Talia of the Thornlands

04 The Hibernation

The Elders arrived at the warfront. They met the Queen at the frontier where the Western wing led by King Hesiod was fighting a losing battle.

The fae combined their Harmonies to hold back the enemies but the scales were slowly tipping against them.

At first, one Machine broke through the defence, followed by another and then the entire defence line crumbled.

It was in the midst of this hopelessness that a cry arose from the battlelines, "The Sky Palace is falling!"

The King and Queen looked up – the monstrous disk floating above them, the home of the Machines, was descending fast.

Explosions burst from underneath the hive, spewing materials in downward arcs. The debris rained down on the battlefield in a shower of fire.

Bigger pieces shook the ground, the smaller chunks knocked out soldiers and even entire Machines. The battlefield fell into chaos as soldiers on both sides ran for cover. Machines ran amok.

The fae Elders used Harmony to pluck Thornlanders from the field into the safety of a temporary fort they had set up.

The Sky Palace tilted at an awkward trajectory and hurled towards an invisible target beyond the horizon.

The whole event unfolded in mere hours.

The hive dived below the horizon, followed by a resounding explosion. A stream of blinding light arose from the site of impact. Dust and rocks were thrown upwards in a large cloud shaped like a mushroom.

Then came the shockwave.

The fae sensed it. They involuntarily gathered large swaths of the Sap around themselves and their troops in a tight, protective shield.

"Retreat to the supply tunnels," Elder Mallory called.

The cry was taken up by others and in a moment all the Thornlanders rushed underground, prepared for impact.

The shockwave blew over them at a high speed, the hot air stripping the lands of life and burning down everything in its path.

Hundreds of Machines were charred in the very spot they stood.

Thornlanders continued to retreat through the deep underground tunnels that connected the warzone with the supply zones farther inlands.

Fae Elders sealed the surface entrances with soil. They used Harmony to set up steady air streams to keep the insides of the tunnels aerated.

The ordeal lasted for days as the tunnels, normally confined to the use of a couple hundred soldiers at a time, saw the sudden influx of over ten thousand troops.

Under the skilful guidance of the King and the Queen, the survivors journeyed through the subterranean paths and resurfaced at the supply head, almost a two days' distance from the site of impact.

The suppliers, too, had felt the disturbance of the impact but the air had not been affected much at that distance.

Over the next few months, the fae untiringly guided the winds to seal the contamination of the warzone to the area of impact. During that time, no new Machines emerged from the warfront.

A few months after the impact, the remaining Machines were defeated by the Thornlanders, hammering in the last nail on the Mechanical Wars.

*****

Several years had passed.

King Hesiod and Queen Celeana had retired from the throne, leaving the kingdom to their adopted child, a girl named Aurora.

After the coronation ceremony of the new Queen, the previous royal couple decided to go on a pilgrimage.

They visited the towns and cities wiped out by the war. Many of these had been rebuilt over time. Yet others were reclaimed by Nature.

Citizens greeted the old couple with all the respect of their reigning heyday.

After almost a year of travels, they arrived at the last frontier, the site where the Sky Palace had crashed.

Even after over two decades, this poisoned land was yet to spring to full bloom.

The land was overrun by layers of thornwood – the eponymous flora of their planet. These vines were known for their resilience.

The royal entourage hacked through the outer thorny shrubs. Inside was a crumbling world fighting against the vagaries of time.

Charred mounds indicated what remained of the once fearsome Machines. Their structures disintegrated at the lightest touch.

Farther inwards, they arrived at the site of the crash itself. The colossal remains of the Sky Palace sat in a hollow bowl of earth now covered in a shallow lake.

The sight of it revived years of repressed trauma at the warfront. A murmur broke out in the crowd.

The King was the first to notice, "What is that?"

His eyes had caught on a spherical cage formed entirely of thornwood. It was partly hidden by the deteriorating walls of the Sky Palace.

At the behest of the King, a boat was arranged. Their royal guards rowed towards it, swords ready to face an unknown terror from the past.

They landed at the site but nothing stirred in response. The guards cut open the vines to the centre of the sphere.

"We found a child!" one of the soldiers called.

King Hesiod and Queen Celeana rushed to the spot, a spark of hope reviving in their old hearts.

She was a toddler again, a little older than the royal couple remembered. The gathering Sap of Life shielded her against the years.

Her parents once again held their child in a loving embrace. She was still recovering, still growing.

Princess Talia was curled in the lap of a hundred years of fabled sleep.