Work Text:
The kingdom isn’t meant to be great or strong, remembered for centuries. It isn’t a ghost country. The Kingdom was built as a safe place, for those worn down by war and death, it’s inhabitants being three people who tried hard to escape fate, only for it to ensnare them with no way out.
It is said that on the borders of the mushroom kingdom dwells the shadow of a warrior forged in fire and smoke, in search of threats that could bring harm to the foundation of his home. Should you try to enter Kinoko Kingdom, he will judge your sins and weigh your soul. If you’re lucky he will let you in, if you aren’t then prepare to bleed or flee.
The warrior follows those who enter from afar, vigilant, ready for the moment you intend harm to his family. You will shiver at the empty houses, staying away from the occupied land. You can’t infringe on a spirit's place of rest, even if the spirit isn’t a spirit at all.
The fire-iron-blood forged man was friends with the tyrant, people whisper. He was the first to leave, an ultimatum of death left behind in his former best friend’s ears. A cruel animal murderer, a pyromaniac that came from the depths of the Nether, carried by a cruel demon which is rumored to take you and turn you into someone else, serving a red monster that messes with your brain.
You’d think one would want punishment for this man, yet now pity is the common serving. He lost his friend, lost his father, lost his way, and would remain losing for years on end.
Another member of this liminal space is the friend of the protector of the Essempi, a mushroom covered man with black and white sunglasses. A coincidence surely, that the former king would befriend a god so alike the tyrant, his former best friend. Whose only difference is an X covering his face.
He won’t welcome you, you won’t see him most of the time, unless you search the kingdom up and down. They say he sleeps and sleeps, almost like a rock. They say he dreams about the good days or is trapped in nightmares of his own making, all in his head.
It is seen as a reason to pity the flame warrior, that his last friend is slowly slipping into inexistence, becoming a voidless being while he is awake.
He is found in random crooks and crannies of the mushroom forests, wrapped by flowers and vines, submerged into restfulunrestfulnightmarishdreamy sleep.
The last one is hardly seen, not even strewn around the beautiful landscapes Kinoko provides.
A man who can’t choose a side, ardent for some desperate glory, who has stopped searching for it for unknown reason. Some say he has learned the hopelessness of war is not worth the attention it brings, others say that his absence must have something to do with the weirdness that plagues Kinoko Kingdom. No one is sure.
The moments you do see him, he carries a quill and notebook, writing haphazardly across the pages. When asked, he will say that he is recording history. Maybe he will tell you a fantastical story set a hundred years from now, or a hundred years ago.
Beware how he stares at you. Yellow eyes that seem to know your whole being, understand your future, past, present, will haunt your dreams with no explanation as to why.
Strange lights and sights his library brings, the books inside it tucked into the shelves with no rhyme or reason (except the times in which you can hear a melody), the feeling of being watched by something that shouldn’t be here— A zone filled with weird energy, melancholy tainting the pages.
This country is both a cage for those who lost it all, who had it all, who need rest from the rest of the world, and a home for those who need a place to come back to no matter what. Who need somewhere to be themselves.
Kinoko Kingdom is a refuge for three people who would kill for another chance to live in peace, do the impossible for things to go back to what they once were.
Broken people with broken hearts in a broken world filled with broken laws.