Majesty

by Brooke Vinson

  The Leader looked uncertain, but couldn’t say anything to his King or the omnipotent Queen. Zuhara helped me stay upright to watch my people in action. They were heading back to their masters, to their punishers, to their employers to give them the worst news of their life. I closed my eyes for a moment and through Zuhara’s touch felt the plights of those long tortured.

  I found them, the kind Ursa family who had raised my lost love. The human family, who had grown so close to the children of the moon that once they had managed to recreate their fortune they had tracked down their loyal servants, were being gently shepherded away from the only home they had ever known. They couldn’t understand why the Ursa family was quickly packing their things and forcing them to leave.

  “But Ursa!” The wife fluttered her hands as the currently human appearing moon child pushed her out the door. “Why? Why are you kicking us out of our home? We have been nothing but kind and loyal to you! Why?”

  “Dear lady, if it was as simple as black and white, we would welcome you to stay here and to be our dear guests, but this is the fault of your ancestors.” The mother stopped for a moment and hugged her master. “Everything in your house you took from us. You and your parents came in and took our land, took our loved ones, took the life of our beloved Queen… Though you have been kind to us and if it was up to me, you could stay… for your own safety you must leave. No human will be left to live here. By the sunset tomorrow, the only humans left in Skypia will be corpses.”

  “But Ursa-Mamma!” A young girl sniffed and the kind Skypian picked her up and wiped her tears.

  “Don’t worry little one. We will see each other again in this world or the next. Maybe our people will become strong enough to become a proper match to you humans or mayhap your people will repent before I die.” She nuzzled the young girl and set her back down. “I will never forget you kind masters and for that I will escort you to the trains leaving this land and ensure you are given the best seats.”

  Then there were the starving children of the streets. With sticks in hand they were shepherding the shop owners out of the streets with the help of stronger, older Skypians. They were shouting angry words and throwing pebbles, harmless, but still stinging to the rich humans. One of the humans finally had enough and turned to strike one of the children, but an older Skypian grabbed him.

  He pulled him off the ground by his throat, letting out a rumbling growl. I could feel the Skypian aching to give him his dues, to return every wound that he had inflicted upon him at once, but he didn’t. He sat him back down and shoved him. The other humans stared with wide eyes until they were forced to continue shambling towards the train yard.

  When I reopened my eyes, I knew my people would be a great civilization once more. I turned to the Leader and nodded at him. “Take them to the first train out of here. Strip them of their weapons and keep their hands bound. No harm is to be done to them.”

  The Leader bowed and turned his men with a wave of his hand. With everything finally in order, I fully collapsed in Zuhara’s hands. “I’m sorry; I used all my strength controlling them...”

  “Don’t worry my king, you did your best. Now it is time for you to rest. Next night we shall talk again, and determine the future of the Skypians.” I smiled at her and as she lifted me, I let sleep overtake me.

  I woke in a strange place, but I could feel Zuhara beside me so I didn’t move. She noticed when I woke and touched my cheek with her lips. “Good night my King, your people wait for you to sing.”

  “We have a lot of work to do to restore Skypia to its former glory,” I murmured, still not moving. “The people need to find power in themselves and the physical damage to Cloudland is massive. This will probably take our or at least my whole lifetime. I don’t know how long your kind live.”

  “I live only as long as the one I love. My kind meld our souls like a glove.” She leaned over to kiss my lips. “This means we have to choose our one carefully or we may be left alone painfully. We find early on, our one shining bright like the dawn. We have a choice to choose or reject, if they are not perfect. Though I saw others you crave, I knew they could only deprave. Even though your love was pure, not every connection can endure. Too dependent, too weak, too different, too meek. Others need those types of devotion, but you need one of strong emotion.”

  I looked at her this time and raised an eyebrow questioningly. “If you are so wise, why did I choose you? I could have chosen Amica, I could have chosen Ado, but why did I choose Zuhara O Kande?”

  “I am your equal and your voice of reason. I am an angel and a cretin. I am many things piled into one, and to you I am the sun.” I laughed at her lightly and snuggled against her.

  “You can’t possibly understand why I chose you.” She raised an eyebrow at me this time, but I leaned in to whisper in her ear. “After all, love has no reason or rhyme. I will tell you the one thing I do understand; you are the sun to my night. The breaking dawn and my shining light.”

  “And you said love has no rhyme. Now you must get up; we are losing time.” She pulled me out of bed and onto the cold floor. “We have buildings to build, and fields to till. We have people to heal and tempers to chill. For my King and as their Queen, it is time for us to become seen.”

  “Fine.” I pulled her down to my height and nicked her neck with one tooth, letting just a drop of blood tickle my tongue. “Let this be a reward for working hard today.”

  “Whatever it is my Majesty craves.” Zuhara didn’t even try to rhyme it and as we opened the door and walked into a mess, we wouldn’t have had it any other way.

  Epilogue

  “Amica!” I called after my fleeing son with a sigh. He was pushing my tired bones to the limit with sunrise only minutes away. Zuhara had Dex nestled into her toy car, but my wild as the night son had darted away from our holotrain. I looked around the old mansion as memories came rushing back.

  It had been almost thirty years since I had become the King of Skypia and working on the first year of the holorails reopening. Humans were scared to return to Skypia, but with the Ordinance of the Land and Sky, it was safe to return. Skypians were hesitant to leave their heavenly home, but they were finding some of the pleasures of Earth worthy distractions. At first, I had feared leaving my home in case the humans tried once gain to invade, but when my children had turned eight, I had been convinced by some dear friends, my cabinet and my wife to go and revisit the journey of my childhood.

  We had invited Raven, but she was living the high life as a lady with her long lost lover Edward Allen. Even after thirty years and the time when he had been forced to pretend she was an insane Skypian, they were full of passionate, romantic love. Whenever they came to visit my palace, rose petals and ruffled beds followed in their wake.

  Nihilo had created and maintained a Buddhist temple in the center of Skypia. He was being called a Buddha and people flocked from all around to see the enlightened one. He never said a word to his followers, but wherever he walked, kindness, charity and undiluted purity followed. Nihilo came to visit me and give silent advice when I asked for it, but mostly he stayed in his long awaited solitude.

  Siniste had refused to take a mate even to the day, pulling men and sometimes women into her bed before casually tossing them aside. She just couldn’t seem to make herself love them like they deserved and she told them such. She was a loyal, strong and surprisingly emotional captain of the Sky Guard whose job only seemed to increase as time passed, but she was mostly happy. As happy as one who had lost her other half could be.

  Magnus and her beloved had had all the doctors in Skypia, my Queen and even scientists working to try and save them from their impending doom. They had failed… but they had ensured the pair to live close to the crisp age of thirty. It was still such a short time, but to the two who had been awaiting death, it was the biggest blessing we could give them. They had been the first on a holotrain when we reopened the rails to explore the world to the farthest corners, soaking in each oth
er’s existence. So my wife and my children alone had joined me on this vacation.

  “Amica! Come here right now!” I roared, but as I turned the corner I felt the sun set and my powers dissipate. I cursed my wife for passing on her love of the sun to my children. They may have my looks and some of my manipulative powers, but they had the electricity and wildness of their mother.

  “Is someone calling me?” I stared in absolute shock at the shining white haired, silvery skinned man who came around the corner at the end of the small hallway. We stared at each other for a second in shock until Amica finally gained his voice.

  “Able. It’s been a long time.” I nodded and winced at the pain stabbing through my head. My sunglasses were back on the train. “You haven’t changed a bit.”

  “You have but only in the most pleasant of ways. Have you seen a small boy about this tall running full tilt that way?” I asked and he shook his head.

  “Who is he?”

  “My son.” I smiled and we both cracked and I moved to hug my ex-best friend and lover. “How are you doing?”

  “Good, good! I thought you were up at Skypia! I heard they found a new king and it wasn’t that hard to figure out who such a man was. A child… it really has been a long time, your majesty.” He sighed and flipped his now braided hair away from his face. “Who is their mother?”

  “Daddy!” Amica laughed as he tried to run past me and I managed to catch him, but for only a second before the little brute sent a shock of electricity charging through me. I yelped at the extremely painful stinging he sent though me, but before he could do real damage, my wife scooped him up with a chastening frown.

  “My child stop being so wild! You know when day wakes your father is easy to break! Come and play you silly boy, before I take away your expensive toys!” Zuhara smiled at Amica as she turned to take my boy back to our train.

  “Zuhara O Kande.” Amica smiled. “I remember her well. If I was going to lose my lover to anyone, she would be a worthy opponent.”

  “She isn’t the reason we separated.” I stared at him with only sincerity in my eyes. “She came long after we ended. I never expected to find you here. I thought you would have hitchhiked with someone and left this place.”

  “I did for a while after graduation,” he glanced back from where he had come from, “but I found someone. I didn’t last a month without him so I came back. I’m the Dean here now. We take any child without question and if they can’t pay tuition, we offer them jobs to pay for their expenses.”

  “I would love to sit down as friends to talk.” I tried to gauge what he was thinking, but I didn’t even need to try. Amica wasn’t like Zuhara, he wore his emotions on his face and all I could see was wariness.

  “Are we friends?” He shook his head and leaned against the wall. “You know… I thought and tried for a long time to find an answer. Why did you abandon me? What had I done wrong? I never could find the answer and some part of me could never stop trying. You were my first love.”

  “And you were mine.” I felt me façade shake for a second before I felt my resolve harden. “I still think of you sometimes when I feel lonely or reach for someone to support me. It wasn’t easy choosing to leave you.”

  “Why then? Why did you choose to leave me?” The big gaping hole that had been our love stretched between us and threatened to ruin the friendship that had formed almost instantly when we first met.

  “I would have killed you.” I closed my eyes and sighed. “I was like a leech. Every day we became closer, I drained more and more of your life force. Never enough to kill you, the connection I forced between our auras guaranteed that, but I was like poison. I was slowly draining everything that made you you away until you would have become nothing but a zombie existing only to please me. I couldn’t stand that.”

  He didn’t say anything for a minute before sighing. “I really want to blame you, but I can’t because I knew this. I knew this all along, but you were like my drug. I loved when you bit me and when you showered me with attention… it was like my world was only filled with rose-colored days. You were my heroin.”

  “And in many ways you were mine.” I sighed and relaxed my tensed body. “When you were around, I could only think of your blood and your body. We were each other’s worst enemy.”

  “I can hear you back there you know. Come out and meet my best friend.” The man who came out looked to be the same age as me and Amica, but he was much taller. He had black hair peppered with grey and a very long face, but with strong cheekbones and shining green eyes. He grabbed Amica by the shoulders and almost seemed to want to pick him up and carry him away from me. “Saint this is Able, Able this is Saint, my life partner.”

  “Charmed.” I extended my hand, but at that moment both my children came screeching and running down the hallway for me followed closely by my long-legged wife.

  “Amica, Dex! Stop, this is a no-no!” She yelled, but then they saw me and decided I was the safest place for them to hide. The only problem was when they were energized, they were energized.

  “Stop!” After years of practice I had become able to access my powers for short burst during the day and I did so now to save my life from my own children. They came to a stop with pouting faces.

  “No fair daddy! We can only zap things! Teach us how to do the glowy eyes thing.” My wife looked at me for a moment and we both shared a fearful expression.

  “No Amica, I’m afraid not.” Amica didn’t miss who I had named my child after and as I picked up my son and my wife my daughter, Amica smiled at us.

  “Two? They’re quite a handful aren’t they?” I shook my head with a groan.

  “You can’t possibly imagine. They take after Zuhara and only sleep for the winter.” My son looked at Amica and reached out to him. Amica eagerly grabbed him and pulled him into a hug.

  “You’re pretty. Be my wife!” I had to laugh at that and Amica smiled too.

  “Sorry, but I’m already Saint’s wife.” My son pouted for a moment before he noticed something and struggled out of Amica’s grip to run after it.

  “Amica, don’t you dare—” A crashing sound cut off whatever my wife was going to say and we both sighed.

  “This is what I get for marrying an ancient enchantress,” I sighed and Zuhara kicked me.

  “Complain all you want,” she groaned and added something in her own language. “Just remember you have the night shift.”

  “Then work away my beauty.” I turned to look at Amica. “I have an old friendship to renew.”

  “Our friendship never failed.” Amica smiled. “Though I think we do have some catching up to do. I want to know what kind of perks having a king for a friend can get me.”

  “It can get you anything you want. After all, you just granted my greatest wish.”

  Explicit Liber

  (The End)

  About the Author

  Brooke Vinson grew up in rural Georgia in a loving, but financially troubled family. She realized her passion for writing during middle school and has avidly been scribbling away ever since. During high school, she discovered her dream of becoming the master of an army of ninja cats. Due to a distinctive lack of any sort of ninja ability, she settled on learning the language and basking in Japan’s distinctive eastern culture. She currently studies at the University of Georgia, biding her time until she takes over the world.

  Contact her at:

  http://brookevinsonnovelist.weebly.com

  or

  Brookevinson94@gmail.com

 

 

 
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