New RP? Or perhaps a story I will work on eventually
It is cold and dark. The mist rests heavily on the ornate stone doors and broken roof tops of the ruined castle. In the courtyard, a mutilated, stone angel clutches its heart in a silent scream, no longer able to sing the praises required to purify the water at its feet. Parks and gardens are petrified, no longer able to feel the desert sun during the day. One would find it hard to believe that the sad lumps of stone and decayed wood, surrounding the castle walls, housed life not but 100 years past. It is more impossible that such a city even exists, or that anything in the hot desert could ever survive.
Save for a few, the tarnished landscape is barren of sentient life. Even the monsters dare not visit this sad place surrounded by high, corroded walls. Only in the hearts of a small, tired group does the ruined city hold any hope. They are outlaws, by choice, throwing away the carefully constructed lies of society and choosing to live in the wastelands of previous wars, vainly hoping to make a life where they may choose. They find little comfort save for the grand images of old times that stay alive in their minds.
The leader, is an experienced commander who has seen more murder of innocents than justice. His naturally noble soul, injured by the lack of common sense in his superiors, bid him flee from the corrupt capital that houses the ruler of a grand empire. Leaving his twin and best friend, who saw nothing but good intents, he fought the hard journey across miles of harsh landscapes and hordes of, now, unfriendly troops. With him traveled two teenagers.
The boy is a thief, stealing in order to feed his family. When they were taken away from him by a horrible plague he turned his attention to the surviving orphans and to his best friend, left weak by the disease. Hearing of a miracle cure for her, untouched by society and hidden away in a land scarred by the sun and horrible war. In a heartbeat he went with the broken commander, not expecting his weakened friend to follow.
Unable to bear the pain of losing her only friend, the girl follows them both. Graceful by nature and years of dancing, she followed them for days undetected. It was not until one quiet morning that her stomach gave her away. She listened to their arguments for her to go back with a smile on her face and ended it by saying, “I would have died in a gutter if I had stayed and no one would have bothered to bury me. Then your journey would have been in vain. And if I am going to die, it will not be in that corrupt place.” They could not sway her and whenever the topic came up she would saw something cryptic about knowing more about healing than the god that pointed them in their direction. It wasn't until they arrived at the desolate place that they realized they knew nothing about this girl, even though she never kept anything from them.
Arriving, they found a proud spirit living in the city. A young woman met them with a polished blade and threats. The soldier beat her back and was to strike her unconscious when she invited them to live with her in the city. The last living royalty of the wasted country, she was cursed to live in the city until she could make up for the cowardice of her ancestors and revive peace that once reigned over the world. Lonely, she went against the wishes of the gods and showed them her sacred homeland. She deemed the commander her captain and relied heavily upon his advice while at the same time showing them the secrets of the desert.
Years later, a pilot and his crew crashed at the gates of their city. The pilot is an aristocrat turned rebel and had been shot out of the air by bounty hunters after the large price on his head. He knew a lot of just about anything they needed to know, but more importantly, he knew how to make big things out of the littlest scraps as well as dozens of languages, both written and spoken.
His co-pilot is a beautiful non-Hume, native to the lands south of the city and knew this dead country's story well. She had been present during its destruction and knew the secrets still unfound by its mismatched inhabitants.
The moogle mechanic that travels with them seemed crazy by the mist, at first, and talked about his mate trapped in “a city beneath the city.” Searches proved his ramblings to be unreal and a figment of the moogles overactive imagination.
There were also two passengers on board the ship, or rather, prisoners, which the growing group also took into their fold, the emperors two sons. They were to be ransomed for the freedom of fellow rebels and many rights for the people. The oldest was prime and proper, but also held a kind of savagery that struck a cord in the princess. She offered him life, in exchange for help and hard work. He agreed grudgingly. The youngest was curious about the seemingly lifeless country they had crashed into. He urged his brother to agree to the princesses terms, seeing this as a chance to see how to change his own country for the better.
The princess, plays queen while negotiating with the nomads, who roamed the sand and the plains, for necessities her little community could not provide for themselves. The captain makes major decisions and teaches the princess how to run a group of people. The thief hunts for food, water and for the cure that would help his friend. The girl finds her place as resident healer and chef, begging the captain and her friend to keep her condition concealed from everyone else. The intelligent pilot works on his ship with his mechanic and searches for hidden treasures with his lovely co-pilot. The two sons help where they can, but spend a lot of time observing their companions and the place where they could almost see wonders of the past lurking in the shadows of the mist. So it was that they lived like this for a few years, in peace. Conflict between each other was cured by the inevitable threat of death by the environment.
It is a game. One that meant life or death. One that is in danger of being destroyed by the very people they ran from. People who would take advantage of the hard desert and use it to further their own agendas and further destroy the world.