Part I: Noel Becomes a King

There was a land, born out of one man who solidified it a millennia ago. Alexander, the man who untied the Gord Knot, was the one who is considered the founder of his kingdom, and yet, his descendant sat coughing blood. He was frail, old, and could barely see. He could still speak, but it was brief, a minute each day. The once Great King Cadmus hadn’t been able to rule for some time now and as he lay on his dying bed, he called for his most trusted advisor, Herald Bonnet. Every king needs a kingly advisor, one who wasn’t bound by blood but by an immense duty to the green pastures and blue skies of Argunstun. His final words to his beloved advisor were, “The kingdom must live on”. And with that, the lineage of Alexander; the founder of Argunstun had passed. Over the next couple of months, the kingdom decided that the kingly advisor, the one whose main job was to maintain the state in all its capacity should rule as a temporary regent. However, both the nobles and the people clearly didn’t recognize King Bonnet (the former advisor Herald) as the one true King. Yes, he was crowned by the Pope and was therefore legitimate through the semantic religious practices of the kingdom, but the allure of power was too much, especially since there was no actual legitimacy behind King Bonnet’s rule. In addition to this, John the Bastard, the illegitimate, but only son of his kingly father needed Argunstun’s debts, as King Cadmus’s father promised his father that he would be given the crown, and now it seemed as if the kingdom chose King Bonnet instead. King Bonnet was able to weather the storm for some time, as everyone plotted within the power vacuum that had emerged with the illegitimacy of his crowning. There was a farmer who witnessed all of this, who heard the excitement from his peers about the illegitimacy, the news that John the Bastard would come, like a boogeyman to steal the kingdom, and yet, if you were to speak to him, he’d only ask you one question, “Can you bear the responsibility of a King? You want the crown because the crown is illegitimate, but are you, am I, any more legitimate?” His name was Noel Fayden, and he had always felt suffocated by the idea that he wasn’t made to live for callouses and cattle; no, what he saw was an opening. People used rhetoric, mapped out plots and connections to try and usurp the crown from King Bonnet, but Noel? Noel’s impulse became very clear when, once John the Bastard had landed and was getting closer to his hometown and the capital, he went there and burnt their tent and stole the food and weapons that they had stored. His silhouette became famous because King Bonnet searched for him, far and wide. When he finally went to the King’s palace he was blocked by bodyguards who didn’t believe he could’ve been the man responsible. Many people tried to take credit for the incident but none convinced King Bonnet. Noel, as the man who did it was able to. With this he was hired to kill John the Bastard, but he didn’t want gold. No, he wanted the King’s old position as the kingly advisor. With the King agreeing to these terms, Noel obliged willingly, knowing that while everyone plotted, he was the only one who took actions to back up his rhetoric, while, at this point of time, rhetoric had lost all meaning due to those all plotting for the crown but none willing to bear the cost of actions needed to achieve that. Though Noel was slower to achieve the task than the King would have liked, the night before John the Bastard was going to invade the capital city, Noel found his tent, cut off his head, put it in his knapsack, and burned the tents that the soldiers were in. When he revealed the head to the King, some nobles gasped but the King was pleased, as the danger from the outside was now permanently averted. What he didn’t realize was that now he would become increasingly reliant on Noel, and Noel had planned this, always a couple steps ahead. The King promised that once he was able to prevent the plotting of his downfall, then, only then would he be the advisor to him. In reality, he was hoping to dispose of Noel, for he was too brash, too confident, too dangerous. Not many people can so easily outshine a King, but to Noel it came naturally. Noel agreed, but asked him “is it better to be feared or loved”. King Bonnet remembered how King Cadmus, a man he greatly admired became soft for his love for the people and how that destroyed him even though he thought he was all right. The minute he said “fear” Noel proposed three options. Pardoning all of conspirators, killing some but not others, and killing them all. However, with Cadmus fresh on his mind and the idea that killing inconsistently would lead to questions on his legitimacy, he chose the third option. With this, Noel got all the bodyguards to round up all the conspirators and the when they were all found, there was a public execution with the executioner methodically moving his axe, as if he were chopping wood. It was all attributed to King Bonnet, not Noel. With King Bonnet’s problems solved he arrested Noel using Noel’s tricks against him, but Noel had an ace up his sleeve. He referenced the myth of Alexander’s sword, that the one who can lift it from the stone where it was placed would become the legitimate King of Argunstun. What everyone didn’t know but Noel is that he was a builder when he was bored, and he created a contraption that would allow the user to take out the sword if used just right, but most of the time, the sword was locked. Only he could see where he put his creation to unlock the sword. Noel made a deal with King Bonnet. If he fails to get the sword, the King can execute him. If not, then they will switch places, he will be King, and he will be on the chopping block. The King invited citizens to watch, expecting Noel to fail and then to execute him. However, he got goaded by Noel to be the one to attempt it first, as he was the King and needed to prove to his people that he was legitimate. The sword was stuck, and though he strained and strained until his face turnt red, it would not come out. He called the sword “a stubborn old man” and clarified to everyone that Noel’s life depended on whether or not he could take out the sword. He, at first strained and strained like the King did, before pressing his foot on his contraption which made the sword loose and he was able to unsheathe it from the stone. With this, the onlookers all believed he was the true leader Alexander had wanted from a millennia ago, and King Bonnet had his mouth agape. As promised, as there was really no going back, Noel Fayden was going to become King, but before he did, King Bonnet (now Herald again) asked if he would kill him, but Noel instead gave him life imprisonment. It was at that moment that Herald Bonnet realized that he was manipulated by a 23 year old and as he screamed colorful words at Noel, he was taken to the prison where he would spend the remainder of his life. Meanwhile, when it came for Noel to be crowned, he took the crown and placed it upon his own head. The crowd was shocked and whispered, wondering if it went against Argunstun tradition to do so. The Pope was frustrated as that was his main role. King Fayden ended with a speech that day, filling the audience with the “New Dawn” that would come now that he was King. Unlike King Bonnet, the sword trick legitimized King Fayden and no one plotted against him.

Part II: Noel Becomes A Beloved King

Over the next three months Noel began searching for advisors but, unlike tradition, he didn’t want to put all the affairs of state on one man. After he created his team, he finally had auditions for his kingly advisor, and most people were idealistic or pragmatic but not in the way he needed. Finally, after another idealistic person who thought his love of the state meant he could run the state, a middle aged man named Edwin Eldrich came to him. Edwin Eldrich was a man who had been surviving off of odd jobs since he was 17, and only now in middle age was he in the places with influence. With this, he passed Fayden’s test where when he asked “how do you think” he answered in the same type of pragmatism that Fayden would have said, and it was that where he was hired. Eldrich thought more about getting things done more than the morality of how to get it done, and that resonated with King Fayden. With that Edwin Eldrich became Advisor Edwin, the King’s advisor. With that, King Fayden put all his advisors into one room, with Advisor Edwin being given special treatment being allowed to speak for him and anything that Edwin said, is something that Fayden would agree with. Despite Argunstun being a relatively respected minor kingdom, they were behind in many capacities. They used only their own resources and had no trading partners and had only a small military, unable to protect itself if they ever were to go to war. Their legal system was a combination of “that’s been common sense for a millennia” and mythology turnt into rule, and King Fayden decided for the next two years, he and his team of advisors would reform Argunstun into a modern pinnacle of society. Whereas the last King (Bonnet) believed in fear, Fayden only used fear for the nobles and his advsiors, as they could directly threaten him and the kingdom while the peoples love, that is what he was relying on would keep him in power for the remainder of his life. Two years came and passed, Argunstun finally had some trading partners and ditched their isolationist policies, making the economy so good that the people could afford to buy themselves little treats once and a while instead of the constant hamster race of work, money, spend all money to survive, repeat. They had constructed a legal system, which was the most progressive the country had ever seen – the countries’ citizens could now speak openly about government without being executed for it, and they had expanded rights in other areas as well such as self expression. For the first time since Alexander founded the kingdom were real actionable change made with the people in mind, and that reaffirmed in their minds that the King truly was doing Alexander’s work. They may not like everything he did (like raising taxes) but most of the things he did helped them (bigger houses, more food, more money). Finally, he held a festival at the end of the third or fourth year as a way to keep the people’s imagination of him real, and it was a victory lap. Advisor Edwin thought the festival was gaudy and unnecessary, but his overwhelming pragmatism blinded him to the importance of a nation full of happy citizens, King Fayden, though, knew all too well. Not to say King Fayden was a saintly King, with his position he courted many women and they largely were into that courtship due to the crown being just near their vicinity and he began to schedule the times in which he would go on sexual escapades to give him relief from stately affairs, he viewed it as an exercise, the ones who did it viewed it as “I may be Queen” while his favorite, Penelope Sunshine is the one who implicitly promised the Queen position, but it wasn’t set in stone because he loved her, he just wasn’t in love with her. That’s how he felt about the many people who came to him for his nightly, bed workout sessions. Though, it was the festival that he hosted in addition to all his reforms that made him a beloved King to the people. He finally had everything he had dreamt of since he was a younger man with callouses and dream – wealth, influence, and the people’s adoration.