Edited: 3/20/19
There is a sacred bird who is thought to be the sun, once upon a time, that soars upon distant lands and shores with its crowned head and massive fire-plumed wings. It is called by many a name, of different tongues and different cultures; its true name, however, has long been lost within the seas of time and remold anew from the rafts of warbled songs and half-truths.
It is ancient, too. Some say it is as old as the moon, others as the Rukh. But, curiously, the telling always goes as this: the sacred bird is not immortal and it is old, so old that it has seen the destruction of the world for three times, thus it lives through three lives, three worlds, and three sufferings.
.
.
.
". . . it is meant to suffer?"
"Yes, love, like the rest."
"I don't understand," a child protests, eyes wide and unburdened by such words.
"Perhaps, one day," an ailing hand rests on her cheek, the touch fleeting, "you will. In another time."
A strangled breath. A lapse of silence, then the numb drone of a flatline. The day is scarred in white, pale—like her mother's hand, buried against waves of white sheets, cradled within the casket of a white room. The child doesn't cry.
That is what she remembers.
.
.
.
—but not the other one.
Yet she still dreams, anyway.
.
.
.
There was a woman, she remembers, too.
"Mama," she calls out from her blankets, and Mama coos her back to sleep with but the gentlest of voices. She has always done so, and in a similar pattern, she returns by my side with a warm hand resting atop my head.
She wishes it stays there forever.
However the sentiment simply withers away when dawn arrives; within the slums, the fog thins out into mist and the raw glow of morning light washes the world bleak and ashen-gray. Mama hasn't been muted down like the rest. Hardly so, when she is vibrant in the colors of cream, olive green, and dark blue. Blue, she muses wistfully. The color of dusk, brushed subtly on her mother's eyelids like evening shadows. Then a deep red for her lips.
Mama is beautiful. She wishes her mother hadn't been too beautiful and too young.
And too kind.
"B-bad . . . dream," again, she will have mumbled, if she doesn't decide to leave it out instead. With time, those vivid dreams haunt and remain still, and Mama knows it most of all. She does what she can. She always does. An embrace, a soft hum of some sweet lilting tune, only to scare the vague streams of visions away. It never works, though she is with her for a while longer and that matters more. She hopes for it to last.
"Mama," she whispers, but the unspoken words doesn't shape out right. They contort into something else: "I love you."
I've always known. I know why you have to. . .
Mama smiles. It is the promised sun.
Her eyes close.
"I love you—"
.
.
.
"—princess!"
Smothered by silk and soft linen, she is muffled by a stranger's enthusiasm. A very particular enthusiasm for children, she should note, when the woman before her feels the need to coo and wrangle her in her arms like some doting mother. Truth be told, she has no name to pin the woman with, but there is something strikingly familiar in her countenance; soot-black hair and brown eyes, with a familiar blue pigment colored on her lids.
But it isn't the same.
"Oh, what a princess," the woman says, almost breaking into a mid-squeal. This close, one will have first taken notice of the sweet scent of her skin or her expensive pearl earrings, unhidden by her dark locks. However she can't help but see how attractive she is. It is always a telling quality, attractiveness; how one lures and moves with it, speaks and simpers in a certain way.
"Is this yours?" asks whom she presumes to be the acquaintance of the woman, a foreigner equally beautiful and similarly dressed.
"No, no, but wouldn't it be lovely if she is?" the woman replies, lifting her face up. The shawl tumbles on her small shoulders. "A charming face. Blonde hair, bright eyes, like gold-fire," and then, finally, she turns to her: "she would likely take after her father," there is a chuckle, and some part of her hopes she doesn't realize how much her heart is stammering against her chest at those speculations.
When the woman confronts her again, she does surprise her with her next question. "Where's your mother, little princess?" her smile seems amicable enough, but her lips are stained crimson. A provocative red.
She blinks. "I don't know."
Mulling, the woman points at a nearby brothel. "Hm, is she in there then?"
I don't know.
"Anise," she musters out. That name has never left naturally out of her mouth, but it always feels as if she has been uttering it for years. She tries again, testing it on her tongue, "is there someone called . . . Anise?"
"Here," the woman refers to the brothel once more. She looks at her for a long interval with a knowing stare beneath those thick lashes and blue-shadowed eyes. "I'm afraid not."
From that answer, she begins to tread away.
"Hey, where're you going?"
"To find Anise."
She leaves, and the parting words soon follow: "oh, poor lost princess."
Taking in a quiet breath, she cloaks her shawl over her head, wishing that no one takes notice of her hair. More often than not, her retainers comment how rare and beautiful the shade is when they brush it for her, yet color always serves as a great reminder in her life. How such small likeness incurs the Queen's spite, and for a time, draws in scrutinizing eyes to her.
You look like your father, that gentle woman will say. Anise, she corrects. Her name is Anise.
She sighs softly under her breath.
Perhaps, it has begun with a steady ache.
For years, it then swells twice her size, and the weight of such feeling overcomes her, tenfold.
It bleeds through her dreams, somehow. Folds in those nights, buries within the ancient secrets of the palace walls—until, perhaps, it reaches her bed. She falls from the sentiment, however. Has fallen for so long from oceans upon oceans of strange dreams that weave seamlessly into memories regardless, drowned at the sights, scents, and sensations of each and every one. How personal they have all been, how real they feel.
And yet still: deep within her bones, she knows that she's not Balbadd's Princess. She's not a harlot's daughter, either.
My real mother died from a stroke.
But here she is, in the middle of nowhere, venturing out on her own to find this stranger.
For truth, for some semblance of existential peace? Perhaps, that makes more sense in the midst of things. More so, than having to perpetually reason with herself that it is rooted from a child's innate need to be with its mother. Because she has long since passed that stage, a lifetime ago.
"Princess Amestris," a reprimanding voice thunders behind her, and her feet seems to have lost all motivation to move forward. She doesn't dare turn around, but she wishes she has the gall to leap into a sprint at least, even though her chances of escaping are slim against a trained general.
The heavy clanking of armor nears, and then a sigh trails after. "Princess. I know it's you."
"Barkak," her head turns and an uneasy simper stretches wide on her lips. "I told you before. Ame is fine. Just Ame."
With two royal guards behind him, Barkak doesn't return a smile of his own and he never fails to remind—admonish her, rather, of her blatant informality and lack of reservation. Will a girl of nine summers grasp the very gravity of his words, Ame doesn't know. She pretends to not understand.
Then Barkak clears his throat. "And my dagger," his large hand is open, waiting.
"Oh," Ame blinks at him before revealing the dagger tucked under her shirt and surrendering it to its owner. It is pretty, the dagger. Sasanian steel, she recalls, eyeing the fine curve of the blade, how it gleams silver against the light. "I took it for a good reason," the right word for it is stole, but she prefers ignoring it, smilingly: "for self-defense."
"That hardly matters if you are protected within the palace."
"I suppose," says Ame, with a shrug. "Did Father send you to find me?"
There is a second of hesitation. "The King is informed," he doesn't elaborate further about it, but he does vehemently pursue on the subject of her absence. "It's been two days, Princess. I understand that you had a quarrel with the Crown Prince, but that serves no excuse for such irresponsibility. What could've happened to you, for leaving everything behind?"
Ame flinches. She will have claimed that she is already used to his raised voice when he commands the royal guards or a troop of soldiers. After all, his voice is always full and booming, even in the simplest conversations, because his left ear has gone deaf from the heat of battle years ago and he is struggling to hear with the other.
However while the way Barkak speaks is understandably loud, he has never raised his voice in that manner to her. Not once.
"I," Ame tries to collect herself, nails biting into the flesh of her palms. "I'm sorry, Barkak. I was reckless."
Ame swallows a breath, swallows the guilt, when she has the nerve to stare back at his scolding glare, the slightest concern lines dented above his brows. "I forgot myself," she confesses. She can't stand it, though; her words sound too offhanded, too sincere. "Ahbmad said I didn't come from noble birth."
A long sigh rolls off his mouth. Barkak then kneels before her, letting their eyes meet. "You were sired and raised within the palace the moment you were born," he tells her. She believes him and his stern honesty; he's been the only honest one, in a palace full of snakes and silver-tongued nobles. "The royal blood of the Saluja flows in your veins. You are our Princess, remember that well."
Ame breathes in, out. Ingesting the words like hot bile on her throat. "Of course," she bobs her head, a blond strand falling under brow. "I will keep it in mind."
"Good. Shall we return?"
There is nowhere else to go, after all. She acquiesces.
As they stride together in their departure, Barkak observes their surroundings. He scrutinizes the dirt road, the brothels and their scantily-clad prostitutes beckoning outside perfumed doors, the raucous streets brimming with people, beggars, and swindling traders with fat rats scuttling beneath their feet. His gaze then lands to her. "This place . . . it must have startled you," he contemplates, thinking, perhaps, that such flashes of hideousness must have shocked his princess. Maybe sully her eyes, even.
However something else bothers her immensely, a wave of strange nostalgia overwhelming her chest. The grimy hands, the scum, and all.
"Barkak."
"Yes, Princess?"
"I know," Ame starts; for a moment, reluctant, "I know I don't belong here."
"Indeed, you don't," Barkak can only nod, but Ame doesn't believe he can ever comprehend what she truly means.
Though the lavish palace in the heart of the city, and the slums at the edges of its walls, and the poverty of it all is familiar.
The bastard child from those dreams may have lived this life once.
But I never belonged here.
A/N: May subject to change. Not edited yet.
Sooo, I shouldn't be writing this, but the idea just wouldn't leave me alone for days. So far, you're free to speculate over the very short and uneventful prologue. I kid you not, filling in the role of Alibaba merits a massive AU, but of course, I will still keep some canon plot beats every now and then. Another thing to note, she doesn't know batshit about Magi, so she's going in here blind. Lastly, this is basically going to have the same treatment as my other SI!OC fic and there'll be OCs as well.
The next chapter is a monster, a goddamn lengthy monster.
Permanent Disclaimer: I do not own Magi