Summer Queen

Hi! PeppermintPeople here, this is my 1st official story (less a story, more of a sleepy idea) so, yeah. it's been sitting at the back of my mind for a while and this is what happens. This is the prologue and the next chapter/s will be just as short and will take a LONG time to publish (school, ya know?).

CONSTRUCTIVE CRICTICISM IS VERY WELCOME BUT TROLLS AND FLAMES WILL BE SLAUGHTERED WITHOUT MERCY IN MY IMAGINATION. hm, not a fanfiction so there's no disclaimer. I feel incomplete.

DISCLAIMER: this story is mine, and so are the names and stuff :) Enjoy!

~~~

Fall killed that which death deserved.

Winter froze and life was preserved.

Spring thawed and renewed, and the cycles turned.

But Summer seared and Summer burned.

Though Season is wild and Season is free,

Summer came and chained Her three.

Then Fate created and hid the keys in precious things.

So Season will one day regain her wings.

~°~°~°~°~°~

"Push! Push, Tyv! Breath, in and out, hoo, haah, hoo, haah, that's it, breathe, stay calm Tyvel, it's almost over."

Sweat and tears merge and taint as they rush down Tyvel's fair face. She has been longing for this for YEARS and yet at the moment itself, she finds dread in place of excitement. A half growl, half scream rips itself from her throat.

"Argh! It hurts! KIYO! THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT YOU IGNORANT FOOL!"

Her fingers crunch down on his unmercifully. Her paramour grimaces but never once tries to break free from her grip. He merely returns it, with a pained and sheepish smile and whispers endearments and encouragements. The midwife motions for him to beat his sunlit wings.

'Oh,' he thinks 'we mustn't let her catch fire.'

His wings beat in time with the midwife's and Tyvel becomes somewhat more relaxed. The breeze caresses her and gently pushes her damp hair from where it has fallen in front of her face. Her hands, which hold in them the strength of a bear, have lessesned their force to become a wolf's jaws. With a great heave and as a final effort on her strength, Tyvel brings another fae into the world.

Tears flow freely, both hers and Kiyo's.

"She's beautiful." Tyvel whispered, half afraid it was a dream. The midwife, Vivean was her name, beams at the family triumphantly. Time and practice cannot wear away the beauty of birth.

"Best let the ba-" Stillness settles in the air instead of the other half of that word. Tyvel can wager it's meant to be "babe."

"Yes? what is it Vivean?" Tyvel looks up to the midwife and frowns. Her mouth is half open and her sentence hangs unfinished in the hot air. She waves her hand in front of the fae's face and her eyes do not even blink. Kiyo is similarly frozen, mouth rounded to coo at their child. She brings her gaze to the miracle she labored to give life to and gasps. Her wings are flickering! One moment they are Summer wings, wavering sunlight, another moment snowflakes and leaves and blossoms; Winter and Spring and Fall. Tyvel lifts one trembling finger to touch the foreign things. Raised in a world dominated by Summer, and Summer alone, she cannot place what these alien shapes are. Yes, she knows what leaves and flowers are but never as wings on fae; and what is that white, cold lace-like object that has perched itself on her daughter's back?

"Snow for Winter, Leaves for Fall, Blooms for Spring, the imprisoned all." a child's voice floats to her from Kiyo's place by the bed, answering her unspoken question. Tyvel's head whips to the source and she sees that her husband has been moved without her notice to the other side of the bed. In his place is a child with the strangest kind of wings and an ecstatic expression. The bottom halves of her wings are leaves and petals while the upper regions are sunlight wings and, what was the white called? Snow, snow completes the stranger's wings.

"What are you doing here? Who are you? What have you done to Kiyo and Vivean?" Tyvel hugs her child close, ignoring how cool she is compared to the other Summer newborns she's met. The stranger-child ignores her questions. All except the last.

"I've put us in a bubble, so I can see her." She motions to the babe fast asleep in Tyvel's arms.

"Even now you can see the resemblance," she smiles a secret smile, as if she knows something no one else ever will. "Isn't it uncanny?"

"Yes, it most certainly is." says Tyvel with a certain harshness. 'Who is this child to say she resembles MY daughter?' she thinks to herself. Tyvel frowns suspiciously at the stranger child and looks at her daughter, whose eyes are now open. Her amber eyes flicker back and forth uncertainly between the stranger and the precious being in her arms. Both their eyes are multicolored and brighter than stars. The child leans in and Tyvel catches a glimmer of ancient wisdom flicker in those otherworldly eyes and she feels small, innocent and oblivious to something so easy to perceive.

"Keep her hidden and allow no one to see her strangeness. I will allow you a day and a night to bask in her presence then I will take her away." She spoke with an unmistakable authority. Tyvel opens her mouth to argue and cradles her little Nameless One tighter against her. Her babe fumbles for her breast and bites down with her toothless gums, drinking in the sweet nectar with gusto. The stranger-child quickly puts up a delicate hand to silence her.

"It will not be forever. I merely need to teach her to conceal her uniqueness from your Summer eyes. She will be the same babe, albeit with a different form." The child smiles her secret smile once more, puts a finger to her lips as if to say 'It will be our little secret' and winks, as if to imply that Tyvel will obey her words completely. Then she disappears, there is no fading into nothingness or blinding light, it is as if she had simply erased the memory of her leaving from Tyvel's mind. Kiyo and Vivean regain their movement.

"-abe suckle now, Tyvel. Oh, I see you've gotten ahead of me then!" She says with a laugh. "You've birthed a ravenous one, take care to keep 'er full!"

Kiyo coos and makes ridiculous faces that makes the baby laugh. Tyvel smiles at her husbands antics, the encounter with the stranger-child banished to the back of her mind so she can fully enjoy this moment.

"Hum, doesn't she have the strangest wings, love?" He fingers their child's wings gingerly. "What'd you want to name 'er?" Kiyo looks up with a face full of love and eagerness. Vivean leaves, to keep this moment sacred. There is something criminal about intruding on a new family when you yourself were not a part of it.

"Let's give half a name and join them together. I'll give 'Reri'."

"Hum, dear. 'Reri'? You've made me think. What would pair with 'Reri'?" He smiles at his wife then stares thoughtfully at his newborn.

"'Reri' doesn't have to be the first part, does it?" He asks dubiously. Tyvel chuckles at his question.

"No, we'll just meld the parts we thought up to make something pretty." She replies with certainty.

"In that case I'll give 'Zei'." Tyvel's face scrunches up in light concentration.

"'Rerizei'?" Doubt saturates her voice and dislike is evident in her tone.

"'Zeireri'." Kiyo states simply. She shakes her head.

"Too many 'ay's and r's sounds. Let's both change ours. My 'Reri' I make 'Irel'." Kiyo nods, and after a moment of staring lovingly down at the baby, decides on "Meze".

They speak together when their decision is made.

"Mezeirel."

Mezeirel lifts her head up from her suckling and laughs. Her mother and father join in her mirth, laughing as one, in perfect harmony, just as a family should.

In the shadows, in her own little bubble, a fae child with strange and beautiful wings laughs with soundless joy. With the laugh still lingering on her pink lips, she raises one slim finger to the middle of her smile, as if to remind whoever is there to see that she carries a secret, a special little secret. Then she disappears, with nothing to mark her departure but the feeling of a memory gone, snatched from the mind with no one the wiser.