Eltiton

Chapter Eight: The (Not At All) Imaginary Princess

The Poet was quite angry. Not only was Aziza missing, now Treysa was missing too. Why did everyone disappear? Liii was the only one left and she was too sick to rule. The royal family was done for. Unless...no, it could never work. Never in a million years. But The Poet was just desperate enough to try.

"Sipok, please bring Liii to me."

"But, Poet, she's very ill-"

"Just do what I say."

"Yes."

They brought Liii out into the throne room. She was very displeased by this, but she didn't want anyone to be annoyed with her, so she stayed quiet about it. She liked the comfort of her own room though, she liked where she lived and all this was not what she was used to. She didn't exactly know what she was sick with, but they told her she was sick. And it wasn't hard to believe. She had some problems that she supposed could be explained by some illness. She sometimes forgot things that happened, and she had trouble walking occasionally. But the worst part of her sickness wasn't either of those things, it was something else entirely. It was her inability to speak at certain times. She would get into a conversation and occasionally she would stop understanding the language. She couldn't understand what people were saying and she didn't know how to talk to them. She could make sounds, but that was it. She didn't know what that meant, but she didn't really care what it meant. She was happy to stay in her room all day and have everyone pretend that her existence wasn't real. Sometimes she wondered if she really was real. People didn't talk about her and they very rarely talked to her so one could only assume she wasn't really there most of the time. She figured it was probably hard to not be real for most people, but she liked it. She had accepted it from a young age and she was happy to live with it. People didn't always have to be real to be good people. In fact, Liii had a theory that most people who weren't real were better people. Of course, she knew that was a generalization. She didn't think she was much better than anyone else, but imaginary people didn't have as many chances to hurt people, so she figured they were better people in general.

When people did talk to her, they treated her like glass. Like she would break any minute and everyone would have to sweep up the little pieces. She didn't like being glass. She liked being imaginary better. You can't hurt imaginary people.

"Lii," said The Poet, "as you know, I will probably die soon and someone will have to take over for me. Everyone else is gone, so that leaves you. Will you accept this honor?"

"No."

"I was just being polite, you don't really have a choice. You must stand for everything we are. They can keep caring for you while you're queen, but you have to accept."

"I'm not real, imaginary people can't be queen. You're hallucinating, that's why you can see me.You don't really see me. I'm not really your-" everything was strange in her mouth. She couldn't say anything and so she stopped.

"sdkjnsdk sknskj sjfskj sjfslkj kdfnslj slkfjs oio ijjg l'fjg [wrpo jdlkf!" she couldn't understand The Poet and she knew she was disappearing again. The Poet pointed to the door and they brought her back to her room. Her home. She was safe and happy here, so she stopped listening to the people who told her to leave. But things had changed, hadn't they? The Poet said she had to be queen when he died. She didn't want that. She was only eleven anyway. She couldn't rule a town and she knew it. Though...when she was queen she would be able to do what she wanted, so perhaps she could get someone else to be queen. Marry someone and have a kid and fake her death so that the kid would rule instead. Liii was sure she could do it. It was time for a change in her life, and she was ready to do what needed to be done. She had time to plan this before The Poet died, but she'd have to get working soon.