Men of the Sea

Before The Elite took over, back when the King was barely a king and more like a prince finding himself on the throne, there was an attack from a foreign nation that came from the seas. The King’s father Odalis had just begun venturing out on the seas to find out if there was more than just water. He sent out scouts on boats to travel to the horizon to see what was out there and if it was safe for his people, this was after a spout of fishermen didn’t come back from their trips. Rather than assuming that the sea had taken them, he thought it was evil water magic posing as a threat. This branching out onto the sea though meant that the other lands felt that they were also threatened by this evil water magic, having never seen others on boats before.
This foreign nation decided that they would venture into the sea to conquer the evil water magic in large convoys, when they travelled for days, they found land and assumed that this was the group of people that had sent the water to harm them. This is also what Obasi, Odalis’ son assumed about the invaders, so a war broke out. After a few months of fighting and substantial losses on both sides, Obasi sent out scouts to assess the rival’s forces, and whilst they were there, they found intel about Obasi’s land being the one who harnessed the evil water magic. When they took the intel back to him, he decided that a meeting needed to be called as if they were not the ones controlling the water that was harming his men, then maybe they could ally themselves together against this unknown force.
His rational thinking and engaging them on a human level rather than assuming they had false information out to fool them meant that instead of continuing the fighting, within days they had a strong ally and trading partner across the sea that they could rely on should either side need help.