Young Writers Society

January 2, 3588 – early dawn

“Ehri! They told me that you had arrived, and you simply cannot understand how good it is to see you again.”

Harriet Bivens stood at the edge of the Gardens, leaning over a banister while smoking a cigarette and holding a drink in the other. She was old enough to having the smoke but not quite there for having the glass of whiskey, the shot tumbling around in the transparent crystal, trying to jump past the ice cubes that kept it contained. It was always a sight that she loved to look at.

At the call of something that must have been her name, Harry turned to see a presumed woman, rushing towards her in long blue robes. The person’s own skin color was a light purple, with an almost neon shine to it. Harry had been away from Tanis culture for a long time, but she could still remember how purple was the color of her family and furthermore, how the different shades determined different portions of a sub family. This person was a lavender and her own was somewhere around dark maroon, a unique shade due her father’s status in another kingdom.

“Lavia! It’s been so long my dear.”

As she spoke the name, two arms wrapped around her shoulders, bringing her into a tight embrace. She could feel that the woman’s robes were made of a tight silk, making her own suit of different grades of earthen denim seem lesser. The pistol hanging loosely from her hip and the phase gun hanging from a thigh on the other side were making up for that.

She was pulled back out of the embrace and the person in front immediately started talking, saying, “When we learned that you had joined the intelligence unit and come within range of the kingdom, your mother just absolutely demanded to see you. Where is your sister? Where is Pulaa?”

“You mean Polly?”

“Yes. I always forget that the Bivens gave you such earthen versions of your names. Where is she?”

Harry didn’t answer. She didn’t want to give an answer to her aunt, who could surely not take the weight of the response that she had. And her mother could definitely not take it.

“I joined the intelligence agency because I was not always physically strong enough and they liked telepaths and,” she looked down at her hands, trying to find the right word to describe her condition. “They like people who can control many things.”

“Oh you mean your water powers. That is quite understandable, but I do not understand why you did not bring your sister along.”

They stood for a few moments more in the quiet and Harry carefully looked around them to find a bench or at least a tree to lean against. Her mind clicked back and forth while thinking about being in the Gardens before, a map slowly forming.

“Let us walk down to Fara’s Hollow and take a seat by the fountain.”

Lavia gave no protest until they were settled.

“You can tell me dear. Whatever it is I am sure that I can handle it.”

“Why did you two send me to live with the Bivens.”

“For your own good. For you and your sister’s sake. We were in the middle of a world war and we needed to ensure that the princesses were kept safe. When we sent you away, there had already been so many kidnapping attempts and your mother, and I just could not risk the possibility.”

“The Bivens were far from good to us and you sent us there basically to work against your own cause.”

The words came out more cruelly than she had meant them to be but after twelve years of suffering in the hands of someone who told her she shouldn’t exist, that she was an abomination, and that all of Nerot would fall one day to human command because they were lesser beings…

Well Harry was a little bit pissed.

“I did not bring my sister along with me because she would not go. And she became loyal to the lies that they told of our people, saying the great priestesses of Tanis were no more than used boat salesmen, that there was nothing to offer in their magic.”

“Why would she believe such a thing? She was just as blessed by the gods as you are.”

“You sent her there when she was just a baby. You sent me there as a girl who was almost ten years old, therefore old enough to work in the fields that were failing. They needed the powers that I had to keep their plots alive, but Polly’s were restricted until far later, used to take command and manipulate rebellions. In trying to save the future of your kingdom, I am sorry to say this.”

“But we hurt it very much, didn’t we?”

They sat in the gentle quiet for a long time while the words sunk in on either side. Harry had missed this place, even for all of the bad memories that rocked around her brain in its association. She had seen so many bad things take place here, so many people killed with little thought of the effects it might have. And so many plants cut down on their rise to the sky because it might have penetrated the barrier and the enemy might have been able to look in upon them. She thought back to wanting to permanently live in the gardens when she was a very little girl, not understanding why she would ever need to go anywhere else with all that it had to offer. Not ever really understanding who she was and who she needed to be when the time came.

“Perhaps we should now go and see your mother. I told her that we were trying to bring you in, but it might not necessarily go right, so she will be very joyous for your arrival.”

“Is she doing alright, Lavia? I know that when I left she was still sometimes suffering from sicknesses.”

Harry let the last word trail off as they walked along, Lavia’s long robes flowing in the wind and Harry’s sharp boots clicking against the different stones. It created a rather unique imagery, a sound that she knew she had heard before but could not place in any particular moment. Just something that freely floated around her mind while they trekked through the castle for an amount of time she could not measure. At one point they reached a crossing and looking to check her watch, harry realized that the poor thing must have stalled out from the powers radiating out of the basements and dungeons. The memory of a warning from childhood suddenly came back to her, talking about the weapons that Tanis must use for their own defense against the horrors outside.

“And here we are at the throne room. I will go in ahead of you to give a quick introduction and then wait maybe thirty moments before you follow in behind of me. Eh?”

“I understand.”

The thirty moments, the thirty seconds, were filled with Harry wondering just what she should say to the woman who gave her life, but also the person who nearly took it away. Her relationship with her mother had been terrible when she was a child, after years of Harry not being allowed to know who her father was, her mother once struck her across the face, followed by a stream of expletives about her father’s death. Each time that was followed by an unsuccessful discussion about anything, it was kept to the same punishment gesture and a beratement about how useless Harry was to the crown. None of them were memories that she was particularly looking to come home to, but here she was.

Soon the throne room doors creaked open, with four guards standing on either side. In the time she had gone, their swords and spears had been replaced with machine guns, a certain change in the tide from the castle once medieval. The windows had all been changed as well, still stained glass on the inside but heavy pieces of metal and wood placed over top of the frames. Little light managed to come in through these sources so five heavy chandeliers now hung from the middle of the hall and more candles than ever lined the walkway. By her mother’s throne there was a great cauldron full of changing fire, the colors lighting up the shadows dancing on the walls in ways she had so forgotten.

When approaching the steps, Harry took down to one knee in whatever sign of respect it might reveal but was surprised by the robed arms that were gathering around her, pulling in tighter and tighter. This did not seem like the appropriate action for the queen to be greeting one of her visitors and Harry silently wondered where the woman’s stiff positions had gone from life. Surely them were around here somewhere.

“Ehri! I simply cannot believe that you are alive.”

“Hello, Mother.” Harry struggled to get the words out of her throat without choking on them. “How nice to see you again.”