Once Upon a Faerie Tale

Chapter Nineteen

Nineteen:

Darby was in shock. She had meant to ask Markus his intentions, and she got them, but would he be willing to go back to her world with her. She had no intention of staying in this world, not even for Markus. “Will you come back with me?” She asked simply.

“To your world?”

“Yes.”

“But you have to rule, you are the rightful queen.” He said, his brow furrowing. 

Sighing Darby fell to her knees to be equal in height with him. “Rightful queen or not, I don’t belong here. I have a family in my world. My parents, my grandmother. That’s where I belong. I don’t want to rule a kingdom.”

Darby would never forget the look on Markus’ face.

***

Marana looked beautiful in her wedding dress. She was the epitome of a blushing bride. “I’ve never had clothes this nice, or treated so well before.” She confessed to Darby. 

Darby smiled, “You’re lucky. You have a man who loves you very much and he doesn’t care about your life before.” She adjusted the girl’s hair and turned her so she could look at herself in the mirror. Her dark hair fell in waves to her waist, her impossibly large eyes glowed happily, and the smile on her face was bright enough to blind anyone who looked directly at it. 

“I look like a princess!” Marana exclaimed happily, beaming. 

“You do look like a princess.” Darby laughed, loving the child-like innocence and joy that emanated from the girl who had endured a hard life. 

The ceremony was much like one in Darby’s world which surprised her. All the similarities between the two worlds surprised her.  The similarities in language and culture were too big to miss. 

It was after the groom scooped up the bride and took her up stairs, away from the party that Darby found Renalie to hopefully get answers to some of her questions. Not bothering to waste time with pleasantries and small talk, Darby asked the question out right. “Why are there so many similarities between these two worlds?” 

Renalie did not look surprised by the question, “I was wondering when you would ask me this.” The old woman smiled and when she did, there seemed to be an underlying youth to her face. Darby caught a glimpse of the beautiful woman she must have once been before her face turned to it’s wrinkled wrinkles. “When your grandmother told you those stories growing up how did she begin them?”

Thinking for a moment Darby began to recite the phrase she had long ago memorized. “Once upon a time, in a world that was once connected to our own…” Looking up she could help but feel that the answer wasn’t as simple as that. She had known from the moment the reality of this world that they were connected but it had to be deeper than that. 

“Our world’s were much more connected to one another than they are now. The fairy tales that your grandmother told you are not the only true ones. Long ago our worlds were very open to each other though few traveled between them. Adventurers and explorers visited and collected stories, interacted with the magical creatures, it was all a very social affair. 

“But then there came a time when some of the magical creatures placed themselves as leaders over those in your world. They were more susceptible to their powers because they were uneducated about them. There came a time though, when powerful witches like myself and the first witch Hekate trapped the truly powerful magical creatures in this world to prevent it from happening again. For a long time men from your world could come to ours until we closed the gate. The gate is opened occasionally, to test the waters and see if men from your world can resist the temptation, but they never can.