A Modern Fairytale

Ascending to heaven

Citole in hand, Iefan took a few minutes to warm up before playing a song on the instrument. He had played various musical instruments, but not once had he tried to add words to his melodies save for the times he tried to recreate his father's spell. He played the instrument for a little while...and then began .

This picture,
this scene,
I meant not when I wrote these words.

Beside him, Annegrette sat in the snow the way the little girl had. Somehow, she had taken the little girl's matchbox—one of them, at least. The girl had held the other close to her chest the entire time up to the moment Myra led her away. As Iefan's music attracted attention from passersby, Annegrette sat beside him, asking neatly-dressed men and women to buy the one box of matches. This combination, however, did not earn her even one sale—and one was all she needed—even as a small crowd gathered.

Your face,
I close my eyes;
a memory unspoiled.

As passersby came and went, one man in particular stayed behind, standing at the very back of the crowd. His thin frame could barely be seen under the coat that he was wearing. The man stayed, stone-faced, until the end. The end came when Annegrette decided so. Taking out all the matches, she struck them all against the side of the box. Holding the lit matches in her hands, she watched till the flames went out, then lowered her head, scattering them across the ground.

"Follow me," she instructed Iefan. Then, closing her eyes, Annegrette spread her wings and took off into the night.

"...how?" he wondered to himself.

☆☆☆

Both Iefan and the man looked up as Annegrette took off. Iefan watched closely. Then, as she disappeared from view, he sprinted in that same direction, hoping that he was headed in the right direction. A few minutes later, he noticed an odd trail of light before him on the floor resembling that of her spear. He followed. Eventually, he stopped just in front of castle gates. Beyond the gate, there stood Annegrette and Myra.

"Mother," Iefan called out first, "Annegrette."

Both turned to him. With a wave of Annegrette's hand, the gates opened. The half-fairy walked in.

Annegrette led them through the castle, passing through various halls, corridors, up and down a several flights of stairs—until Iefan could no longer tell what route they had taken. Finally, they stopped in front of a door.

"Annegrette, reporting."

"Come in," said an unfamiliar voice from the other side of the door.

The blonde opened the door, addressing the person inside as she did.

"Lady Larissa."

☆☆☆

The woman's eyes were a piercing green—this was the first feature Iefan noticed about her. She was not an exotic beauty in terms of appearance, although she was quite good-looking; her demeanor, however, was one of such confidence that it augmented her natural charisma.

"Welcome to my kingdom," said she, "I am Larissa—no last name. You have already met the guardian of this region, my false angel Annegrette Echethier."

Echethier?!

Myra and Iefan exchanged an alarmed glance before both of their gazes darted sharply to the golden-haired girl. She looked nothing like his sister, and her disposition thus far was also not that of the Annegrette they knew.

"What do you mean?" Myra asked, inevitably.

As if the question was exactly what she had expected, Lady Larissa smirked. "You haven't heard of false angels, have you?"

Mother and son shook their heads.

"To put it simply, your patriarch's sister is now the queen of Mecrisdale," Lady Larissa explained. "She is slightly misguided but very much competent. She changed the entire landscape of the kingdom you used to know and stole souls with which to create false angels. Annegrette is simply one of her victims. And then, there is something about that kingdom itself, now..."

For the next twenty minutes, Lady Larissa paced about the room, speaking in an uninterrupted monologue as she gave her audience details of what was known as Venethema. A bereaved but powerful queen, a fickle and lovestruck musician, a curse on an entire region and all its people for a century. Could the grand witch make predictions? She said she could, and that she did, but she would not tell them more than what they needed to know. Could she reverse the curse on Venethema? Yes indeed, but she would not, because the one to do that was not meant to be her. Why? She would not explain much, only that there was a time and place for everything. The witch looked pointedly at Iefan, assuring him that all would turn out for the best while simultaneously telling him that the region they were in now was independent of the happenings outside of it—hence, the gates. She would tell them nothing more, but only these bits of information already did keep Iefan and his mother up all night.

For that night...and the one after. Lady Larissa hosted the two for many years to follow, but kept them within the castle gates. Annegrette was around often, but she was not the same; although bearing the same soul, she was not the same person; even if she had the same name...she did not remember a thing. The Annegrette Echethier that Myra and Iefan once knew was now just "Annegrette"—uncannily like how Larissa was only ever just "Larissa". They carried no family history, no past, and lived only in the present.

"It's going to happen to all of Venethema?" Iefan once asked Larissa.

"Indeed," came the grand witch's answer.

"Then..."

"Are you thinking of your friend, the brown-eyed boy?"

"Of course. If everyone in Venethema will eventually be taken away the same way as Annegrette, then that means..." There, he trailed off, horror filling his eyes where inquiry had been.

"That means, what?" Larissa prompted, her eyes narrowing as one corner of her lips curled upward.

"...they will all die."

"But their soul lives," Larissa argued, as calm as though having the knowledge of the tragic fate of hundreds—perhaps thousands or even more—laid no burden on her shoulders. "You can see traces of your sister in Annegrette even now, despite the fact that she looks different and has no recollection of her past."

"That's true, but...she isn't really the same person, is she? Even though I can see faint shadows of my sister, her personality is different, she doesn't know us, and she exists for a different purpose. My sister died when she was dragged into the underground chambers—this Annegrette is someone that spawned from her remains."

"Well said, Iefan," the witch acknowledged. The spark in her emerald-colored eyes convinced him, at that moment, that she indeed knew all that was to unfold, and had good reason to advise him to or not to behave in certain ways. "And why must she be the same? If your sister—if Annegrette Echethier—hit her head, lost all her memories, causing her personality to alter, would you not still call her your sister?"

And why must she be the same? In his mind, this question reverberated, but no matter how it echoed, Iefan could not arrive at an answer.

"Do not seek to rescue Ulric Lauregnory," Larissa commanded, "He will suffer, as will you, but all's well that ends well, and for the fate of the world as you do not yet know, you must stay within my realm until I die."

☆☆☆

Long after that conversation, Iefan would wonder why it was that Lady Larissa chose to remain mortal. By her own methods, she acquired powers that she was born to be prohibited from having; not only that, but she also became the most skilled at those abilities among all that could utilize them. Certainly, if she so wished, she could also adjust her physical body to cease to be human—if the fairy queen could change others just like that, why would Larissa be incapable?

Toward the end of her days, he asked her this question. Instead of giving a blunt answer, all she said was, "Because I really am that powerful."