Fated Meeting
It was another day, and just like any other I was to preform the tasks assigned to me by my parents and tutors. I woke up to the beginning of a exceptionally agonizing normal day. Dread filled me as light cracked through my eyes, and these kinds of days became so routine that I can almost can do everything in my sleep, which happens occasionally. I let the maids help me wake up more and I began to get dressed. “Little miss needs to go to bed earlier,” I hear my handmaid say as she brushes my hair.
My eyes barely open, but I smiled. “Yes Cyntias, I have made the effort to not stay up reading but my days have been so dull that I have nothing to look forward to,” she sighs and continues brushing, knowing quite well already how I feel about my sessions lately. “If only mother didn’t forebode me from my fencing lessons.” I quite enjoyed it, even though it was all for show. Becoming ready for battle wasn’t fitting for a peaceful period that just finished with a massive war right before I was born. Some say I was the reason for peace, and I would say that was a very good lie my father had spread. He was the reason it started in the first place. After I finished getting ready I went to the library room to take my breakfast before the tutor showed up. Mother soon joined me after and I read my latest book on etiquette while eating, multitasking so I could get it over with sooner and maybe have some time to myself. I carried on through my day of a few tutors in the morning, learning social etiquette and the customs of other families.
Today my mother had enough of my nodding off and yawns and decided that was the best time to let me know that I was ready to be married. I felt my heart quicken as I awakened from partial sleep, slow to understand what she had just said. “I said you are to be married,” she repeats, annoyed and inpatient with my habit.
Memories flooded my head of hearing the word marriage, and I had been to a few ceremonies. Most were very tiresome and stuffy, until the end when merriment was greedily enjoyed for hours until the dawn lulled the party goers and the newly wedded couple to sleep. This would not do, don’t get me wrong I would love something new to my life. Going to other courts and other realms, or even more exploration of my own would be freedom in itself. Marriage by this means, to be forced to be with other one for the rest of my life, was not my ideal choice of something new. I kept my mouth shut as I knew one word of my displeasure would only enrage her. I was a good child, other than my habit, at least for how children go among our kind. I know of a few stories where children of other gods could be so monstrous that their parents will lock them up for good. To bad we won’t die easily, as this is the main reason why I do not go against my parents for fear of being alive in a cell for the rest of my very long life.
Well a long life at least long compared to the short span of mortals or other denizens of the courts. Although I can only think of a few gods whose power were at the same capacity as my father and mother could live much longer as they were some of the most powerful among us. My parents are feared and worshiped by the mortals who lived on the planets that orbit the different stars around us. They could bring life and destruction, father especially as he has the power to be a void, to absorb everything around him into nothingness. He and his family came from nothing according to the stories, and will return probably to nothing. No one knew how this is possible because everything according to the laws of the universe must come from something, but I guess that’s what it means to be a god. To be beyond Law and Logic, to be the embodiment of power and worshipped by those who have none.
My father is the worst to say the least, and being around him since I was born I am surprised it has not rubbed off on me. I can complain all day or speak of the acts I have seen him done, but I really want to keep my breakfast inside me.
Mother tried to explain how there are forces in the universe that absorb stars, planets, comets and everything in between and that father has dominion over them. Mother on the other hand, is the culmination of every star that is orbited by a planet that has life as she is the giver of life. She can turn a desolated planet with nothing, into a green a fertile one, ready for almost anything to inhabit it. They are opposites which is why father forced her hand in marriage against her parents will as he saw power of what they could be capable of. It caused a massive war between the gods, and one of my uncles on my father side was destroyed and became nothing again. This war shook the foundation of the alignment of gods, those who had power before were either forced under my father’s control or banished to the far reaches. Mother ended the war when she turned herself over to him, even though her parents tried to stop her. Which all that destruction, and chaos turned out to make me, and I know not to ever go against father because of what he could do to both of us.
“Lilliume, have you heard a single word that I just told you?” My mother asks once more patiently, dislodging my spiral of deep terror, as if she is actually worried about how I feel about this marriage. “I know its not easy to accept someone else into your life, but it is necessary for your future and the family’s.”
I steadied my thoughts and looked at her with a calm expression, “I just wish there was more I could do for you and father. Rather than just be a sacrificial cow just so father can have more control than he already does.” I say with sass, and I never give my mother sass.
She looks and me and just smiles, “You do take after me after all.” She stands up and her tone gets more serious, but still no venom that I have seen towards my father on more than a few occasions. “No matter. It has been decided by the family, not just your father, and I promise you I will make sure your match is not going to be a threat to you my dear.” She comes over and kisses the top of my head. “We will have a ball soon for your suitors, the tailor will come and take your measurements in a moment.” I watch her turn, her golden snakes swirling near her ears, a recent addition to her jewelry. I watch them for a moment and looked as if they were speaking into her ears.
Before I could react she was gone and I sat at the table, book laid out in front of me about distant families from my mothers side. They were considerably nicer than the family on my father’s in some senses, as they tend to give good will to mortals. They are worshiped with high esteem by some mortals, but the fear my father has over them and other gods tends to be even more powerful as it is constant. I slam the book shut and stand up, my temper and fear rising. I pace quickly over to the window to look down at the landscape that I have painted a few times, tasked to me by my mother of course.
It’s as if day and night constantly collide with each other, and the sun stays at the edge of the sky. Giving a small amount of light, but not enough to really let anything grow, almost as if it’s always autumn or earlier spring. I think it stays this way because father hates sunlight on any planet. He keeps most of his rooms windowless or has the servants close the curtains if its exceptionally bright. It moves above the horizon and below to give a sense of day and night but its never quite bright or quite dark. I hope father doesn’t change it to only be below the horizon and we never see sunlight again. Its not like its necessary as the power from the beings who live here, or as the mortal’s call the realm of the gods. There are a few names depending on who believes in you. Gods that are part of our court do not come to the mortals worlds often or at all. We especially do not tell them the true name of everything as it would give them power over us. It is not known how mortals gain information, if its they who think of us up, or we put the idea into their head out of sheer will of being a god. I always wondered if the mortals see me as a destructive goddess like my father, or a goddess like my mother or something in between being the daughter of both.
Becoming lost in my thoughts I didn’t hear the door open behind me. “Hello.” An unknown deep voice comes from behind me, startling me that I feel my heart almost leave my chest. I turn around and see a tall slender figure, shadowed by the contrasting sunlight hitting the doorway his is currently in.
I calm myself remembering that mother said the tailor was going to visit me soon. I address him with a curtsy, “You must be the tailor, did you want to take my measurements here?” I walk towards him, but something deep down told me not to take another step. I peer hard and squint my eyes, he is wearing a mask that completely covers his face, and his clothing is a patchwork grey suit jacket and pants and their hair is wispy white but full and not very well kept. He doesn’t look like the tailor I can tell that much, but I can’t make out who he is. Fear enters into my very core, flooding me, as no one could just enter into the palace without a guard seconds away. Which means either my guards haven’t been notified or he has already taken care of them. I begin to scream to hope there could be someone that could help me.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” his voice comes behind me as his figure is no longer in my eyesight, “it wouldn’t be very lady like.” He spins me around with his hands gripping on my shoulder. His masked face is very close to mine and I can almost see his pale silver eyes behind the smiling sculpted face of a man. We stood there, staring at each other as I notice his eyes take in my every detail. He hummed to himself for a moment and I try to reach behind me for something, anything to hit him with. “You’re different than I expected,” his voice trails off, “different, but good different.” As if I cared what he thought. Suddenly his hands guides me to sit me down on a chair, “Why don’t you let me introduce myself before you let those vocal cords get going.”
I try to speak anyway, trying to negotiate with him for my safety, but I can’t. I hold my throat and he lets go of my shoulders, “Ah yes, a precaution if you will, do not fret it will come back.” I feel tears well up in my eyes and he kneels down to my height and takes off his mask. “I am not here to hurt you, I promise Lilliume.” I don’t trust that for a second, but I do not have a choice and try to force down my fear. I look at his now bare face and wipe my eyes to see it more clearly. He has a thin but sculpted face with sharp cheeks that lead up to silver eyes, complimenting his white hair while his eyelashes and brows are dark black. Its as if someone bleached all the color out of him, and the only red is this pale veins and red tongue while his skin was an alabaster white like the moon. I noticed a few deep scars that streaked across his face and many smaller faint ones, but it didn’t detract his handsomeness. I immediately wanted to kick myself for even thinking that my current captor was a handsome as fear still shackled me.
After giving me a moment to calm myself, he finally speaks again. “I am Inchiki, you might have heard of me.” I have heard of him when father was enraged, mother hasn’t said a word other than when I have asked to never to ask again. I nod slightly and he smirks, “Yes I doubt it was anything good, but what is the joy in playing the perfect puppet like you my princess.” I glare at him on his comment, and he chuckles quietly, his smile not reaching his eyes. “I understand the predicament you are in, as I too was once trapped in a similar situation.” I still cannot relax and try to think of a way to exit, but his eyes are like vipers as I keep on looking towards the door. I can feel my heart beating hard against my chest and I took a deep breath. His brows arched, “Alright, I will not take much more of your time.” His face become serious and I cannot look away this time, “I have come bearing a warning.”
