Rijen, Glacia, Kaeleer, Tuesday Afternoon Fandom Time
She was calling it guerilla-Queening. Okay, actually she was still calling it gorilla-Queening, but the intention was the same. Karla knew full well that she still couldn't go toe-to-toe with Hobart yet. She couldn't just waltz into Sidra and demand that he retract his lies, reign in his bullies, and confess to her parents' murder. But that didn't mean that she had to stay silent and exiled to Fandom, either. No, she'd found a way to thumb her nose at her uncle and fulfill one of her duties as a Queen.
Queen's Gift. Sometimes it meant the monetary gift from one Queen to another to help her through her first year of rule. But the real meaning of the Queen's Gift was the gift each Queen was able to give to the land. A bit of her blood, mixed into water, and sprinkled at either end of a row of crops would make the land and the plants within it healthier and hardier. The Queen's Gift could turn a meager harvest into a surplus and could even stave off famine by returning life to the land.
As she'd done for Edge last year. As she'd done for Glacia for almost as long as she could remember. As she was going to do for her home again this year.
She couldn't walk up and claim what was hers. Not yet anyway. But she could remind people of the Old Ways. Give them hope for the future. Let them know that Hobart spoke lies.
And so, her plan of guerilla-Queening. She would show up in a small village, Blood or landen, she didn't discriminate. And she would walk amongst them, Sapphire blazing, offering them the Queen's Gift for their crops. She carried with her a blank book as well, so she could listen to their troubles and make a record of them for later, with the promise that she would return again and rectify them when she could. And then she would go, catching the Winds and heading somewhere else, equally tiny and forgotten, hundreds of miles away from the last town she'd visited. With every step taken, crop strengthened, and villager listened to, she would be reforging the bond between a Queen and her people, while hopefully mitigating the damage done by a decade under Hobart's rule.
And now, outside Rijen, the first village she'd decided to visit, Karla took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. "I can do this," she breathed.
[NFB, for off-island shenanigans.]
Queen's Gift. Sometimes it meant the monetary gift from one Queen to another to help her through her first year of rule. But the real meaning of the Queen's Gift was the gift each Queen was able to give to the land. A bit of her blood, mixed into water, and sprinkled at either end of a row of crops would make the land and the plants within it healthier and hardier. The Queen's Gift could turn a meager harvest into a surplus and could even stave off famine by returning life to the land.
As she'd done for Edge last year. As she'd done for Glacia for almost as long as she could remember. As she was going to do for her home again this year.
She couldn't walk up and claim what was hers. Not yet anyway. But she could remind people of the Old Ways. Give them hope for the future. Let them know that Hobart spoke lies.
And so, her plan of guerilla-Queening. She would show up in a small village, Blood or landen, she didn't discriminate. And she would walk amongst them, Sapphire blazing, offering them the Queen's Gift for their crops. She carried with her a blank book as well, so she could listen to their troubles and make a record of them for later, with the promise that she would return again and rectify them when she could. And then she would go, catching the Winds and heading somewhere else, equally tiny and forgotten, hundreds of miles away from the last town she'd visited. With every step taken, crop strengthened, and villager listened to, she would be reforging the bond between a Queen and her people, while hopefully mitigating the damage done by a decade under Hobart's rule.
And now, outside Rijen, the first village she'd decided to visit, Karla took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. "I can do this," she breathed.
[NFB, for off-island shenanigans.]