by Ryan Johnson
But he couldn’t detect where the two boys were from the air, and he was certainly glad he didn’t have to deal with them. Hopefully, they have been doing some growing up in the past three years, but he would know as soon he would see them. And with the twin boys, he didn’t see twin girls Naìra and Andrei or their eldest sister Eliana anywhere in the terrain.
He hasn’t seen any of them for about a year. This was due to the war with King Uragiru’s loyalists who put up tremendous fighting. And with him being the new ruler of Shimabellia, he had to attend many people’s problems and deal with several dukes and earls and different high ranking people governing over small regions of Shimabellia. And the demigod had to make sure those people wouldn’t rebel against him.
And he also kept the creatures in check and made sure they wouldn’t rebel against him. Although many of them have proclaimed him their new ruler, the creatures were still skeptical about him and how he would rule an island than a human. And a person’s actions would speak louder than just mere words; Valverno has done extraordinary well than the creatures had ever thought possible.
Valverno kept his kingdom under a balance that didn’t have to evolve much violence in the lives of the humans. He made sure everyone had their fair share of everything. And unlike past ruler of Shimabellia, Valverno rarely lived in the capital city. He’d always ventured out and checked on every human living on the island.
For his actions, Valverno was starting to lean toward everyone’s hearts and every creature’s mind.
Now, that he was back at the village he grew up in, he was starting to descend to the bottom and halted when Sora came flying behind him.
“About time, Sora,” said Valverno.
Sora shook her head. “Being the fastest demigod hybrid doesn’t mean it is a race, Valverno. After all, I was the one who was considered to be faster than when we were kids.”
“Because I always let you go faster than me. You were still considered a toddler, and in human years; you have been three years old.”
“And in human years and your mental state, you were a seven year old,” stated Sora.
“Enough with this sibling rivalry,” intupered Marina. “Demigod Valverno, if you don’t mind, announce yourself to the village that you and I are here. We wouldn’t want to be these people waiting.”
Valverno nodded his head at once. “Alright, Your Highness.” Then Valverno drifted downwards and just soared above the village’s rooves.
First, there were stares of human eyes, nothing new to Valverno. Then there came cries of cheers from the prowling eyes staring from below. The silence of eyes grew to an extent of carefree cheers.
The villagers were happy to see Valverno once again. Valverno felt happy to be coming home, and he was glad to see the people he hasn’t seen in over a year.
Valverno soared over the rooftops of every building in the village, and he landed in front of the mansion he grew up in. After he landed, he released Marina when she was safe to stand on the ground. He then removed his helmet so that people nearby would see his face.
Sora landed beside her half-brother and looked at several people walking past them. She smiled at the people walking passed them, and they would smile back, but none of them stood too long to stare at the visitors.
The villagers were too busy with their work they didn’t have time to spare to look the visitors coming to the village. Every villager was busy at work cropping in the wheat fields and the blacksmith near the mansion was busy hamming at heavy metals with his heavy hammer.
The winter that had passed was very colder and lasted a month longer than it was supposed to end. This meant the weather was changing and in a few coming years there could be a winter that could last until mid-spring. The villagers were too busy with their crops that needed to be tended at once and everyone had to make sure they had enough supplies to last them through another long, drifty cold winter.
Valverno was impressed to see the villagers lasted this long. The winter he experienced in the past came early in the autumn and lasted two weeks after the first day of spring. Winter snow is supposed to melt away two weeks before the first day of spring
He guessed the weather was changing quickly now that Lusìvar had regained his physical body. If the weather was changing due to his enemy having regained his body, then Valverno had a limited time before a catastrophic event could occur.
When Valverno took his first step toward the mansion, the front door open and Flavius exited. He was dressed in his unusual clothing, not in his White Knight uniform.
“Valverno!” cried Flavius. “Brother, welcome to back. I was hoping you would stop by for a visit, but I didn’t expect to see you today.” Flavius trotted up to the demigod and both men embraced each other and both gave a hard slap to each other’s back. “Welcome back. If you sent word you were coming, I would have set up a proper homecoming party to you.”
“There’s no need, Flavius. After all, I grew up here with you. I consider it my home and you do. There is no need for a homecoming party.”
“If you say so,” said Flavius, smiling. Then he turned to see Marina standing beside Valverno. “You too, Marina. Welcome back.” Then Flavius turned to see Sora standing behind Valverno. “And Sora. Welcome back. My house is yours.”
Sora gave Flavius a nervous expression. She smiled but nervously. She kept rolling her eyes between Flavius and the villagers walking passed them. It wasn’t until a group of children came running by and Sora immediately chased after them.
“What’s wrong with her?” asked Flavius.
“I know my sister better than anyone in this village, Flavius. Apparently, she is starting to fall in love with you.”
“Her? In love with me?”
“Yes, Flavius. It’s like me and Marina when we saw each other for the first time. And the same thing is affecting Sora deep in her heart: love at first sight.”
Flavius raised an eyebrow. A White Knight from an ancient country now long gone, and someone thousands of years old was falling for him. But he was a White Knight as well but he wasn’t feeling the same Sora was feeling for Flavius. “I can’t say the same about her, Valverno. It’s just…”
“That she is a White Knight as are you, and she is my sister? I have no problem with it.”
Flavius blinked. “What?”
“What better man for her than you, Flavius? I’ve known you a long time, since we were kids. She’s knows how to put up a good fight, and you also can put up a good fight. Both of you have proper experience fighting. The two of you can sail on the same ship.”
“You are proposing me to marry her? Like you want to conduct a wedding ceremony right now? Here in my village?”
Valverno shook his head while smiling. “She’s been a lonely girl, ever since she and I were kids. She’s always been so much a family girl that she hates being alone, and I would always be the one to comfort her.
“When Pangaea was destroyed and the islands came into existence, she was just considered a human child and I was considered a near-adult. The other survivors, your ancestor Herus included, looked to each other and we did what we need to survive, mostly of new grown plants. The big kids knew how to survive, but Sora was a fragile girl and wouldn’t’ have survived.”
Valverno paused and saw Sora kneeling down to a group of children. She was smiling at them and she showed them her kukri knives. She was telling them about the weapons she wields and the armor she wears.
“I can’t be supporting her and be with her all the time,” Valverno resumed, frowning. “Since King Uragiru hasn’t been doing his duties properly, someone had to take over his responsibilities. And for three years, I’ve been keeping this island in a balance of what the fallen king failed to do. I can’t be with her, you, Marina, your younger siblings, and everywhere at once.
“If I were to die, she would be an empty bowl with the soup. I need
someone to look after her if I die in battle. I can’t think of anyone better than you. Not only do you have the looks, but also the perfect personality of a true human: that is what is seeing within you. And she is falling for it.”
Flavius stroke his chin. “I can’t say I feel the same for her. I mean, she is still a stranger to me. It may have been three years she came as a White Knight, but I still consider her a stranger. I haven’t own her long enough so I don’t feel anything special to her.”
“I know that, but she doesn’t. You better be careful when saying somethings like not being in love to an ancient Pangaean. My ancient civilization treasured the power of love above all things. Pangaeans are going to be a bit sensitive when they love someone, but that someone not loving the Pangaea back can be a bit… devastating.”
“Or more of something is going to happen in the future,” said Marina. The Siren walked in between the two men’s eyes. “We came to announce Valverno and I have planted three seeds inside of me.”
Flavius was confused. Planting seeds inside a Siren? How was that possible? Plants don’t grow inside Sirens but in dirt in the ground with natural water and sunlight from the sky. Flavius was having the expression that Valverno had.
“I’m sorry, but planting seeds inside a Siren?” said Flavius. “I don’t get what that is supposed to mean. If you were starting a garden, would you want dirt and not flesh-and-blood?”
“She doesn’t mean it that way, Flavius,” said Valverno. “It means something else. She is pregnant, with my three children. I am going to be a father of triplets.”
SPREADING THE NEWS
Flavius stood in great shock to hear what he was heard. Marina was bearing a child or three for Valverno. He was older than his foster brother yet he did not have a child of his own or was married to a wife. Flavius wasn’t jealous of how Valverno’s life was turning out, but the life of the demigod was changing too much too fast.
At first, Valverno was Vaeludar living in the house owned by Geraldus. Then a Minotaur came to attack only to be slain by the hybrid. Soon after, he embarks on a quest to retrieve three armor artifacts to gain magical power to beat an ancient Shadow King named Lusìvar. And the hybrid ended up learning he’s a demigod from an ancient land of Pangaea and ended up marrying a Siren that was now bearing three people to the ancient hybrid.
“How did you manage to do it?” asked Flavius. “A Siren is having a baby? Three in fact. Sirens could make their own offspring without having a mate in the birthing process. I want to know how a Siren and a hybrid of two different species from an ancient country managed to slip in together.”
“That is a secret, Flavius,” said Marina. “It seems Pangaeans have different methods of getting making a child together than having fun in a bed. It was quite an adventure Valverno and I had together, but we didn’t make the child by kissing. It so dicing you would hit the ground before you died hearing it.” Marina put her head on Valverno’s left shoulder and placed a hand over his right shoulder. “He and I know we are going to have three, and we are going to spread the news about it.”
Flavius could blink and stare while he was hearing what they were telling him. Then he would take a moment to look at nearby people who were turned toward Sora than the three people standing in front of the biggest building in the village. “Is it possible we can talk someplace else?”
“Why would we want to move somewhere else when you are right here and other people are surrounding us?” asked Valverno.
“A meeting has been called,” answered Flavius. “The Dragon King has summoned a few selected dukes and earls from around Shimabellia to have a meeting. I have been called as well, and we are to meet with him at the newly established barracks to the northeast. Since you’re here with your two female friends, maybe you ought to stop by and tell everyone else this happy yet odd news.”
“What a good idea,” said Marina, removing her head. “Let’s do that, Valverno. That way the leaders of each region on this island will hear, and those leaders will tell their loyal subjects who will tell others and so on. The entire island will know of your news, and it will spread like wildfire.”
Valverno guzzled from his mouth and he can tell them all. Or he could just use his speedy flight to go to every village on Shimabellia and deliver the news of Marina’s pregnancy himself. With his flight power, all of Shimabellia could be told with a few days while people who travel on horseback would take a month or so, or a flight of Griffins or Dragons would be a few days.
By his reckoning, Valverno is the fastest flying specimen on Shimabellia and Isla Maeli. Shimabellia would know the news if he delivered it himself, and it would be a matter of days instead of weeks for months.
But he felt he didn’t have the time to deliver the news to everyone in every village on the island. Valverno knew where to find the last armor artifact, and he met with Lusìvar in his true form. Worse yet, he had far more power than the demigod who still had one more item to retrieve in order to become more powerful than the Shadow King.
And there was the matter of the Harmonic Convergence, where the three moons would block the sun and reveal the location of the seven surviving Titans. Valverno was going have to go with telling a few island leaders about the news, maybe have a party in the night, and travel to the northwestern point on Isla Maeli at dawn.
“Alright, let’s go meet with the leaders and spread the news throughout the island like a plague of flies,” said Valverno.
Flavius led the two wedded couple out of the village and through the wheat fields to the northeast. Valverno welcomed Sora to come, but Sora decided to stay behind and help the villagers with cropping in the wheat fields, which Valverno had no problem with.
The three traveled to the northwest and walked a fair distance of a mile or so before they came to an open field with a dozen buildings with large domes. Over hundreds of men and women training hard with pushing-and-pulling sticks long like spears, swinging sticks like swords at spinning wooden figures with long stick arms, or a trainee firing arrows from bows.
The buildings stretched out a fair length of a great distance. The sizes spread out long and stretched out longword those buildings were built to house over a thousand of people, if not maybe two thousand people.
The sight of the barracks was three times bigger and wider than Flavius’s village, stretching out a few miles. The village had more people but the barracks had taken more land than the village a mile away.
Valverno was impressed to see much a lot of land taken to build a second barracks and military training camp away from the first barracks. The larger size of the second barracks was making the first barracks look like a playground for children to play in. This was the first time he laid eyes on something that was entirely new and wasn’t around when he was last stepped foot in the village, which was a year ago.
“Surprised?” asked Flavius.
“Yes,” answered Valverno.
“Due to our battles across the island, our numbers were excessively thin. So, we had to build a second barracks in order to train more soldiers and build more buildings in which to store both them and weapons alike.
“We mostly get our recruits from the Southern Swamps and prisoners we’ve taken from the eastern coasts. And no matter what matter how big we get, people are willing to fight for you than a dead king. Right now, we have some ten thousand here, and growing by the day by the dozens.”
“That’s good to hear,” said Marina, smiling. “You might be able to win this war, my dear husband. With the numbers you’re gaining from this war against Lusìvar and Uragiru’s remnant. And with the Snake Clan joining you, you are craving a path to victory.”
“Wait,” said Flavius. “You let the Snake Clan join you?’
Valverno a moment to explain the situation to Flavius of the Snake Clan were brainwashed soldiers by the Council of Three, using ancient magic that dates to the days of
Pangaea. It was Valverno who freed them and renamed the clan the Lizard Clan and now patrols the city Teutates is in.
Flavius was surprised himself Valverno spared the entire clan than annihilating it. But it would mean more soldiers for Valverno, and a large fleet patrolling the city Teutates is concealed in. “Anyways, let me show you where we are meeting the other,” said Flavius, leading onward.
Valverno and Marina followed after Flavius in a direction sense that wasn’t going toward the barracks. Not far from the barracks was an open field that trees once stood and only cut trunks remain standing two feet from the ground stretched out a yard long, and there was a circle of cut trunks placed surrounded an open land.
“This is the spot in which we will meet the others, and here people will discuss of what is happening all around Shimabellia,” said Flavius.
“And perfect timing too,” said a cocking voice. The trio saw fifty or so Griffins flying in the air. One was flying descending ahead of the Griffins and landed on the ground first and oddly enough the first Griffin that landed stared straight Valverno into his hybrid eyes.
It was the Griffin Flarefur, Valverno’s oldest Griffin companion. With him, other Griffins landed while many others floated in the air. After the small group landed, the Griffin King landed in front of the group of landed Griffins and right beside Flarefur.
“Demigod Valverno, good to see you again,” said Flarefur, bowing his head to the demigod.
“Good to see old faces living instead of being dead,” agreed Valverno.
“And you too, Queen Marina,” said Flarefur, slightly bowing his head to the Siren Queen. “I’d never imagine a Siren believed to be monstrous creatures in old stories to be a queen of a large kingdom, no offence to you though.”
“None taken,” said Marina. “I am still quite surprised myself to see how I managed to become a queen of a kingdom. Strangely enough, people consider me to be a human than a fishy Siren.”
