Helpful Facts:

On Antar time is dated from when Khivar took control.
Now depending on who's side your on you either see it as the 24 years since the deposition of the true king or 24 year since the Ascension of Khivar.

To figure this out in earth time, just add the years to 45. I'm picking 1945 to be the year of the royal family's assasination .

I hope that makes sense.

Elizaveta is Elizabeth in Antarian.


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24 Lenari 2397~ In the fifty-first year of the deposition
Past and present always struggle against me in an irreconcilable battle. If it was just my struggle, I know I would endure. But I'm not the only one fighting against it. Yesterday, she slipped and called me father. My heart fluttered. I never would have thought that one word could bring so much happiness. However, I immediately found myself correcting her. How could I accept such a gift when I've brought her so much pain?
In her eyes, I always see so much love. How would they look if she really knew me? That I had killed them.
I'm trapped. I want so much to tell her, but I can't loose her. Maybe I'm inflating my role in her life, but I think she needs me just as much. I often wonder what her mother was thinking when she gave her life. Did she actually think that Elizaveta would be able to escape from her legacy just because she chose to ignore it? The sorry part of the matter is that I will never have an answer because when it comes down to it I didn't know Katya half as well as I thought I did.
~ From the Journal of Larek Antari


She was having that dream again.

Smoke clouded around her. She coughed. With her hands, she tried to part it, bat at it. It wasn't working. "Mommy," she screamed.
Nothing.
Part of the ceiling collapsed.
From her crib, she dangled one foot over.
"Elizabeth," her mother ordered. "Stay there honey."
Seconds later she felt herself floating over the smoke. Afraid, she reached out to grab at the air.
Pain.

Her flesh crackled, she withdrew her hand.
"Shoo honey, it's ok," her mother's arms wrapped around her.
"I'm ah , scared mommy, I'm ah scared."
"It's ok."
"It's far from that Katya," a voice replied.
Her mother's grip grew tighter.

Liz's eyes sprung open. Sweat covered her. She took a couple of shallow breaths.
"It was just a dream. That was all it was," she repeated to herself. An attempt to blame some dark entity instead of the mere chance that had spared her. A way to make sense out of the senseless. Dreaming of her parent's death was nothing new, she had seen it a thousand ways.

Stabbing, poisoning, drowning, air raids.

A morbid desire to spice up the hover accident that killed them, but for some reason fire always seemed so real.

In the dark, she stared at the splotches of white that lined the back of her hand. She had been too close to the nitrix when the hover had exploded. That's what Larek had told her. Yet, doubts lingered. His half explanations no longer sufficed.

"Lights please." A flurry of movement came from beside her bed. XL's large yellow eyes opened. Lifting her green flippers, webs of light shout out. They bounced from wall to wall until all shadows had ceased.

"Can't sleep Elizaveta?" XL asked.
Her shoulders shivered. "Yes," she wrapped a chemise around her.
"I could make you some Belta. It would help," XL said like a mother trying to coax a child back to bed.
"I'm fine," but XL refused to listen.
Liz searched for an excuse.

A beam of light from the hall stretched underneath the door. He was still awake. "I think I'll go and check on fa--Larek." She mentally chided herself. Her father was dead.


Winding through the corridor, her mind drifted.

He had used to read her books.

He had taught her how to drive a hover.

He had never left her when she had the Telusian Fever.

He had given her his name, Elizaveta Avatari.

Then why couldn't she call him father? Blood may have separated them, but she could not deny their bond.


Perhaps, he regretted taking her in. Without her, he would have a higher post. He had never married.

She stopped.
From the doorway, she watched him. Huddled over a book, a stylus moved furiously in his hand. Light from the fire made a hallo around his grey hair.

Abruptly, he closed his book. "You are getting so good Elizabeth, I didn't even sense you."

She flinched. He was speaking English. It wasn't the first Earth language she had learned. Yet, there was a familiarity in the words that both frightened and excited her. It created a tension she wanted to avoid. Unfortunately, his dogged pursuit of it made that almost impossible.

"My teachers say I'm progressing so fast that I might even become a maeglin

"In English Elizabeth."

"Larek, why do I have to learn it? It isn't like I'm ever going to Earth."

His purple eyes narrowed. "And that a good excuse for ignorance?"

He knew her too well. The love of knowledge that beat in her heart. Ignorance and narrowness virus her mind refused access to.

"Fine," she answered in English. "But could you call me Liz. Elizabeth sounds well," she searched for the right word," too royal and proper."

Emotion flitted across Larek's face. It past so fast she could barely mark it. "Who do you plan to serve if you become a maeglin?"

"The king of course," she answered

"And that would be whom?" in his chair he leaned closer.

At first, she thought she misheard him. His word were the product of her inefficient English.

Khivar was king. Everyone knew that.

An oath from school popped into her head.
We pledge our love, life, and liberty to Khivar. May our king live long and the usurper live not all.

She stared at him. An odd glow shone in his eyes. The fire cast a harsh shadow over his face. His hands folded in his lap, he waited.

Confusion hit.

He expected a real answer. Not some meaningless saying learned at school.

She licked her lips willing some thought but none came.

Khivar was king. She had seen his throne at court.

But was he a good king?

He had killed thousands in his galactic wars, but the Antarians had always been warlike people.

Enslaved thousand more. Yet, that was the custom. Larek dissented, but he constituted a small minority.

Then there had been their meeting. She remembered the way he had looked at her. Half way between a leer and a scowl, his hand had lingered on her face too long.
"She has her mother's presence. I can see why you disobeyed my order to have such a delicious
youth in your house," he told Larek. To mould her anyway you choose. Maybe you'll be able to control this one a little better." She pushed his hand away as traveled to her neck. "She has her mother's feistiness as well."

"Liz," Larek interrupted.

Her mouth opened. Then closed. Her brain fought to form a rational response. In the end, it lost. "There's some wrong with Khivar. I can't explain it, but I don't want to serve him."

Larek let out a breath.

Her cheeks redden. "I answered wrong?"

His arms wrapped around her, "no, you've made me so proud."

"I don't understand. I've just said the opposite of what my teachers say. "

"In time, you well," he stroked her hair. "You've chosen a very difficult path to tread my Liz. It will not be an easy one, but you've picked the right one."

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