Lanavaille
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In the Age of Small Kingdoms, Lanavaille rose to become a founding queen. Her life has been handed down through the ages as an epic of war and love.
She was born in Chloroa, a little kingdom on the frontier, nestled between two realms of much the same size: the Kingdom of Magill to the east and the Kingdom of Sui to the west. For many long years the three kingdoms quarreled over their borders yet kept a careful balance, until one day the eastern and western kingdoms joined hands and marched to war against Lanavaille's Chloroa.
Lanavaille's father, the King of Chloroa, was a wise ruler renowned for his valor, who had subdued, one after another, the barbarian tribes that plagued his land. Chloroa had grown strong under his reign, and the kingdoms to the east and west had come to fear it.
Faced with a peril such as the kingdom had never known, the king marched forth to battle, taking even his page boys along with him. And fifteen-year-old Lanavaille, the only child the late queen had left behind, shut herself away in the temple to pray for victory.
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For three months the war dragged on, and though the two armies drove them back almost to the royal capital, the Chloroans held firm. But at last the two kings, their patience worn thin, rode into battle themselves with fresh troops, and the King of Chloroa, who had fought so valiantly, was struck down. The front lines crumbled, and the Chloroan army was scattered to the winds.
Their king lost, the retainers hurriedly gathered in council. Only one of royal blood remained in the kingdom: Princess Lanavaille, in the temple. Which of the two advancing kingdoms should they side with? Should they give the princess away as a bride, or simply offer up her head? The council fell into an uproar. Into that clamor burst a messenger with urgent news: the princess had departed for the battlefield all on her own.
Before leaving the castle, she had sent a letter ahead to each of the two kings: 'The crown of Chloroa shall belong to the one who wins victory on the Plains of Hoplier.'
If they wanted the only daughter of Chloroa's king, and this kingdom with her, they must settle the matter there. The princess who alighted upon the Plains of Hoplier with only a few guards at her side was too far away for anyone to make out her face, yet she appeared every inch a young and graceful princess.
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The moment the kings of Magill and Sui laid eyes on the princess, they turned their armies upon each other and began to attack. Just like that, their alliance was broken.
The two kingdoms were all but evenly matched. Their soldiers slew one another, and the battle grew so fierce that the kings themselves drew their swords. Then, in the thick of it, a great storm of arrows suddenly rained down upon both armies.
Before they knew it, the soldiers of Magill and Sui found themselves surrounded by the Chloroan army, the very army that was thought to have been scattered. At its head, sword raised high, stood a princess general clad in armor, her long golden hair streaming in the wind. This was the true Princess Lanavaille, who until that day had hidden herself in the guise of a humble attendant.
Their ranks already thinned from fighting one another, the enemy soldiers fell one by one to the arrows. As the two kings stood stunned at their plight, Lanavaille ran them down in the blink of an eye and struck off their heads.
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On the day the war began, Lanavaille had been commanded by her father to feign seclusion in the temple and secretly follow him to the field of battle. Since the age of twelve she had been taken to the front lines dressed as a page boy, and there, between life and death, her father had trained her. By now she had become an even greater master of war than the King of Chloroa himself.
Let the enemies strike each other down and wear away each other's strength, then fall upon them by surprise: this was the plan the late king and Lanavaille had devised to save their homeland in its darkest hour.
"At the cost of his own life, my father taught me this: 'If you are of royal blood, be ready to lay down your life for your kingdom. For what is a king who cannot protect the land and its people?'" So saying, the princess raised her father's sword high, and every one of her soldiers resolved to fight on unto death.
"I am the King of Chloroa!" It is said that when Lanavaille made this declaration before the heads of the two kings, the Plains of Hoplier rang with the cheers of Chloroa's host.
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She then marched her army into the two kingdoms and, within a single year, brought them both to heel. Seeking to carry on the rule of her bold and fiery father, she became the most beloved queen the people of Chloroa had ever known.
But then, one day, Queen Lanavaille suddenly vanished from the sight of her people. The crown proclaimed that the queen had fallen gravely ill.
Yet the news came so suddenly that the people would not easily believe it. This queen, who though a woman had led her armies from the very front and had even united the three kingdoms, struck down by an illness?
Had the young queen met with treachery? Was she being secretly held in captivity? Just as such dark whispers began to stir through the streets, rumors arose among the common folk that someone had caught sight of the queen.
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On a bright moonlit night, a beautiful golden-haired woman, led by the hand of a man who seemed to be a knight, had slipped quietly away into the town below the castle. Though she was dressed like a commoner, there was no mistaking her: it was Queen Lanavaille. No one knew where the tale had begun, yet it passed from mouth to mouth as though someone had seen it with their own eyes.
Lanavaille was dearly loved by her people. "Queen Lanavaille fell in love with someone she was forbidden to love." "And so she cast aside her crown and vanished, to live for love." The people wept and grieved over their queen's flight, yet perhaps out of a wish that it were true, the tale always ended the same way: "She went away with a happy look upon her face."
And so, in the course of time, Lanavaille's life came to be told as a tale of beauty.