Defying Equilibrium

Interlude IV

8 years ago

“Mama! Mama, look!” the proud eleven-year-old girl held up her creation for her mother to see. “Look what I made! I carved it myself.”

The girl held up a hexagonal shield, carved from driftwood. She had spent hours making it, carving in every intricate detail to make it look identical to the real thing. And the first thing she did was present it to her mother for approval. Her mother was a Shielder, after all. She wanted to be just like her, someday. The mother looked down at her daughter's smiling face, but she didn't smile back. Instead, she sighed and waved her daughter away.

“I'm busy. Go bother someone else.” Her mother was an imposing looking woman, tall with the same raven-coloured hair and the same amber-coloured eyes that the young girl had inherited. Her mother was a general in the army, which she knew meant that her mother did a lot of important work with the Militia, and she was away a lot. Sometimes the girl felt like her mother mustn’t love them at all, she barely even knew them. The young girl loved her mother, though. She admired her greatly.

The young girl's smile fell. “But... Mama...”

The mother glared. “Didn't you hear what I just said? I'm busy!”

The girl ran away. She had hoped that her mother would be proud of her, that she would pat her on the head and tell her that she was a very clever girl. But her mother wasn't like that. Her mother was a Shielder, ruthless and cold.

Not looking where she was going, she ran smack bang into her younger brother, who fell backwards onto the ground.

“Owww!” he yelped. “Look where you're going, Louise. That hurt.”

She bent down and yanked him to his feet. “Stay out of my way then, Oscar.”

He scowled, and then took in his sister's face. “Are you crying, Louise?”

She scowled in return, and hastily wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “No, of course not. Only cowards cry.”

Oscar grinned. “I think you're lying.”

“Well I think you're dumb.”

“Am not!”

“Are too!” Louise sniffed, regaining her air of superiority as the older sibling. “You are because I said so.”

Oscar laughed. He never took anything she said seriously, even at that age. “Can you read me a story?” he asked, changing the subject.

“Which one?” she asked in reply. Oscar hadn't completely learned to read yet, and he loved to listen to his older sister reading him stories. Maybe it was just because she had a nice sounding voice, but there was something about the way Louise read out loud that seemed to bring the characters to life, and made the story feel real.

“The Tale of the Raphael and Desdemona,” he replied promptly. The Tale of the Raphael and Desdemona was an old folktale, and it had always been Oscar's favourite story. Louise didn't really know why he liked it so much, it was a rather sad story. Louise pulled the book off the bookshelf. It was an old worn volume with a leather-bound cover and gold writing., and it had been read so many times that the spine was extremely cracked and a lot of the pages torn. It didn't matter though, she practically knew the story off by heart.

She settled into the armchair that occupied their living room, and Oscar sat down on the floor at her feet. She began to read:

“This is a tale of a love that was doomed from the beginning, and a tale of the lengths that some will go to for the cause of love.

This tale takes place in a forest, in a land far away. In this forest, a war raged between the people of the forest and the magic users. The magic users, who once lived among the humans, separated themselves and saw themselves as the caretakers of the forest. They were not pleased with the way humans cut down the trees, polluted the river and killed the animals. And so, the magic users of the forest waged a violent war on the humans, pledging to take justice for their home. And the humans fought back with an army of their own.