![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The Allotment - the grant of land ceded by The King of Oak and Holly to Queen Majtalona and her heirs as the Kingdom of Antarion - is one hundred and twenty-eight miles on a side. It belongs to humankind and within it, the fey will end no human lives, so long as they stay within its boundaries.
That is why the Wall was built. Not as a defense - for most of its length it runs knee-high, if that. It serves only as a boundary marker, a line defining the edge of the map. In the West, where much of the boundary is ocean, there is a line of buoys set with bells. Technically, it is not the true edge of the kingdom - it was deliberately built several yards inward from the border, so that if it collapsed, or needed to be expanded, there was room to work. Still, crossing it for any purpose but repair is an act of treason, if one is lucky enough to survive until their execution.
Commoners who cross the Wall generally vanish. Sometimes, their families vanish from within the Kingdom as well. The fey, being immortal, have little understanding of the death penalty as a concept. They do kill those who stumble across, but not as a punishment.
Punishment is reserved for those mage-lords who cross. History records only four.
Some short years after the agreement with the fey was concluded, Gens-Lord Melcasarile rose up in rebellion against the Queen. He felt that it was not right for her bloodline and her inferior magic to be set above his own, and that she had conceded to the fey too quickly. For them to grant land, with no concessions or barter, meant that they were weak, or feared war, or were simply, in their inhuman way, pliable enough to be pressed for more.
He rode with an army of three thousand, north across the Wall, to carve out his own kingdom.
Not one of them survived the first hundred yards. The earth itself swallowed them. Horses screamed, reared, and trampled their fallen riders. The branches of trees snaked down and strangled them. Streams overflowed their beds and drowned them. Never once was their a visible enemy to strike at.
When only Melcasarile was left alive, they came for him. They knew why he had come, they told him, and they would be pleased to grant his wish.
First, they made him immortal. Then they took him underground, to a cave within sight of the Wall, just north of the Allotment. That cave - eighty feet by one hundred and sixty feet, fifteen feet in height, some forty feet underground - they gave to him as his kingdom. And then they bound him there with their magic, so that he could never, ever leave.
Eight hundred years later, he is still there. But now, he is not alone.
That is why the Wall was built. Not as a defense - for most of its length it runs knee-high, if that. It serves only as a boundary marker, a line defining the edge of the map. In the West, where much of the boundary is ocean, there is a line of buoys set with bells. Technically, it is not the true edge of the kingdom - it was deliberately built several yards inward from the border, so that if it collapsed, or needed to be expanded, there was room to work. Still, crossing it for any purpose but repair is an act of treason, if one is lucky enough to survive until their execution.
Commoners who cross the Wall generally vanish. Sometimes, their families vanish from within the Kingdom as well. The fey, being immortal, have little understanding of the death penalty as a concept. They do kill those who stumble across, but not as a punishment.
Punishment is reserved for those mage-lords who cross. History records only four.
Some short years after the agreement with the fey was concluded, Gens-Lord Melcasarile rose up in rebellion against the Queen. He felt that it was not right for her bloodline and her inferior magic to be set above his own, and that she had conceded to the fey too quickly. For them to grant land, with no concessions or barter, meant that they were weak, or feared war, or were simply, in their inhuman way, pliable enough to be pressed for more.
He rode with an army of three thousand, north across the Wall, to carve out his own kingdom.
Not one of them survived the first hundred yards. The earth itself swallowed them. Horses screamed, reared, and trampled their fallen riders. The branches of trees snaked down and strangled them. Streams overflowed their beds and drowned them. Never once was their a visible enemy to strike at.
When only Melcasarile was left alive, they came for him. They knew why he had come, they told him, and they would be pleased to grant his wish.
First, they made him immortal. Then they took him underground, to a cave within sight of the Wall, just north of the Allotment. That cave - eighty feet by one hundred and sixty feet, fifteen feet in height, some forty feet underground - they gave to him as his kingdom. And then they bound him there with their magic, so that he could never, ever leave.
Eight hundred years later, he is still there. But now, he is not alone.
