Castor Skies and the Fall of Ayrunu

So, I haven't posted in a while, but I'm back! I have two more nations I want to get up, but first, I thought I'd toss this small (very small) excerpt from a short story I'm working on for Pathseekers. It's about the Fall of the Xuruian capital, Ayrunu, though the the eyes of Castor Skies. Castor is my first "hero" character. Think of him as a major player in the history of Triunia. Anyway, this is what I got so far.

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The man once known as Castor Noran looked lazily into the sky. It had been over fifteen years since he was accepted by the Xuruians, and moved to the capital city of Ayrunu. There he became Castor of the Skies or Castor Skies, which he generally used when signing books. That’s right, finally he was an accepted novelist, poet, and all around philosopher. It was his skill with the pen that finally persuaded the Xuruian leaders to accept his request to join their nation.

Clouds floated casually over the city as Castor remembered the struggles he went through trying to become an official Xuruian. They weren’t the type to let just anyone in, and Castor was the exact opposite of the people of this nation.

He was born in the nation of Aer. In fact, he was raised to be the next ruler of Aer-Ith along with his twin brother Cyron. Given Aer-Ith’s disposition to choose twin emperors, they generally groomed multiple sets of twins at al times to take the throne one day. Cyron and Castor Noran were at the top of the list before Cyron was killed in a mining accident that many believed was not an accident at all but a ploy to take Noran family out of the running for the crowns. Ploy or not, it worked.

Castor could not be a twin emperor without a twin, so like all not chosen to be the next ruler, Castor would be groomed to a duke or earl under one of the emperors.

Castor had other ideas. He was never one for royalty or nobility in the first place. It was never his choice to be an emperor, and his brother enjoyed the notion far more than him. Castor saw it as an opportunity to do something else entirely. And while it’s true that the nobility of Aer-Ith are far more into the intellectual world than the lower classes, not even they compared to the creativity level of Castor Noran.

His politics were seen as ridiculous, his philosophies as lazy, and his writing as fanciful and a waste by his people’s standards. So he did what very few Aers ever did, he left the mountains. He set his eyes on Xuru almost immediately; goggles on, of course, to protect his sensitive eyes from the sun. And to the dark skin Xuru, he was a joke—at first at least. They saw his pale skin and goggled eyes as the sign of a sheltered fool, which is how they saw most of the people from Aer-Ith. Xuruians were people who believed the sky was the limit—quite literally—and they saw the people of Aer-Ith as blockheads and laborers.

Castor stretched out in the green grass as he smiled, remembering the first days in the flying cities. For a nation that claimed freethinking and open minds, Castor saw them as pretty closed minded and ignorant on first contact. It was this he used to his advantage. He used words, images, and colors to show them the folly of their thinking. It was with that they recognized how far from the path they had strayed. Originally, the Xuruians wanted to become the world’s source of knowledge and art, but somewhere along the path they had become very xenophobic and stubborn. It was Castor Noran who held the mirror for them.

Since that day, so very long ago, he had became Castor Skies and never looked back. Ayrunu grew and her libraries were full of tomes from the entire world. They even had a section dedicated to Castor’s works and travels. He had become famous from the Shimmering Coasts to the depths of Ith.

And now he was able to relax in the mecca of art and knowledge, one that he’d forever be credited to opening to the rest of the world.

“Master Skies,” came a voice from above him.

“Eh?” Castor said as he awoke from his memories of yesteryear. He opened his eyes to see his butler Tylen Roves standing above him. “How’s it going, Roves? I was just enjoying the clouds. You know, dreaming of the past and how I came to be here.”

“Very good, sir,” said the older man in his very drawn out voice. He always seemed to be getting everything he could from each word. It’s why Castor hired him. “I was sent to warn you that the weather looks like it is going to be dreadful.”

“What? I talked to Hlotir earlier, and he said it was smooth sailing today. No need for sky shields or anything.” Hlotir Yymen was a Stormshifter, which to say was a specialized Airshifter. He studied the elements of the skies, and was generally good at predicting natural weather as well as creating it when necessary.

“Aye, I heard the reports, sir. However, look at that,” replied the butler pointing off to the left.

Castor sat up to see what the old man was pointing at, and even with his dark goggles on, he could tell the clouds to the far left of Ayrunu were darker then the rest. They were not just dark; though, they were black, and it was blacker than Castor had ever seen clouds before.

“That’s not storm clouds, Roves. Get inside and start packing.”

“Sir? What is it?”

Castor ran his hand through his fiery hair and replied, “I don’t know, but it isn’t any kind of storm clouds I’ve ever seen. Something is about to happen. Something big. Have you ever wanted to be part of history, Roves? Something that would be remembered forever.”

The butler paused for a moment and scratched his head. “What do you mean, sir?”
Castor looked back toward the approaching clouds and said, “We’re about to live it, Roves.”

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I totally want to write more. I really like Castor! Red hair, freckles, and all! Anyway, hope everyone here liked it! ^_^