Monday, February 2, 2004

The Journey's End - Day 21
So, I know I haven't written. These past few days I've been trying to get a clearer picture in my head, a better perspective on the whole Thing. The story or the history. I almost can't decide which one it is.
Has my father lied to me? Was this all just a ploy for my sympathy? Can I be the end of all this sadness?
I was always watching him while he told me, looking into his eyes when I knew he wanted me to look away. He was telling the truth. I know he was. There were emotions there that can not be fabricated, and the color . . . well, it wasn't black.
So I now know about my mother. He even told me more about her when I asked, but I couldn't write it all. No, there is too much to tell about the way they felt for eachother. Supposedly there is a letter she wrote that night before she hung herself, but it is held in the Palace as a relic. My father has never been back there.
That's another thing, another strange thing. He told me that it has been over 500 years since my mother was queen. (That's right . . . I'm a princess.) How this time lapse is possible is quite amazing. Supposedly my father knew who was following him, and I know also . . . now. It was Malqomb. Which, yes, would make Malqomb about 530 years old, but this is the strange part. I was sent to Earth to get away from my father (for obvious reasons), and instead of sending me in the same time line, I was sent a lot of years in the future. So, they all knew this, and knew that one day Toresti would want to get me back (they don't know his story), and somehow they must have kept Malqomb alive for that many years. I don't really know because my father is very sketchy about the whole thing.

I'm in love with a 530 year old. My father is a legendary demon-guy. And my mother killed herself while possesed by the Dark God Amlerka. That's one thing I can't deny, I want revenge as much as my father.
And as I sit in the camp, just outside Amlerka's oldest, most sacred temple, I can't help but think that this is the end. One way or another this story will end here. I will find my fate, tomorrow.

Comments (5) | Permalink

Thursday, January 29, 2004

The Journey - History End- Day: 17
The baby grew and the parents were full of joy for those few short months. Toresti slept fitfully every night waiting for Amlerka to make his next nightmare a reality, but nothing came, for a while at least.
The baby girl's first birthday was only six months off when the Dark God came once again. The warning was simple: Take the baby and go to the Temple in the northern continent or lose everything dear to you. Toresti awoke, looked into his wife's sleeping face, heard the baby snore lightly and refused.
A month later it happened again, but this time there was no warning. It was a command: Take the child and go to the temple. Toresti held his little girl in his arms and refused once more.
Month after month the same thing, but each time the command was more forceful. Toresti began to have nightmares of the Hell he had once abided in. Yet, every time he awoke, he saw his love and the little child that held his soul. He could do nothing but refuse.

The night before the baby's first birthday Toresti asked his wife if she was happy. She looked deeply into his eyes and said, "There is no life for me but this, my love, and there are no words to describe how happy I am. Joy is limitless when I have you and our child by my side."
So that night he slept peacefully, and dreamt. There in that dream Liiruhyi walked in a field of white roses, calling to him in a voice no more real than the wind. She spoke of endless love and sorrowful goodbyes. She blew kisses and smiled, radiantly glowing with happiness. She cried a single tear for her child, and then disappeared into the cloud like beyond.
Toresti woke up with tears in his eyes. Such a sad dream, but it had not been a nightmare. He opened his eyes only to find an empty bed beside him, and with a strange suspicion taking over, he got up to look for her.
He checked their rooms very quickly, then the hall next. He noticed and open window and went to shut it against the cold of the night. At that instance a glimmer of white caught his eye and he looked up towards the towering parapet of the palace. There she hung. A white flower against the black of the sky. He watched in horror as she choked and gasped, grasping at the thick rope around her neck. As her last breath gave out, she locked her eyes on her husband, her true love, and whispered, "I love you."
Her feet went limp while Toresti could only stare in total shock. Then, a thick shadow swept over the woman's body. Toresti cried out as the Dark God began to envelop her, but that would not be so. A white light brighter than the sun burst forth from Liiruhyi's frame and shattered the darkness to all ends of the night.

When the light was gone Toresti was dead inside. He could not feel his heart for it had been strangled along with his love, his life. She could no longer smile and therefore his world was nothing but darkness and hate, except for one thing, one flame of hope, his daughter.
His mind completely raw and bereft of thought, he took up the baby and ran. For such great distances he did not know, because he could not think of anything but life without the woman that was his sun and his humanity. He ran and ran and ran, but he could not escape that scene as it replied in his mind.
He held his child close and looked into her eyes. What life would she have with he who could not live? What chance for her happiness was left in the world? He had no choice but to take himself away, throw the little one out of his reach. So he wrapped her in his shirt and layed her on the ground. He knew someone was following, but who it was didn't matter. As long as she lived and could find some measure of happiness that was all that was important.

So the dreaded Fire-Starter vowed that from that day forth his daughter should seek happiness and he would seek revenge.
Comments (9) | Permalink

Tuesday, January 27, 2004

The Journey - History: Day 15
The wedding was small but beautiful. The bride and groom could not get through the ceremony without each shedding a tear of joy.
The couple then hid themselves away in a cabin in the forest for their first night together. Of course, the passion thereof was sweet between the lovers, and they lay together late into the night before slowly falling into a tender slumber.
Then the past rose up to claim its favor. Amlerka came to Toresti within the dreamscape, as horrible an apparition as ever. The Dark God called for his child, and was so obsessed with his desire that he did not notice the change in his demon. The black was gone from Toresti's eyes, but Amlerka went on with his nightmare.
Toresti awoke next to his love, and swept her face deep into his memory to never be forgotten. How could he love such a woman so much and never give her a child? How could he keep that joy from her when all he wanted was to see her smile? Yet, what choice did he have? To bring a child, her child and his, into the world only to be raised by the God of Death, the evil shadow, no, that was not a choice.
So, for many years of their marriage Toresti slipped his wife the right drugs to keep her from conceiving, and she never knew. In all truth she never thought of having a child until she was older, and the happiness she felt just being married was enough, for a while. Then her mother died, and her sister died, and her nephew died, and her niece died, all in ways that could not be helped. Liiruhyi had a hard time of being happy then, and she begged and begged the heaven's to send her a child, because she felt if she were barren she could not live and be a good wife.
Toresti heard those pleas when he lay in bed at night, and he cried for her. He knew how to stop her pain, but he also knew the consequences. But in the end, he knew that it had to happen. So he put away the medicines and in just a few short, sweet months, Liiruhyi brought the child into the world. That child was a girl, a little baby girl, and Toresti looked into the baby's green-brown eyes and lost his soul. This little thing, he knew would change everything, and so he named her. Cassioankaiey.
Comments (5) | Permalink

Sunday, January 25, 2004

The Journey - History: Day 13
The little girl named Liiruhyi was an absolute joy to her parents. In her first three years she showed signs of a greater power than any royal child before her, but also a greater calm of spirit.
Toresti watched the child grow into a young woman, and he noted all of the nuances of her personality. She loved the palace garden, where all the flowers barely matched her beauty, and the green matched her eyes. Toresti twisted his way into the palace to become a gardener, so he could watch Liiruhyi everyday. To him, she was the most beautiful flower in all the world.
On the day he started his work, he met her. She came out into the sunlight, her golden hair glittering and a serene smile playing on her lips. At first, she didn't notice the strange young man working a small patch of soil in her favorite corner of the garden, but it wasn't long before she became to interested to stay away. And when he looked into her eyes and she into his, something within him cracked and fell away. She had to blink away the strange image of black eyes fading away, replaced by brown and green. She looked back at him, and smiled.
He couldn't say a word or take a breath, for, within her eyes was a light he never thought to feel again, love. Somehow she had broken through the shadow and found the sliver of something that had been hidden for at least a thousand years. She had found his soul.
From that day on they became better and better friends. He found her to be intelligent and willful, even sometimes playful with words, and she found him to be strong and warm, open to ideas she had once only shared with her own mind. She felt safe in his presence, but he was also quite mysterious which intriguied her all the more. He felt alive when he looked into her eyes, and he forgot what sadness was when she smiled.
They sat in the garden on her eighteenth birthday, and he handed her a little present wrapped in a cloth. "For you," he smiled through his nervousness.
She took it and opened it carefully. It was a liir flower, her namesake, beautifully and masterfully crafted from bits of colored cloth and carved wood. She was overcome with emotion, she couldn't even manage a thank you, but she had one thing to give in return, a kiss. That day, they promised to wed.
Comments (3) | Permalink

Friday, January 23, 2004

The Journey - History: Day11
An entire generation came and went while Toresti sat in his mountain prison. He sat contemplating the price of his punishment. For a year, in its entirety, he pondered the nature of a man, and what good can come from the creature. Of course, he no longer felt human, so he was attracted to the conflict that could arise in such a thing. The infinity of contradiction, the battle between good and evil within a single soul. During his imprisionment he came to no conclusion.
However, in the outside world, The Dark God Amlerka had come to a conclusion. The God realized that not a single human soul cowered at the thought of a "Dark Shadow." All humans knew of The Fire Starter, though, and that was where Amlerka had gained fame, through a demon.
And so Amlerka came creeping back to his favorite destroyer, but not without a deal. Toresti could gain his freedom, but he had to follow Amlerka's wishes. What was Amlerka's one and only desire? A child. Not a sacrifice or another demon, but a powerful human child, and the only way to get one was for Toresti to couple with the most powerful female alive.
Toresti only had to think for a moment before he agreed, for he knew that the only way to answer his eternal question was to become again a part of that people.

Although so many years had gone by after that fateful wedding day, the wound burned as fresh as any midnight fire, and finding a wife proved to be a terribly difficult task. Toresti could only watch as powerful woman after powerful woman was born and then died. All were the same to his scornful eyes.
He watched as the fairies fought one another, and as one fairy woman fought for her place among her people. He watched that girl, Ameral Reena, become the first queen of Reena. He watched her raise her five children, and watched as those children had children. Then one day he found her. The sky seemed brighter that day and the grass more green, on the day Liiruhyi was born.
Comments (3) | Permalink

Wednesday, January 21, 2004

The Journey - History: Day 9
The Dark God Amlerka endowed Toresti Tunash with all the power of destruction that might fit within a limited space. So this newly sanctified demon did his masters bidding. He destroyed. Grassy plains, forests, touwns, villages, all were the playground of The Fire Starter.
In his mind, he was no longer a man. He had been destroyed and brought back from the dead. He could not think of anything but what hate he felt for the cruel race of men. A people who would scorn lovers and a people who would kill. He was no longer one of them.
The years passed.
Toresti gained what can only be called a dreaded fame for his deeds. In some areas he even had followers, but all eventually died out. Suffering was his only comfort.
There came a day when Toresti no longer felt the need to "serve" his "master." He wanted to be an independent demon, one who follows NO rules, not even the skewed chaos of Amlerka. So, he traveled across the world, but destruction did not follow in his wake. He lost the taste of death and so left it behind.
There really is no need to say that Amlerka was angry. The God was livid, but Toresti deserved a test of loyalty at least, to prove that he did not deserve punishment.
So, Toresti found himself faced with a small country village. The people awoke at dawn, worked away the days in their fields, and went to sleep after it was dark. He watched them for some time, trying to puzzle out what happiness these simple men could gain from such a mundane life. Yet, they were happy. He had forgotten what that was.
Then The God of Dark came to his demon and told him to abolish the loathsome town from the face of the earth, and Toresti refused. Not merely because he did not see a reason, but because he no longer wanted to be a puppet. He no longer wanted to be controlled.
Amlerka exacted his punishment then, and Toresti was placed inside the tallest mountain in the most remote place on all the globe, and Amlerka had no intention of letting him out.
Comments (8) | Permalink

Monday, January 19, 2004

The Journey - History: Day 7
The bells rang out over the city that fateful day. All the guests sat infront of the stone altar on the hilltop, waiting for the blushing bride to appear. The wind whipped up the green and white ribbons, and the sun shone down with a fierce glory.
He stood next to the priest. He smiled through his nervous feeling. He even gave his servants the day off. In all his life he could not remember a time when he had felt so ready to be so happy.
A man ran up the hill, stopped at the back of the gathering, and fell to his knees from fatigue. The priest looked at the bride-groom, a quick glance of question. Then the tired man stumbled to the altar and gasped out three words, "She is gone."
The groom stood in utter disbelief. She had loved him, she had said. They had shared many a passionate embrace. His life would be perfect with her by his side. And now she was gone . . . but it couldn't be true!
Then the messenger handed him a slip of paper. He read it, mumbled the words, even spoke aloud, and yet he could not believe.

How could I possibly love you? Don't you see it was a lie all along? I would never be your puppet, and you will never see me again. I have reclaimed the man I love, and you will not ruin my life.

The priest stared into his eyes and saw the fire before any other person. He felt the rage within his bones, and this quiet, godly man screamed. He screamed as the fire spread around his feet, engulfed the altar and all the people.
The hilltop was ablaze when he ran into the forest. The agonizing screams were floating on the air as he tied the rope around the tree. The blackened shapes were barely visible when he looped it about his neck. The fire was his creation, and he had no choice but to end the life that could bring about such destruction.
The fall was not so far to break his neck, and so he hung there, gasping for breath. A shadow spread itself around his body, and he was then removed.
From barely a foot off, he stared into his own dead eyes. Then from behind him the shadow whispered in his ear. "I will save you," it whispered. "I will give you eternal power. I will bring you to the world, and the world will submit to your rule."
He looked into this shadow and asked of its name.
"You know. I am you."
And still he did not understand.
"I am the agony. I am the death. I am the opposition to the light."
And a name rang through his memory. Amlerka. He agreed. He could only agree. And so the Shadow named him. The Fire Starter. Toresti Tunash.
Comments (5) | Permalink