Author: 1306
Rating: G
Challenge/Extras: Fruit Punch #25 (Solid Gold) + Fresh Raspberries (The United States Assay Commission)
Word Count: 786
Story Arc: The World of !!!
Title: Fine Blue
Summary: The search for (blue!) gold and what becomes of it.
A/N: Starting to explore a bit more of this world--or everything outside this one kingdom. There's two more, after all, but that'll come later on.
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A surprise greeted about a dozen men and creatures when they were tasked to go out into the wastelands, south of the kingdom, pickaxes and shovels at the ready. No plant or animal grew in those areas for tens and thousands of years; only dust storms and clumps of dead branches rolled about in the dull grey vista. Abel rarely sent anyone out into those places, that one day being an exception.

And so a great commission of creatures and humans marched out of the forests, crossing over into the open where the grass grew sparse (if any grew in the first place), leaving only footprints in the wake of their arrival. Thousands of prints, from small with five toes to broad with two toes, were left in the sand, only for the wind to bury them in another layer of the same grey sand. Pickaxes and shovels were atop the shoulders of many, some carrying more than what others could handle, if only for their three or more extra hands or their immense strength. A great murmur spread over the crowd, with most talks about the mystery why they were brought out on such short notice.

"Think the queen needs more jewellry," said one square-faced man to a taller rhinoceros creature.

"To be honest, the castle does need something to make it look a little more--well, fancy?" said another man, shorter but heavy in build.

"What would he do with more gold, though?" asked a short, vulture-like creature, his shovels like windchimes under his wings.

Speculation and conversation ran high taht day, until they got to the heart of the wasteland--a crater dipping a dozen feet down into a smaller-sized sinkhole. Though not entirely small (it was big enough for the biggest of them to slip down in), no one knew how deep it dug through the ground. The last time anyone went down reached a depth of about a hundred feet--and still dropping further into the core, a place unknown even to the oldest of scholars and scientists.

And yet, every time they returned to the place, the hole grew a little bigger. Their pickaxes and shovels did the trick; digging a little more into the ground, they had the hole double in its size after that day, if only for more people to slip through it.

The real danger starts when the descent happens.

They went only in pairs, with a huge individual paired up with a shorter companion, and held only by a couple of ropes. They never ventured far; it was only in the hundreds of feet were the treasures so abundant. Still, a couple of dozen feet down produced a considerably large number of the gold they came for, and they came up to the surface with handfuls of the precious material. Little wonder they each had to go down only once.

Regardless, they came back with such a precious prize. Gold shone of deep, rich blue in !!!, and grew in clusters of crystals underground, with the richest of blues further down into the core. By this many speculated the core to be made up of the most vivid of molten gold. Royalty wore jewellry, even gowns with faint traces of gold in excess.

With a few exceptions, that is.

-----

"Dad, you really didn't have to, you know." Lex eyed the necklace dangling around him, admiring how polished each bead looked. A small amulet shaped in the kingdom's coat-of-arms hung at the bottom, its small, intricate patterns a mystery to him. No one could have possibly come up with tools that small to make those patterns--or was there?

Abel, the former king and now father of the current one, smiled at his son's complete surprise. While he wore little of the gold around him, he rarely held back when lavishing his close friends and loved ones with the precious metal. It meant double for his wife and children.

Meanwhile, Lex had never wore a single trace of gold around him until that moment. He suspected it grew close to his coronation, explaining the necklace around him. He could not dwell on his speculations for too long, as his questions were lost to gratitude towards his father.

"I had it checked three times over," said Abel. "It's pure gold as pure can be."

"You want me to wear this all the time now, don't you?" said Lex.

"It'll help if you do, Necklace or none, you still are a king to me."

"One out of seven, am I right?"

Abel laughed. "Yes, but still royalty, nonetheless."

Lex's eyes fell back to the necklace around him. He had to give his dad some credit; he knew which color he loved best.