Part 4: only thing that matters
A thousand lifetimes is a long time. I have been constantly reincarnated during that time, but there's always this part of me that dwells outside of each new form. A part that has had a long time to reflect. I know nothing now that I didn't know our last day alive when we suffocated to death, and yet at the same time I know so much more. Crazy, isn't it?
I used to wonder why I didn't just pass on to a better place. At any time I wished, or wish now, I could and can leave this last reincarnation behind. She would finish her natural life with a soul, but then there would be no more connection between myself and the mortal coil.
I can hear them calling out for me to join them constantly. My people. My family, Nehebka, Mereb...some people question if there is a better place after death. I know there is, because I can feel it when they beg for me to join them. I want to so badly, and there are times when I'm tempted just to give up.
It's taken me three thousand years to know why I've waited for three thousand years. It all comes down to one person. It all comes down to Radames.
He wasn't my first love. I was a dutiful daughter, true. But even a Nubian princess occasionally fooled around. I had fallen in love before, mostly with nobles of my class, but the occasional countryman as well. Some were more serious than others, but needless to say Radames wasn't my first.
I wasn't planning to fall in love. I didn't understand it, and I was terrified. At first, every time I gave him some form of sympathy, it was to prove to myself what a terrible a person he was. Gods, I hated him back so much for everything he had done to me and my people. When I yelled at him when we were alone in the banquet hall to change his own life, I was deep down hoping that he would come after me and punish me, just so I could justify my hate for him. I saw a brief glimpse of humanity in his anger that night, and it scared me. How could a monster have emotions, let alone ones I could relate to?
But he wasn't a monster. Stubborn, yes, and well taught in the ways of greed, but willing to change and love. Everything he did after that night proved to me how human he was, and how much he was like me. If he had just taken me, forced me to make love with him, it would have been easier for my troubled mind to ponder. But I came on my own. I was in love, too.
Here was someone like me, who knew what it was like to feel passion but also knowing duty. Someone who wasn't afraid to love what was forbidden for both of us, and helped me to feel it as well. The Nubians loved Aida, but they loved Princess Aida. I didn't think it was possible for anyone to love me for anything else. And yet Radames loved me for everything else, loved me for everything deep down inside.
In the end, all that mattered was love. My "honor" for Nubia didn't. I was so scared what my father would say or what my people would think that I lost track of what was important. I lost track of my own heart. It pains me even now how stupid I was.
Don't misunderstand me when I say this, however. When I say what mattered was love, that includes my love for Nubia. My mother, my father, my brothers and sisters. My friends, and their families, and the people who cared for me, both as Aida and the princess. They were worth protecting. Not pride, or the whims of two constantly fighting nations over the dirt of land, but real people whom I loved and would die for, which I did in the end. My decision wasn't an easy one, but it was a love I had to protect. That I feel proud of, and I only regret that it was a hard choice and that I had to betray Radames in the process.
In the end, hundreds or thousands of years later, both Egypt and Nubia fell. I did what I did to protect the people I loved, and it makes me happy that they could leave out their lives in peace. But now they've passed on, and Aida and Radames have faded from just about all memory. Except for mine. The past has let them go, and they've been able to move on. But I can't. I still want this.
But who knows if I will ever find Radames? The population of this world keeps growing greater and greater. What are the chances, really, that two souls can run into each other again? One in a thousand? A million? Never? Is the sheer logistics of it impossible?
People are born and then are thrown off this mortal coil faster than I could blink my eyes in life. They eat, they go out to their jobs, they sleep, they make love, they fight, and they eventually die. So many wasted lives falling off the face on the earth into oblivion and never realizing that they're awake. That they're alive.
At least I got to taste it, to feel it once. I may have known Radames for barely two weeks, but I loved him more fiercely than anything I ever had before in my life or have in any lives since. I've fulfilled my duty, I've fulfilled my love for my family and my country.
Now I know I have to fulfill my duty for myself. No, it's not even a duty. It's what I want to do. It's taken me three thousand years not to be scared, but I'm not any more. I love Radames. That's all the reason I need. It's as simple as that. I found him once, and through some hellish/heavenly miracle I have this one in a million chance of finding him again.
And that's why I won't give up.
Author's notes:
I know, I know. I said I'd have this done several weeks ago. However, I realized several weeks ago that what I had almost finished writing was pure mushy crap. It's taken me longer as a result to finish this part, but I feel better about it.
I'm debating whether to work on the final chapter of this or the next part of Elaborate Lives. Either way, I hope to get another one done soon.
Keep the feedback coming!
A thousand lifetimes is a long time. I have been constantly reincarnated during that time, but there's always this part of me that dwells outside of each new form. A part that has had a long time to reflect. I know nothing now that I didn't know our last day alive when we suffocated to death, and yet at the same time I know so much more. Crazy, isn't it?
I used to wonder why I didn't just pass on to a better place. At any time I wished, or wish now, I could and can leave this last reincarnation behind. She would finish her natural life with a soul, but then there would be no more connection between myself and the mortal coil.
I can hear them calling out for me to join them constantly. My people. My family, Nehebka, Mereb...some people question if there is a better place after death. I know there is, because I can feel it when they beg for me to join them. I want to so badly, and there are times when I'm tempted just to give up.
It's taken me three thousand years to know why I've waited for three thousand years. It all comes down to one person. It all comes down to Radames.
He wasn't my first love. I was a dutiful daughter, true. But even a Nubian princess occasionally fooled around. I had fallen in love before, mostly with nobles of my class, but the occasional countryman as well. Some were more serious than others, but needless to say Radames wasn't my first.
I wasn't planning to fall in love. I didn't understand it, and I was terrified. At first, every time I gave him some form of sympathy, it was to prove to myself what a terrible a person he was. Gods, I hated him back so much for everything he had done to me and my people. When I yelled at him when we were alone in the banquet hall to change his own life, I was deep down hoping that he would come after me and punish me, just so I could justify my hate for him. I saw a brief glimpse of humanity in his anger that night, and it scared me. How could a monster have emotions, let alone ones I could relate to?
But he wasn't a monster. Stubborn, yes, and well taught in the ways of greed, but willing to change and love. Everything he did after that night proved to me how human he was, and how much he was like me. If he had just taken me, forced me to make love with him, it would have been easier for my troubled mind to ponder. But I came on my own. I was in love, too.
Here was someone like me, who knew what it was like to feel passion but also knowing duty. Someone who wasn't afraid to love what was forbidden for both of us, and helped me to feel it as well. The Nubians loved Aida, but they loved Princess Aida. I didn't think it was possible for anyone to love me for anything else. And yet Radames loved me for everything else, loved me for everything deep down inside.
In the end, all that mattered was love. My "honor" for Nubia didn't. I was so scared what my father would say or what my people would think that I lost track of what was important. I lost track of my own heart. It pains me even now how stupid I was.
Don't misunderstand me when I say this, however. When I say what mattered was love, that includes my love for Nubia. My mother, my father, my brothers and sisters. My friends, and their families, and the people who cared for me, both as Aida and the princess. They were worth protecting. Not pride, or the whims of two constantly fighting nations over the dirt of land, but real people whom I loved and would die for, which I did in the end. My decision wasn't an easy one, but it was a love I had to protect. That I feel proud of, and I only regret that it was a hard choice and that I had to betray Radames in the process.
In the end, hundreds or thousands of years later, both Egypt and Nubia fell. I did what I did to protect the people I loved, and it makes me happy that they could leave out their lives in peace. But now they've passed on, and Aida and Radames have faded from just about all memory. Except for mine. The past has let them go, and they've been able to move on. But I can't. I still want this.
But who knows if I will ever find Radames? The population of this world keeps growing greater and greater. What are the chances, really, that two souls can run into each other again? One in a thousand? A million? Never? Is the sheer logistics of it impossible?
People are born and then are thrown off this mortal coil faster than I could blink my eyes in life. They eat, they go out to their jobs, they sleep, they make love, they fight, and they eventually die. So many wasted lives falling off the face on the earth into oblivion and never realizing that they're awake. That they're alive.
At least I got to taste it, to feel it once. I may have known Radames for barely two weeks, but I loved him more fiercely than anything I ever had before in my life or have in any lives since. I've fulfilled my duty, I've fulfilled my love for my family and my country.
Now I know I have to fulfill my duty for myself. No, it's not even a duty. It's what I want to do. It's taken me three thousand years not to be scared, but I'm not any more. I love Radames. That's all the reason I need. It's as simple as that. I found him once, and through some hellish/heavenly miracle I have this one in a million chance of finding him again.
And that's why I won't give up.
Author's notes:
I know, I know. I said I'd have this done several weeks ago. However, I realized several weeks ago that what I had almost finished writing was pure mushy crap. It's taken me longer as a result to finish this part, but I feel better about it.
I'm debating whether to work on the final chapter of this or the next part of Elaborate Lives. Either way, I hope to get another one done soon.
Keep the feedback coming!
