January 3, 3588 – 1:30 pm – remembering the past while falling into the
future
Harry didn’t have any amount of real business in mind. Instead she had just taken Cara up to the
last spot they had stood in as children and thought about how different Tanis
beings were. Others out in the Nerot
sectors had the similar features that most of their civilizations had. It was Harry, one of the few members of
royalty, who had some of the body quirks.
“Cara, do you wish that you had other features?”
“You mean like your spines or your skin color?”
Cara was sitting in a position underneath the trees, where
the sun shone down through the canopy, creating a halo effect above her. Compared to Harry’s skin that was mainly a
dark purple with occasional streaks of orange, a big thanks to her father,
Cara’s light red and orange complexion was different. She meant different in a good way. In the best way that it could serve. And after being raised in a kingdom where the
most obtuse color one might find upon a person was a white lavender, different
always meant good. Cara’s sort of
different features had come from her father’s kingdom.
“You know, you remind me very much of my father. Maybe it’s just because you came from his
lands or you share a similar complexion, or you both love nature so much…”
“But?”
“But there’s something there that makes me very happy, no matter the way that
we were brought together. No matter what
bull shit prophecy made it so they thought we had to be together in the
traditional sort.”
Gender is not
considered by genitals.
That conversation was ten years ago.
Both of them nine or so, time had forgotten its place in
Harry’s mind for an exact date but she knew she was more or less twenty. Twenty years old by all of the counts she had
found within the Federation, no matter how much older she felt on some days.
“I would like to say something to you, Harry, but I still do
not know what to say to make you happy.
You really only have been back for one day.”
“One day. Ten years. Time no longer holds that much of a concept
for me.”
A laugh came from the partner across from her, who tried to hold in their gut
and not fall over in a dramatic fashion.
“Of course an immortal like you would say something like that.”
And there it was.
She was being sorted back in with the rest of them in their
tall mountain castles, never again for a moment, while all the rest found their
own ways to die. And they weren’t truly
immortal. They would all die by the time
five thousand years crossed their chests and sent them spiraling into the gates
of the worlds beneath. This circle was
told to every child who wished to dream of the mysterious creatures from inside
the stone.
“They are immortal.”
“So now you’re just repeating a fact? Do
you have no answer for me, my love?”
“My answer is that if you do not like the fact of your own short mortality,
perhaps you should have moved along and married someone else.”
Harry jumped from her position on the ground and threw one
of the knives near her ankle into a tree.
It landed in the middle of portion of bark already stripped away, rather
convenient for the new projectile. And the
patterns around the clear area showed slight signs of scorch marks, driving a
stake into her heart while removing the blade from the rich green and red wood. Peeling back more of the wood revealed a
patch done with shoddy magic to reveal a brand underneath.
“Cara, collect the basket and the blanket, and take one of
the meat knives out.”
“What? One second ago you were
protesting to me remaining faithful to you and now you want me to find a case
that doesn’t exist, just because you were staring at a goddamn tree?”
There was no other word for her to say, [but] “Yes.”
“Will you at least tell me what the hell is going on here?”
Harry had no answer. She
didn’t dare to talk aloud if the creatures she so feared were still resting in the
shadows of the woods, waiting at any moment to grab her. There were few other people on this side of
this sector that might be able to recognize the brand in the tree. And this was a place that she had told those
of that kind about, during one of her fits of not realizing it was best to keep
her old self hidden from these current people.
“When I left the out sectors, the people there might not
have exactly known that I was leaving. And
I’m not the sort of person that people like to let go.”
A kiss adorned her cheek a moment later and it felt rather
out of place for the conversation that had been occurring a moment before. It would have seemed better if Cara had
slapped her or threatened to cut her throat.
But Cara was being the person that Harry had left behind, even if they hadn’t
of known what they back then. The thought
of their recommended relationship kept coming back.
“Well I don’t know why they want you back but I know I don’t
want to let you go.”
Harry kept looking back over their shoulders as she took
everything – everyone – back down the hill.
And the thought of someone loving her so dearly was a rather foreign
concept. These ones wanted her back for
a particular reason and it wasn’t because of a truce made between kingdoms or a
night of passionate love making. It was
for what Harry had done in the past and the potential she had in the
future. In plainer words, she was a very
valuable weapon.
“Why won’t you talk to me?”
The voice brought her back to the realization that they had
hit the bottom of the slope where Harry’s unfortunate mode of transport was
waiting. When she had set off from the
castle with her very important business, a picnic basket and a blanket and a gun
strapped onto the saddle, it had all seemed like a very good idea. Romantic horseback (or horse like creatures)
rides in the country were a good way to find a lady, right? If she had learned anything from the westerns
that had been drilled into her head in secret in back rooms, it was that her
ability to find a partner was based on the style of her dress and the beast
beneath her saddle.
“We’re far away enough from the danger to talk but I didn’t
want them to know I was around.”
“What’s so important about your life out there?
You’re home now.”
“Well Cara, you might say that I’m a bit of war criminal.”
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