Excerpt: Welcome to Walk

Other than the occasional rampaging giant, Walk was a pretty boring place to live. After King Levi, about seven hundred years ago, got rid of the last wizard (who'd blown the wings off Fly, changing it to Walk), nothing interesting happened. Wizards were the ones who usually created the excitement. You know, accidentally blowing up a fairy grotto (which technically don't exist, by the way) and the whole kingdom being stricken with fairy dust burns, or going over their exploding powder budget and another kingdom attacking them to get their due. Things like that are what made life fun.

But since all the wizards from seven hundred years ago were dead (very much so) and King Levi's "ban on magicians which shall last for all eternity, amen", it didn't look like King Rider (pronounced ri-dehr, with generous rolling of the r) was going to have any fun in the near future.

Well, at least not "fun" fun. Politics were nuts. Lord Avian and Lady Dove were going crazy over some law allowing the King's Hunt to kill any bird, no matter how many environmentalists said it was endangered. And somebody had mentioned something about taking better control over the Empty Lands (though King Rider could see no point in this; they were empty, weren't they?)

Speaking of environmentalists, though...King Rider (pronounced "ri-dehr with generous rolling of the r, don't forget it or you'll have major troubles with his majesty) glanced out his bedroom window and glared at the demonstrators. Who was it this time? Yesterday it had been AFA (Anti-Forge Association), the day before yesterday the IRS (Interal Reformation Society), the day before that the MPWTDEAPT (Mythical People Who Technically Don't Exist Are People Too).

Perhaps I should outlaw the environmentalists, Rider thought with an abnormally loud sigh. It might make me more popular with PAE (People Against Environmentalists).

Walk was a very difficult kingdom to rule, you see. Pretty much everybody belonged to one organization or another: anything from PFRW (People for the Restoration of Wizards) to PETE (People for the Ethnical Treatment of Elves) or DWWUWF (Down With Walk, Up With Fly (a group dedicated to finding a way to restore Walk's wings)). And since there were no great catastrophes to bring the people together (no wizards, heh), nobody really wanted to listen Rider any more, not ever his own kids.