Legacies of light

-Break-

Walking through the corridors of the castle, I see that there are many people who are up and about despite how early it is. So I ask, “Why is everyone running around so early.”

Lúidín says, “Isn’t this just normal behaviour for people, didn’t you’re family do much the same.”

“Growing up sure, but that’s because if we didn’t work we wouldn’t have been able to grow our village. You guys are already at the top of the empire so what is the point of waking up so early.”

Innéacs says, “Gorias is majestic, but keeping it running is not an easy task. So waking up at this time to make everything run smoothly is simply a baseline we must keep otherwise this place would fall apart.”

Looking towards everyone working, I say, “I thought you guys had it easier, but I guess there is much more responsibility on your shoulders than I thought.”

Innéacs mutters, “You can think?”

Annoyed, I say, “I heard that!”

Ignoring her, I continue to walk and as I do I notice the servants around the castle are waving and bowing to me. Seeing this I get shy and ask, “What is going on?”

The Lúidín says, “The clothes and jewellery you are wearing is a sign that you are considered important within this castle, and for a fir bolg that can only mean you are someone of incredible skill despite your mental capacity and deserve respect.”

I don’t feel like the comment about mental capacity was necessary, but ignoring that I start to feel a certain degree of pride. I start to walk gently, and wave to my subjects saying, “Good day.”

As I do this my ego grows so much that one could taste it, but then as I walk I feel the ego of another crash into mine and looking at who it is I see my brother Ibar.

Ibar is being guided by two servants, he is also dressed in fancy clothes like me from head to toe, but unlike me, he has far more expensive jewellery on his body than I do.

Seeing him, I use my fans to flutter my hair, and he in response flashes his jewellery.

“With all of the jewellery, one might mistake you for a prince, though you don’t look the part.”

My brother laughs in response to this and says, “That dress is very good at attracting attention and completely distracts from its wearer's face, it is perfect for you.”

Stretching out my hand, me and Ibar then grab each other's hands and start to spin about. “Mom, Dad look how esteemed we look.”

“These clothes are enough to bring us out of any debt we could incur for years, look how far we have come.”

Thinking back to memories of Setanta's annoyingness, I say, “Dealing with that beast was worth it.”

“We have finally been rewarded for all our hard work.”

“Now since we are done let’s go home.”

“Right, we have done our jobs.”

As me and my brother happily skip away, we are grabbed by our maids, who say, “Your jobs have only just begun.”

Turning to Lúidín, I say, “We jest, we jest.”

“Please be careful about your jokes, you represent your master and we don’t need any more damage to the house's name so behave.”

Looking back at the maids, Ibar says, “Don’t worry we will act in a way befitting our master.”

I say, “We will simply communicate the way our master has shown us people must be treated.”

Lúidín says, “That fills me with no confidence.”

Both me and my brother then hear, “Please, no more conflict.”

Turning around we both see Darragh who is dragging himself across the corridor with a dark aura emanating from him. “Are you ok?”

“For the most part just sleep deprived, I had to be up all night fixing the issues that were caused yesterday.”

Shaken, both me and my brother bow our heads and say, “We are sorry for that.”

“Don’t worry, it wasn’t either of your faults, Lugh himself should have handled the situation a lot better than he did. But now I am forced to handle such things.”

Ibar says, “I didn’t know you were so important here.”

One of his maids responds, “Each of the kings of the four providences has a council that aids them in their work, and the one who handles political matters is Darragh here.”

Remembering the mess that was yesterday, both me and Ibar apologise again.

“It is appreciated but unnecessary, all I can ask is that if you see Setanta doing anything stupid please knock him out.”

“We promise,” Both me and my brother say without hesitation.

Looking at our maids, Darragh says, “Now please get these two to their classes, we have no time to waste in their training.”

“Right.”

“What training?”

Darragh says, “The future of our empire is in your hands so try your best.”

His words cause me and my brother to look at each other with fear in our hearts. This feels really bad.

Soon our maids grab us and start to drag us away.

-Break-

Location: Ord Room

Sitting behind two desks in a giant room, me and my brother started to panic. “Turning to him, I say, “What’s going on?”

“The maids just abandoned us in here and left?”

“Do we have to go through some test?”

“I barely know how to write!”

As we continue our freak out a greater beastkin walks in through the door, an elephant beastkin, and says, “You must be Ibar and Laeg, it is nice to meet you both.”

“Hi,” We nervously say back.

Looking at him, I ask, “Why are we here?”

“You see as important members of our future king's court, we need to make sure that both of you despite being fir bolg are educated in a way that will allow you to be seen as greater than you our.”

Both of us get slightly annoyed at this and my brother says, “So your doing this to both of us since we are idiotic fir bolg right?”

Before my brother can continue, the elephant says, “It seems you believe yourselves to be slighted right now, but don’t think such a thing. From this point on you will have to stand beside Setanta in his many escapades and there will be those who will look down on you.

These classes of mine are simply tools I am giving you to fight back when the time comes, and no one knows them from birth. Enemies you will face who have hidden themselves as allies have spent years mastering them and I need to catch you up. So I ask for your cooperation.”

Hearing him out, my brother says, “Sorry.”

“Now then let’s begin. The first thing I will teach you in this class is the full structure of our kingdom, I don’t know what you covered in your classes but I will be breaking it down here.

Our great empire of Louernia stretches through all of Victoria with a few exceptions up north, and we also command the vast majority of Domhan Thíos to the south, or as the humans call it Terrafide, and the Duibheagán to the west, or as the humans call it Molstoria.”

“What about the land to the east? I learned that at one point we owned large portions of it.”

“The eastern continent of Sruthántuí, or Enotita was one that we had a lot of power over, but due to many miscalculations we have lost most land that we had control of.”

“I see, but still our empire is large.”

“Yes, but despite all of that land one stands above the rest, Tír na n-iontas our place of origin. This is the largest and most heavily populated place in all of our empire. Most of all the nobles live here, even the high king, and this land makes up a large chunk of the continent.

Tír na n-iontas is split into four large providences, which are Gorias to the east, Murias to the west, Findias to the south, and Falias to the north, and a small one in the centre called Ríchathaoir Danu.

The high king and leader of all of Louernia lays in Ríchathaoir Dhanu, and he elects one of the red branch families to rule over one of the four providences each.

But on that note, we might as well talk about our social structure. On the lowest level are peasants, who usually do menial tasks such as working as farmers or helping with construction and so on. Tend to lack skill, and be of fir bolg decent.

Next would be commoners, who are usually, merchants, or tradesmen of some kind or those with essential skills. Many of the Fian bands are also located on this level.

Then we have nobles, who are those who have distinguished themselves to one of the kings and have received some title which tells how much land they own. Many are from warrior families though since it is far easier for them to distinguish themselves, and due to the fact that it is simply more time effective for skilled fir bolg to work for these families rather than aspire for these titles.

Next would be red branch families, the descendants of those who fought against the humans and started this country, each one of them are worth far more than the average noble and one could say they alone control whether one will be able to move up and down this list of peerage.

Next are the kings of the four providences who each are chosen from a red branch family. These kings are given complete control over all of the residents within their providence, but as also given complete responsibility.

If the providence starts to decline under their leadership, it can end up with them being executed. Outside of an offence against the high king himself, this is one of the only ways a member of the red branch can face any legal punishment.”

Stiff with the level of power I now have, I say, “That is quite a lot of people I rank above now, it is rather scary.”

“It truly is, but don’t worry our king Lugh is rather smart and doesn’t make lots of enemies so serving under him doesn’t cause any worries. Though I do plan to resign the moment Setanta takes over.”

Hearing that I start to feel sick to my stomach as I imagine Setanta spitting in the face of the high king. But as I do this, my brother raises his hand and says, “Merchants and tradesmen aren’t treated the same as Fian, but you ranked them the same why is that.”

“Is there a specific reason you asked?”

Interjecting I say, “We are commoners by your ranking, yet when we ran into trouble with Fian in the past, we tend to not be given the same amount of leeway as they were.”

“One can say that within each of these classes, there is a hierarchy. Our physical capabilities are what allow us to take our freedom back from humans, and expand our empire, so since our formation strength has always been key.

Other forms of strength are seen to draw from human knowledge, which while useful shouldn’t come ahead of our own abilities. Hence, they fir bolg are while not officially forced to do so, must be subservient. Those who wield human tools should be ahead of those who wield our strengths.

Otherwise, we might fall into the never-ending deceit and lies humans fall into, and that destruction is far worse than the attacks fir bolg fall into.”

My brother asked, “Are you ok with that? You have been smiling a lot as you teach us things we never knew, yet they say your work is worth less to them than others.”

“It does upset me from time to time, but I have enough money to provide for my children, wife, siblings, and parents, so I don’t care that much. It is not like I would be remembered anyway, so I might as well do my best for those around me.”

Smiling Ibar says, “I wish to do the same.”

“Me too!”

“Now let us continue.”