Kingdom of Chrom

Kingdom of Chrom

“Are you sure? My Lord,” The Caveat neither man nor shadow, its form ever shifting, its eyes endless voids, asked King Moros in an airy voice.

”Yes, I am sure Caveat,” King Moros stares the entity down, not moving a single muscle besides his eyebrows becoming more narrow. It took years of searching to find the Caveat, lots of blood, sweat, tears, and sacrifice in hopes for a better kingdom, a better world King Moros was out to conquer.

“As you wish,” the Caveat began to illuminate, spinning like a hurricane, black, light, and midnight blue all swirling before a flash. The King shielded his eyes with his forearm before suddenly the cave went still and the Caveat was gone. 

~

The day the colors vanished, the world exhaled in relief, as if the weight of chaos had finally been lifted, leaving only the old comfort of order behind. 

No more chaos.

No more disorder.

No more imperfections.

The Kingdom of Chrom gleamed in symmetrical precision, every building identical, every subject walking in synchronized steps. The color grey washed upon everything.

No more laughs.

No more cries.

No more smiles.

No more frowns.

King Moros stood upon his Kingdom from the balcony at his palace. He wonders if anybody remembers the time before everything became dull. Are they trapped? Are they content? Are they stuck? Did I do the right thing? These questions spilled constantly into the King's mind. There is one thing he knows and that is he remembers. 

The King remembers the fiery orange of the sun sinking beyond the river. He remembered the variety of blues that made the sky and the white clouds that floated above like cotton candy. He remembered the deep greens, pinks, and oranges of the murals his Queen once painted in her atelier that’s now not been touched in years and paints all grey. That hurt Moros the most, watching his beloved fall into the dark of his wish. The peace of his Kingdom was making himself feel chaotic. The line between good and evil felt very thin and fragile to the king, and there was no one to recount with. Now the Kingdom is lifeless. And with each passing day, so were the people. 

At first no one noticed. The scholars praised the new world. 

No more distractions.

No more irrational desires.

Just focus and dedication with no more worries. 

The merchants still traded, though their goods slowly began looking the same. Lovers still held hands, but the light in their eyes was dimming. Then the poets stopped writing. The musicians fell quieter, and quieter, and quieter until silence. The painters… well there was nothing left to paint. 

~

Moros walked through the town, watching as people became machines, their emotions fading like ink on a forgotten canvas. All the bows, and courtesy’s and greetings the king felt alone and isolated, even being surrounded by hundreds of folk who still spoke but thought and functioned in grey as he still dreamed in color. And the more he walked the more he alone knew this was not right. 

It was decided that night Moros will summon the very thing that has caused this. The Caveat. The entity of ancient power, long before any civilization came to be. 

King Moros swiftly gathered the items he needed to speak with the Caveat. An elixir created by combining a cup of moonlit water, collected under a full moon for potency. A teaspoon of powdered gold mixed with a drop of the King’s blood for a symbol of power as well as binding the summon to him. A pinch of ground lapis lazuli to open the gateway between realms. Lastly a mint leaf, for reasons unknown but with the many prior attempts at making the elixir it is essential for succeeding. 

Once able to obtain the ingredients, the King made the elixir and swiftly headed to the cave of Orexis that was right outside of town where he summoned the Caveat many, many years ago. 

The cave pulsed with an eerie light. King Moros walked to the center of the small cave where a small hole in the dirt ground was. He poured half of the elixir in the hole, and drank the rest cringing from the taste. 

“Come forth, come thee, the almighty being, the Caveat who grants thee, shall come forth to me, for I come in peace,” The King chants with his arms held in front as the hole began to glow, light slivered out wrapping the cave like vines turning shades of blue. The ground rumbled below as the Caveat swirls out of the hole floating above it. 

“You do not belong here,” it whispers as the cave fell silent, but still shining bright. 

“You stole the world's color,” Moros said, his voice trembling but firm. “You took more than paint, you stole passion, love, life itself!”

”I gave you order,” The shifting shadow answered with a hum. 

“At what cost?” The King took a step forward clenching his fist. “A world without chaos is a world without meaning. Without a soul!”

The Caveat pointed its voids for eyes down at the king sternly, “And yet they do not fight me, only you resist.”

Moros’s breath caught… because they don’t remember what they have lost he thought. 

The King’s heart pounded as he reached into his satchel that was strapped to his side pushing his long grey cape aside, pulling out a small vial. A single drop of paint he had saved from the last sunrise before the last of the colors faded. The last remnant of a world now forgotten. 

Moros hurled it right at the Caveat. 

Surprised as it shattered against the entity and in an instant, the cave exploded with color. Reds and blues, golds and violets, surging through the cave reaching to the outside. The Caveat let out a sound, not a scream, but something deeper. 

“You will pay!” Echoed throughout the cave. 

~

The air shimmered with hues too vivid to name, shifting and swirling like liquid rainbows. Trees radiated with sapphire blue bark, their leaves an ever changing cascade of crimson, emerald, and gold. Flowers bloomed in impossible shades, petals blending from one color to another as if the very concept of stillness had been forgotten. 

The sky was not one but an infinite tapestry of streaks with violet and magenta twisting through the clouds of molten amber. At night, the stars burned in electric hues, constellations painted in neon greens and ghostly purples. The moon itself pulsed between shades of rose and indigo as if it could never settle on just one identity. Even the river did not run clear. Water shimmered on shifting prisms, reflecting colors unseen by human eyes before.

The people of this world bore the colors of their emotions. Joy painted their skin in a burst of golden light, sorrow turned them deep shades of blue. Anger crackled in fiery reds, and love… love was the rarest of all. A rose gold that flickered like candlelight. 

With so much color brought so much joy and chaos. The people remembered themselves and expressed it on a level that was never obtainable before. The Kingdom of Chrom was back stronger than before. The power of endless creativity and expression blasted the Kingdom with new ideas, new innovations, new styles, new art, new ways to communicate. With the good there was bad, the ill will returned to the ones who were before, but overall the future of Chrom looked up. Everyone had hope. 

And somewhere, deep in the heart of it all, a single figure wandered, searching for the one color that had been lost. The only shade that no longer existed in a world of drowning vibrancy. The color grey.