AN: So, this turned out to be more past lives than what I intended. I was planning to a compare/contrast between two Queens and then it went a completely different way. As such, I'm not entirely satisfied with this segment, but I have written and rewritten this three separate times; and then when I was just about ready to post, I ended up hitting the plug on my computer, forcing a reboot and lost a chunk of it, making me have to rewrite it again. And frankly, I'm just done at this point.
Q is for Queen. He has served two queens in his lifetimes, both out of love - the first through the blood; the second of the heart. The first was naive, a girl, soft, and held an innocence that would eventually lead to her destruction. The second started out that way, but she adapted, grew stronger for being tested and survived. Both he would have walked through the fire for; and for both he would gladly have laid down his life.
Liz would always be the queen of his heart despite a lack of noble blood. The one he served through no obligations or familial ties. The one he stood beside, champion and lover. She was a force to be reckoned with, and was always in his thoughts. He valued her, not for the blood in her veins, but for her indomitable spirit, which told him she could look destiny in the face and gladly spit in its eye.
When it came to her, he never doubted his place or his actions.
Instead it was another queen, one he hadn't known well in this life - Avah, sister, the queen he couldn't save - that haunted him.
What few realized, was Avah wasn't his full sister, but only his half. It was a cleverly devised scheme set into motion by his father Raili, who would later become known as Ceneas first, and then Nasedo last. But the second half of that statement was a story for another time.
Memory retrieval was a bitch; and secrets had long been the lifeline that ran through Sevengali blood, both the keeping and the selling of them.
He had been born in a very small province on Antar; one that held a minor noble family out of the King's eye. The royal family rarely noticed his home because they held little land and weren't politically active enough for note; and outside a brief quarterly meeting with the steward, whom they quickly dismissed, they didn't bother with the running of things.
It was this blind eye that would lead to their eventual downfall.
For in this village lived an ambitious man; one who had no qualms of using and abusing the local populace to further his own gain. He wasn't a genius on any scale, but he was crafty, sly and had an additional gift that would prove useful - the ability to change his shape at will. He had been born among the poorest edges of the empire, but had no intentions of remaining there, held down by the caste system that would lead the uprising marking the end of an era best forgotten.
Had this man been aware of what was to come, would he have made the choices he made?
They called it a golden age. Pretty to think so. It may have been a golden age for those living at the top of society, a world built upon the backs of others; but for the so-called dregs of society (nobles are oh-so-charming), the poor and uneducated who couldn't rise above their station because no one gave them the necessary tools, it was misery.
Raili scorned those masses; the ones who worked hard every day for mere scraps and the placating words and absentminded benevolence handed out to them by the nobles and royals of the land. He longed for the silks and satins, and the rich ways long denied to him by circumstance of birth. But rather than work for it, he stole it - first in truth, robbing the rich blind when they passed through the province, and then figuratively when he 'borrowed' another man's life.
Being able to shift at will was a very useful tool. It meant he could do anything, be anyone. It meant he could move between any stratum of society, so long as he kept silent and minded his actions. And he had always been good at mimicry. It helped when he held up the carriages; no one could ever give an accurate description as he always subtly changed his appearance. And the fools never matched that to a man who could change his shape, as he never made his talent known to the village.
So he hoarded his riches in a remote location, building up a stash he intended to sell in a distant location and then use this to start a new, richer life as a minor noble in another place, and leave this small province behind. And then fate intervened in a startling way.
One night, the carriage he held up wasn't a passing noble, but the steward's.
After knocking the steward and the coachman out, he sat there pondering his options. He could flee; leave with the few trinkets on the man. It really wouldn't be worth his effort, but better than nothing. The driver and the steward would awaken, with a raging headache and a little light of purse, but no worse for the wear. Or...
Or he could take the steward's place and further his plans in a different way.
The coachman had been long disdainful of the current noble ruling their land and often complained of his treatment at the steward's hands while drinking his check away at a local pub. More? He was a friend; one that owed him a favor or two as Raili had gotten him out of trouble with the local authorities on more than one occasion.
If he could convince his friend, he could take the steward's place. He had mentioned he was good at mimicry had he not? That, along with his friend, the youngest son of a merchant family fallen on hard times, and thus an educated man, he could pull off the swindle of a lifetime.
So he quickly roused his friend, relayed his thoughts, and his scheme was quickly embraced to his delight. After assuming the steward's face, they altered the steward's appearance until he looked vaguely like the 'thief' plaguing their land and set off to the manor. There they wove a harrowing tale of how they'd been beset upon by the thief, who had been tragically slain in the conflict. In gratitude, he hired the coachman, his protector who between him and the thief, as his assistant and the ruse began.
Raili became Ceneas, and his friend Eveal became his greatest confidant. He ruled the household with an iron fist, and used his natural business acumen to expand, enfolding neighboring villages into their own landholdings through promises (not all actualized, but enough to placate the villages) and persuasion, until finally he had quadrupled their lands in a few years, bringing them to the attention of the King.
He married well, taking the nobleman's distant cousin, Heulwen, as wife; a union that spawned a single son - Aelrath - before her tragic death (natural causes were stated, but rumors among the household whispered 'poison'). For Raili had bigger fish to fry than a mere cousin; he wanted it all and would settle no less than the coveted hand of the noble's daughter, Dylan.
Luckily, as the grief-stricken widower of her favorite cousin, he had an instant in and slowly charmed his way into her affections, and her heart, and eventually her bed as her husband, his son adopted into the fold as heir apparent unless they had a son of their own. And even then, Aelrath would have the backing needed to move into the political arena, becoming a puppet statesman in his father's hands.
The new union produced a single female child after a couple of mysterious miscarriages, (no one could figure out how vaelano had gotten into Dylanna's water, or ever caught the fiend that knocked her down the stairs the second time; both boys) - Lilyavah. He had a son to mold in his image, a daughter through whom he could make an advantageous match and the nobleman's ear.
Life was looking good from his exalted vantage point.
What he hadn't counted on, was his son Aelrath overhearing his drunken, triumphant ramblings to Eveal one night; the both them high on the fact that they ruled the province now that the nobleman was dead.
And disgusted by his father's scheming, Aelrath disappeared.
And that was when the golden age truly began.
Q is for Quest. Rath, as he'd become known, tossed aside his father's wishes and teachings, and lost himself in a neighboring province, taking up with a military family - friends that had unofficially adopted him as another son. Having been groomed for a political commission all his life, he had studied law, and the court and, most importantly, strategy ad nauseum and he was unparalleled in this arena.
Binding himself to the Olenvens didn't even take any thought. As an adult of 22 cycles, he didn't need anyone's permission to take a soldier's commission. He could have done it on his own. But it was always better to have the backing of a well-placed family, and the Olenven family had long known his desire to be his own man and make a name for himself away from his father's reach. So when he'd confided that he'd fallen out with Ceneas (only that wasn't his real name, was it), they took him in.
And that was where he recreated himself, much like his father, to his utter distaste; but he did it for the people, not his own selfish whims.
He worked ceaselessly to better the plight of his people; the ones that laid on the outer edges of the empire and thus the poorer regions, the ones that often got overlooked in favor of the pompous and noble lineages, unwittingly building a following as he rose through the ranks. His banner became education for the masses, for equality among the people. He pointed out that a safe, educated, happy populace was a populace that would better the kingdom and bring change and with it prosperity.
He didn't expect it to catch on as it did.
He expected to be a solitary voice in the crowd.
He never dreamed that all those nights he'd lain watching the stars and talking with his sister, Avah, advocating change, advocating education, advocating government support as a way to a better, much more prosperous Antar, would ever come to fruition.
They were just the rambles, the vision, of a boy.
And then fate played its hand once again; two-fold.
Q is for Question. Rath had always been a curious boy. He had always seen far more than people had ever given him credit for. Fascinated by the world around him, he constantly sought out new ideas and information and absorbed them like a sponge. Carefully. As it wouldn't do for his father to realize his heir questioned the very ideals he was meant to uphold. He didn't need whispers getting back to Ceneas.
So, he hid his curiosity, and quenched his thirst for knowledge very carefully, and hid it all behind a thinly constructed mask of indifference and boredom in his father's presence. But when alone, when his father left on one of his 'business' trips, he indulged in secret, in defiance of everything his father stood for; he'd always had a fine mind.
It gave Michael comfort to know that some of his personality quirks were engrained, were echoes of his past.
Rath read voraciously; anything and everything he could get his hands on, padding and filling out the whitewashed version of life that his father spoon fed him. And when he ran out of books, he turned to the servants who adored him, considered him one of their own, and peppered them with question after question about their lives, their hopes, their dreams, their thoughts on society and the empire in general.
It was in these quiet moments that the revolution, the age of enlightenment began, all brewing in a mind far too young to really understand just what made him so unique from others of his class. But the thoughts formed, solidified and stuck with him as he grew; these ideals that he'd later pass on to his beloved sibling, a girl he had no idea was destined to be queen.
He was simply Rath, a boy with a very firm, if somewhat idealistic world view; and he couldn't understand why others didn't see the way he did.
It was only later that he realized that those same thoughts would change the world.
Q is for Qualms. Hurtling forward to this place in time, Rath never expected it all to end the way it did. They all had such a bright, hopeful future despite Ceneas' manipulations. Despite having been denied his sister when he left home (he had written, but sore at losing his pawn, Ceneas refused to give them to Avah), they'd been reunited in the end.
He'd heard about her from time to time, whispers through the servants that spoke of a girl, who had grown into a beautiful, intelligent and idealistic woman; a relative he was proud to know and love. He'd heard the official story of her betrothal; how she had met Zan while vacationing at Dimaras Rock with Ceneas and how it had been love at first sight. (A part of him, the part that knew Ceneas' end game, couldn't help being doubtful; it all seemed just a little too pat and reeked of an outside source helping the infatuation along.)
But he also didn't doubt his sister's charm; so anything was possible.
(Later he would learn through a scathing retelling of the events by an irate Avah, who said she'd been offered up as a rather fine jerglr for slaughter; or more to the point, a thoroughbred kevea for breeding, that he'd been right in his suspicions.)
It was however, a love match.
Despite their suspicious beginnings, Avah fell in love with Zan. Who wouldn't? He was a unique blend of naive and worldly, and had grand ideas for the empire. And he was a genuinely good man, one who sought to better the plight of his people. He had dreams, changes he wanted to implement to get away from the status quo. Charming, enigmatic, bright as a star...who wouldn't fall under that spell?
He'd loved him himself.
Rath met Zan during a campaign; there had been a minor skirmish on the outside of the Olenvens' land and as the Lord Protector, the head of their guard, he took a few of his men to investigate, inadvertently saving the Crown Prince, who had been traveling incognito. In reward for his help, and because he'd recognized Rath's name, he offered him a commission within the royal guard, and ultimately a place near his sister.
It was a time of peace, of growth, of prosperity - the start of the golden age as stated.
And it blinded them to the corruption, the tarnish that festered underneath the gilt.
He hadn't known Vilondra well; she was often busy with her social events and political obligations. But he had found her warm and caring and had considered her a friend. She laughed with him, joked with him, dropping tempting little seeds of gossip here and there, all shared with sunny smiles and a twinkle in her eyes. So sweet. So personable. And much like her brother, charming, intelligent, although far more worldly...
Deadly.
It had all been a facade.
He'd been blinded at first, much as anyone had. He would grant that she hid her true colors behind a well-constructed wall that impressed even his current self. (It had been heartbreaking to watch Isabel come to terms with her past after she went through memory retrieval. He desperately tried to talk her out of it, wanting to spare her the knowledge, but she'd stubbornly persisted, stating that ignoring it could inadvertently lead to a repetition of past mistakes.) But then the whispers began, knotting his gut in fear as they spoke of betrayal within the ranks, a spy from within.
It was actually during one of those gossip sessions where his doubts in her mask revealed themselves. It wasn't so much what she had been saying, as to how it had been said. It left him off balance, queasy, and questioning every conversation he ever had with the princess; ones where he had divulged far more than he intended.
Why wouldn't he?
She was the princess, part of the royal family, his betrothed and future wife, and thus privy to more information than the average person. She was on their side.
Or so he thought.
What he hadn't counted on was she'd fallen in love with a person 'unsuitable' in her family's eyes, and their unwillingness to support that love had bred resentment.
Khivar was the middle son of a once well-to-do, merchant family; one that had fallen into hard times due to their role in a previous war. They lost much of that wealth to the crown in reparation for the damages they had inflicted on a neighboring province, another act that bred resentment, and Khivar grew up poisoned to the crown. And he had no compunctions about using a spoiled, unhappy princess against her kin; especially if it led to an uprising.
They met at a party in a nearby province while Vilondra and Avah were visiting a friend. She'd gotten bored, despite the attendants pandering to her every whim and slipped out into the garden, where Khivar lain in wait of an easy target.
That was the beginning of the end.
Khivar ensnared her with coy, clever words and visions of her as queen, aided by both his natural charisma and his powers.
Or so Michael had always hoped. He never could reconcile Isabel, and the younger Vilondra, with what she became in the end - a cold, embittered woman capable of patricide (never would he have dreamed that she'd been behind her father's riding accident); and willing to sacrifice her brother, his wife, who was once her best friend, and her future husband on a flimsy promise at best, and an outright lie at worst.
But he couldn't deny his qualms were confirmed as he stared into the cool eyes of a stranger, sitting in the face of one he once called friend as he was dragged before her and her paramour. He stared deep into violet eyes and tried to find anything familiar that would belie the reality staring him in the face; part of him had hoped it was a ruse, and she was just playing along with Khivar in an attempt to bring him to justice.
But there was nothing but cold disdain.
Which made it all the more jarring and heartbreaking as the past was repeated; only this time it was the eyes of a beloved sibling staring at him with a similar expression as Tess admitted to killing Alex, wrenching his heart all over again.
And he couldn't help the dark smile that crossed his face as Tess spilled her guts about the plan, realizing that it might have taken decades, but his father, once known as Raili, and then Ceneas, and finally Nasedo or Ed Harding here on Earth, had finally gotten his revenge.
Q is for Quake.
