VI. Prognosticus

The storm provided atmosphere for the tale.

Wind howled through the courtyard and thunder rolled along the hills. Shadoe and Ryli sat side by side on the bed, Shadoe with her knees to her chest, tail wrapped around her, Ryli with her ears twitching at each flash of lightning that lit up the sky outside. The summer storm had come without warning, taking the sun away and laying siege on the castle.

Artemus started with the story, the occasional flashes causing his tall shadow to grow and fill the room along with his excited, rich voice. "Around half a century ago, during the reign of our father's father, there was a temple discovered in the western forests."

"Two hundred years before that, a great war had torn the country apart. Elle's westernmost region is now nearly deserted, mostly wild, rugged territory. That's because at the close of the war, the nation was divided- to the west lies Agratheon. We remain Elle. The strip of land along both sides of the border is no longer populated."

"Shush., brother, you interrupted."

"Hm."

"Well, as he said, the westernmost border is only forests, mountains, deserts, the zone between the two nations left mostly alone to avoid conflict. It's not rare for ancient artifacts and ruins to be discovered in these areas. And, around two hundred years after the civil war, somebody discovered the temple. Stained glass windows with the colors all shattered about... Stone pillars at the brink of collapse... It's almost strange that it took so long to be discovered. It's practically in our backyard." Artemus glanced out the window and pointed into the treeline that began at the edge of the tall outer walls. The tops of the evergreens where whipping back and forth with the wind. "In there, only about a days walk or so. But the forests are sort of like a maze and sometimes strange things happen in there. "

"While it would seem inconvenient for Elle's capital to be so close to the potential danger of the unpopulated zone, when the countries were one, this same capital was the center of it all. So the capital remains where it has always been, the center of our world." Actaeon sat on the windowsill, stretching his long legs out along it.

"That's right. From the other side of the castle, you can see the city stretching out eastward. We'll take you there sometime! It's great. Food everywhere. People everywhere. Shiny things and good smells and lots of noise..." Artemus' tail wagged excitedly for a moment until he remembered he was telling a story. "Well, in the forest temple was found a set of scrolls, rolled up inside two identical rusted cases. There's no telling what sort of treasure the temple had held before, because it seems it had been raided and looted over time, possibly even right after the western collapse or during the war. It's lucky the scrolls survived and also lucky they weren't lost to some petty thief. Because on the old paper was written the destiny of Elle."

Actaeon watched lightning strike at the hills and, before he spoke, waited for an end to the peal of thunder that followed a couple of seconds after the flash. "It turns out that the pair of writings was actually a set of 'Seer Scrolls.' Prophecy used to be much more common than it is in modern Elle. Some say it's for lack of necessity- that we shape our own destinies. Some say it's for lack of faith. You can't trust most psychics and fortune-tellers, particularly if they work for money. They have a tendency to simply say what they think you want to hear. The scrolls discovered in the abandoned temple, however are pretty ancient. And they definately don't say anything that anyone would want to hear."

"Artemus is good with languages. We have the same teachers, but it's always come more easily to him. It seems he's just naturally inclined to that sort of thing; I suppose that's good, for a future king."Actaeon shrugged and traced a shape into the spot of fog his breath had created on the window pane. "Up until a year ago, the scrolls had been stored away, they had been forgotten, and the contents went unexplored. My brother and I started looking them over for nothing more than practice. We have open access to the library here, where plenty of old, discarded books and scrolls are kept. Though the scrolls had some tears and missing parts, we were eventually able to more or less translate the majority. By the end of summer, we realized it wasn't just a religous book or a family tree or anything typical like that."

"Because the scrolls were in a virtually dead language, it was difficult to translate the full meaning, but... From what we can tell, our kingdom is heading towards destruction."

"And you two... Seem to be the only way we can stop that 'The End' from coming true."