Dusk of a Hybrid

by Ryan Johnson

  Valverno and Marina saw in the distance the sun was at the peak of nearing its setting dusk. The bright spark was showing a dull yellow with a faded color of pink flickering on the clouds stretch across the sky.

  Valverno spent over an hour flying over land below he was seeing and taking little precious time to see the landscapes he grew up walking and gazing from a window of an empty room in a large house. He felt it was going to be the last time he was going to see such things when the dawn would rise from the east.

  It was a highly unsensational feeling he felt in his heart and mind, a frightful feeling of what would happen when the dawn would come. He was causing a shaking feeling of a deathly thought.

  What would happen should he fail? What would happen to him after he would die, as a failure or succeeding?

  The burning questions were melting in Valverno’s mind. He now couldn’t get himself from feeling uneasy, even crunching Marina next to him. He wasn’t feeling well that he felt a fever was starting to take effect on his mind.

  “Valverno, are you alright?” asked Marina.

  The uneasy thoughts Valverno was having suddenly vapored out of his mind like a fog being lifted from the ground. By hearing Marina’s voice, the unsensational feelings he was having faded and his mind was crystal clear.

  He looked at Marina who showed a concern face. The Siren was frowning in a response her husband was replying to her. He smiled unwearyingly to show he was okay. “I’m fine for the time being,” he answered softly. His voice was different than a regular human with the sogginess. “I’ll be okay for the time being. Right now, I just want to get us there before the sun sets on us.”

  “Then better fly faster, my demigod husband. Otherwise, we will miss the sunset and you won’t make a good memory for the future.”

  Valverno nodded and tailed his flying speed bit faster. He still didn’t go too fast or he would end up finding himself on Isla Maeli. His speed got the two lovers to the beaches in a fair amount of time of mere minutes instead of what would have been half-an-hour.

  The couple landed on the beach shores and both walked on the soft, muddy sand. They both walked up to the small waves of water rushing up to their feet and slightly sinking their feet into the muddy sand.

  Marina wasn’t bothered that the bottom of her blue dress was getting dirty of the sand. She loved the water more than she loving a dirty dress fit to dress a royal person. Many times she jumped into the open water and came up to the surface. She could swim onward toward the west and see what lies beyond where her siren eyes can see.

  Both saw the sun setting over the open view of the ocean, and the sun’s dying yellow color reflecting on the ocean’s waving watery surface. The sun was dimming from the yellowness with a small hint of pinkness on the upper length of the sun’s circle. The sun was also a bit faded like a thin fog in a valley. The surrounding landscape crawling from the beaches was of a hazy blue filling Marina’s and Valverno’s eyes.

  “It is beautiful, isn’t it?” asked Valverno.

  Marina smiled a bittersweet smile as she gazed toward the sun setting over the horizon of the open oceans. The sun was on the ocean’s horizontal brim of its awning dusk. It was a sensation of a bittersweet moment they were having. Then she turned her eyes to the south and saw that a barely visible land mass: a small land form of Isla Maeli.

  It wasn’t noticeable but there could be small glimpses of a small shadowy silhouette of Isla Maeli toward the south, if one can look closely and there are no clouds.

  The island of Isla Maeli could be seen from a great distance like a small black cloud floating off hundreds of miles. For its small measure, Isla Maeli was barely noticeable it would take a very sharp eye like a falcon to see its small shadowy figure.

  Someone with very keen eyesight would be able to see Isla Maeli. But it was hundreds of miles away it was hard to tell it was even land. The form of Isla Maeli was very faded and very distant it could be covered by clouds.

  Then Marina turned rocks piled up on the shores. There, she saw an old, rusted net heavily covered in sand. It was the net she was caught in when she was surrounded by hunters and their growling dogs with sharp teeth. It was here the Siren was captured by evil humans and saved by a hybrid.

  “You didn’t take us to a random spot by the seashores,” said Marina, “you took us the place we first met.”

  Valverno nodded his head slowly. He smiled bigly as he nodded. “What better way to spend to watch a bright dusk than to spend watching the dusk by the place we first laid eyes on each other?” he asked. “What would have happened if we never met each other?” Valverno walked backwards and held onto Marina’s fingers and guided her back away from the waving waters.

  He gave a soft hum before his opened his mouth to issue a ton tone of his voice and began to whisper to her:

  If my eyes had never seen your eyes

  If my eyes never gazed upon your eyes

  I wouldn’t be reaching to the skies

  I would feel so empty like an empty space

  But to you, I am most thankful

  For I would be in an empty room

  Where it felt like I was in small tomb

  Waiting for a great dawn to bloom

  But when I have seen your face,

  A dim spark started to burn very bright

  From the moment I saw your face

  My wary soul start to take flight

  And for meeting you I am grateful

  For have meeting you I’ve been faithful

  For meeting you I have lived happily

  And I have be blessed with a good family

  You’re the reason why I live and fight

  My heart has been shining every night

  I feel so grateful when I won you as my prize

  And I would be nothing if I’d never seen your eyes

  Marina felt her heart throbbing even more when she heard Valverno’s voice singing to her eye. She would have been dead if she had ever met the hybrid, and Valverno would have been stuck in Geraldus’s house.

  Now she inhaled and she took her turn:

  And if I had never seen your eyes,

  And for having for no allies

  I would have met my end being broken

  And I would have been a hunter’s token

  But when you saved me, I stood high

  So powerful it can lift me into the sky

  And I never thought love would be so empowering

  And thanks to you, I am flowering

  And if I had never seen your eyes,

  I would have died so long ago

  And I would never had a chance to say hello

  When you saved me, you have embraced me

  For when your eyes gazed into mine

  I felt so entranced like walking in a straight line

  I saw we were meant to be together forevermore

  In our eyes, our lives won’t be a bore

  For if I had never seen your eyes,

  My life would have ended too short

  And I would have died in a hunter’s sport

  Only if I had never seen your eyes

  Both creatures had their hearts pounding for each other. They had sung a song for each other by the place they first met.

  “Today is that day, isn’t it?” asked Marina. “Not only this place is where we first met but the day we first met. Years ago today we gazed upon each other for the first time. Today is the anniversary we have met.”

  “Yes, my beloved Siren,” Valverno answered with a dimming smile. He looked back at the setting sun with a gathering of faint clouds over the sun’s rays. “It was… how many years ago was it? It has been three years before since we’ve took the throne from the maiden Stephanie, and before that, we’ve spent six months together in winter. Before that we joined up in autumn
and five years before that we have met here. So, eight-to-nine years ago today we met each other.”

  “That long? My, how time can fly by so fast. At times, I wish time would go slower. Why must it go so fast?”

  “Because that is how things in the Mortal Realm work. One day you’re out in a world full with beauty and dread. And the next thing, you are in a bed or on the ground feeling weak, very lightheaded, and a blurred vision. The next thing you see is maybe a ray of blackness then a ray of sunshine. You born, you live, and you die in the Mortal Realm only to wake up in another realm where it is a true paradise or a tormented underground world. That is the way of things.”

  “And it was you who saved me from dying. I wasn’t ready to die, but you ended up delaying it. Now, we’re going to have kids of our own. We will need to secure a future for them, if you are planning on leaving at dawn.”

  “That will be, if Lusìvar has been beaten and we can pull of a good victory, then our children will—”

  “Look, Naìra, there he is just as Flavius said he would be,” said a girl’s voice.

  Valverno saw two girls running their way. They were dressed in strange clothes made for men and boys when wearing armor. Their hair was braided backwards, and tied in small ponytails.

  They both were of age eleven, and their faces looked familiar to Valverno. They looked like twins but not identical, and it suddenly struck Valverno of who they were: Naìra and Andrei.

  The twins have grown the last time he laid eyes on them. He still remembered them as twin girls of age eight playing around in rose gardens. Now, they grown up to be elven year olds and they were hearing garments of soldiers would wear.

  The twin girls halted and breathed for air after their running. “See, Naìra?” said Andrei. “Flavius said they would be here.”

  “And they both would be seeing the sun setting and enjoying their loving time they’re having together, Andrei,” said Naìra.

  Valverno and Marina looked at the twin girls staring at them both with curious eyes. They certainly weren’t the same playful, lovable twins Valverno remembered seeing three years ago. He remembered the one time he was walking on the beach shores and they would jump on him and he would pick them pippy backs.

  Now they have grown and became warriors of the village. Valverno was impressed to see the girls growing up from little kids to small grown adults.

  “Well, if the gods be blessed, Andrei and Naìra,” said Marina, smiling. “You both have grown.”

  “And you look more beautiful, Siren Marina,” said the twins.

  Valverno raised his eyebrows of hearing the girls calling his siren wife an unusual name. “Not quite the name to name the Queen of Shimabellia,” said Valverno.

  “Don’t worry, Valverno, I told them to call me that name,” said Marina.

  Valverno looked at Marina in confusion. “What would you mean by that, my beloved Siren wife? When I was out and about campaigning against King Uragiru’s forces?”

  Marina nodded her head. “It would have been a year ago. Isn’t that right, girls?” Marina looked at the girls with her eyes looking slyly.

  The twins nodded their heads.

  “Sneaking around close corners when I’m not around?” asked Valverno, with his voice sounding suspicious. “But what am I to know when I’m out and around battling against people loyal to a dead king? Loyal people who know how to put up a good fight, even with Dragons and Sea Serpents?”

  Then Valverno’s ear flinched; it caught the sound of a strange air gush like a hand stroking a harp’s string. He caught an arrow in his hand flying from a different direction the twin girls came running from. This caught Marina by surprise and stumbled away.

  The arrow he caught was a thin wooden stock with a dull rock as the arrowhead. Black and white stripped feathers were glued at the end.

  But it wasn’t the arrow that Valverno had been looking forward to, but the archer who fired it at him and the idea behind it. It was too much the same of Arron’s and Nerio’s trick to throw something at him when he wasn’t looking. He always turning the tables on the twin boys, by catching their own tricks in his hands and throwing it back at them.

  “Come out, Nerio and Arron, I know you are out there, and trying to throw stuff at me isn’t going to work,” Valverno called out.

  Soon enough, the twin boys revealed themselves and rose up from nearby plants hiding themselves. Nerio and Arron too had grown into a pair of thirteen year olds and seemed trying to pull the same tricks on him.

  They were wearing the same garments they wore as the kids Valverno remembered seeing. They both were holding a bow in their hands. Nothing about the twin boys really have changed.

  “I told you he was going to know,” said Nerio.

  “And I told you to not bring the bow,” complained Arron.

  The twin boys walked up next to their younger twin sisters. The boys were still taller than their twin sisters, by mere inches.

  Valverno saw the four kids he knew three years ago had grown up over the past three years. Now, he knew he was going have to get use to them at their new heights and forget how childish they were.

  “So, what’s the meaning of this gathering, boys and girls?” asked Valverno.

  “We were sent to get you,” answered Naìra.

  “Did he?”

  “And he told us not to go back without you and Siren Marina,” said Andrei.

  “Well, let’s go back then,” said Marina. “We wouldn’t want to keep him waiting for us. And we certainly don’t want to miss a big feast your big brother is putting together.”

  Marina walked off and the twin girls followed after her. The twin boys stayed with Valverno, seeing how girls were going with a full grown woman and the boys were going to stay with the full grown male specimen. Valverno took a step forward and tossed the arrow back to one of the boys.

  Before Valverno went walking off, he looked one more time at the sun disappearing into the western horizon. Oddly enough, the last light of the setting sun was showing was a dense view of bright red pouring over the low clouds. The pinkness reflecting on the clouds changed to a very bright red that was dark as human blood.

  FAMILIAR FACES

  The village was packed with many more people than Valverno ever remembered. The crowd was huge, and everyone was either standing or passing another person. People were dressed more of nobility than peasantry. It was noticeable each piece of long strings stretch across each rooftop had a ray of lights spread very few inches.

  Bonfires glittered in the grassy fields and away from the wheat fields; the wheat fields are meant for harvesting crops to make bread loafs.

  Valverno and Marina walked on the outskirts of the village, and they heard the loud parading voices of the people from a distance away. The four twins, both boys and girls, ran ahead of them to join the party. Valverno and Marina walked their own paste.

  “The village seems livelier than ever,” said Valverno.

  “And the village has grown with more people, and more houses have been built,” Mariana pointed out. “This place used to be a quiet village, but it has grown bigger and wider.”

  “And I’d have to say about two or three thousand have moved to this village since Flavius and other dukes and lords proclaimed me their new ruler,” said Valverno. His childhood home has become quite a sight to see. Once there were only a few humans trimming the wheat fields and a few creatures playing around with human children. Now, it felt like a city instead of a village.

  “Flavius must have invited several other people from several corners of the Shimabellia. It is louder than a normal village to have this much excitement. And those people must have brought foods and supplies found only in their regions that can’t be found elsewhere. The entire village is in uproar. It is nice to have someone like Flavius inviting other cultural people to this village.”


  “And to think he is a White Knight of Loyalty. He puts a strong loyal sense into the people he watches and rules over instead of sitting around in a big house filled with riches of gold and jewels. He reminds me too much like his ancestor: Herus. And boy, was Herus ever—”

  “Aagh!” shouted Marina.

  Valverno’s ears flinched at Marina’s sudden scream. He took notice she suddenly fell. He quickly grabbed Marina in his arms and wrapped his wings around her. He carefully laid her on the ground. “Marina, are you alright?” he asked with concern.

  “It seems the seeds in me are jumping with joy,” answered Marina.

  Valverno sighed with relief. One of the triplets must have done a small kick and a small kick could be harmful to a full grown woman. With one pull, Valverno helped Marina back to her feet. “Maybe the seeds are becoming overexcited about this party,” he said, placing a hand on Marina’s belly. He felt a small hump on Marina’s belly, which meant the kids were growing.

  Marina placed a hand around Valverno’s hand. “They know their daddy well. And they don’t want to miss an opportunity to see the town he spent his life living in the shadows. They may blossom here or at our abandoned cottage we haven’t been to since you stole the kingdom.”

  “No arguments made there,” said Valverno. “Many civilians called me their ruler after the battle with a corrupt king and a vile witch, and I stole the symbol that belonged to the king’s ancestors in the past few thousand years. And I turned his adopted daughter into a housemaid, which I thought would be better than execution.”

  “And I’m glad for that,” agreed Marina. “Giving Stephanie a big taste of reality. I’m glad you did show her mercy after what you have done to the king and that witch you thought to be your mother. I’d thought you had turned completely, even without the power of the Pool of Shadows.”

  “It was Uragiru and Belverda who did me wrong personally. They tried to take you away from me, and they tried to kill you. I don’t regret what happened to them, Marina. However, the former princess I bare no ill will; she didn’t cause you harm or anyone else I love any harm. She just acts like a spoiled bratty child who needed to learn to grasp reality.”