Forgotten Dreams of Eternity: Lost Odyssey: Thousand Years of Dreams

(Short Story -XXI.) *Seth's Dream Part 2*

Forgotten Dreams of Eternity: Lost Odyssey: Thousand Years of Dreams

Copyright © 2011 Sky_Knight

(Short Story -XXI.)

*Seth's Dream Part 2*

I know you probably hate me now Aneira.

Or perhaps, as the descendant of the noble white-winged clan, you harbour no such vulgar emotion as hatred.

Kind and gentle as you are, perhaps you have forgiven me. Perhaps you have accepted what I did, and now you pity me for being trapped in the prison of solitude again.

But still, good, kind Aneira, I insist on making one last, selfish request:

Please hate me.

Please hate me for eternity.

If I know that you hate me, I can remain connected to you.

If I know that you have not forgiven me, the pain of that will enable me to feel you close to me.

Are you laughing at my convoluted reasoning?

Then let me say it more simply.

I am lonely.

I fear eternal solitude.

That fear has been with me ever since I killed you with my own two hands...

Nine hundred years have passed since we first met.

In the conventional way, I took a husband. Even more conventionally, I gave birth to a son.

Soon after naming the baby "Sed", my husband died in an epidemic. At his bedside, of course, I cursed the fate that would not let me die.

Had you not been with me, Aneira, I would never have been able to find the strength to raise Sed by myself.

You said to me, "There is no greater joy than for a child to be born and to grow up healthy."

Fitting words from you, sole survivor of the winged clan!

You also said to me, "You will be all right, Seth. You are no longer alone. Now you have Sed. You will never be alone as long as he is with you."

I nodded to you in tearful recognition of the truth of your words, and you went on with some embarrassment:

"Leave Sed to me, I will train him to be a full-fledged man of the sea. If anyone should dare to threaten him, I will protect him with my life."

How kind you were, Aneira!

How truly kind!

Even now I can recall the carefree smile on your face when you were playing with Sed.

He was such a frail little boy, but you steeled your heart to train him sternly, and on those days when he had cried himself to sleep, I often caught you in profile, watching him in sleep, your face sutured with ineffable gentleness.

How glad I am, Aneira, that fate brought us together!

In my long, long, endlessly long life, I can declare without hesitation that you were my finest companion.

So why, Aneira, did events play out the way they did?

To this day, I have no idea why.

Do you know?

Did you know why those things were happening to you?

This is what I would like to know.

All the more so because I can no longer learn the answer. I desperately want to know it