A/N: This first chapter seems weirdly short now that I look at it. There's more details about their journey dotted throughout, and one allusion to intel gathered, but that will come in more in the next chapter part when they do a sort of debrief thing. This chapter is basically me being excited about a new setting and attempting to world-build in a vaguely realistic way xD
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They
travelled for another nine days before they finally reached the Royal Valley.
It was an enormous grassy bowl in the land, with wide tracks zig-zagging back
and forth on the way down.
"Woah," Hilene said, bringing his
horse up beside Buck's. The ground climbed before it reached the valley, so
none of them had been able to see it as they climbed the muddy track.
"Yeah," Buck said, smiling at the
little patches of activity dotted around the valley's sides. Livestock,
shepherds, cowherds, then farther off towards the east end there would be crop
farmers too far away to see. "It's just like I remember."
"You remember this?" Victane
asked. "I thought you were just a little boy when you came south."
"True, but..." Buck gestured
towards the sight before them. The image of his last look back over his
mother's shoulder had been firmly lodged in his memory for almost his entire
life.
"Fair enough," Victane said,
"It is a wonder."
Buck nodded. He pointed down to the valley
floor, where a low, sprawling building lay at the centre. It was mostly made of
stone, but there were wooden sections tacked on here and there towards the
outer extremities. "That's the palace down there. Population growth
happened here just as much as down in Resador. Trade with the lands of the
south brought medicines up here from Resador, but this is the oldest palace in
the nation. And it's so sturdy it would've taken more effort than it was worth
to demolish it. So, in lieu of building a more modern building, wings have been
stuck on the end of corridors and doors installed all around the sides."
Both guards glanced sideways at Buck.
He shrugged. "I had drinks with a very
opinionated architect in the tavern last night."
The guards chuckled, and the three of them
started their horses down the zig-zag paths. The valley's sides were of a
luscious, well-tended green grass, which had been typical of the journey for
the last few days. Most of what they'd travelled through had been soft, rolling
hills, with a few short, craggy peaks every so often. Buck wasn't sure he'd
seen this much green since the last time he'd painted his face the colour -
green was for trade proposals.
"I love
this," Hilene said, as he'd said several times a day recently. He was
looking around with wide, giddy eyes, waving hello to any cows or sheep they
passed. There were small cottages at regular intervals, where a children could
sometimes be seen running around and playing. The place screamed idyllic until
you stepped in a cowpat, though even then it seemed pleasantly warm and soft.
As they hit their first turn in the path,
one of the shepherds called out, "I thought you'd be the prince!"
Buck twisted around to face him, having just
begun the turn. "Sorry?"
The shepherd, a young man with
shoulder-length shaggy blond hair, leant on a haphazard stone wall that marked
out his pasture. "The prince. We all thought him and the queen would be
back by now. So when I saw you lot coming over the ridge, I thought you might
be our royal highnesses coming home."
"Have you got your hopes up every time
someone's come down the valley?" Buck asked, reigning his horse back a bit
to stop and talk to him.
The shepherd shrugged. "Not been many
of those. Everyone's heading down your way the past couple of weeks. I think
folks want to see what all the fuss is that's keeping Erson so busy." He
chuckled to himself. "I do wonder myself what amusement he's found with
that Duchess lady."
Buck felt his shoulders tense but did his
best not to let anything show on his face. There was very little about that
sentence that hadn't set off some sort of alarm bell. "What do you mean
'our way'?"
The shepherd nodded towards Hilene.
"Don't get many with his complexion away up here."
At this, Buck couldn't help his eyes
widening. "Alright... Well, why aren't you following your prince down to
Resador?"
The shepherd scratched his head and stood up
straight, starting to lean away from the wall. "Ah, the queen. She, er,
doesn't like me all that much."
Buck frowned. He had more questions, and this was ringing a bell somewhere in his mind, but the
shepherd was already waving goodbye and heading back to his flock. He turned to
Hilene. "You alright?"
Hilene shrugged. "I guess. I mean, it
makes sense, right? Most everyone with my skin colour has southern blood. My
dad was actually from one of the southern islands."
"Okay," Buck said, starting his
horse moving again. He chewed his lip the rest of the way down though,
remembering stories his mother had told about opposition to trade with the
southern islands. It had been part of what repelled his father and motivated
him to move south, that closed-mindedness. Buck wondered if that still pervaded
the queen's court.
The shepherds were very spaced out around
the wide valley, so they didn't meet another until they veered west at the
valley floor to head towards the official entrance of the palace. Buck couldn't
quite remember the location of his mother's land, so he was going to have to
ask someone.
But just as he was turning inward onto the
only cobbled road in the valley, there was a call from far up above. He wheeled
his horse around to see a woman in a thick woollen plaid and skirt tearing down
the hillside. Buck grinned and dismounted, running up to meet her.
"Mum!" he screamed, his legs
powering him forward with all the muscle he'd built up from dancing around like
a fool since his childhood. Her face was red and her hair was coming undone
from her bun, but she didn't slow down. In fact, when they met, they were
travelling so fast that they winded each other. They held each other tight,
squeezing and turning in circles.
"Butty, butty, butty," his mum
whispered into his hair.
Buck giggled at his childhood nickname and,
with a deep breath, took a step back. "Hi, mum."
She had the same round face, with slightly
more wrinkles than he remembered, and a smile that made him happier than all
the beautiful scenery around.
"Oh, who are your friends?" she
asked, as Hilene and Victane made their way up the slope.
Buck looked around and pointed to each in
turn. "Hilene, Victane, this is my mum, Dorea. Mum, this is Hilene, and
this is Victane. They've come with me from... actually it's a long story. Fancy
giving me the floor to tell it?"
Dorea offered a quick bow to each of them in
turn, then looked back at Buck and said, "It would be my honour."
Then she chuckled and said, "Or whatever it is they say down there. Come,
come, I'll pop the kettle on."
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