The Queen

Oh yes, the people of this Kingdom know your greatness, even though you sometimes may doubt it yourself..

Even as the ruler of a Kingdom, even as you order your armies and your noble Knights into battle and to victory, you still know and feel your humanity…

The people, your people, praise you for the prosperity and peace that you have guided your Kingdom too…

And as you mind the Kingdoms affairs, off in a far away land, your beloved barbarian King fights a war against the worlds evil Warlords, his blood stained sword and face jumps into the brutality of the battle as if his life depended upon holding back the hordes from getting one step closer to the Kingdom he fought so valiantly helped create with you.

And on the morning after a hard fought victory, his Knights , your Knights, surround him and chant his name, but this is not the glory he has traveled so far to seek, no, the one thought that propels him forward, through scars and injuries, is the thought of when, as a King living alone, without a Queen , he was struck down and left for dead in battle, and as he was saved and brought back to health by two older commoners of a nearby village, he recovered there, and in his convalescence he asked the kind couple who saved him to not tell the other Villagers that he was King, because the battle was fought in the fog, and a royal betrayal took place against himself and his throne.

He grew a beard and recovered his strength and took a simple job as a blacksmith as he sent word to his most trusted soldiers, knights and comrades that he needed them to gather the information that would eventually lead him to his betrayers and eventually back to his throne. But for now he was thought of have died in that battle across his mighty Kingdom, and a false King had taken his place, a cruel boy King of his own bloodline no less, for now he was the Hidden King awaiting his chance to not only bring the truth to light, but regain his throne. And this is where the future Queen comes into our story, as he walked along the shores of the village, he met a beautiful young woman, a commoner by all accounts, but not carrying herself as such, humble and learned , and they began to walk daily along the shore, and he realized that she held a wisdom that belied her years, and eventually this young girl, 15 years younger than the King who was now passing as the Blacksmith in this village on the very outskirts of the Kingdom, his Kingdom, but the wisdom this young girl shared along their walks had softened the Kings heart and strengthened his love of his people in all the villages in the vastness of the Kingdom. The story of the common girl who would eventually sit upon the throne as Queen begins here, along the shoreline in the most distant village from the Castle the King called home, but in those walks and talks The Hidden King, for now, saw royalty in her graceful beauty and her true knowledge of what his subjects had suffered through, but yes, along these shores a commoner for the first time in the history of the Kingdom will rise to be Queen of all the Kingdoms in the land, and the Hidden King shall not be hidden for much longer, for The King shall rise from this village too, and taking the hand of the girl who would be his Queen, whose wisdom and insight reignited the Kings passions for his Kingdom, and opened up his hard heart to let in not just the love of a girl who would be Queen , but a new found love for all the people and their struggles in their everyday lives.

Eventually he would reveal himself, regain his most loyal soldiers, and every village in the land would follow him into battle to regain not just his former Kingdom, but a new shining vision that the future Queen carried with her alongside the reborn King, and together they would all join to battle the evil Boy King, who was his own slain brothers Son, his nephew Philip , whom he raised as his own, now the Evil boy King Phillip did not know the King had survived , for it was his plot to kill the King in the fog of that battle, and the battle to come would be both epic , heroic and the stuff of legend, but ultimately that is a story that shall be told at another time ..

John Walter Raney 1st