Work Text:
76 B.D., "Before Dominion."
Seventy-six sweeps before the unification of all trolls beneath the rule of Her Righteous Indignation, Afreti Ibliss, eighty sweeps before the arrangement of castes and responsibilities based upon blood color, and ages before the troll empire devolved into a tyrannical clusterfuck of literally cosmic proportions, the key players in Alternia's unification were all facing very unique problems in their separate kingdoms.
In Xioanon, the domain of Afreti, "Lady of the Coasts," the very last trade center had been set up along the Alternian coastline. Years prior, she was set to engage in her coming of age ceremony by duelling her predecessor - Her Outstanding Cruelty - once the elder tyrian purple blood returned from a campaign to secure trading along Alternia's longest swathe of coast. Her violet blood generals soldiered on to victory, even after H.O.C.'s ferocious form - cutting a rainbow-hued swathe through the waters from atop her high-speed jetski chariot, and having already shrugged off the loss of her eye to a crossbow - was blown to atoms by a 4.22-trollton guided missile. If we're being honest in our historical reflection, she was the most warlike ruling tyrian empress to ever arise from the bloodline; Afreti would have had to be scrubbed out of the royal arena's tilework, had H.O.C. not met her untimely demise.
With the counsel of her life-bonded maroonblood moirail, Tempas Impets, Afreti assumed the role of the mercantile empire of Xioanon's youngest ever empress; at a mere 3 sweeps old, only the prophetic insight and level-headed wisdom of her much-aggrieved moirail kept the young and naieve Afreti on-track. However, in 73 B.D., Tempas had a long, terrible premonition which convinced him that Afreti would be at the eye of a hurricane to turn the troll world on its head. Sure enough, his visions as related to Afreti came true in three sweep's time. War threw all but three clustered troll nations into turmoil; those three countries were Xioanon, Coecchia, and Iz'nimin. G'lbgolyb reassured her new ward that she had always been the one best suited to this task, and that she only had to rely on the trolls around her. With only Tempas and her royal guard - the violet blooded "Beheading Lady General" Dampir Vrocck, and her younger brothers, Cainir and Abelir - to accompany her, Afreti set out to somehow bring peace to the war-embroiled Alternia. She was capable of great violence, but it would take more than a meek girl with a hidden venom to her nature to settle the many deep-seated, festering grudges amongst the dozen or so nations.
Coecchia, immediately closest to the central domain of Xioanon, was a blasted desert nation which demanded a royal trawler to navigate safely. Here, the cavalry of Iksari Umpiro rode and guarded their nation from invaders; they also wore full-body robes to protect them from the glare of the sun, whilst they rendered any threatening daywalkers to strewn detritus and smears of gone-off blood on the sand. A conqueror who had united the dozens of nomadic herding tribes into a roving, patrolling, highly-mobile force of rough riders, Iksari was known for being a wild, indomitable fellow who rode like the wind and vanished into the sand like a demon. However, marauders grew bolder by the day, and even a do-it-yourself diehard fighter like Iksari knew he would need the support of his friendly neighbors.
That left Iz'nimin, a mountainous country to the north of Coecchia and to the northwest of Xioanon. Iz'nimin was ruled by Hafaxa Rymbri, the towering purple blooded troll woman and hierophant of the faith which would one day unite the High Motherfuckin' Subjugglators. She seemed made of improbably quantities and qualities - such as having the largest recorded feet of any troll ruler in her age, strongest chucklevoodoos in her generation, biggest guzzler of Faygo. With her massive, studded club, Hafaxa smashed in the face of every threat to her people. She was attended by the fraternal cerulean blood twins Daphne and Eremus, who were her matesprit and moirail, respectively.
This is but a preface to the story. It would take many years and many lives for the troll kingdoms to be united under seadweller rule. And in centuries afterwards, Afreti would look back on the beginnings of her quest, and wonder at what an idealistic young thing she was.