Leila
The sun began to rise as we started our journey on the little wooden boat that they had brought to collect me. I trailed my fingertips through the water. My mess of blonde curls were untamed and falling over my shoulder, skimming the edging of the small boat. I wondered if I would return to this place that I had called home for so long. So much time, I had spent alone to reflect on my life and practice magic. I probably could have spent forever out there, but somehow I knew my life couldn't end there.
One day of listening to two squabbling idiots later, and we had made it to Sugarland upon sunset. The rays loomed over the place that had become ever so muddy in my memory. What I thought was a distant memory, was now my impending future. I was about to touch the leaves and see enormous butterflies in person... chills made their way across my skin, causing me to shiver ever so slightly. This magical place was once my home and now I was returning to it at the age of forty. How would I be perceived? I was the traitor they had all been looking for and they could either want to kill me or welcome me with open arms.
As the sun gave a preview of the night to come, I was given a look into what I would be facing upon my return. There she was. Sitting upon a throne... my throne. Her hair was pulled up into viking braids, with the ends undone - the previous braids, leaving a wave to the hair left out. Loose sections of her hair blew in the slight breeze, lightly tapping her face as it went by. My daughter. She was me, seventeen years ago. Anyone would think she looked majestic on that throne, but I could see past the mask she was wearing. I could see how scared and clueless she was. She looked like a little lost puppy, but only her mother could see that. Well, I wasn't going to be the one to give her guidance, motherhood wasn't for me. I had left it behind a long time ago and I wasn't coming back. Her father was more maternal than I could ever be. I loved her but I couldn't stand being a mother. Child rearing was worse than being buried alive in a shallow grave. Having to pretend to care for an infant more than you cared for yourself.
I did the best that I could at the time, but I just couldn't keep up the facade. Just like the facade she was putting on right now. Pretending to be me. Sitting on my throne, like she knew what she was doing. Well I could tell you right now that she knew as much about being a queen as I knew about being a mother.
Our boat touched the shore and the men stepped out, pulling it into the grassy hill entrance. I stayed put for a few moments longer. My stomach flipped time and time again, my body and mind in sync over the realization of how real this was becoming. I was nervous and it was making me feel sick. She was looking straight at me. My mirror image. I could bluff all I liked and pretend I didn't care, but deep down this was affecting me more than I cared to admit to anyone. Did her father do a good job with her? Why was she in Sugarland? I didn't want to care, but I couldn't help it. One of the men interrupted my thoughts, "Are you coming, our queen?"
"Just a moment." I didn't take my eyes off her. I couldn't.
They nodded and walked off, leaving me there, eyes locked with my daughter, unable to let go of the internal bidding war we had going on. Who would retain the throne?
Morning came and when I emerged from my tent, Sage was already up, sitting on the throne, just as she was when I had gone to bed. We hadn't spoken. We let our staring match replace the words unsaid. Had she even slept? I walked toward her slowly. She didn't even turn her head to look at me. She was as still as ice on a winter morning. I cleared my throat. "Hello daughter."
She didn't speak.
"Your father did a good job with you." I continued offering the olive branch.
"No he didn't." She stared toward the water. "You would have known that if you stuck around." her voice was flat. Monotone. As cold as her glare, which was angled toward the water. Though her voice... well, her voice sounded awfully familiar.
"But, you look well." What had her father done? I was sure I left her in good hands.
"That wasn't his doing. My father is a drunk. The chieftain raised me as his daughter. If it wasn't for him, I'd be as good as dead."
Her words pierced me like a sword. My eyes widened and my lips parted ready to speak, but my words came out jaded. "But... he was such a good father to you before I... left." I choked on the last word. How could this be?
"He did one good thing." She turned to me now, her blue eyes like steel blades.
"Oh?"
"He told me you were dead so I didn't spend my entire life hating you. That would have robbed me of my childhood, as it did for him. He told me that you died a tragic death. I suppose to him, it felt like that. Now I know the truth, so I can start hating you."
"Oh." I said again, unable to comprehend the fate I had left upon my only child and her father. But now an anger stirred within me. I needed to guard myself. Defend myself and do what I came here to do. "Well child, you can hate me from back home, because I have come to take over from you on the throne, now." I stepped up on the stone mount that our seat was placed upon so that we were eye level. "If you will remove yourself from my chair, I will take my place."
"Ha." Her laugh was resentful and full of confidence. She wasn't going down without a fight. She was stubborn, just like me. Part of me enjoyed that. "I'm not leaving. You abandoned this throne just as you abandoned me and I have now taken it over." She paused just as a smirk came across her face. "That seems to be a pattern of yours..." Suddenly becoming disheartened. This girl went through emotions quicker than I had time to react. "I have been abandoned too many times in one lifetime and I'm not going to repeat that pattern. I lead this kingdom through war and they need someone who will continue to be that stable point for them. An anchor. I'm not leaving." she crossed her arms stubbornly.
"Well, I'm afraid you don't have a choice. I am here now and I'm not leaving again." That cute stubborn streak was now starting to piss me off.
"Oh yes, so you will not abandon the throne again, but you tell your daughter to go back home without an explanation? That's lovely."
My chest heaved, giving way to a sigh. "You aren't cut out to be queen."
"How would you know? You don't even know me." I could feel her heartbreak coming through. Her voice cracked under the pressure of my gaze.
"Because I can tell. You are like me, at your age." I chewed my lip - a nervous habit I sometimes had. I knew she was about to say the same thing I had said to my own mother many times before... "I'm nothing like you!" there it was. And at that age, you really did believe it. Until you became a mother yourself, you just didn't know how alike you and your mother were. It was the curse of generations.
"Trust me. We are more alike than you think." An ironic chuckle heaved from my chest.
"That's where you're wrong. You are actually wrong in so many ways, but this topic especially. You abandoned the throne, and I did not." her arms crossed tightly against her chest.
"You haven't yet, but you will. I thought the same thing at one point but I couldn't do it. I wasn't experienced enough and neither are you. There is so much you realise when you get older that your brain just cannot comprehend at your sixteen. You think you know everything... but you don't. It's a fact."
"I thought I was immortal... don't immortals have more knowledge than anyone else? I know I have powers... I have experienced that power and I'm not ready to give it up."
"Half. You are half immortal. You don't have to give it up... that will serve you well in life. And no, immortals don't know more than anyone else... we just have longer to figure it out because we live longer than anyone else."
She huffed, leaning back in her chair. "Half immortal? What does that even mean? I can die?" Her walls were breaking down. So were mine. She just wanted to know what was going on with her and she needed me to tell her.
"I can tell you if you like..."
