The Archbarons

Sorry it's been so long since I posted, life (and college) has swallowed what little free time I scraped together. However, I still have had time to write. Over the next few weeks I'll be posting some of what I've created in the hiatus and perhaps some new things as well, as soon as school lets out. Let me know what you think.

This story is sort of fanciful, and came from watching The Sword in the Stone for the first time in a long time. I don't know if the plot is even viable, but the world is fun to explore. 

            The teakettle shrieked and ran under the stove. Adrian snarled and kicked the black monstrosity the kettle was cowering under. The stove muttered under its breath.

            “Mom!” He shouted. “I’m going to kill this kettle!”

            “Don’t!” His mother’s voice drifted from the tiny parlor. “We can’t afford another.”

            “It doesn’t want to make tea!” Adrian shouted. “It’s a lazy little bugger and never wants to make tea.”

            The kettle lofted a piece of stale cheese at Adrian. Frustrated, he stomped into the parlor and dropped onto the ancient rocking chair opposite the worn divan his mother sat on, knitting cozies to sell.

            “Why can’t we be rich?” He knew there wasn’t an answer.

            “Go get your pole and fish a while, dear.” His mother answered gently, not looking up from her work. “There’s little enough we can do about it.”

            “I wish Dad had never died.”

            “I assume he wishes the same.”

            “I shouldn’t even be here.”

            “It would certainly make things easier if you weren’t hanging about. I could actually get some work done.” The humor in her voice was kind, but it had bite. Adrian sulked as she lowered her work, looking at him wearily.

            “I told you a half-dozen times. Until you realize there will never be enough money if you make me stay with you all the time instead of accepting the kind gentleman Alexander’s proposal, then we will never have enough money.”

            “He’s a stiff.”

            “You’re a brat. Now please, off you go.” She returned to her work.

            Adrian walked out the door, which tried to smack his backside as he left. He turned and spat an epithet at the object, then began to walk through the woods to the creek.

            Purth had been a flourishing land full of commerce and trade and happiness and kindness and wealth, until the Enderfell wars. Two powerful factions of Archbarons had clashed, the Pearl and the Iron. The Iron thought that they deserved more power than even the Empress Dowager because of their hereditary Thaumaturgical abilities. The Pearl thought that the natural balance should be kept as it is, and left the way it was, with the natural ruling order. The Iron were the Empress’s Own, her special forces and elite warriors, executioners. The Pearl were healers, traveling bards, guards. The Pearl were, obviously, wiped out, and the Thaumatic fallout from the battle had enchanted ordinary items for miles. The battle that they had fought had wasted the battlefield, which now was known as Frith’s Folly. The leader of the Pearl Archbarons, Frith, had left the land after watching so many of his friends and family die at the hands of the Iron Archbaron’s Field Marshal Agex. Some said he would return, others said he was dead. Who really knew?

            The little stream was only marginally enchanted, but fish would still on occasion say something sarcastic, or otherwise depart from regular fishly duties. Adrian dropped his line into the azure water and let the silence consume him.