Chapter Seven - Realizations

Chapter 7
Realizations.

    Across the world, morals away, the castle of Fonce loomed over salty grains of desert and waste. Its walls of black marble towered over the slave pens and the huts of the free men and women. Statues of the Gods and Goddesses of Darkness stood guard at the entrance to the dreadfully magnificent building, but even they seemed less compared to the magnificence that the monarchs placed on themselves. Smoke rose like an ill omen into the hazy sky, and the columns were circled by none other than the messengers of death, the crows. For Bearadith, queen of Fonce, it was heaven.
   
    Even from the spiraling tower that rose high above the desert ground, one could hear the screams of iron chains. Sounds such as that, followed by the course sigh of a whip, left a smile on the faerie’s face.

    It certainly wasn’t a welcoming smile. The corners of her lips curved upwards as if they were horns on top of her head. There was a glittering spark in her cold violet eyes, but it was more malice than magnificence.

Her beauty rivaled even that of Eris with her flawless skin and pouting, red lips. It was no wonder that people spoke of how the Foncian queen and the Goddess of Chaos were one person. Bearadith would have loved to be the Goddess of Chaos. She was a curvy, luscious mortal, just as Eris was a beautiful Goddess. They both shared the black hair, the graceful movements, but they did not share the power.

If Bearadith played her cards right, maybe someday she would be more powerful. For now, she was content to rule the world and do what Eris was forbidden to do. If she didn’t fear the Goddess of Chaos she would have rubbed that in the Goddess’s face.

“Mother dearest,” whispered a throaty voice from the door out to the balcony. The woman who wielded such a sharp weapon matched her mother in looks, but had her father’s deep, green eyes. “News from the guard, a spy has alerted us that my straying brother has been spotted.”

Bearadith turned away from the balcony’s edge in a furry of silk and velvet, her black dress twirling around her body like a dancer twirled around a pole. There was something new in her eyes, something far more fearsome than the earlier held malice.

“So!” She snapped, widening her smile into something resembling a snarl, “My son has finally come to his senses and is trying to find a way home? I knew he didn’t have the intelligence to last in the real world… among ‘normal’ people. I knew it!”

Bearadith’s daughter, Cidra, grimaced and shook her head. Seeing the movement the queen stopped with her mouth wide in astonishment. “No mother, he didn’t mean to be seen. It seems that he has decided to join forces with-“

    Cidra couldn’t bring herself to say it. She ended up not having to. With a scream Bearadith threw a chair into a stone wall, forcing its wood to shatter. “He’s joined her hasn’t he? That thankless child has joined the Pirate-“



“Queen? Of what Ty? Honestly, its just a title.”

Reine twirled a dagger between her fingers, perched next to the remains of last night’s bonfire. Smoke still swung into the air like a frenzied monkey, sweeping high into the clouds. She was watching the smoke rather than the scene around her. Ty, on the other hand, was wasting no time with looking around, a grin on his face.

 The welcoming celebration had been a very interesting party. Most of the pirates were still out cold around the various fire pits, and those who had managed to wake up were either throwing up in the bushes or hiding so that Reine didn’t put them to work. It seemed that Reine and Ty were the only coherent ones awake with the morning sun. Even Caleb was out cold a few yards away, the remains of a bottle grasped in his hand.

“You know better lass. It isn’t just a title. It ne’er was and ne’er will be,” he replied, gruff enough to get his point across. He sat across from Reine, with his back resting against a log that had somehow made its way to the fire. With a long stick he poked the glowing embers.

Reine shook her head with a grimace, but not from a hang over this time. She didn’t like putting emphasis on a title that to her meant nothing. If she wasn’t the pirate queen she would do things no differently, and she doubted that the people around her would either.

Ty saw the motion out of the corner of his eye and growled something along the lines of ‘stubborn, incomprehensible child’, which only prompted a giggle from Reine.

“You can’t disagree with my Ty. Imagine if I were the queen of thieves, or of Lumiere. I would still fight to keep the balance; I would still fight for my people. If I were naught but a simple peasant woman I would still lead armies.”

“Then you wouldn’t be aught but a peasant woman than, would you?”

The pirate queen’s face crinkled in laughter, and she shrugged away any answer she may have had.

“Really lass, you are important, to all of us…” and Decalage he added silently.

There was no denying the stubbornness in the queen’s eyes. “Even if I am as important as you claim, Ty, the title remains nothing. I would still be important, without the title.”

“But?” asked Ty, recognizing the hesitation that had fallen in Reine’s words.

“But you don’t need me for everything,” she said loosely, not meeting his eyes. Instead she looked to the sky, and for a moment yearning filled her eyes. Then she closed them, and she was once more on the ground.

“Nonsense!” Argued Ty resolutely. “Without you none of this would be possible!”

Reine shrugged. “You’re wrong. Eventually Decalage would have moved and began to understand, and eventually those who wish to destroy would have begun to create. My way is just faster than the time it would have taken before.” 

“You may understand a lot Reine, but you don’t understand this.”

There was an awkward silence for a moment as the pirate queen turned her head from left to right, looking for something at her side. Upon finding it she moved so that Ty had full view of the little stream of runoff. There was a stream not far from the camp, and it looked like rain had fallen recently in this area. She was glad to find that the run-off had a steady flow.

Ty watched, confused.

When she began to explain she didn’t look at him, but at the stream of water. “This change is like a river. It will keep flowing and remain near to undisturbed even if a pebble is thrown into it. That pebble could be anything from the death of a person to the capture of the Queen of Lumiere.”

She dropped some sand into the run off and the run-off continued flowing.

“If something bigger happened, something like my death,” she said it with so much detachment in her voice that Ty ogled silently. “The river would be disrupted for a time.”

A rock was dropped onto the run-off, and true to her word the water stopped flowing, at least until it found its way around the rock. Once it had found its way, the water flowed as if it had never stopped.

“Even if someone built a dam the water would not be withheld forever, which is the mistake that we inevitably made, and will continue to make. No, the only way to stop the river is to dry it up at its source.”

Ty blinked, letting the silence stretch until he realized that she was done, sitting there with a grin that let Ty know she knew his confusion. He thought over what she had head, rubbing his forehead with his hands. Concentration aged his face, slipping away as it dawned on him.

“We have to find the source!” he proclaimed. “We have to protect what started this!”

Reine kept the grin on her face, and nodded in agreement.  “Perhaps not what, however, but who.”

Ty jumped to his feet and began pacing back and forth. “You’ve been looking then? Do you know where they are?”

She shook her head. “Gods, I don’t even know who they are. All my looking? It has gotten me absolutely nowhere.”

“You’re going away again, aren’t you milady?”

“Yes.”

Ty growled and his face turned harsh, but he was silenced when she opened her eyes and looked right at him. There was so much wisdom and age in her face that not for the first time, Ty wondered how old she really was. Sadness was in her eyes too, and just a touch of anger, but no hope and that was what stunned him into silence.

When she spoke, she did not look away. “I have to Ty, on my own. I know what I have to do; Didacus opened my eyes to that. As much as I hate that man, I know that he is wrong about very few things. ‘So weeps the hills as death overcomes and so seeks the mountains when the queen of all soars. Shield not away from darkness and death, but fall beneath nothingness that grows unkempt’,” she paused, watching his reaction and when none came she continued. “’Fear not the angel, the goddess, or witch, just the broken and splintered pieces of birch. And finally, suddenly, all will stand still… as the singer and stone kiss beneath hell.’”

Ty blinked, stunned. “What does it mean?” he asked.

Reine grinned and turned her eyes back to the sky. “I don’t know. I suppose I should find out.” And as soon as she had shifted moods she was once more back to relaxing. Ty couldn’t quite shake the feeling that she was lying to him, though, and that she did have an idea of what those haunting words meant.

A comfortable silence gave Ty time to recollect his thoughts, and ask the question that she had stopped. “Do you know where you are going? How long you’ll be away?”

“I know where to start, and I know when I will come back but I don’t know what the months are between,” she muttered, and since she left it at that Ty knew he would get no more out of her.

The pirate queen suddenly moved; jumping to her feet in one, smooth movement. When she spoke in fast, hurried words she wasn’t looking at Ty, but at Caleb who snored and twitched in his unconsciousness.

“Wake him up for me, will you? Than meet me in the clearing south of here and bring your sword… and his. Let’s see what our little prince can do.”



It did not take long to wake up the unconscious Caleb. A bucket of ice, cold water did the trick easily, and Caleb came back into the world spluttering and rubbing his thrice cursed aching head. Above him Ty chuckled.

“Bloody hell,” he muttered, turning over on the ground so that his face was buried in the dirt… mud.

“Wake up sleeping beauty, her majesty wants to see what you can do with a sword. Don’t know how she’ll judge you of course, seein’ as you can barely move.” He chuckled again and dropped Caleb’s sheathed sword at the prince’s side.

With a moan the prince reached out and took the blade in his grasp, not daring to look into the sun quite yet. For some reason, some of his headache staved off when he took the sword. Within a few minutes, he had enough grasp of his mind to sit up.

“What does Reine want with me again?” He asked as he attempted to not throw up all over himself.

Ty patted his spinning head, and Caleb groaned.

“Her exact words were ‘let’s see what our little prince can do’.”

Caleb flopped back onto the ground.



The clearing was oddly beautiful; somewhere you wouldn’t think existed in such a place as the pirate camp. A sweet serenity existed but seemed more like a cover up for something more. Everyone who was not open to the environment would only be able to sense that difference, Reine knew what the difference was, heard it as clearly as a voice.

In the Authinia she could touch it, manipulate it unlike any other mortal or immortal.

Reine was leaning comfortably up against a low hanging branch. Her eyes were glazed over as her mind surged forward in the Authinia, but trees that were as isolated as this said little of the growing darkness. The only thing that they whispered of was a spreading “itch” under their bark. Still, other things the ancient willows, evergreens, and oaks said made her smile, and occasionally laugh.

‘Your friends have come milady,’ called one or the trees in Reine’s clearing, a young evergreen who still felt the seed’s yearning to move.

Instead of thanking the evergreen, and saying goodbye to the rest, she added another tune to their song to give them prosperity and life. For it wasn’t really goodbye and thank you’s were overdone.

Once the trees were settled she cleared her eyesight to find a confused Caleb and amused Ty watching her. Caleb looked the worst for wear, his black hair still soaked through and his height made shorter by his lost of dignity. The signs of last night’s party also remained in his bruised looking eyes and greenish tint.

“Morning boyo,” Reine said with a grin.

Caleb groaned. “Ty said you wanted to see what I could do, well, you’re welcome to watch my throw up everything if you really want to.”

“Nonsense, you don’t have any food in your stomach to throw up Caleb. Now, go be a good boy and stretch out your hung over limbs. As for you,” she turned to Ty, “you might want to do the same.”

The prince of Fonce did a double take. “You’re not fighting me?” He asked Reine.

The pirate queen looked away from him, letting Ty answer for her. “What lad, afraid to face a veteran soldier?”

“You’re a veteran of a lot of things, but being a soldier definitely isn’t one of them.”

Reine snorted back a smile and sat on the low hanging branch with expectance in her eyes. Across the clearing Caleb sighed and pulled his sword out of its sheathe. Ty did the same, settling into an off balance crouch. It did not go unnoticed to Caleb.

Ty put up his blade, and within seconds Caleb had knocked it out of his hand with a fancy disarm maneuver. With amusement Ty walked over to the metal, picked it back up, and once again got it knocked out.

Six disarms later they had gotten nowhere. Caleb was glowing with cockiness, Ty’s temper was growing shorter by the minute, and Reine was growing slightly annoyed at the prince’s growing opinion of himself.

He certainly didn’t look hung over as he gave Ty a lift up from the ground and as Ty shuffled to a corner to take a breather Caleb sauntered over to Reine, twirling his sword.

“Okay, I am ready to for a real challenge now,” he joked, standing before the stony pirate queen. “What about you?”

She sighed. “You don’t want to fight me Caleb.”

“C’mon Reine. I promise I won’t hurt you.”

Ty sucked in a breath. Puzzled, Caleb looked over at the huffing old man to ask him if he was okay, only to find that the old man wasn’t looking at Caleb, but at Reine. Caleb glanced back at the young woman and had to take a few steps backwards, shocked at that predatory look in her eyes.

“I warned you Caleb. Ty- sword.”

Unable to disobey an order filled with such a merciless tone, he threw his blade across the clearing and Reine caught the unsheathed blade without a second thought. She rose from the ground with feline grace, pointing the metal at Caleb.

“Guard.”

Then she took a step toward him and he could do nothing but fight.

Their blades met with a ring, and he expected her to carry through with the swing. Instead she smiled, an insane smile filled with rage and wisdom, and broke away from the contact to leave him stumbling.

He expected her to wait for him to step back up and regain his balance, but before he could even fall onto his face her blade was swinging at his right, then his left, and if he had not stopped it with his own then it would have sliced through him like butter. All he could do was block her attacks, and hope that she would wear herself down.

He was unaware his blocks only added to the deadness in her eyes. Ty saw it, but he could do nothing, and only hope that the other side of Reine would regain control once more.

She slashed at his head and he barely blocked it with the flat of his sword before she was jabbing his stomach. He sidestepped away from her, and she became two steps closer. Caleb could do nothing against her, nothing but hold his sword in front of him and hope it would stop her sword. Even when his sword shouldn’t have stopped it, for her speed was untamable, that killing blade did not touch him. Ty knew why, but Caleb did not even have the time to think.

The pirate queen was playing with her prey.

The feline grace gave it the way. It was obvious Caleb was holding on to the threads of protecting himself. There was no hope in his blue-green eyes, and he was sweating in fear.

Reine, on the other hand, was smiling. But it was not comforting. There was something distant about it, something predatory and cruel. It was a smile that had graced the lips of his mother, and of others touched by power and might. That didn’t mean she was evil… just insane.

Buried beneath the smile there was something that kept Caleb blocking, a touch of his Reine that would never kill him. A touch of the Reine he had come to feel for, to protect. In her eyes there was sadness, there was joy, and there was intelligence.

Then, as her sword swept upwards in an attempt to take off his arm, he finally realized what had caused the pirates to flock to this woman. Oh, the stories were undoubtedly true as well, but there was something more.

She was not beautiful or all-powerful, and she was not sane or charming. What Reine was… was change. Nothing remained untouched by her, even the air chilled with her rage. As for Caleb, what had changed in him? He was definitely no longer a prince of Fonce, both by the will of his family and himself. He could not live with people who had no idea of what they were doing to the world.

Reine had changed his heart, his soul, and even the way his mind thought, all in the span of a few days. From Foncian prince, to the prey of change who did not know his place in the world, he had evolved. That is the reason that he dropped his guard as her blade pressed forwards to his chest. Caleb would willingly die at the hand of change, for change was right, good, and knew what had to be done.

And because he dropped his guard, change strayed her hand.

The blade stopped, slid from Reine’s hand, and fell to be cradled by the grass. She staggered away from Caleb, confusion and shock blatant upon her face. Ty stood to the side, his eyes turned towards the shining metal, but Caleb’s eyes were locked on Reine’s storm twisted face.

As he took a step further to her, she turned and ran, disappearing into the trees, which seemed to move their branches to hide her from the prince’s view. Ty’s hand stopped Caleb from following.

“Nay lad, let her go.”

Caleb’s eyes were shocked as they turned to Ty, but not from what had just happened but at what he said. “You’re just going to let her go?”

Reine’s fist mate nodded solemnly. “If she can’t learn to trust herself, to know herself, then she’ll never be able to control herself. She needs to learn that she can’t run forever, can’t run from what she can do.”

“So they are true, the stories?”

Ty nodded grimly.

“The massacres-“

“All of them, every single one.”

Caleb said nothing, and instead looked away, his shock strengthening.

“So you fear her now then? Fear what she can do?” asked Ty gruffly, removing his hand from Caleb’s path and sticking it into his pocket.

For a moment the Foncian prince just stared at the place where Reine had disappeared. Then a small smile spread across his face. “Do you not?”

Ty immediately shook his head.

Caleb turned his eyes back to Ty. For a moment, Reine’s first mate saw a little of his queen in the blue-green depths, a little of that power, and he knew that Caleb and Reine were cut from the same stone.

“Then neither do I, let’s clean up old man.”

    Ty nodded, picking up the sword from where it had fallen to the ground. As Caleb watched the still shivering trees Ty examined the tempered metal. It was amazing that in her hands, an otherwise useless blade could turn into a killing weapon, and if Caleb were wise he would learn the lesson.

    Only if.



    She didn’t run far. There was no need for it. She simply ran far enough to be out of view and sound from the encampment and the clearing. And, quite frankly, she wasn’t in good enough shape to run long distance.

    That small fact wasn’t what stopped her feet.

    It was realization that halted her, realization that she almost slaughtered Caleb… all because she couldn’t keep hold of her own bloody temper. The beast inside of her would not sleep; instead it seemed to be more and more awake lately. Even now it snarled in annoyance of being stopped.

    She sucked in a breath of air and leaned against one of the wizened trees.

    Beneath her the bark sang.

    ‘What do you fear?’ asked the song.

    Reine whimpered and sank into the soft ground.

    ‘Why do you run?’ sang the trees.

    “Because I must,” she whispered into her palms. “Because I can not remain somewhere and not become hunted. I can not make the monster sleep.”

    For a moment the Authinia was silent. Then it continued once more, soothing the quivering recesses of Reine’s mind with its soft tendrils of music.

    Yes, you killed someone, it seemed to say. ‘You have killed many, but you have also saved. Perhaps you do you fear your own death, but you fear the death of others.’

    The savage beating of her heart stopped, slowed. Now the only sign of her fear was the fetal position of her body, curled up against the trunk. Like a column, it supported the pirate. With its sap stained arms it kept her from sinking into misery.

    “Perhaps,” agreed Reine, raising her tired eyes from the palms of her hands so that she could stare into the shadows before her. A strand of brunette hair fell into the path of her golden eyes, but she simply let it blow like a thought through the air. “Perhaps,” she whispered. “Then again-“

    ‘No, asserted the song, ‘Do not doubt. Do not fall prey to the regularity of mortal thoughts. You fear, but you also understand. In time, you will come to understand something more… and something less… but it will be what you need.’

    “What do I need?” questioned the Pirate Queen.

    The song did not answer, leaving the pirate alone with her thoughts. She could try to force it to reply, to reveal what it knew, but that was not the right thing to do. Something deep inside of her told her that. Whatever the song kept to itself, it kept it for a reason.

    “What do I need?…” she asked again, but more of herself then of the Authinia.

    Her body had ceased being in shock, and she was surprised to find herself neither ashamed nor afraid.

    Then she smiled and leaned more comfortably against the tree. Like a healer’s touch the rough bark soothed away the madness, the insanity. So she stayed that way, beneath the tree, and let the song of the forest lull her into serenity.

    Deep in Reine’s soul, the monster went back to sleep. Together, they both dreamt.

    ‘A cold river lapped at her ankles, pushing her with a not too gentle current. Like a mother duckling hurry along her children, the water pushed her forward into the surrounding darkness. Shadows grew so thickly that she could barely see her hands, as they searched the darkness for a landmark of some kind.

    In the distance, she heard the most beautiful singing. The language was new to her, for though it was similar to the Authinia it was something purer, greater, and more beautiful. Unlike the discord filled song of Decalage, this song was white compared to gray.

    Oh, how she wished to sing such a song.
   
    Then the song stopped, and stunned Reine pushed backwards against the river.

    Something replaced the song, something cruel, cold, and wrong. It grew in strength and volume until it was cutting through Reine’s mind like a dagger. Instead of screaming of the pain it caused her, she found herself singing.

    And she was startled to find that she sang the same song, in the same voice, as the beautiful one before.

    The evil sound screeched to a halt, and was overcome by Reine’s singing. The nothingness round her, the shadows and river all sang as well.

    But she could not understand.

    She could not comprehend.

    The song withered and died in her voice for it needed life and knowledge to feed off of, not just joy.’



    “She should be back by now,” snarled Caleb, stuffing his hands into the threadbare pockets of his pants. At his side Ty, undaunted by the taller man’s worry, smiled and continued carving on the piece of cedar he had in his hand.

    He chose not to answer, for he had long given up explaining to the Foncian prince that the Pirate Queen was more then capable of taking care of herself.

    Many hours had passed since the duel in the clearing, and the afternoon sun was slowly lowering from its high-point overhead. Shadows were beginning to form around the encampment, and the last affects of most of the hangovers were slowly disappearing.

    Nathaniel, the one eyed pirate, grinned at Ty’s right.

    “Patience boy,” he growled, checking the blade he was polishing in his lap. “She’ll come out of the forest when she’s ready. Don’t want t’ push a lass like her.” He chuckled and rubbed the polishing cloth over the sword once more before sheathing the metal.

    At his feet the white wolf, Dragontooth, ruffed wolf laughter, remembering a time when he had pressed his queen.

    Caleb sighed and settled on the ground in a cloud of dust. Dragontooth sneezed and turned an annoyed eye towards the thoughtful prince. Caleb did not take notice. Ty, on the other hand, did.

    “That’s your first mistake lad. You doubt her,” Ty said with a chuckle.

    The Foncian prince shook his head but did not look away from the surrounding forest. “I don’t doubt her. Sometimes I wonder why of course, she acts on idiotic impulse. Yet, if she told me to jump off a cliff I would. No. I worry for her, but I do not doubt her.”

    The wolf snorted in obvious agreement.

    “She’s brilliant when she takes the time to think things through, but you have to get her to stop and think,” agreed the white wolf. His bright eyes turned with to the same general area that the Foncian prince was watching.

    Nathaniel nodded slightly in agreement, his scarred face flickering with growing shadows. Ty shrugged.

    “Do you think a leash would stop her from biting at every cat that comes comes along?” he asked with a smile.

    Dragontooth ruffed in laughter. “You think she’s the dog? I would think of her as the cat. You can’t collar a cat.”

    “Well I certainly hope you wouldn’t dare to collar me,” whispered a voice that came not from the forest, but from the camp behind them.

    Al four of the males jumped to their feet in surprise. Even Nathaniel was startled enough to go wide-eyed. It was Caleb that asked the question that hung on all of their minds.

    “How did you-“

    Reine snorted. There was no trace of the insanity, or the earlier fear in her eyes. “The forest wraps around the entire camp, and I knew that someone would undoubtedly be waiting to have a chat, so I walked around. “

    “To avoid a chat? How like you Reine,” snarled Nathaniel.

    She shrugged, her brown hair glittering in the after noon sun, and turned her eyes to Ty. “I actually had every intention of avoid this group all together, but I need to speak with my first mate.” Then she turned and left in the direction of her tent.

    Caleb gawked.

    With a soft growl Dragontooth butted him with his mammoth head.

    “Don’t worry puppy, she would have said something if she was mad,” assured the Circia king.

    “I wasn’t expecting her to be mad at me…”

    Ty sighed and rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand. “Well, then I had better go see what is wrong with her…” He began to walk in the direction that Reine had run to.