The Warriors' Oath

We are the Queen’s Greatest Warriors. 

With our magical staves we keep evil at bay. 

We clear our forest of the evil creatures— 

We refuse them entry— 

We foil their schemes of invasion. 

They will never have our land. 

It is our Queen’s and it is ours. 

The invaders will never prevail, 

Not whilst the Greatest Warriors yet live and breathe. 

Such is our Oath. 

Our Oath we keep for aye, 

Else may our very lives answer for it.

Background:

     Perhaps it was a last-ditch effort on our part to avoid growing up; I’m certain it was on mine. I was sixteen years old, my best friend three years my junior—both plenty old to be done with such things, but both plenty young and with just enough of rebellion between us to be in denial of the inevitable.

     In any case, we invented for ourselves an imaginary kingdom—I say imaginary, but much of it actually existed. My house sat right on the edge of a woods, and by “woods” I do not mean a small clump of trees but a regular forest—endless trees everywhere, a lake, and all that. The woods made up the kingdom. As for the inhabitants, well—it is not difficult to find enemies in a woods in the heat of summer. Our enemies were the Reptilians—snakes, wasps, and any other biting or slithering or flying or stinging creature, all of which were already the bane of our outdoor existence. Later, we added the Carnivorous Beavers—there really were beavers on the lake, though we never actually saw them and they were probably not the least interested in consuming human flesh. These dreadful monsters were led by the most wicked of them all, Martilia—kindly played by my dog, Buddy, who would bark your ear off but never harm you.

     As for our friends—there was a Queen, and her subjects—they were all invisible. We, the most prominent and faithful of her subjects, were named the Greatest Warriors and presented with staves with which to ward off the Reptilians and defend Arametheia—our ultimate mission, of course, being to finally overthrow Martilia and reclaim the lands he had stolen.

     Of course, the real world always has a way of taking precedence over any imaginary, however beautiful and clever...