Quite Some Time Ago
Ignio was a prince.
There were roaches in his castle.
Said roaches, specifically, were a born liar and Ignio’s grandmother, whom he detested with a passion. It took him quite a long time to notice that they were inside his domain because he had been asleep for a little over a decade.
It was a nap shorter than most of the naps he took, so he noticed them before an infestation could take root.
Ignio, unlike his sister Debella, was raised with manners and was not a wild child. He knew his father, Unas, had taught him to be respectful to his elders, and begrudgingly, he asked his grandmother to leave.
“No.”
He asked again, and she didn’t repeat herself. The simple one-word answer and the lack of acknowledgment were worse than an argument. Ignio decided that the roaches would be pushed out one way or another.
Mt.Ignis had a very slow eruption, a light trickle.
Ignio imagined he was peeing them out.
He didn’t feel that a large eruption was befitting of two roaches in his kingdom, a footnote in his eternal life, and would soon go back to sleep. He was a polite man, albeit a lazy one.
Off the coast of Pistorium higher up in the colder waters, lay Mt.Ignis, a popular tourist destination, filled with plenty of hot springs. Occasionally it would erupt, but whenever it did, very little would pour out, the magma sluggish and slow, creeping up, and before one knew it, destroying everything in its wake.
Some of the hot springs were closed, but instead, the viewing parties were in full swing.
A notable guest was the High King of Sunmira, Byrrus. He had brought with him a small entourage, unlike most nobility of Ionadis, avoiding any and all attention to himself.
He was an independent ruler, but at any time his powers could be stripped away from him by Godiva. He was visiting Pistorium, the icy island of angry mountain people who after thousands of years still claimed that the des Regalis were nothing but liars and thieves.
He didn’t want to give anyone the idea of rebellion when he only wanted to visit a sauna, watch a volcanic eruption, possibly bring back a nice concubine or two.
On the same day that Mt.Ignis decided to cool down, did High King Byrrus of Sunmira go on his quiet expedition with only five attendants close by. It was a harsh trek upwards, and thankfully they came prepared, with food, jackets with fur lining on the inside, and other knick-knacks to keep Byrrus entertained, as he was easily bored.
For once he wasn’t, as the large brute was ahead of the pack.
His attendants lagged far behind, huffing, puffing, and groaning, one of them pleading for the goddess of mercy to strike him on the spot because he was experiencing his third cramp that afternoon.
After four hours, a lot of sweat, many tears, and having to go back once Byrrus realized that someone was left behind, they had arrived near the top of Mt. Ignis. It was as close as they could get without endangering themselves next to the lazy river of lava sliding out and about.
“Breathe it all in! Can’t you feel the power emanating from him,” Byrrus shouted, raising his fists into the air, referring to Ignio, who was fabled to live inside the volcano.
Ignio was quite pleased.
He decided not to kill them for scaling up his castle that afternoon.
The only thing his five attendants could breathe in was smoke, desperation, and their soon impending death. All of them had heard stories of Byrrus’s boundless stamina and strength, but the fifty-six-year-old man had gone up the side of a volcano, in full gear, and was ready to keep going.
He led the charge, at the front of the pack, and as he went along, he would grab whatever sparkling rocks or small animals he found interesting, and put them into a large basket, which Mura, a young woman carried on her back, held up by long straps. It was made out of bark, wrapped tightly together, and the top would be shut tight whenever a live creature would be found by tough ropes.
Byrrus loved to add many things to his collection, and he had found the centerpiece to his research room on his miniature expedition through Mt.Ignis.
It was a rock.
Byrrus knew the importance of rocks, especially the shiny ones, and this one could hold unforeseen fortunes. This rock was pure white, glowing, and twice the size of his body, and for some reason, the more he focused on it, the more it seemed as if the rock was the only thing that mattered in all of eternia.
Everything behind him faded. The sounds of nature, his wheezing assistants, the thundering sound of the somewhat active volcano, and the sunlight focused on only him and this rock.
He loved this rock.
Not in the sense of sexual or romantic love, but in familial love, as one loves a brother or sister. They were family. Family protects each other. This rock, this beautiful, majestic rock, was hiding someone he loved.
“Mother, I am coming for you,” Byrrus shouted.
His attendants didn’t bother to chase after him as he ran up the incline, charging at it with all his might. His voracity was chalked up to the peculiarities of all nobles, their strange quirks, and unhinged habits.
They were beside themselves when he brought his head up, and with the strength of ten men, he brought it back down, head butting the gargantuan rock, splitting it right in half. Pieces of it went shattering, flying in all directions, and his assistants did not flinch, as it was a normal day for them.
A young woman with long red hair, her makeup fully done, smelling fresh of perfume, wearing her favorite outfit which was a small pink coat and short black dress, slid out of the rock like yolk pouring out of an egg.
Draped around her body was a brightly glowing cape, pulsing different colors, in tune with her heartbeat. The woman gazed up to look at her savior and was confused.
The face was familiar but weathered by age.
Byrrus’ sandy orange hair was a little duller, but he still had his constant grin, the air of energy around him. His jovialness gave him crow’s feet, and his years of exploration, along with living on a warm and sunny island, left him tanned all over, a golden hue, making his skin age faster as well.
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His purple eyes flickered black upon the sight of the woman and the bombastic man laughed. He laughed because this was surely a joke! It was not a funny joke at all, and he laughed because he did not know what else to do .
The previous Mother Empress, Aeris, laid before him, alive, in the flesh, not a hair askew. She had not aged a day since her death, her body never found, reportedly burned by Methuslian spies, an entire war fought over the death of their matriarch, her husband, and their youngest child, a little boy that they killed.
Byrrus continued to laugh, and words failed him, and then he cried while still laughing, hysterical.
Everyone feared for his sanity, and Aeris said nothing, but looked around, quickly taking in her surroundings. Using her ability, she saw that there were very few bad endings other than a bruised knee while climbing down Mt. Ignis, and was put at ease.
She took off her heels, threw them to the side to avoid her misfortune of a bruised knee, and everyone jumped a little because they didn’t expect a dead woman to move, to act as if it was fine to go about one’s business, that she had simply taken a nap inside a volcano and was spat out, a stray piece of bone inside chicken soup.
She stood up, wiped the dirt off her dress, shook the bits and clods of dirt out of her hair, and immediately everyone started to slowly bend the knee.
If it was dark magic, the perpetrator that had such skill would be dangerous, and if it was truly Aeris, then it would be the proper thing to do. Byrrus was still laughing and crying, shaking, and when he bent one knee, gazed upon her, the sun focusing on her, everything around her darker in her presence as she sucked all the light out of the air, he knew it was her.
He grasped her hand, held it close to his dirty, sweaty, face and kissed it, rubbing her knuckles and caressing her palm, ensuring that his eyes were not deceiving him.
“I have missed you so much,” he cried.
“It has only been a few months since I have visited Sunmira, but this doesn’t seem to be it,” Aeris mumbled.
“My Lady, we are off the coast of Pistorium.”
“ With the mountain people? ”
They nodded yes and Aeris balked at the indecency of it all, that she was sent to the place of the mountain people, and immediately she worried about her safety and the safety of her children.
In her mind, it had been possibly a few hours, maybe a day or two. When she saw into her horrible future, she knew that she would live, and according to her choice, she should have been spat out fairly quickly.
She planned to get her son from the pervert that bought him and hoped it wasn’t... that bad…
Looking at Byrrus, his weathered face, she knew that something had happened. The future was never set in stone. She had gambled and won, but there were no winners in this game.
“Don’t cry, please...I know it’s been long for you, but I promise to make up for it,” she said softly.
Byruss stopped crying and started to wonder if this was really Aeris, the loud woman he had known his entire life. They were both the sort of people who were always full of life, and seeing her quiet, sad, and soft-spoken was frightening to him.
She demonstrated nothing but perpetual strength in front of her subjects, aware that they were her children, afraid if she was afraid, happy if she was, taking cues from her actions.
Seeing her quiet and soft made them silent and meek, and she corrected herself.
“Stand.”
They all stood, and backed themselves lower on the incline, ensuring that they were lower than her, and none of them looked her directly in the eyes except for Byrrus. Her eyes flickered again, and she chose her words carefully.
“We return to Sunmira. Tell no one.”
Everyone was waiting for her to lead the way, stupidly, when she was the one who needed to be shown how to leave. They stood there for a few seconds until she groaned in exasperation.
“ Take me to Sunmira. ”
“Yes, My Lady,” Byrrus shouted.
“Byrrus, please stop addressing me so , ” she replied.
“Yes, My—”
He said nothing, his tanned face tinted red, and led her down the mountain.
She held onto his large, muscled, and slightly hairy arms and all the attendants were grateful that it was easier to descend the mountain than to go up it. Byrrus’s head swirled, a dead woman clung to his arm, making polite conversation, speaking as if she had not been dead for roughly thirteen years.
While passing through a sparsely populated forest, she wanted an update on what she had missed in her very long nap.
“What has happened in my absence,” Aeris asked.
“Ah, everything is different,” Byrrus declared.
Aeris laughed, and he laughed, and then she told him that deep misfortune would befall him if he didn’t stop.
Her loyal idiots subjects conflated controlling the future with predicting it and she used it to her advantage daily.
“Your daughter has done well...and so has her daughter, ” Byrrus said uneasily.
Aeris smiled, happy that she had a granddaughter, but was sad that she was gone so long that she had a granddaughter.
“How old is the girl?”
“Ten years old.”
“Wonderful! I imagine the new High King has finally rid us of the thorn ,” Aeris laughed, using the nobility’s well-known nickname for Leofric.
“He is still High King of Rex...bless us all,” Byrrus said bitterly.
Aeris stopped walking, therefore everyone stopped walking, and they stood in the cold woods and she tried to come to the only conclusion that made sense.
“Her husband has died in my absence and I wasn’t there to help her. I’ve failed my family,” Aeris faltered.
“No. She never took a husband, she...has no need for one,” Mura said. “She was blessed by the gods, given a child without the need for... lovemaking. ”
Aeris gave the attendant a mean smile, and she looked away towards Byrrus, who nodded in agreement, and Aeris did not ask any further questions because she knew that her daughter was not blessed-born.
Byrrus knew.
All of the nobility knew an open, dirty secret.
The thorn had grown along with vines and strangled her garden.