The Four Kingdoms

Chapter 3

'Change is hard at first, messy in the middle and gorgeous at the end.'

~Robin Sharma

"Will she be alright?" "I told you already, yes. She simply had a... Big shock." I slowly come to my senses. I was in a room... "She's waking up!" an excited voice finally brings me back. I lift my hand to my head and open my eyes a little more. Two figures are standing over me. Kids, I suppose, they seem quite small... Something seems wrong though, they have something on their heads... "Where am I?" I finally manage to mumble, perfectly aware it's completely cliche. "In our house!" one of the young children says. "That doesn't help much..." I mumble, seeing clearer now. Yes, I am in fact in a small bedroom. The children standing above me do have things on their heads... Ears? I look closer. Yes, cat ears. Where on earth -or not- did I end up?? I must have hit my head. The children's ears twitch every now and then, convincing me they are real. I sit up slowly, look down at myself for the first time and gasp. I'm wearing a beautiful, shimmering dress, in many different colors. My eyes wide, I look at the two children. "How did I end up here?" I ask. They look at me with wide, serious eyes. "You fell, miss." One says. The other one continues the sentence. "You fell from the sky."

I shrink back against the wall, surprised by this answer. "Fell from the sky? No, no no. I didn't fall from the sky. I must have..." I shake my head, not being able to find another reasonable answer. Did I really fall from the sky? "Where am I?" I ask again, hoping the children would answer with something better now. "In Terra." I frown. "Where is Terra?" The children look at each other, confused. "Terra is one of the four kingdoms. There is nowhere else." One answers. I begin to see differences between the two, whom I thought were identical at first. It's now obvious from their voice that there's a girl, and a boy. "And the four kingdoms are?..." I leave the question open for them to answer. This is a little much for me to take in... "Terra, obviously, Aqua, Aer and..." The boy hesitates. "And Ignis." he finally whispers. I'm quite confused as to why he hesitated on saying Ignis, but decide to wait for that. "Would you please explain a little more than giving me one-worded answers??" I exclaim, having enough from all those mysteries. The children are startled.

"Well... This... Is the Terra kingdom... We're in war with Aer, Aqua and Ignis... But Aqua is also in war with Aer and Ignis, and Aer is also in war with Ignis." there was a pause. " Basically, we're all at war with each other." The child adds, seeing my confused face. "Why are you at war?" The children's faces become sad. "Well... μάνα got murdered... All the kingdoms think it was the other ones..." The boy shrugs. I tilt my head, confused. "What does μάνα mean?" I seem to remember the name from my Greek lessons. "Mother." the girl says, speaking up. I nod slowly. "Your mother got murdered? And then a whole war happened because your mother got murdered??" I look between the two. Who are they? I really wonder. But they shake their head. "No, our mother did not get murdered. Well, she- not just then-μάνα did." I blink. Something in their tone tells me their mother isn't alive... But I decide to ignore it for now. "But you just said μάνα meant mother?" It's clear the two cat-children are getting annoyed. "μάνα isn't our mother, she's our creator. The creator of everyone and everything here." I stop talking, dumbfounded. This world had been created by someone? Someone like god, probably, even if I'm not superstitious.

Finally, I close my eyes and lean back. All this is making my head spin. Too many new things, too much to take in. After a deep breath, I open them again and look at the children. "Did you tell me what your name was?" I ask. "Yuki!" the boy smiles. "and Yui." The two names are the last thing I hear before I sink off into a healing sleep again.