Uther's Legacy (2)

As Plato said in his 'Laws' book, 'Thus, if you aim for peace, prepare for war'.

Before taking a major step into eradicating the source of problems tied to the decline of Londinium's fields, I had to plan out 'how' to deal with said source with what I knew and had at my disposal. Altuos raised two fair concerns about this kind of situation: 1) A full-fledged campaign against faes wasn't viable just yet. Not with how unprepared my army was and how 'detrimental' it would be without a swift strike to end this kind of threat all at once. Thus, any plans of complete annihilation was put on the shelf for the time being; 2) I had to get my troops, those I planned to deploy, with Iron-based weapons and armors as Faes were known to be weak to the material since, conceptually-speaking, the resource was considered a major 'counter' to magic. Or better, it was a sign of technological advancement and thus became, within the rules of nature, a direct predator to magical creatures that originated from entities from the Age of Gods.

Also, I decided to add a special novelty to the arsenal by finally employing a kind of tool I had been holding on for good reasons. While cannons had yet to be fully 'upgraded' to be faster and less-prone to accidents, the projectiles used by the artillery were 'updated' with newer addition: elemental enhancements to add more 'spice' to the shellshock experience. I had planned to keep those as an emergency-kind of ammo in case we were dealing with elemental foes and… Faes were elemental foes by all accounts. And I could tell that burning some trees, keeping the fires under control through water shots of course, was going to be a good way to prevent them from getting any hideouts out of the nearby forests.

So, I made sure that the effort to prepare the entire regiment dispatched for the case to be ready to handle this kind of threat to be swift and earnest. And this was all over after just a week. It wasn't as fast as I would have wanted, but it was still fairly quicker than my worst expectations. I had a full week to also get other affairs dealt with, such as the one tied to Lyanna. The girl was growing more at ease within her new life. She was less clingy, mostly because she had more people to cling on beyond just one. It was a relief as it meant she was finally opening up some more, and that was bound to be a good thing with her trauma. Even Felicianus had to admit that this child was 'too innocuous to prosecute as a threat to the Church', and I couldn't blame him for this open-mindness.

Why shake the boat that was currently carrying you to a higher degree of success?

Because, while I might have not focused much about it, Felicianus hadn't exactly kept quiet and idle in recent months. First he was responsible for organizing the Church for the Picts, trying his best to make sure that the introduction of the religion was driven by peaceful means rather than harsh zealotry. Likewise, he moved into providing advice on who was meant to become the first Arch-bishop of Gallia. I was careful to not let his power grow out of this, but I could tell, much to my relief and surprise, that this guy planned to do anything dangerous out of these circumstances. It was all in the name of the 'Needy'.

Yet, despite my best efforts to make her comfortable in her new home, the little redhead was still frightened by a few people despite my best efforts, specifically Lucy. And I couldn't blame her with how crazily rough the woman was with everyone, no exception beyond… Well, me. My harsh conversation with her had seemingly worked wonders with her, and she had a degree of 'respect' for me. And by 'respect' I meant the problem I mentioned a while ago of her getting physical in the non-violent but still aggressive way. It was a clear signal that I had to find a way to 'channel' her frustrations out without getting yanked by her into a bed and given the kind of trouble no king like me needed by being a loyal hubby. So, I had a solution to this mess that was meant to make everyone quite happy.

"You want me to… what?"

"I thought I was quite clear, Lucius," I hummed, pinching the bridge of my nose while looking at her with a frown, the young woman giving off the vibe of someone that had just received the best news ever but not believing it. "I want you to be with us during the Fae Extermination mission."

"Yes but you want me to… kill- You want me to kill the little things, these Faes?"

I slowly nodded, picking up some bizarre vibes coming off from her. She was literally twitching and vibrating on the spot, and a smile crept bigger and bigger on her face. I huffed, knowing that I just enabled her murder bone.

"That would be correct. Of course, that means no controlling armies and-"

"I don't care."

I paused, frowning at that sudden response. "What do you mean by that?"

"I… I want to fight. I want to kill!" She said with a crazy grin on her face and…

"You are also getting therapy sessions after this is over."

Her amusement froze. "The...The-what now?"

"We're going to have a very 'lengthy' and highly detailed conversation once we're done with this. And it's mandatory."

She looked ready to protest, but seemed to realize I wasn't planning to back down from that point. There was mostly silence from her during the last day of preparation, with my only sight of her during the earlier part of the day being Lucy happily humming while looking around blades she could bring for the occasion, armor too. She really was 'missing out' the insane fun from the looks of it, and if it meant less to me and others in terms of aggression, then I guess this could actually work well in the next few… months? Maybe weeks. Definitely weeks.

With that all out of the way, what was left for me to do was to set up how to find the Faes and take care of them with what we had prepared. Luckily enough, there were means to 'track' down magic patterns, but it was incredibly difficult to get a specific path out of it. It was all about general areas that were all spread out around the region just south of the capital. The army was composed of roughly a hundred highly-trained men that were fully equipped for this suppression campaign. I had Lancelot, Scathach, Marcus, and Lucy in my personal team, with the rest remaining in the castle in case of any 'counterattack'. If there was something Altuos told me, while a Fae couldn't approach too much Iron without feeling sick, they could still create creatures to infiltrate Londinium. And the last thing I needed was to leave my family without an adequate force to protect them.

Everything was set and soon the plan entered into motion. The first thing I noticed as the small army began assaulting the various 'defensive positions' of the critters was that they had fortified their holdouts. I wasn't sure exactly how they were aware of our arrival, but I couldn't help but start to believe that they somehow had a way to see what was going on in the palace. Either that, or they were playing the 'barking but defensive' dog game. No aggression, only smoke and an effort to cover their butts in their home turf. Fair play, sadly, fire play was stronger than that.

Numerous light creatures, which I was sure were normal Faes, started to attack us with various weapons. I knew we were up to some strong resistance. And so was the case as we did find a lot of stubborn last stands from one zone to another. It was a brutal skirmish, but mostly on the Faes as I didn't have a time-based issue and didn't need to rush it out as a campaign. There was no need for foolish attempts to see men killed by this. Still, there was something odd about this intense fighting. The more we fought through the hordes of 'light beings', the more it felt like those Faes weren't as strong as we were prepared to handle.

I was perplexed by the fact they weren't using magic to the extent imagined and that they were relying so much on cheap blades, most of which were made of pure wood. It was after a few hours within that campaign that I got a possible explanation, specifically from Lancelot. The man had been the one that was the least interested in going through this route, but he agreed to help due to why this escalation happened and how it would break his oath as a knight to not protect the innocent people such as Lyanna in this instance. His reluctance faltered the more we fought, the strange 'issues' he was noticing on the Faes' lines eventually summarized in a single logical answer.

"Their monarch- they deposed them."

I blinked and gave him a long look as I finished sipping some water from my cup. We were taking a minor break to consolidate the current degree of assault. Considering the extent of the region and the limited presence our army had, it was best to take a moment to make sure no infiltrators went through our lines while we were busy fighting. Surprises of that kind were why I was a bit nervous of dealing with something such as forests and why I had gone the 'scorch the earth' tactic against our current trouble. Also, Lucy decided to partake to this activity as she didn't feel 'relaxed enough' to bother talking just yet. She had a few moments of bloodlust, but it was all surprisingly contained and showing no issue for me as her commander in that fight. Good for me… I guess?

"That would make sense," Scathach admitted smoothly, finishing cleaning one of her shoulder pauldrons. "There is a general lack of 'blessing' towards the faefolks. So, it's either the monarch isn't supporting their people or they have been killed off without us knowing."

I hummed. "What are the chances that we killed their ruler in battle?"

"Considering how strong those guys are meant to be?" Marcus piped in dryly. "Low. Too low to consider as a chance. In fact, I bet that these little buggers are just keeping their monarch locked in somewhere."

"Which means that we could try to get some support from inside their lines?" I pushed for more detail and Scathach nodded.

"It's possible. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they would throw their lot with our cause just to quell the rebellion that dethroned them."

It was absurd to consider- Fairy Kings and Queens weren't exactly known to be subjected to coups, so this all sound as fairly stupid. Why would they go as far as remove their own leader in times like this? What was missing from the picture we got out of the overall situation. The more I questioned this matter, the more I got interested in finding out what was really going on with this whole mess. Surely there was something I was missing and… Knowing my luck, it had to be something particularly stupid.

I had yet to determine the grade of stupidity I was about to learn about...

We drove them out.

It took five more hours to draw confirmation that we had done it. The entire region was devoid of Faes and, surprisingly enough, nature had started to 'normalize'. It would take a while to fully certify this, but Scathach and I used a few runes to confirm that the decline had ceased, meaning that the overall influence of the faefolk had been squashed for good. Now, what was left to do was cleaning up and getting a clear understanding of the sections of the surrounding forests we would have to work on to restore once this campaign was fully completed.

Lucy was giddy as she got her 'filling of murder' for the time being, but I wasn't planning to ignore the notion that I would have to find a solution that wasn't sending her as my personal executioner left and right. No, there had to be something a bit more viable than just relying on that. As I pondered about this since that was going to influence the planned talk I was going to have with her, and other reports I got from the officers agreeing that the region had been freed from any magical creature, I was presented with a sudden 'and urged' note from one of the forward scouts. They found a cave, its entrance blocked by a barrier that was confirmed to be magical by the Magi employed in that group.

With Scathach out to check for any surprises in the rear, Marcus commanding some of the troops in the southernmost region and Lucy being busy 'checking for any more fun' in the north, it was just me and Lancelot left to give a look at this new circumstance. We quickly paced and rushed to see what was going on and, what we found at our destination was…

"Brilliant!" I gasped in surprise, just plain stunned by the complexity before my gaze.

I had seen runes, but this was outright absurd. I could recognize a few of those but a couple of those were completely new! I could sense and understand their meanings through the effect they were creating by isolating those I knew already about from the new ones and… even then, I couldn't match which effect matched with those unknown engravings. And it was all done with magic as a medium, not a solid object- Magic. Which, while exciting, meant a single thing: whatever was being kept inside, it had to be really important for the Fae. So important that I doubted normal critters like them could break into it. So, it had to be where the monarch had holed themselves in as we were purging a good part of their subjects.

"My liege, aren't you a little bit too... excited about this discovery?"

"Nope," I argued without restraint. "That's a masterwork of a rune. It's actual magic, something from the Age of Gods and… it's quite odd. Something like that shouldn't be possible to make for the little things we were going against."

And while it was a nice barrier, I knew that I would have to be a jerk and break it. After all, there was something that could cut through it with ease. I unsheathed Aurea Mors, carefully pumping just a bit of energy to 'enable' its concept to manifest slightly stronger than usual and… I attacked. A single strike was all that it needed for the magic to be shredded to pieces and presenting us with a now-unblocked entry. I kept the sword in my hold, feeling that this could easily end up in a fight if we weren't careful enough with who was hiding inside there.

The large group of soldiers was led inside, everyone keeping a guarded stance as a few carried torches to keep the dark away as we tried to find the source of the barrier and, perhaps, this whole shitstorm we had been dragged into. As we turned the corners, we saw a few Faes that were… playing. They paused as we approached and then rushed away in what looked to be a particularly frightened pace.

"Not warriors," I muttered, gaining a nod from Lancelot as we delved deeper.

This was just getting stranger and stranger. Soon, we arrived at what looked to be the setting of something important. I mean, a large natural room within a cave with trees sprouting from the sides as a conglomerate of green vines, tree's roots and tree themselves mixed in what looked to be a throne and a prison. Within it, a single individual sat quietly, whispering quiet words to what looked to be fairies. Numerous of these faes at that as those looked to be clinging within the 'safety' offered by that self-imposed cage.

The woman had auburn hair which, as we approached, became apparent that those were altering colors with the tones related to Autumn. Her skin was slightly tan and her gaze a vibrant green. She wore a simple sleeveless dull yellow dress. She was barefoot and devoid of anything beyond that small piece of clothes.

"Come forth, Joseph, First King of Britannia," The lady's voice echoed through the entire chamber. "My kingdom… welcomes you."

I frowned, confused by the overall 'calm' reaction. Too calm and what did she mean with 'her kingdom welcomes me'? I had to demolish a considerable amount of fighting faes before arriving to this throne room of hers.

"You know my name, but I don't know yours," I argued back, loudly enough for my voice to trail and reach back to the waiting ruler of this reduced community.

"Perhaps… It's been a long time. Only now I consider that no one but a few knows of my existence anymore. A shame but… I guess this is the fault of being so isolated from the real world for many years," The woman considered with a sad expression now plastered on her face. "I'm Mabel of the Fall, many times now titled Fairy Queen Mab the Dreamer."

It took me a moment to realize this name was actually… part of the English mythology, just not… exactly known. Or technically even correct. I believe she was mentioned by Chaucer, and also confused by Thomas Keightley as another name to address Queen Medb from the Ulster Cycle. Before my gaze, I was proven that the last account was wrong but… there was also a detail I couldn't fully accept as… it doesn't fit with this whole situation. In fact, if this was the case, then no rebellion would have happened to her of all possible Fairy monarchs.

"You are the wife of the supreme ruler of Faes, the Emperor of Fairykind, Oberon."

A melancholic hum left her lips. "Was."

I frowned again. "What?"

"I once was his wife, yes. And while I refuse to provide the details of that change, I can only admit that we are no longer bound by wedlock."

A bit of a surprise, but not exactly something I wanted to dig more into. Not when there were more pressing issues to discuss with her.

"I understand- still, considering the circumstance, I request an explanation as to why some of your subjects revolted against you, Queen Mab, and why I was the one to suffer due to this kind of rebellion."

"It wasn't a decision planned by the rebels."

…

"Beg your pardon, could you please elaborate?"

"This rebellion aimed to give more 'action' against those injustices that have unfolded in recent decades. Some of my people felt imposed by their 'common sense' to argue my wisdom and sought to achieve power beyond their capacity, all for the sake of being ready for war at the next insult. Nonetheless, the plan wasn't established by them." She argued strongly, leaving no space for 'what if's. "My subjects might have taken a more belligerent approach, but they weren't the ones to ordain such a despicable route. They just saw a means to achieve a reaction. Your reaction."

"Then who caused this?"

"Those very disgusting fiends that could harm a child for a choice that she didn't have a voice about," The queen's voice grew ferocious, just for a few moments, and then softened once more. "I was surprised when this happened, when they appealed to the new 'King' of this tribe and got his support for this kind of heinous attack against the beloved nature I protect."

"And I suppose that reaction was meant to draw more to their cause. What went wrong?" I pressed on, interested in this subject.

"I discovered your newest child. The news reached us through the trees and flowers that 'heard' of the news. And I learned about the mistreatment that she suffered at the hands of foolish monsters that aren't worthy of keeping the pure nature they were blessed with," Mab replied, her tone turning briefly cold as she brought up the situation with Lyanna. "A horrible deed, my people would never accept fools that give up morals for the sake of purpose. It's not the way a living being should aspire to."

"But what about you? Why don't you share the same hatred for us like the rebellious faction that took over?" I asked in annoyance, something about her passive approach just irritating me now as she just let all of this happen. "Why didn't you stop them when you could have?"

She spared me a long look and… sighed.

"Uther Pendragon. He was the one that enforced his views upon the faefolk. Hence why he and his brother are seen by our people as the truest embodiment of what is evil in you humans," Mab commented softly. "In a way, they both fit the role of what your religion consider the devil."

What? I knew that Uther was quite influential back during his rule but I didn't know he had that kind of influence to 'subjugate' faes to his will. Then again, I thought about why he would want to remove the fairies. Maybe he saw them as a risk to Ria's rule, mostly because they would have seen her more as Morgan's sister rather than the future king of Britain. Which was odd considering Oberon would end up accepting Ria's claim.

"How exactly did he do so?"

"Why, through his court magician- and now his… son's own advisor."

"Merlin?" I asked in surprise. "Why would he be interested in you specifically?"

"...That, I'm afraid, I can't say. Not because there isn't a relevance to it, but because it's a private concern of mine, and of my subjects," She said, taking a brief pause as if thinking about something else. "And now, we found ourselves before the real reason why we are talking, King Joseph. An end to hostilities that my people, those subjects that followed me, wish to see unfold with minimal pain on our end. Yet, we are defeated, the losers of this 'war' of ours. What are your conditions?"

That was actually tough to elaborate on the spot, especially since she was painting a particularly wrong aspect of the general predicament. It wasn't like she was the one to wage this kind of attack, but she still was the one that let this mess escalate to this point. So… she had to lose something, and I believe I could settle for something just considering that I already took care of the bastards that caused the agricultural mini-crisis.

"By my own title and right as conqueror of this part of the world, I, King Joseph of Britannia, demand the submission of the Fairy Queendom within the Kingdom of Britannia as an autonomous region. Queen Mab the Dreamer shall concede inferiority to me, but also accept the burden of keeping her role as sole ruler of the fairies in this side of the world. Any claimant to such title, rebels and whatnot, shall be forsaken and directly nullified in their claim, for this is my royal decree."

The soldiers chatted between each other behind me, Lancelot sparing me a surprised look at my clemency while Mab glanced at me in surprise, her gaze gaining curiosity. "And what would you gain from allowing me to sit back in my throne as a free monarch? After all, I am but a minor and insignificant piece in the Faes' royalty. My honor stained by inaction and… cooperation with humans."

"You're still a piece on the board. You still have a foothold to work on," I rebuked fiercely, ignoring her points. "And as far as I got out of your narration, you have no genuine reason to hate us. Because we had not raised a finger against faefolk until provoked."

"I'm impressed, King Joseph, but I do have a single question."

I blinked. "And that is?"

"May I meet with… the child? Little Lyanna?" She asked with a careful tone. "This is, of course, no demand. But I wish to speak with her just once, even with your presence and those of your most trusted men."

"Why?"

"Color me intrigued by a child born from a human and a fairy. I seek to know of her unique nature, but not without her parents' permission and her own concession."

"...We can discuss this more in the future. As of now, I can't offer any definitive answer."

She nodded. "Thank you."

Sighing, I shook my head, knowing that this campaign was over and now I could finally get back to handle the kingdom without any threat. Of course, I still had to prepare for that meeting with Ria and, boy, that I could tell was going to be a whole mess to face considering the truth I got about Merlin and Mab.

I expected many things. I just didn't expect 'another topic' to then become the reason behind this sudden call for help…