Hope in the Darkest of Places
By
Elendil Star-Lover
The room was pitch-dark. The Eyrie liked it that way. She stood before the trembling yellow-orange Aisha, in are her malevolent dark splendor. The Aisha knew that her life might be in danger, as the Eyrie woman was quite fickle-tempered and usually leaned toward unbridled aggression.
This was the feared Daughter of Darigan, a young lady Jeran's age, born and bred in the Darigan Citadel during its toughest time. Jeran said that Darigans loved her, but for a Meridellian to look at the curves and hollows of the purple face and the gleaming green eyes, a mark of her Dark Faerie ancestry, was to know fear.
This dark purple Darigan Eyrie was rumored to have more power in the tip of her littlest feather than Jhudora had in her whole body, a fact the Aisha found hard to ignore as the Eyrie growled and narrowed her glowing green eyes. Standing like that, she looked like a Dark Faerie with a slender, perfect body, humane except for its wings and tufted tail, beating and lashing in the dark, causing the few candles in the room to dance.
The Eyrie's black beak was set perfectly straight and emotionless, but her eyes spoke of untold anger. Jeran had not let it be secret that often he felt pity for the Darigan menace, cold and hungry in their barren fields, but when they threatened Meridell, he would be there. The Aisha didn't understand why Jeran would feel this way. Weren't all Darigans heartless, evil monsters?
But then, why was she standing before such a dark and malevolent being, and the only surviving member of the Darigan Royal Family, at that?
"H-he wanted me to g-give this to you," the Aisha said, holding the carefully folded letter in her right paw and pushing her red-rimmed glasses upon her nose with her left.
The Eyrie looked down at the letter and a flicker of emotion crossed her face, something that was not hate, rage, or anger. She looked at the letter for a very long time, tufted tail swinging behind her in deep contemplation. The Aisha's paw quivered under that jewel green gaze. What, pray tell, was that Eyrie thinking of?
"H-he s-said that s-since I go a-a l-letter, that you s-should g-get one, t- too," the pale orange Aisha continued, tears brimming in her eyes at what her own letter had said.
The Eyrie reached out with her left hand, taking the letter. Sharp claws brushed across the fur of the Aisha's paw, but it didn't hurt nor draw blood. She sighed with relief.
"Thank you. You can go now," the part Dark Faerie said, a note in her voice proving her defensive, leadership qualities as it tired to cover her sadness.
There was a story the Aisha knew called "Jeran and Selena". Her older brother had been named after it. After she came to Meridell, the Aisha wondered if he wasn't named after himself, which would make this beautiful, dark creature...
It was about to young people during a time of war and how they used their love to overcome it and eventually put a stop to the war altogether. The Aisha, however, was worried. Not all translations of the story were happy endings. The thought of this Eyrie as being *the* Selena and her brother being *the* Jeran from the story frightened her for no more reason then one of those stories had to be close to what happened historically and since the number of tragedies by far outweighed the number of fairy tales...
The Aisha backed away, leaving the Eyrie woman to read. She didn't leave, she watched the dark, forlorn figure select a desk by a candle in the old, abandoned library, still stocked with books even older than Meridell, the Citadel, and probably the Orb. The Eyrie's wings clung limply to her sides in a motion of heavy sadness. Deep regret weighed her tufted tail down and droplets of tears, sea-green from the light of her eyes, fell onto the page. The Aisha felt immensely sorry for the foreign princess, having lost her throne, her kingdom, her Lupe friend...
Her chest hurting with the weight of her tears, the Eyrie opened the letter and began to read.
My dearest Selena,
I know that you claim to hate me for having slain countless young men and boys---young men and boys that you yourself trained with from the time King Skarl stole your precious Orb. Knowing you, probably you watched their lessons and trained with them in secret, you little imp! ^_~
Do you remember when we first met? Back before I was Sir Borodere, when I was young and scrawny, and you were as black as night and as blue as the morning sky? The stream you played by was babbling and laughing with you as you danced and spun in circles, playing by yourself as General Kass watched from the trees.
I did not want to approach you then. I did not want you to approach me. I was afraid, afraid that I was dreaming and that you were not real, and that if I made contact with you in any way, I would lose you forever.
You spoke to me anyway. It was clear you had never left your borders, it is clear, thinking back on it and how you tried to tell me I must have an element name, like you are of the moon, Selena of Kreludor.
We played for quite awhile that day, as I recall. I remember this big, purple Eyrie leaping out of the branches and telling you that it was time to go home. I remember the way he picked you up and held you in his arms with an almost father's love. He carried you back to your Citadel, didn't he, though you were old enough to fly?
It is hard to believe that that man is whom I go to hold my sword against now. I think back then he knew what was going to occur between us, since he told me to "scat, boy" so vehemently. After all, you were smuggled out of the Citadel because my sensei's brother stole your Orb for my king, weren't you?
Against our father's wishes, I suspect, we saw each other as often as we could after that. When we were little, we played tag. As we grew, we began to talk of matters of state, but I think then we knew in our hearts who we were, even though we never told each other.
And then your Citadel positioned itself high over Meridell Castle and the War began. I was a young knight then, barely out of squirehood and you were already a fine lady, your Dark Faerie blood well-vested in your emerald eyes and magical talent. I was young and foolish, I'll admit, but I thought I was doing right for the good of the kingdom. King Skarl never told me what you told me.
Remember when we met on the battlefield? You thought I had come to see you, my dear Selena, and when I was ununied, ran to my aid. My sensei, Algameth rode up beside me and called me by my knighted name, Sir Borodere, and ordered me to slay you on sight. I wouldn't. I couldn't. I loved you too much, my friend.
They say that was when you lost your mind, betrayed far too many times in your life as it was. You hunted me down, ran me off the battlefield, screaming insults and telling me what really happened the day your kingdom lost everything.
I didn't believe you then. I think I hated you as much as you hated me, and for the same reason. You never told me that you were young Lady Darigan, future queen of the Citadel, and I never told you that I was a knight of Meridell.
We were both hurt that day, I know. We both lost our best, and probably only, friends. I suppose we did it for a noble cause, for the betterment of our people, and is that not what a noble is for?
You won that war, but you lost your father. I cannot imagine what that was like for you, Selena of the Moon, Daughter of Darigan, Child of the Citadel, but afterwards, I heard my father talking. He said he ordered my sensei's brother to steal the Orb, and I know that doesn't make either of us happy.
I was angry at my father then, but most of all angry at myself. I knew this man for what seemed like my whole life, since I lost my early childhood memories, but he took me in because he thought he would never marry, not because he wanted me.
You. You were my friend because you chose to be, and I didn't believe you when you said those unkind things about my king, unkind things which happened to be the truth.
But you have to understand that King Skarl did that for the good of his own people, selfish and ignorant as it was. You have every right to hate my kingdom. I am certain.
You say you do, but I don't think you do. As soon as your father was...gone, you seized control like the great lady you are and did everything you could for your kingdom. You gave them your own food and opened your Citadel to them. You people, your kind, love you, Selena, for what you do for them. My kind hate you because you are a Darigan, and the daughter of our sworn enemy.
But I don't hate you. How could I hate the one who introduced me to sweet pickles? Would my swordsmanship have improved so much, if I had not had a girl teaching me better than a knight of Meridell?
You have every right to be angry with me. Those men I go to slay now, those men I slew before, you trained with. You played with them as a child.
I am indeed sorry that King Skarl would not allow you to come, for I can think of no one better that I would want to have by my side than Selena of the Moon, Daughter of Darigan and Granddaughter of Jhudora. Do you realize how surprised he was, when you walked right into the middle of his court and punched the court dancer, swearing loyalty to him, if it would get you your kingdom, your Citadel, back?
I understand how you could let Kass stay in it, those years between wars. Your ideas were not his ideas, and while he cried for blood, you wanted peace, showing once again that you do not hate us Meridellians as much as you say. You didn't want hatred between your own kind, either, so you didn't throw him out, even when Orrnan Galgarrath of the Earth advised you to.
It wasn't your fault that Kass disarmed your black magic and flung you out of your chamber's balcony.
My dearest Selena, I promise you, if it takes my last breath, I will get your Citadel back for you.
I told Lisha that there comes a time when you have to look after yourself. I told her that hope is there, even when it is dark and hard to find, it is there. But I want you to keep an eye on her. Teach her the ways of Faerie magic and the sword, she's all the blood family I have.
I may never see you again, my love, and I want you to know that I will always be there for you. Whenever you stand by the babbling brook where we first met, I want you to know that I will be standing there beside you, ready to take up arms for the strong, defiant Darigan Eyrie I fell in love with when I was a pup.
I always love you,
Sir Jeran Borodere of the Sun
Selena Tiamat Darigan of the Moon took a jar of pickles out of the bag on the bench beside one. She dipped her long claws into the green, cold liquid, selected a pickle, popped it into her mouth, and sucked it dry. For a long time she stared at her letter, tears staining the ink.
The Aisha watched her. She watched the Eyrie woman shut her eyes and let tears fall. In the candlelight, her tears glowed green for a few seconds before landing on the letter and fading to salty clearness.
The Aisha wondered what her brother had written this young woman, the young Lady of the Citadel. What could they have to talk about, two creatures who fought for opposite sides for so long?
The Eyrie sniffed back more tears and opened her glowing green eyes. She purposefully stood from her seat and strode for the door, as if she had done it her whole life. As her hand reached the doorknob, she paused.
"Where are you going?" the Aisha asked.
The Eyrie smiled, not the chilling sight that the Aisha had expected, but something warm and peaceful that spoke of a summer's day by a babbling brook.
"Your brother rides to claim his lady's kingdom back. He might need help," the part Dark Faerie known as "Selena" answered.
At last, Lisha understood.
A/N: What do you guys think? Neopian Times worthy?
By
Elendil Star-Lover
The room was pitch-dark. The Eyrie liked it that way. She stood before the trembling yellow-orange Aisha, in are her malevolent dark splendor. The Aisha knew that her life might be in danger, as the Eyrie woman was quite fickle-tempered and usually leaned toward unbridled aggression.
This was the feared Daughter of Darigan, a young lady Jeran's age, born and bred in the Darigan Citadel during its toughest time. Jeran said that Darigans loved her, but for a Meridellian to look at the curves and hollows of the purple face and the gleaming green eyes, a mark of her Dark Faerie ancestry, was to know fear.
This dark purple Darigan Eyrie was rumored to have more power in the tip of her littlest feather than Jhudora had in her whole body, a fact the Aisha found hard to ignore as the Eyrie growled and narrowed her glowing green eyes. Standing like that, she looked like a Dark Faerie with a slender, perfect body, humane except for its wings and tufted tail, beating and lashing in the dark, causing the few candles in the room to dance.
The Eyrie's black beak was set perfectly straight and emotionless, but her eyes spoke of untold anger. Jeran had not let it be secret that often he felt pity for the Darigan menace, cold and hungry in their barren fields, but when they threatened Meridell, he would be there. The Aisha didn't understand why Jeran would feel this way. Weren't all Darigans heartless, evil monsters?
But then, why was she standing before such a dark and malevolent being, and the only surviving member of the Darigan Royal Family, at that?
"H-he wanted me to g-give this to you," the Aisha said, holding the carefully folded letter in her right paw and pushing her red-rimmed glasses upon her nose with her left.
The Eyrie looked down at the letter and a flicker of emotion crossed her face, something that was not hate, rage, or anger. She looked at the letter for a very long time, tufted tail swinging behind her in deep contemplation. The Aisha's paw quivered under that jewel green gaze. What, pray tell, was that Eyrie thinking of?
"H-he s-said that s-since I go a-a l-letter, that you s-should g-get one, t- too," the pale orange Aisha continued, tears brimming in her eyes at what her own letter had said.
The Eyrie reached out with her left hand, taking the letter. Sharp claws brushed across the fur of the Aisha's paw, but it didn't hurt nor draw blood. She sighed with relief.
"Thank you. You can go now," the part Dark Faerie said, a note in her voice proving her defensive, leadership qualities as it tired to cover her sadness.
There was a story the Aisha knew called "Jeran and Selena". Her older brother had been named after it. After she came to Meridell, the Aisha wondered if he wasn't named after himself, which would make this beautiful, dark creature...
It was about to young people during a time of war and how they used their love to overcome it and eventually put a stop to the war altogether. The Aisha, however, was worried. Not all translations of the story were happy endings. The thought of this Eyrie as being *the* Selena and her brother being *the* Jeran from the story frightened her for no more reason then one of those stories had to be close to what happened historically and since the number of tragedies by far outweighed the number of fairy tales...
The Aisha backed away, leaving the Eyrie woman to read. She didn't leave, she watched the dark, forlorn figure select a desk by a candle in the old, abandoned library, still stocked with books even older than Meridell, the Citadel, and probably the Orb. The Eyrie's wings clung limply to her sides in a motion of heavy sadness. Deep regret weighed her tufted tail down and droplets of tears, sea-green from the light of her eyes, fell onto the page. The Aisha felt immensely sorry for the foreign princess, having lost her throne, her kingdom, her Lupe friend...
Her chest hurting with the weight of her tears, the Eyrie opened the letter and began to read.
My dearest Selena,
I know that you claim to hate me for having slain countless young men and boys---young men and boys that you yourself trained with from the time King Skarl stole your precious Orb. Knowing you, probably you watched their lessons and trained with them in secret, you little imp! ^_~
Do you remember when we first met? Back before I was Sir Borodere, when I was young and scrawny, and you were as black as night and as blue as the morning sky? The stream you played by was babbling and laughing with you as you danced and spun in circles, playing by yourself as General Kass watched from the trees.
I did not want to approach you then. I did not want you to approach me. I was afraid, afraid that I was dreaming and that you were not real, and that if I made contact with you in any way, I would lose you forever.
You spoke to me anyway. It was clear you had never left your borders, it is clear, thinking back on it and how you tried to tell me I must have an element name, like you are of the moon, Selena of Kreludor.
We played for quite awhile that day, as I recall. I remember this big, purple Eyrie leaping out of the branches and telling you that it was time to go home. I remember the way he picked you up and held you in his arms with an almost father's love. He carried you back to your Citadel, didn't he, though you were old enough to fly?
It is hard to believe that that man is whom I go to hold my sword against now. I think back then he knew what was going to occur between us, since he told me to "scat, boy" so vehemently. After all, you were smuggled out of the Citadel because my sensei's brother stole your Orb for my king, weren't you?
Against our father's wishes, I suspect, we saw each other as often as we could after that. When we were little, we played tag. As we grew, we began to talk of matters of state, but I think then we knew in our hearts who we were, even though we never told each other.
And then your Citadel positioned itself high over Meridell Castle and the War began. I was a young knight then, barely out of squirehood and you were already a fine lady, your Dark Faerie blood well-vested in your emerald eyes and magical talent. I was young and foolish, I'll admit, but I thought I was doing right for the good of the kingdom. King Skarl never told me what you told me.
Remember when we met on the battlefield? You thought I had come to see you, my dear Selena, and when I was ununied, ran to my aid. My sensei, Algameth rode up beside me and called me by my knighted name, Sir Borodere, and ordered me to slay you on sight. I wouldn't. I couldn't. I loved you too much, my friend.
They say that was when you lost your mind, betrayed far too many times in your life as it was. You hunted me down, ran me off the battlefield, screaming insults and telling me what really happened the day your kingdom lost everything.
I didn't believe you then. I think I hated you as much as you hated me, and for the same reason. You never told me that you were young Lady Darigan, future queen of the Citadel, and I never told you that I was a knight of Meridell.
We were both hurt that day, I know. We both lost our best, and probably only, friends. I suppose we did it for a noble cause, for the betterment of our people, and is that not what a noble is for?
You won that war, but you lost your father. I cannot imagine what that was like for you, Selena of the Moon, Daughter of Darigan, Child of the Citadel, but afterwards, I heard my father talking. He said he ordered my sensei's brother to steal the Orb, and I know that doesn't make either of us happy.
I was angry at my father then, but most of all angry at myself. I knew this man for what seemed like my whole life, since I lost my early childhood memories, but he took me in because he thought he would never marry, not because he wanted me.
You. You were my friend because you chose to be, and I didn't believe you when you said those unkind things about my king, unkind things which happened to be the truth.
But you have to understand that King Skarl did that for the good of his own people, selfish and ignorant as it was. You have every right to hate my kingdom. I am certain.
You say you do, but I don't think you do. As soon as your father was...gone, you seized control like the great lady you are and did everything you could for your kingdom. You gave them your own food and opened your Citadel to them. You people, your kind, love you, Selena, for what you do for them. My kind hate you because you are a Darigan, and the daughter of our sworn enemy.
But I don't hate you. How could I hate the one who introduced me to sweet pickles? Would my swordsmanship have improved so much, if I had not had a girl teaching me better than a knight of Meridell?
You have every right to be angry with me. Those men I go to slay now, those men I slew before, you trained with. You played with them as a child.
I am indeed sorry that King Skarl would not allow you to come, for I can think of no one better that I would want to have by my side than Selena of the Moon, Daughter of Darigan and Granddaughter of Jhudora. Do you realize how surprised he was, when you walked right into the middle of his court and punched the court dancer, swearing loyalty to him, if it would get you your kingdom, your Citadel, back?
I understand how you could let Kass stay in it, those years between wars. Your ideas were not his ideas, and while he cried for blood, you wanted peace, showing once again that you do not hate us Meridellians as much as you say. You didn't want hatred between your own kind, either, so you didn't throw him out, even when Orrnan Galgarrath of the Earth advised you to.
It wasn't your fault that Kass disarmed your black magic and flung you out of your chamber's balcony.
My dearest Selena, I promise you, if it takes my last breath, I will get your Citadel back for you.
I told Lisha that there comes a time when you have to look after yourself. I told her that hope is there, even when it is dark and hard to find, it is there. But I want you to keep an eye on her. Teach her the ways of Faerie magic and the sword, she's all the blood family I have.
I may never see you again, my love, and I want you to know that I will always be there for you. Whenever you stand by the babbling brook where we first met, I want you to know that I will be standing there beside you, ready to take up arms for the strong, defiant Darigan Eyrie I fell in love with when I was a pup.
I always love you,
Sir Jeran Borodere of the Sun
Selena Tiamat Darigan of the Moon took a jar of pickles out of the bag on the bench beside one. She dipped her long claws into the green, cold liquid, selected a pickle, popped it into her mouth, and sucked it dry. For a long time she stared at her letter, tears staining the ink.
The Aisha watched her. She watched the Eyrie woman shut her eyes and let tears fall. In the candlelight, her tears glowed green for a few seconds before landing on the letter and fading to salty clearness.
The Aisha wondered what her brother had written this young woman, the young Lady of the Citadel. What could they have to talk about, two creatures who fought for opposite sides for so long?
The Eyrie sniffed back more tears and opened her glowing green eyes. She purposefully stood from her seat and strode for the door, as if she had done it her whole life. As her hand reached the doorknob, she paused.
"Where are you going?" the Aisha asked.
The Eyrie smiled, not the chilling sight that the Aisha had expected, but something warm and peaceful that spoke of a summer's day by a babbling brook.
"Your brother rides to claim his lady's kingdom back. He might need help," the part Dark Faerie known as "Selena" answered.
At last, Lisha understood.
A/N: What do you guys think? Neopian Times worthy?