Twin Moons

Prologue

English Naturalist, John Ray once said: "Beauty is power; a smile is its sword." This could not be more true. Joel was once a mostly normal young man, with a somewhat less than normal family. Now he sat amongst a different people, a king. By his side, his beautiful queen. She was the reason he sat on his throne. In his times of hesitation, she would act. In his time of need, she was there, and in his time of danger, she was his shield. She clearly would have thrown herself into the bowels of hell, should the measures be necessary. Joel was his own man, with his own agenda, but he would gladly have done these things himself. She was just a bit more...impatient, when it came down to the core difference between them.

Joel sat on his throne, awaiting his angry people, simply contemplating how he'd ended up here. Of course, it wasn't a mystery. Joel knew exactly what he had done to end up here, although, he never actually expected that things would turn out this way. At least there was still one person on his side, at least he hoped she was. After everything she'd done for him, Joel was convinced that his queen was one of the few he could trust and rely on. Still, the thought of her betrayal rattled around in his subconscious.

None of this had been planned, not by Joel at least. He didn't plan to turn these people's hierarchy on its head, or shift their lives so dramatically, but what was done was done, and Joel had to accept responsibility for what he'd done. As a usurper, technically speaking, obviously there was some recompense in order for Joel. Unintentional, or otherwise, he had done something that some - if not most - would likely consider an extreme taboo. Joel was likely an enemy of the people now, and his queen was guilty by association. To be fair, however, she was, technically speaking, the whole reason he was in this mess to begin with. Had she not come to him, he would never have ended up here. He wouldn't know about these people, or their ways. He wouldn't have disrupted their way of life due to his own beliefs, and morals. Probably above all else, he wouldn't have taken the throne of their previous king, and queen.

Knowing the answer didn't stop the questions from rattling around his mind. How had he ended up here? What could he have done differently? What Joel did know, was that all this had to go back to when he met his queen years ago...