Chin The Conqueror

Chapter 2:Confront or Surrender

"During the cataclysmic period of the fire harvest millennia ago, under the reign of the Fire lord King Chani, a call was made..." The enigmatic voice finally receded into oblivion.

"My lord, can you perceive my words?Do you hear me?"The urgent words of Minister Laus pierced the fog shrouding Chin's consciousness, forcing him to squirm uncomfortably upon the mahogany desk where his torso had collapsed limply against his forearm.

Finally, with immense effort, he got to raise his eyelids only to behold the anxious countenance of the royal physician hovering dabove him.

"The royal carriage must be readied immediately.Get it done," Chin suddenly announced.He utterly baffled the assembled dignitaries within the council chamber.

By long-standing tradition, the majestic imperial transport was made prepared only when the monarch or the dynastic lineage intended to progress toward the outer perimeter of the city wall; intrinsically, it signified that they deployed it solely when abandoning the royal capital.

Yet, while the city wall remained beleaguered by the hostile armada descending from the southern hill, even a fleeting glimpse of the royal lineage exposed them to peril, especially given the fact that the crown had not yet capitulated to the invaders. The fire people haven't bowed yet.

"But my lord.." Minister Laus ventured to interject, but he was silenced the moment his eyes caught the authoritative gesture executed by His Majesty.

."No one dictates terms to me," Chin asserted, his tone carried a straight finality. "I am a king. Though young,I am no man's puppet."

At once the royal carriage was prepared and the young king raced down toward the main walls of the capital city.

Upon approaching the formidable perimeter, he was greeted by the sight of the sprawling army of the Ice Kingdom.

Their well armed cavalry stood poised and ready to strike should any unforeseen danger emerge from the gates, for victory was surely within their grasp.

Standing at the forefront of this host was a man clad in tinted steel armor and it was peered with block and embedded with crystals,the ice glowed; this imposing figure was none other than the King of the southern hill himself.

The moment the royal carriage crossed the threshold of the walls, his arrival was noticed by the enemy vanguard in a short time."Should we unleash a volley of arrows, Your Grace? "

"That is unmistakably a royal carriage, presenting our absolute best shot. I believe the fire king has come out to surrender personally."

The word 'surrender' sounded sweet to his ears, yet even that alluring prospect could not placate the Ice King's mind, which remained filled with the rage against the Fire Nation. The systematic atrocities that the Fire Nation had h inflicted upon his people were among the cruelest imaginable, spanning both the dark era of the fire harvest and the years that followed after.

As the ice king stared at the gates, his mind drifted back across the short period to the time when his own father was still alive.The old monarch was crippled by a debilitating illness."Your Highness, the legions have progressed—well progressed past the frozen tundra indiscriminately after the last five hundred years.Now we believe it's time," the submissive advisor had said this just a few years ago, bowing low before the throne of the ailing monarch.

Their armies had been marking the boundaries for years measuring their capacity with being little or not being noticed at all.

" A time where we will rise and regain the honour we once claimed.It is time to make the fire nation bow."

The memory of everything fueled the deep-seated animosity that now threatened to boil over.

Back then when the previous king of the ice nation had lain bedridden by a debilitating frost-consumption illness that slowly turned his blood to slush. "We are the descendants of the glacier,we are not weak! From ice comes?

" Come victory and freedom." they whispered a response to his chant— the family of the monarch and the important men of the state that stood around his bed. The silence that followed back was mournful.The king passed away that moment,a short time from achieving his dream.

And a king was crowned,a king in the ice lands.

It was never his ambition to be king but he had somehow managed to win the loyalty of the people,but great and not,in the south.

He was a general in the nation army and his sacrifice and altruism ,bought the ice people.

Before now ,the Fire Nation, possessing an absolute monopoly over the world still after the fire harvest, had closed their borders, sadistically watching their northern neighbors freeze in obscurity. They had withheld basic medicinal herbs and fuel, viewing the Ice Nation as nothing more than primitives lacking strategic martial acumen.

"They thought we are weak and brazenly wished for our demise ," the young prince snarled in unmitigated anger, his fists clenched tightly that the skin over his knuckles turned white.His father had said those words before and he was just repeating it and reassuring the people around him-hus flanks.

Now, decades later, the wheel of fate had turned.And the instability of the Fire nation was just so good.

With fire,the fire nation did what they wanted ,still without fire ,they did and that could serve as the best justification to bring them down...that is.........if they don't surrender. The Ice King blinked, tearing his gaze away from the haunting specter of the past, his crystal-embedded eyes refocused upon the view of the present battlefield. Even though a battle hasn't begun,he had a bad feeling about it.

The gilded carriage of Lord Chin was rolling out from the road of the main gates, moving slowly across the barren no-man's-land like a lamb walking directly into the lion's den.The Ice King raised his iron-gloved hand with a cold sneer playing across his lips as his archers notched their bows, waiting for his command to either grant an audience or unleash their ice arrows upon the crumbling dynasty.