that attack I held my cup upside down but none of my tea fell down.”
My wife’s eyes light up. Grabbing Maria's hands she says, “Well you see the cup is made from a special pound, of about 60 pert benelium, 22 pert rotium, 9 pert opemium, 5 pert kaloium, and 4 pert wocium in the sky fe.
This new pound has a special property that makes any liquid sick to it. So the tea will never fall from the cup, but this effect decreases as the liquid does so when you get to the bottom remnants you still drink this it.”
“That must have been hard to make!” She says with a half-smile. It seems my wife shook her a bit.
“You don’t even know the half of it. The real issue isn’t even the making it is all my intricate designs, you see I have to hand draw all the designs oerial right before it sets, but the benelium it is made from has a property where it will just randomly set.
So time and time again while making cups, midway through the design it would just colpse it would just randomly set, which meant I had to spend another 4 hours at the sky fe to make my pound again. Simply doing that, made me lose 300 pounds due to heat.
I am a big eater, and I put o quite easily. So all of this kept me thin, but then I would just go back to eating 9000 calories every day, and then I burn it off all again in the sky fe, due to all this rapid loss and gain of weight my body go fused and started to self-destruct; it was a horrible case of sky siess.
Now you might be asking yourself why I would go this far for such a thing. But it is simply because I want to be the best interior designer in the world. You see eventually mess happens which causes very expeains, so I have to create houseware which doesn’t break, crack, dent, stain rade in any way.”
Getting up, I put my hands over my wife’s mouth and say, “Sorry, she just loves to talk about the things she loves, been a long time since she talked about me like that.”
Turning around in my arms, Kate says, “Don’t worry hubby, my feelings for you are te for even words to express.”
“Really! Then do you love me more than your work?”
“Would you give up your craft if I asked you to?”
“Hell no!”
“You have your answer darling.”
While me and my wife stare into each other’s eyes we start to feel the house shake. Looking over at the woman Gardienne, I see she is shaking with anger, it seems she wasn’t too happy with my wife's story. Sitting down on the couch we say, “Sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it, you guys are a lot more fun than the royals in Gevurah. But I guess it is true what they say about all of you guys being workaholics.”
“Well of course we are, this is the try where we get to follow our dreams,” Kate says.
Sippiea Maria says, “Ahh Skydust, the try of dreams and craft. All the citizens work for each other and all the mohey make is mostly reied into the city so more people achieve their dreams. To live here is incredibly cheap, the people are all friendly, and the royals are nice people, what an amazing pce this is.”
“You make me blush but I feel the same way, I love sky dust as well.”
“Truly is a shame then.”
“Huh.”
“That this little city will soon cease to exist,” the general says staring right at me and my wife.
Hearing this I am shaken, but my wife grasps my hand which cms me down. I 't panic with her around. “Now for what reason may that happen? I believe we have a rather friendly retionship with Gevurah.”
“Yes you do, en to love all the exports from your try despite the price tag. But at least on the bright side, we will be able to get access to all those things without the price tag.”
Hearing this I freeze up. “Well, you see that is what will happen in the worst-case sario, but let's not let it get to that.”
Kate in a anding voice says, “What do you people want?”
“Show some respect,” Koa says. But Maria just sips her tea quietly.
“You see, up until very retly we were in a war against the try of Varage.”
“Yes, it was widely spread that news. They said Varage is a try with lots of farmnd and that Gevurah wa to bee an agricultural y of Gevurah, to supply future invasions. So, you began a 9-month-long war with Varage. The battle ended incredibly quick.”
“Those ninjas at ever miss their mark. But you see there is a bit more to the story.”
“What do you mean?”
“Earlier you said that a 9-month war was incredibly quick, but in actually we po take Gevurah in 1 week.”
“1 week!”
“Yes, we po crush Varage quickly and minimise bloodshed, but an issue occurred Varage fought back with unheard-of strength. Varage isn’t known for its military might in the slightest, yet they pushed us bad after a while, we figured out the two reasons why they were able to bat us.
First, they had been given a rge number of ons and equipment which they used to engage in goril warfare. And funny thing about said equipment, it was from Skydust.”
“We did no such thing!!” Kate screams.
Gardienne yells, “BE QUITE BEFORE I LOBE OF YOUR HEAD.”
“Gardienne trol yourself, I am not finished.” Turning to face me again Maria says, “Sorry about that o is her time of the month.”
Embarrassed Gardienne says, “Genera-.”
“Moving on the sed reason is that they stole a rge shipment of Basileia crystals, which they used to make very potent medie which allowed them to fight for longer.
And guess which trade route they intercepted then o was one of the private ones we use with Skydust. Then wheopped using any of those trade routes, suddenly we had no more interception problem.”
“I guarantee you that we don’t deal in war.”
“To be ho I couldn’t believe it at first, why would a try like Skydust start stabbing us in the back, especially sihey know we could turn them into literal dust. So, I decided to do some iigation, and 5000 dead interrogated bodies ter I got my answer.
Apparently, the ruler of Skydust was tacted by a group of young adults who offered to supply them with ons and information, and the name of the leader of these adults ercy Mercury the first prince of Skydust, your son.”
