Emptiness

Chapter 1(b)

Vabaaga country

Varog City:

Vabaaga….

A country of forests.

A country with a sea as its southern border and is filled with wild forests that hold so many mysteries and myths.

You could not find forests like this anywhere in the entire Vabeo. The creatures that reside in these forests were also the rarest among the entire species in this world. Thousands of trees, mostly above hundred meters, covered the land, sheltering it from the heat of the star Mercos. And when it was winter, as the trees’ upper branches were covered with snow, your eyes could witness the beauty of nature with its white and green color, taking your breath away.

It was a beautiful country whose economy was mostly based on selling exotic things from rare silk materials to medicinal plants and flowers.

If you’re foolish enough to trust the beauty and desire the rare materials these forests held, then you wouldn’t return back alive after you entered it. These forests are filled with poisonous plants, venomous creatures that only the natives can identify and navigate through them, yet they too fail sometimes.

A usually silent country and its people who openly embrace nature.

Yet today….

The streets were filled with sounds of joy and excitement, especially in Varog city.

Varog City, the capital of Vabaaga.

The festival couldn’t be celebrated any grander than this anywhere. You could not find these many shops in this country other than today for it was a grand celebration in which you could earn a year’s money in one day.

The sound of laughter filled the entire street, along with the cheering and excited shouts that made you almost believe that you were amidst a grand tournament.

Newly opened shops just for today’s occasion, cheering shouts of men, shop owners’ boosting of their products, onlookers excited cries, drunken fools’ dance matching the beat of drums, the melody of flute if you listened carefully among the chaotic noises, maidens' tempting dance to lure people to their shop, delightful chaos filled the street of Varog city, the capital of Vabaaga country.

Was it safe to let these unknown people enter the capital of the country? Even though the festival was held on the outskirts of the capital city, it was a chance for skilled spies to slip into the main part of the city.

If you thought like that, then you would be wrong.

No one can attend this festival without a Vabaaga citizen guiding you. For it was a festival of snakes.

Yes, you heard it right.

Snakes…

Deadly venomous snakes are a common thing in this country, and there was even an occupation for snake hunting and pet shops that sold snakes, so it was no wonder this country celebrated a festival for snakes.

It was all due to the royal family that ruled this country.

Raaga...

The country’s name itself was named after them. Vabeo added with Raaga, which gave the name Vabaaga as if they owned the whole Vabeo. They had the power and arrogance to name it like that, taunting other countries centuries before when it was founded by Raagas. None could war against Vabaaga and come out alive.

There was a saying that Vabeo bows down to Raagas…

One of the Raagas walked around the street without gaining anybody’s attention. He was looking at the shops with wonder in his eyes. He had never seen this many sweets in his life. He didn’t know that Vabaaga housed many varieties of beautiful flowers. He was reminded again that he didn’t know everything that was to know about Vabaaga.

How arrogant…

Ziyou Raaga frowned at his own arrogance at the age of eleven itself. He thought that he knew everything about Vabaaga. It must be because he was way ahead of his studies, and he read most of the books in the library that were accessible to him. It was a lesson for him that books can’t teach you everything.

He wandered around the street without any destination in mind, looking at the shops and observing the people, the local languages they used, and the various degrees of emotions on their faces, trying to understand them.

Why are these people celebrating the festival of snakes?

As a Raaga, he should celebrate for he had reason to celebrate this festival, but why are all these local people celebrating it?

He pondered about the reasons behind it when he reached one of the three temples in the Vabaaga country. The temple held one of his great ancestors, Conan Raaga’s sculpture, at the entrance, the bravest and mighty warrior of the Raagas.

This temple of the snake goddess Uruni had various offerings today because of the festival. He bowed at his ancestor’s sculpture in respect and decided not to enter the temple as it was too crowded today.

Conan Raaga, the ancestor who went in bravely to the dark forest of Vabaaga where no one dared to enter, and conquered the Naagas living there, making them submit to him and join them to Vabaaga country in return for their safety. There was a treaty made that none except the royal family would enter the dark forest where they resided; in exchange, they had done a blood ritual to offer the royal family’s descendants the ability to control snakes.

It was all due to him that the descendants of Raagas controlled snakes, and after a century or two, the snakes had become a companion to Raagas.

Not that every Raaga had the ability, some inherited it while some were not. He was one of those who inherited the ability to control the snakes. He didn’t like controlling them, though; instead, he let them be whenever he saw them.

His joy about the wonders of the festival vanished as soon as he neared a shop, and he knew that he could not walk past the injustice done to them.

Snakes were caged in many metal cages while the seller tried to sell the snakes to others, all the while using a stick with a sharp pointy end to poke them for fun.

He knew that snakes were venomous and deadly creatures, but that doesn’t mean they could capture them and torture like this and that too on the day of the snake festival. If it was some other animal, he could have walked away, but it was snakes. Call him a hypocrite, but he could not just walk past it like this.

He closed his eyes and used his Egav to open the cages; beautiful screams made him open his eyes. The people who were around the shop all started running away as the snakes were all deadly venomous snakes.

Ziyou made a trail of Egav unique to Raagas alone to guide the snakes so that they won’t be stepped upon by the crowd. He guided them to the nearby forest and watched them disappear into the bushes.

He knew he had unleashed the snakes from the shop even after knowing that it was no use anyway, as the shopkeepers would capture snakes again and again. He shook his head at his melancholic thoughts and turned around only to find himself under fury-filled eyes.

“My Prince.”

His teacher, though angry at him for ditching the class, he could not afford to scold him because of his title. Not that it mattered anyway.

Ziyou Raaga...

The 4th prince of the Raaga Empire…

Fourth son of the current king Hagen Raaga…

Born to the third wife of Hagen Raaga, Gracie Raaga.

His title meant nothing to him but a cage. A cage, like the one that had imprisoned the snakes he saw before. That was one of the reasons he could not just walk away.

He followed his teacher, wondering why his teacher spent half a day searching for him instead of teaching the students who were present in the class.

As he was walking towards where the teacher might have left his horses, Ziyou gazed at the street longingly. It was not the first time he had escaped the palace grounds; still, he wanted to look around, knowing he would be under strict watch for a while.

Soldiers with the uniform of brown pants and red armor greeted him by bowing low. Ziyou should have known that his teacher was going to escort him straight to the king.

Fools…

His father favored him, much to the envy of his brothers. He glared at the guard who offered him a hand, but he accepted it anyway, not wanting to sprain anything more than what he had done when he jumped roofs to escape the palace. No one would question why an eleven-year-old was riding alone on a horse despite it being smaller than an average horse, because he was a Raaga; he was trained in horse riding, sword fighting, strategy, and politics before he even learned to speak sentences properly.

As the head soldier of this small group rode his horse alongside him while the other guards surrounded him with one in the front carrying a flag of a white snake in a red background, marching off towards the direction of the palace.

He wasn’t looking forward to a meeting with his father. Even though his father favored him, it was not because of any special love towards him. It was because of the ease with which he adopted their family power.

Most of the Raagas were Heger (range above (10m) Linia) and some Gigan (abnormal range of Egav). But every royal family has its unique traits.

And to Raagas, it is World synch.

The saying that ‘Vabeo bows down to Raagas’ wasn’t just an exaggeration. It was due to their unique trait of connecting with Vabeo and being guided by the whole world into a glorious path, like looking into all possibilities of the future and being guided to the best one. None of them inherited this power by birth. Every Raaga had to do rituals for years from the moment they were born.

Though every Raaga belonging to the main part of the family gained these powers, their strength to synch with Vabeo varies. He, Ziyou Raaga, has the highest rate in synching with Vabeo among all the royal children. That was why his brothers envied him, while his father favored him.

His power of world synch was not yet developed. He was only beginning to understand it. He used it today to guide him on the best way out without getting caught. He had read that you could get visions, and one of his mighty ancestors had Vabeo’s voice in his head, not that it was in any official records.

He petted the horse to calm down when it started drizzling, using his Egav to form an umbrella out of pure energy, not noticing the awe of the soldiers. He was capable of covering the entire soldiers usually, but he was drained full of his Egav because of using world synch today and used remaining Egav in freeing the snakes.

As Ziyou Raaga rode towards the palace where lectures from different people, including his father, awaited him, he was unaware of a pair of red eyes that were observing him for a time from the shadows.