“Wake up. It's time.”
Time for what? I do not remember.
You promised you'd tell us the story.”
The story? It is too hard to remember. Perhaps another day.
“It's been too long already, dearheart. You have to tell us now. Before it's too late.”
It is already too late. The story does not matter. It should not have happened. I was too weak. Fate was too cruel.
“We don't understand.”
She never cared about happiness, or true love. But it is what we had. Fate should have kept her nose out of it. We were supposed to die; how is that fair? How is that an ending that anyone would have wished?
“Slow down, dearest. Tell us from the beginning.”
Whose beginning? Mine? His? Ours? It all blends together. I do not know if I can tell you. I do not know if any of it will make sense to you. If it will help, I do not know. Perhaps another time. Let me rest.
“You promised.”
I did? Oh. I must have.
“Just start from the beginning...”
All right.... The beginning. It is so hard to remember now. I was merely a child when my world was changed. Before then, it was so different. I was born into a world of light, you see. You could hardly imagine how beautiful it was; how peaceful. My people lived in perfect unity, taking no physical form. We were beings of light, and emotion. The Ethereals. I drifted through the days, listening to the songs of those who had come before me, and the joy of those who would come to join us soon.
It was utopia. You cannot even begin to understand the simplicity of that life. I was a princess of these people. One born to rule. One beloved by her people.
It was when the corruption spread that it all changed.
I could feel the songs of joy turn into cries of pain and anguish. I felt the threads binding us together shift, and the darkness spread through the masses. Together, we decided to take physical form so that the corruption would not spread so easily. One man's greed turned everything to dust so quickly.
But it was too late. We were thrust into a world that was cold; the beauty disappearing slowly. You understand, we had been out of our own places for far too long. And by time we had finally taken physical form, the corruption had spread to nearly all of us. Only a few were not touched by it's darkness.
My closest advisors and I came up with a plan. They would send me to another place to find a cure. We came together and started the spell that would take me to a new realm. I was woefully unprepared. All of the knowledge of our people was in my mind, but I did not know the violence of the worlds beyond my own.
I was afraid for the first time in my life.
The corruption had plans of it's own. Unbeknownst to me, it had infiltrated my trusted circle. Part way through the spell, it struck, tainting my circle. I watched my world go up in flames as I was pushed through the portal, and I felt the threads connecting me to the last of my people shatter. I heard their cries go silent, and the cold filled my soul where the warmth of my beloved people used to be.
I was alone.
I do not know how long I drifted in the place between worlds. But I did not wish to come out the other side. What was the point of finding a cure if all my people were gone already? Would there even be another side for me to come out to?
The spell had been corrupted. What if this was all there was?
Finally, I stiffened my resolve, and I took the plunge to the other side. Whether it had been mere moments, or centuries, I am not sure. I just knew that I had to get out. Even without a people to go back to, I was still alive. And in the between, I would stay that way indefinitely.
When the smoke cleared out from around me, I could feel the difference in the air. It was cleaner. More crisp. The threads that tied everything together were foreign and confusing. I gasped for breath, pushing brown hair from my face. My wings receded into my back, and I took that moment to look around.
Three people stood in the clearing I had come into. One was a woman with fiery red hair. I was confused to see a pair of animalistic ears on top of her head, and a tail accompanying them. The man across from her looked like a demon, and he stared at me, slack-jawed, his green hair sticking up in spikes around his head.
The last of their trio was like a ray of light, and he swept to my side as my legs folded beneath me. His gray hair shadowed his face as the world around me went dark.
I had never fainted before that day.
He told me that it would all be okay.
I believed him.
