How The Drenched Came To Be: Part Three

      Luck looked up at both of them, "Well, what should we do now? Should we go to King Kelpbeard?"

      Dread looked up, startled at the thought. "King Kelpbeard banished you not only from the court, but from the castle. You know the punishment for disobeying him. Being banished from Maraqua is the kindest thing he could do. I wouldn't go to him without you, but going with you would be just as bad. We shall leave King Kelpbeard out of this unless we have no choice. For now let's just deal with all that's going on."

      "I DEMAND TO SEE DREAD AND THE DRENCHED THIS INSTANT!!!!" screamed the seething King Kelpbeard as his eyes turned to fire and his face nearly turned red from screaming.

      As he waited, the King muttered to himself, "I said nothing when they blessed Fate and Struggle, but blessing another set of twins is going too far. Last time, however, there wasn't much I could do because they had named the girls. This time they were named before they could be blessed, so at least they're not bound to the Drenched like Fate and Struggle. I can only hope that Caylis and Isca will be spared the future of Fate and Struggle."

      A fighting and squirming Luck, Dread, and Fortune were dragged to King Kelpbeard by guards. Not willing to take any chances, the Drenched were blindfolded and their hands tied behind their backs. In this, the King hoped that he could stop them from doing anything with their power.

      "I said nothing when you blessed and named Fate and Struggle, but you have gone too far! I will not just sit down while you pick apart my kingdom piece by piece. I don't care how much power you have! When I banished you, I did so with leniency and allowed you to enter Maraqua once a year on the day you choose. You have abused my kindness and you foretell doom in the streets and curse my subjects. I will NOT allow you to continue to do so. From this day foreword you have no hope of returning to Maraqua."

      Dread became the spokesperson for the group and replied to the King she had at one time admired and followed, "I never had any hope, but now, neither do you. You always thought that all I ever did was foretell doom. Well, you could say I've graduated, I can help it along when I foretell it. Maraqua will be invaded by creatures from the land, and Maraqua will fall. You can do nothing about it, my dear King. You can't stop it in any way. I would say that I wish you luck trying, but I don't lie like you do."

      The King was again seething and he said, amazingly quietly, "Remove them from my sight. I never wish to see them again."

      As the Drenched were being dragged away, Dread again yelled at the King, "One day, Maraqua will fall."

      King Kelpbeard stared at the ground, his head in his hands, and he didn't know what to do. The Drenched were never wrong. Luck was never wrong, and neither were Fortune or Dread. So one day his undersea kingdom would fall. But then what? He would have to start making plans for a new Maraqua, and he would also ban contact with land creatures. It had always been frowned upon, but now it would be outlawed. He knew that what Dread had foretold would come to be, but he still had to try to stop it in every way he could.

      "My wonderful subjects, I have urgent news for you. The Drenched will never again be allowed to roam our beautiful land, but with that there is bad news. Dread foretold the fall of Maraqua and that land dwellers would be the cause of our fall. I urge you to prepare for defeat. I will make plans to rebuild our great home, but in a new place. I will do everything I can to stop Dread's words from coming true, but you all know as much as I do that she is never wrong. Therefore, pack away the things that you don't want broken or destroyed. I shall stockpile these items safely when we go scouting for a new location for Maraqua. Be prepared to fight if you are willing to do so. I may know that we will lose, but I'm fighting for my beloved home with all of my strength. Who is with me?"

      The crowds surrounding the castle screamed with all that was within them.

      Dread laughed her cruel and somewhat empty laugh, "They have no chance now, but the dear King didn't let me finish foretelling doom. That wasn't very nice, was it? I guess I'll have to sing him a little song, won't I?"

      The Drenched huddled together and devised a plan for kidnapping the King. They didn't intend to keep him, but Dread knew the worse thing they could do to him was foretell doom about his beloved home and remind him why they were banished in the first place.

      "My King, I know you said that you would think about what you said, but matters are becoming more urgent than just us. It involves you, Maraqua, and land dwellers. Please hear my words."

      King Kelpbeard ignored Dread and continued staring at Luck, because she seemed familiar, "Is that you, Luck?"

      "Why yes, it is me."

      The King glared at her, "Why are you here? I had you banished from my castle!"

      "You banished me because I didn't know something. That wasn't my fault, there was nothing I could do about it, and there still isn't. But I have a very strong feeling that what we're going through now is what I was unable to foretell. I suppose some things are too hard to believe for me to know about them. I never believed that I would become evil, but when you banish us that's what happened."

      "Oh, I'm not banishing Dread and Luck, it's you that I'm banishing. I told you to never return to the castle unless I called for you. Well, I didn't call for you, so now you will pay the consequences. You are hereby banished from Maraqua with the exception of one time a year at which time you are free to join Maraqua. It will be the day of your choosing, but you will have only one day. I suggest that you choose it wisely. Your banishment starts tomorrow. Goodbye, Luck."

      "Since I'm going to be banished anyway, if you must know, I don't have a name although you never knew that. Just like you I was never named as a child, and unlike like you, I've never known what it's like to be paid attention to. Since you were the heir people cared about you, but that's the only reason. You're only King because you were heir to the throne. Without that, you'd be nothing, just like me, and you'd be just as empty as I am right now. But I have something you don't have, knowledge. Pity, because you could use it, but you never did want it. Just because I didn't know something that you asked, as if I had a choice in the matter, you banished me from the castle. I guess I should thank you, though. After that, people quite trying to tell their future through me. The only people I've ever known to actually care about me are Dread and Fortune, and to think, they're cursed and yet they still care about others. Why can't I say the same thing about my previous King? You've had a much better life than them and yet still you can't care like they do, why is that?"

      The King glared holes through Luck. "I told you that when you were saying that you had a friend that was unnamed. I said it to console you, and that you were never to use it against me. Just because I wasn't named means nothing. I am still the King because I was heir to the throne; having a name means nothing, at least not if you're King. Don't take out your sorrow on me; it's not my fault, so don't pretend that it is. There's nothing that I can do for you, so don't pretend that there is.."

      Dread was growing angrier by the minute and she started speaking, "You say that because you have no name. Fortune and I have names and you have no idea what it's like knowing that someone cared about you enough to even give you a name. I guess nobody cared about you that much."

      "GET OUT OF MY SIGHT THIS INSTANT!!!"

      "The truth hurts, doesn't it, my King?"

      "YOU ARE ALL HEREBY BANISHED AS THE DRENCHED AND I DO THIS FOR THE GOOD OF MARAQUA!!!!"

      Fortune just stared at her King with empty eyes. "How did I know you would say that?"

To be continued...