"That was brilliantly insane," he breathed as his eyes stared at me in wonder.
"No, I was brilliantly insane" I corrected him.
"Is that so?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Oh yes, my royal husbandness, I believe we both know that."
•••
They're Ki...
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"The Queen is having the child! The Queen is having the child!" A messenger called out as he ran through the town. Doors opened, heads popped out to see what all the commotion was about.
Upon hearing the news the annoyed faces brightened up, disappeared back inside to tell their families the good news.
In less than a few minutes, the town marketplace was bustling, as crowded as it usually was when the oracle would finally leave her house for the Telling of the Heir.
"Daddy, what's happening?" A girl asked as she sat on her father's shoulders.
She seemed to be four years old, with soft features and chubby limbs. Her face was smeared with dirt, and it could be seen on the yellow cotton dress she had on.
"It's the Telling of the Heir, sweetheart, our kingdom is going to have a new ruler."
"What's the telling of the air?" She asked as she watches an elderly woman be led out of her home. A man who looked like a royal guard helped her to the cushioned mat on the stage.
The woman had an mysterious aura about her, from her dark clothes to her weird turban she wore on her head. The girl hadn't seen anyone like her before, but then again she was always busy playing with the plants. There was something about them that always fascinated her.
Whenever she was around them, an odd feeling would grow in her chest and all the tiredness she felt would disappear. Sometimes she thought the plants were talking to her, but that had only happened once. But now as the woman came to the front, and seated herself on the mat, the little girl got the same feeling she usually got from the plants.
But there was something different about this feeling. It was so familiar, but at the same time just so different. So very different. She was brought out of her reverie when her dad spoke up.
"The Telling of the Heir, sweetheart, is when that lady over there tells us what sign the ruler will be."
"What is a sign, daddy?" Ignoring the feeling that seemed to be dragging her down, the girl continued to ask her dad questions.
"You know how we look at the stars sweetheart?"
"Yeah, daddy, it's so much fun! That's where mommy is watching me from, right?"
A glimpse of sadness flashed across his face but was quickly covered up with a smile. It didn't seem as happy as before to the girl, she could tell something was wrong but she didn't know why. Her mom was still with her.
"Well, groups of these stars make signs, and these signs decide who you are."
"But why does the next ruler need this?"
"Because my dear daughter, there is an old story, it has do with the Gods and the Cosmos, and it says that once in awhile, a royal has the power of one of the elements that are connected to their sign."
"An element?"
"Yeah, like fire, water, air, or earth,"
The girl wanted to ask more but the noise around them suddenly faded out of existence as the mysterious woman's eyes rolled to the back of her head and she fainted.
The little girl clutched her father's hand as she tried not to cry. The feeling in her chest slowly crept over her like the fog crept over the plants early in the morning when the sun was just rising. It started from her heart and slowly, dreadfully made its way across her body. It felt as if something was pushing through her skull, as if it was trying to breakthrough the barrier of her subconscious to her conscious. It felt as if something was trying to be heard, it was trying to seen.
After a few moments of absolute pin drop silence, voices started whispering.
"It isn't suppose to take this long," her father mumbled to himself.
The pain in the girl's body intensified. If she thought that the pain was bad before, she had thought wrong. She never wanted to go near another plant again, let alone see one.
Whatever that had been pounding at her skull hadn't been able to show itself, so now it seemed to be trying to suck her into subconsciousness. She felt herself slipping from her conscious state. She tried to let her dad know by squeezing his hand, but he didn't notice. She was too weak.
A sudden gasp came from the the woman, and she sat up quickly, coming back from her comatose state. All of a sudden the pain the girl was feeling disappeared and she was left feeling dizzy and out of it.
A man who had led the woman out offered her some water, and she snatched it, greedily sipping until every last drop had disappeared. Watching her, the girl craved that water. She could understand the woman's thirst.
"What did you see?" The guard asked the strange woman.
She looked at him with wide, frightful eyes, "She's an Aquarius. She's the water bearer. And she is going to save us."
After that the girl fainted, her body not being able to fight off the darkness any longer.
From her spot on the pedestal, the woman stared at the event in absolute horror, an "it's begun," escaping her lips as she quickly retreated back into her home. She had to prepare, the future was awful, and there was nothing anyone could do about it but fear it.
