Kingdoms Rise

Six

Mae stared out at the vast expanse of ocean before. They had set out a few days ago for Tilanyth. She kept to a routine of sorts. She would either stay in her small room, if it could be called that, —fitting only a cot, a chair, and not much else, save a small hutch—and on the deck.

Mae had kept her distance from Fallon, not because she didn't want his company, but because she needed time to process. Everything had happened so fast in Vianna. Mae still worried about her parents—parents who weren't really her parents.

She didn't want his pity or his false words of encouragement.

"You can't sulk forever," Mae jumped at the voice.

She hadn't heard Fallon as he walked up to her until her spoke. She turned around to see him standing a few feet away. She glared at him and turned back to look out at the ocean.

"Can I ask why you needed to see your friend before we left?" Fallon asked gently.

She wanted to remain silent, but she answered, "I had to say goodbye to the one friend I have had my whole life. I had to make her promise to keep my parents safe."

"Your parents are strong people, they'll survive."

"What if they don't?" It pained her to voice the thought a loud. She continued, "What if they... What is it's my fault they don't survive?"

"You can't think like that," he said careful. "I'm not going to give you some bullshit wisdom, I'm going to let you process, but I'm not going to let you sulk." He took a small, careful step toward her.

She didn't back away, didn't balk away from him. She let his words settle. Mae held his gaze.

"This whole time I thought they were my parents."

"Did you?" He looked at her with smallest amount of pity.

He had a point. There were times when she thought that they weren't her parents. They had small things in common, things a lot of people in common. The kind of things people from the same place shared. "Perhaps, there were times when I questioned it."

"Whatever happened when you were a babe was in your best interest."

She didn't want to talk about it anymore. She turned her gaze to the ocean once again. She could feel him take a step toward her.

"For what it's worth, I think your parents will be fine."

He reached out a hand to squeeze her shoulder reassuringly.

Mae's vision went white. A searing pain coursed through her body. She felt something snap within her. A deep, taut tether that snapped under too much pressure. Every bone and muscle and tendon, every fiber of her being, was on fire, stretching and reshaping.

She knew she was screaming even though she couldn't hear herself.

She felt hands on her trying to calm her, to get her to stop screaming. Distantly she could hear a voice. She could make out the words or whose voice it was. There were other voices too. They all ended up in one undistinguishable noise.

The last thing she felt was arms wrapping around her body.

Everything went black.

~

The sky poked through the trees that covered most of it. The bits of sky Mae could see were a bright, pale blue. The thin rays of sunlight lit the area around her, but that wasn't where most of the light came from. There were lightning bugs and Midnight flowers. The flowers were in varying shades of blue and violet, producing an array of colorful light.

Mae could see a doe off in the distance. A bunny scurrying across the ground at her feet. Butterflies flew through the trees. The soft, elegant songs of the birds flitted down from the trees.

Mae didn't where she was or how she got here. But she did know that, this time, it wasn't real. This—this is home, Mae thought.

The forest itself had an air of magic. A magic that should be flowing through her veins. A feeling of belonging washed over her. She wanted to run with the force of this nature.

She could here a voice in the back of head, a calling to wake up. But she couldn't. She was stuck here in this magnificent place. The voice turned pleading, begging her to wake up. She wanted to, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't.

Suddenly this magnificent place of color and light, didn't seem like so anymore.

It was shrouded in shadows and darkness, but they the comforting sort.

She found a large bed of flower and grass, she lay down in the middle. The shadows closing in around her, like a blanket to comfort the ache in her heart as she listened to the pleading voice she could not answer.

She didn't sleep—she already was. She lay there, letting the shadows comfort her. Let the doe watch over her, the bunny lay by her side as she stroked its soft, small head.

She listened to the muffled pleading in the back of her head for what could have been hours or days, but felt like minutes.