I am not a goddess, nor royalty. Nor a woman who forgets...easily.
I was born to a hardy working woman and a soldier in the Earth's army. He left us after his unfortunate liaison with my mother had run its course. It was no great romance. My mother cleaned rooms at the local inn. He was in town, stationed with the rest of his men. They were drunk. Mother raised me with the help of her mother, an arch-witch who still practiced the old ways and was all cotton candy hair and white witchery. I loved them both very much.
This was a time when the old ways were dying. Being uprooted by astronomy and men of science, who'd recently discovered through meticulous observation, a kingdom on the far side of the moon. Grandmother spoke of such a land to me, often right before setting me to bed when I was a child, and though it sounded like a mere child's tale, she insisted it was real. As she told it to me, many had forgotten the visitations from the "Gods," as they were called during that long-gone Golden Age. Grandmother told me, the Silver Lady, so named due to her hair color possessed the most powerful magic of them all and so, reigned chief among them. She used to visit the Earth, trying to impart upon our people the wisdom they lacked...but...something went wrong. The people's petty jealousies caused battles to be fought over the gifts she'd bestowed. Seeing this, the Silver Lady retreated from the Earth. Leaving our people one last gift - a haze that clouded our collective memories so that we would not waste our lives seeking that which we'd lost. It was as if what was real had been rendered a mere dream, in the span of a single night.
Grandmother and a few other wise women and sages suspected, and half-hoped, the Silver Lady would return one day when we were more "evolved" and wouldn't war over the gifts she brought with her. I must confess that a part of me resented this. Who were they to say whether or not we were evolved enough? Seeing Grandmother's admiration for them, however, I often restrained myself from posing the question during her re-telling of the story. According to Grandmother, they would let themselves be found again and, indeed, it seemed as though that were now the case, what with all the recent breakthroughs our scientists were making. The witches, like my grandmother, were viewed as eccentric relics from the past. The memories they retained due to their own magical natures, were seen as fanciful myths by most of the faithless hordes in today's society.
Still. I knew it was all real...and I believed.
I was something of a fanciful myth myself. I had been born male-bodied, but slight of build with naturally long ringlets of ebony hair and skin whiter than the first snowfall of the year. My mother, seeing I was a delicate sort, left the hard work of the fields to whatever paramour she had at the time as I remained indoors with my grandmother, listening to stories and learning of the old ways - the ways of magic. I was 'gifted,' Grandmother had said and I also knew this in my heart to be true. She was grooming me to follow in her footsteps because mother never had a knack for that sort of thing, having been born with a head for more practical matters. Mother had named me 'Beryl,' the same name as the heirloom stone earrings that were once my Great-Grandmother's. Though it was a female name, Mother insisted on it, saying it marked me as a treasure. Her treasure, as valuable in her eyes as those earrings, which were priceless.
As I grew, I unsurprisingly donned the skirts of a mystic. People like me were revered in the old times and being a mystic came natural. I could manipulate the subtle energies of the universe, bend them, supplicate them, warp them to my will. I made my living by peering into the lives of others...their fortunes, their futures. I cast love charms and hexes, sold amulets, stuck poppets and brewed potions. Before long, I'd become renowned, renewing the science-hardened people of my world's faith in the old ways. Well...some of them, at least. My predictions and witchery were spot-on and would usually succeed where other measures they'd taken had failed. It was at this time, amidst the turmoil of discovering a new land on another world, that the Royal Family sent for me.
The Queen was a paranoid woman governed by fear, but she allayed it daily with empty gossip and whatever the latest fad was. Her husband and son were often away on campaigns or embroiled in some affairs of state. I'd become something of a local celebrity in the capital city and was enjoying every minute of it. Still, I couldn't help but feel like a novelty sometimes; useful, but only for the moment. Intriguing...but not for always. While casting runes for the good Queen one day, I met the Prince. I'd say he was a few years younger than I, but he was a beauty. Tall, broad-shouldered, with the same grey, almond-shaped eyes as his mother and black, glossy hair. I was in love from the moment we were introduced. I was using herbs to retain my feminine beauty well into my adulthood, but still found myself wondering if that were enough. For a woman like me, born anomalous, into the role of shaman...could my dreams ever come true? Surely a dashing young prince like Endymion would want someone not just desirable, but of dignified bearing. Someone who could fulfill the role of Princess. Someone who could provide him an heir. Not just some glorified gypsy boy dressed in women's garb.
I made frequent visits during the day, making sure to ingratiate myself with the Queen, always telling her just enough about the future to keep her in need of my continued services. Once I came upon the Prince alone. We talked. Well, he talked. I was so dumbstruck, I could barely stand. I knew there was a spark of something. I felt it when he looked at me. I saw it. So, I did what any witch would do. I decided to take it. I cast a love charm so intense that I was hardly surprised the next time I paid her Highness a visit and the Prince invited me to his chambers for a reading of his own. Before long, we were sneaking off behind corridors, into the garden maze, the grotto. But I knew it couldn't last, for though these times most anything went, a love like ours with a woman like me could only exist as a passing caprice, the same as the romances between soldiers or boyhood friends. I didn't want it to end, but it did, just as I knew it would. Endymion turned his love towards one of the silver-haired lunar strangers. People were calling them angels, "guardian angels." How pathetic.
I confronted Endymion, but he just apologized and told me that the love between us must remain a lovely memory, nothing more. He'd found something "new and deep and real...and beside all that, his relationship with the Princess might be used to form an alliance with the Moon Kingdom and that's what really mattered. The good of the Empire." I scoffed and turned away. I was a flight of fancy, a distraction...and so were my love charms apparently, the hold they had over him clearly weaker than whatever this...fixation of his was. I wanted so bad to be the Princess, the Queen he needed and desired. To never have been born in this flawed, unnatural body. For though it gave me great magic and the respect of millions, I saw now that it could not bring me love...at least, not in this life.
Then one evening, hope burned bright once more. During my vespertine meditations, I made inadvertent contact with a solar spirit. A curious thing, I'd never made contact with such a distant force before. Typically I could only sense the vibrations of those around my immediate area. I wanted to know more, so I channeled the Spirit into me. As the Spirit filled my body, I asked it questions about the universe's mysteries, the Moon People and what their intentions were. I scrawled its responses down without thinking on a piece of parchment. After the Spirit had departed, I passed the rest of the night and early morning reading these revelations, fruitlessly hoping the distraction would drive Endymion from my thoughts. It didn't. I'd had power that was different from the rest of my clan and, indeed, even the rest of my people, but this! This was the power of another world. I began to think what all that power could do where my own spells and enchantments had faltered. What heights I could reach. Bearing this in mind, I struck a bargain. The Spirit wanted entrance into this world, using me as a host. I wanted Endymion, body and soul.
"Done," it had said.
"Would I still be me?" I'd wondered.
"Of course," it had murmured into my thoughts.
"I just want to be able to feel life again. Experience sights and sounds and feelings. I've been displaced among the stars for so long. Cast away from the world of men. I'd be with you, but behind your own psyche, Beryl. I'd remain unseen and after a time, depart."
I pitied the Spirit and envied it at the same time. To never feel love is an awful curse, but to never feel the sting of rejection...well, there could be no higher blessing, could there? I welcomed the Spirit - whose name I could not pronounce, but which I approximated as 'Metalia,' into the very depths of my soul. It would only be for a little while, after all, and Metalia vowed to stay secluded in a tiny corner of my mind, not interfering or overlapping with any part of who I was or what I felt. It just wanted a chance to breathe again, to get out and take a ride. My body would be its vehicle. I could respect that. In exchange, its power would grant me the attention of Endymion. I couldn't help but notice in the weeks that followed, however, that my body began to change. It was more shapely, more womanly. My once dark hair, lightened somewhat, possessing a burgundy sheen now. I felt a little ill at first, I'm sure owing to the complexities of bearing another soul within one's own. My skin went from porcelain to sallow, my eyes became like pools of blood. My nails hardened into talons. I burned inside and never slept. Apparently, Metalia required no such thing. I began obsessing over what was taking so long. Why was Endymion not fawning over me when I went to the palace? Why had he not yet forgotten about that drippy-faced, little albino already!
My jealousies seemed to make Metalia's presence within me more powerful, which in turn fueled even stronger feelings of bitterness perpetuating the whole bilious rondo within my mind over and over again. Until one day, when it all just fell together. If he couldn't be mine, I'd get his attention some other way. I'd start with his friends, use my influence within the Royal Family to turn them all against him and this ridiculous union with the silver-haired interloper. I'd strike the match and fan the flames from the inside. Then, when the moment was right, I'd seize him from her and cast her away into oblivion! Ha...little fool, you don't know what you've walked into.
There's venom in my fangs girl, the real kind, the kind that kills.