Aiathl
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Author's notes:
Just a few things before you go on. First, this is not the finished work, nor is it the definitive version. It'll probably have some spelling and grammar errors, especially because English is not my mother tongue.
Secondly, don't worry if you find terms you don't know. They are words from the elvish language I made up; their explanation will be found in the story itself, no farther than three or four paragraphs.
Another thing: if you absolutely can't stand gay people, you'd better stop reading here. Don't complain to me, you've been warned.
Here are various signs used for speech throughout the story:
"..." normal speech
'...' thought
/.../ element speech / mental transmission
That said, enjoy!
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She was sitting by the river, letting her eyes wander, and was thinking. Already a year had passed from the day she had discovered her powers and her destiny. She was Aiathl. And she was the heir of the woman that bore the same name and was now dying, in the palace. She felt her powers become stronger as the minutes passed, and suddenly she realized that only the old Aiathl was still alive. This meant that the others were now fully in possess of their powers, and new rulers of the land.
Chiara, Bianca, Iris, Stella... they had been her friends, and she knew them well, or so she thought at the time. She closed her eyes, crying silently, remembering Chiara's earnest blue eyes, her sweet smile, her warm voice, her promise of loving her forever...
"Hey, little one!" a cold voice said.
Aiathl dried her eyes with her arm, getting up. "What is it, Chiara?" she said, not turning around, trying to keep her voice steady and unwavering.
"Turn around when you talk to me!" the cold voice commanded. "And be respectful! I'm not Chiara now, I'm Hraine, one of the rulers of this land. So address me properly!"
Aiathl clenched her fists. "You're right" she whispered. "You're not the Chiara I knew, not anymore." She turned around, looking defiantly in Hraine's eyes. "What do you want from me, Hraine?"
Hraine's bearing changed as she looked at Aiathl. "You... you were crying?" she whispered.
Aiathl averted her eyes. "That's none of your business" she said, again on the verge of tears.
"You were crying because of me, weren't you?" Hraine whispered, doing her best to keep her voice calm.
Aiathl turned away, shaking. "That's none of your business, I said. What do you want from me?" she asked, her voice pained.
Hraine swallowed a few times, to get rid of the dryness in her mouth, then spoke, her voice cold again. "The old Aiathl wants to see you before she dies. Why, it escapes me. You're just a little worthless thing."
Aiathl tightened her jaw. "To think that, just one year ago, for you I was the most important person in the world..." She didn't wait for Hraine's reply and ran away, crying again.
Hraine watched her disappear in the distance, also crying, her heart aching as she remembered...
* * *
Aiathl knelt upon entering the old queen's room. "You had called me, my queen?"
a low chuckle came from the bed. "Old habits never wear off, hmmm?" a gentle voice whispered. "You don't need to kneel... you are the queen now."
"And yet I wish I wasn't" Aiathl whispered painfully, not getting up. "Oh, tharna, what am I to do? Why is everyone so power-hungry? Why does everyone despise me just because they think I have no power? They say that I had no right to be taught by you, they say that I'm not worth anything... even Chiara shuns me, now that she's Hraine. And if I revealed myself, it would only make things worse... I would end up being surrounded by hypocrites, never knowing if someone really loves me or if it's just a façade." She closed her eyes, crying. "I thought Chiara loved me... I was happy, until she started asking if I had any power... saying that we couldn't be together if I wasn't an elf..."
The old Aiathl gathered what little strength she had left and pulled the crying girl in a hug. "One day they'll understand, I'm sure of it."
Aiathl returned the hug, feeling that the old queen didn't have much time left. "Thank you, tharna... I mean it. You've been for me the mother I'd never had... I'll miss you." She suddenly came to a decision. "I'll let them find me. They can't rule without me, so they'll have to search for me. Hopefully, when they do find me, they'll have learnt the lesson..."
The old Aiathl smiled. "You're wise, lathie" she whispered. "You'll be a good queen." This said, she vanished.
Aiathl dried her eyes, rising, and went on the balcony outside the room. She wrapped the old queen's crown - now her crown - in a piece of cloth, hiding it in her robes. She could feel the others would soon arrive, and she didn't want them to see it. It had changed in such a way that it would be clear that it now belonged to her. Of course, they would marvel a little when they couldn't find it, but would assume it was for the lack of a queen who could bear it. She started weeping again, thinking about all she had lost in becoming the queen. Her tharna, her love, her friends...
"Little one."
Aiathl didn't even turn around. "Leave me alone for a minute, will you, Hraine?"
"How dare you address her that way, you worthless thing?" a new voice spoke.
"You were once my friend, Arasthli" Aiathl replied, her voice choked. "You were once Stella, even if you deny it now. In the name of that old friendship, leave me alone. I'm weeping for my tharna."
"You... you..." another voice gasped, outraged. "The queen was not your mother! How dare you consider her so?"
"Seiltha" Aiathl whispered, still not turning around. "You too were once my friend... back when you were still called Bianca, you would have known. You should remember the queen always called me her lathie... her daughter..."
Hraine looked at Aiathl for a moment, then turned to the others. "Let's go."
"But Hraine!" Arasthli protested. "You can't be serious!"
Hraine's voice was low and controlled. "You question my orders, Arasthli?"
Before Arasthli could answer, a fourth voice spoke softly. "You still love her, don't you, Hraine?"
Hraine stiffened. "Galaith..."
Aiathl laughed, a short, bitter laugh. "You are deeply mistaken, Iris" she said. "She hates me. If she loved me, she wouldn't make me suffer like this."
Hraine clenched her fists and took a deep breath. "Go" she said to the others. "I'll arrive in a moment."
Arasthli started to object again, but Seiltha interrupted her. "Let's go" she said. "Aster is right, we were once her friends. The least we can do for her is leaving her alone now." Without another word, she turned and left the balcony. After a moment of hesitation, Galaith and Arasthli followed her, leaving Hraine alone with Aiathl.
"Hraine..." Aiathl whispered painfully. "Chiara... why did you stay?"
Hraine sighed, and tenderly embraced Aiathl from behind. "Because Galaith was right" she whispered back. "I still love you... I never stopped loving you, not even for a moment."
Aiathl's voice was shaking. "And that's why you treated me like shit for a whole year? That's why you broke your promise to me? That's why you've made my life a living hell?"
Hraine tightened the embrace and buried her face in Aiathl's hair, crying. "Aster... I know there are no excuses for what I've done to you. I know you probably hate me right now... it's all my fault, I should have known better... I was so stupid... I wanted you to hate me, so I could forget my love for you. You know as well as I do that we could never be happy together... I'll live so much longer than you, never aging... while you... you're human, not elf..." she let Aiathl go, smiling sadly. "I'll never stop loving you... I just wanted you to know that." She turned to leave the balcony, but stopped short when she heard Aiathl's voice. "I'm glad you didn't change, after all."
"What do you mean?" Hraine whispered incredulously, turning around.
Aiathl was standing there, smiling. "I never stopped loving you, either" she said tenderly. "No matter how bad I felt, I could never bring myself to hate you..." With that, she ran in Hraine's arms and kissed her.
Hraine closed her eyes and returned the kiss, tightly embracing Aiathl. When they finally broke apart, slightly out of breath, they both were smiling widely, and Hraine was crying in joy. "Thank you..." she whispered.
Aiathl just smiled and kissed her again, a short, sweet kiss that promised a lot more. "The others are waiting for you. You'd better go."
"I wish I could stay with you forever" Hraine whispered.
"Well, you could begin by taking me to Earth with you" Aiathl grinned.
Hraine looked at her in surprise. "How did you know?"
Aiathl chuckled. "It's pretty obvious. You need Aiathl to rule, but you couldn't find her here, so Earth is the only other place where she could be."
Hraine nodded. "It's strange, though... everyone thought you would become the new Aiathl..."
Aiathl felt the strong impulse to tell her that she really was the new Aiathl, but held it back. They had to find her without any help. "Will you take me with you?" she asked.
Hraine smiled. "Of course I will!" she said warmly. "I'm not about to leave you behind again."
Aiathl smiled in return, kissing her. "Now go."
Hraine kissed her in return. "See you later, Aster" she whispered, then jumped on the railing and opened her wings, taking off. She soon vanished in the distance.
The wind whispered impatiently in Aiathl's ear. /Well, are you coming or not?/ Aiathl chuckled. "I'm coming, friends" she whispered. The call of the land was urgent, and she had ignored it long enough. She took off her shoes, then, with the grace and ease of a cat, jumped down from the balcony. As soon as her naked feet touched the ground, she was invaded by a swirl of sensations. She could feel everything... all the world was in her, and she was in all the world. The past Aiathl had told her about this, but she wasn't in the least prepared to what happened next. Light swirled around her, and a thin golden ring appeared on her right ring finger. /This is the Ring of Light/ she heard the elements whisper. /It's the sign of our friendship./
"The Ring of Light?" she asked aloud. She knew about it from the legends, of course. It was a wondrous ring the first Aiathl had forged to force the elementals to obey her. When she had died, the Ring had disappeared.
"Why are you giving this to me?"
/In your hands, it will be safe. We know you will use it right./
Aiathl felt tears coming to her eyes. "Thank you for trusting me" she whispered, smiling. "Thank you, friends."
"Aster!" Hraine called. "Come, we're leaving!"
Aiathl turned, smiling. "I'm ready!" She ran to the portal where the others were waiting for her, still barefoot.
Seiltha looked at her quizzically. "What happened to your shoes?"
Aiathl shrugged. "I like running barefoot."
Seiltha said nothing, but Aiathl caught her thought. 'She's human, and yet she's more elf than any of us will ever be...'
Aiathl blinked in surprise as she shared, for an instant, Seiltha's feelings: pain, sadness, loneliness... she instinctively reached out with her mind, touching Seiltha's... /Don't worry, you're not alone, you'll never be alone.../ When she realized what she was doing, she immediately withdrew her thoughts. 'I hope she hasn't recognized me...'
Seiltha said nothing, and her expression didn't change, but now she was smiling inside. /Whoever you are... thank you.../
Aiathl caught the thought, and smiled. /You're welcome./ "Well" she said aloud "shall we go?"
Arasthli frowned and slapped her. "Do not presume you can be friendly with us, worthless little human" she spat venomously. "We'll go when and if we decide."
Hraine paled in rage. "Don't you dare slap her again, Arasthli" she hissed. "She may not be an elf, but she deserves to be respected anyway."
"Deserves to be respected?" Arasthli retorted. "Are you out of your mind? She's just a human!"
"And you are a liar" Aiathl spat. "You're nothing more than a liar, and I would be ashamed if you were my queen."
An incredulous silence followed her words. Even the elements stilled, waiting breathlessly for what would happen next.
Arasthli took a step towards Aiathl, fists clenched. "How dare you--"
"How dare I tell the truth?" Aiathl interrupted her. "You were my friend, and you abandoned me. You had promised to always be my friend, and you broke your promise."
"So what?" Arasthli replied. "Promises made to humans don't count, so--"
"Enough of it" Hraine interrupted. "I don't care what you think, as long as she stays with us you will respect her. Alright?"
"No" Aiathl spoke. "If they want to respect me, they'll do it. If they don't want to, don't force them. Whatever they do, I don't care. They're not my friends anymore, so I couldn't care less about what they think or say about me."