Ryckel shook his head. "It's a stupid rule. And why do you guys fight them? It seems like a lot of energy for nothing."
"They don't like us because of our descent," Leania said, her tone turning bitter. "They think we're smuggling resources to the Vascals up North. They forget that in the beginning, we were all just miners trying to survive. It makes you think, doesn't it?"
"But how are there even 'Northerners' here?" Ryckel asked. "Didn't Kern take all the Northern ancestors across the Dividing Sea after the war with Lebel?"
Leania sighed. "Most of them. But you Southerners have such... narrow thinking."
"Hey!"
Ryckel's mind recalled on the tale that everyone knew on this continent.
More than a thousand years ago, during the end of the Voyager age and the beginning of the Found age.
The Founding Brothers. Two brothers, Lebel and Kern, set out on a expedition for finding land after noticing that over countless years, the water levels were receeding and lowering.
They gathered a large number of people, filling as much as they could into an ark known as the Foundation. They sailed for forty days and forty nights, battling beasts they had never seen before and the unforgiving waters.
Also fighting against the Bleeding Hour which was new to them at the time and losing a lot of lives in it all. Yet, they learned and adapted and pulled through, arriving on a landmass. It was the only landmass in the world as far as the brothers were concerned.
Them and the remaining survivors met humans who had settled on the landmass before then and mingled.
Over time, due to dying relations between groups, a war broke out. The Founding War. And at the forefront of it, Lebel and Kern, on opposing sides due to differing ideologies that Ryckel couldn't remember.
The war ended with a truce, that Kern were to be banished with his followers to the North and Lebel and his people stayed in the South.
To cement this, Lebel created the Dividing Sea that would forever separate the continent into North and South.
"Everyone knows the story," Leania continued, ignoring his protest. "Kern supported the savages and Lebel protected his people. The truce created the Dividing Sea. But not everyone followed Kern. Some Northerners stayed behind. We're their children. But that doesn't stop people from hating us for things our ancestors did."
"So it is a stupid divide," Ryckel muttered. "We're all just people stuck on the same continent." He thought of his own family.
Stupid people fighting for stupid reasons always leads to poor outcomes for the not-so-stupid ones.
"Right?" Leania agreed, her voice dropping.
"It just gives Father and Grandpa stress. Especially Grandpa. They can't see the root problem is the Amphictony and those bastard noble clans." She grit her teeth, her left hand reaching over to caress the smooth stump of her right shoulder.
The silence that followed was heavy.
Ryckel looked at the missing limb. "How did you lose it?"
Leania's gaze hardened. "Why should I tell you? We just met today."
"Fair enough," Ryckel said quietly.
Leania looked at him with newfound wonder. "You really aren't like the others. You sure you don't have some Northern blood in you?" She chuckled, but Ryckel didn't join in.
"How would I know?" He asked.
"You're alright, I guess," Leania said, leaning back. "Though I really was looking forward to fighting you. Sticking a knife through you."
The atmosphere shifted instantly. Ryckel's face went cold, his 'mask' slipping away to reveal the killer who had survived the woods.
He stretched his hand out slightly, his energy humming just beneath the surface. "I wouldn't even think about trying that if I were you."
A bead of sweat rolled down Leania's temple, but she didn't flinch. Instead, she leaned in, glaring right back into his icy eyes. "Do your worst, Southerner. Even if you're stronger, I'll make sure I'm a real pain in the ass before I'm dead."
She then backed away. Ryckel kept his gaze on her, telling himself she wasn't a threat like Hood, but the paranoia was a hard habit to break.
The silence returned, but this time it was awkward. Leania's eyes darted to a small, framed drawing leaning against a timber post.
It showed a younger, sturdier version of Pri in a set of heavy leather armor with bits of metal ones, standing next to a beautiful woman with a kind smile.
"Is that your father?" Ryckel asked, trying to break the tension.
The line work, the shading… everything's just so great! Wish I could do this… but never had the time to improve.
"It is," she said softly.
"And that woman?"
Leania didn't answer immediately. It took Ryckel a moment to piece it together. His eyes widened. "Wait... your mother?"
Leania's mood dipped. She nodded slowly, picking up the frame to look at it closer.
"Where is she? I haven't seen—"
"Don't worry yourself," Leania interrupted, a sad smile playing on her lips. "Seeing her would actually be a bad thing, if you think about it."
"Why?"
"Because she's dead."
Ryckel felt a sense of shared grief. He thought of his own father, dead and gone, leaving his mother to struggle alone. So Pri was a single father, trying to hold this together.
But as he looked closer at the drawing, his body suddenly went rigid. He focused on the armor Pri was wearing in the picture. On the chest piece, there was a familiar sigil.
A bird with its wings spread, stained in gold and rust.
"Wait..." Ryckel stammered, his voice trembling. "Yellow Doves? Why is your father wearing that armor?"
Leania looked at the drawing dismissively. "Oh? That old thing? He threw it away years ago. I know he doesn't look like much now, but Father was once part of the Stained Brothers."
Ryckel felt the world tilt. His face darkened, and his stomach churned with a sudden, violent nausea.
He was staying in the house of the very people who had tried to break him.
---The End of Chapter 28---