Chapter Eight: Memories and Vegetables

 8

 

        “Callea, you’re being as slow as an old woman, couldn’t you possibly hurry up just a little?” Vorion pleaded as I struggled to find a grip on the rock.

        “It’s not so easy to climb and hike up mountains in a dress without plummeting to my death. Be patient,” I said right back to him. He sighed and took a seat.

        “Well, we’re almost there, so I guess you can take your time.”

        I struggled for a moment as I grabbed a hold on the rock, then swung myself over to the ledge Vorion was on.

        “Finally,” he sighed, standing up. He was only teasing but I hit his shoulder anyway. Quickly he took a grasp of my hand and started wheeling me up the incline of the huge rock we were on. “It’s right up here.”

        “What is?” I asked again. We’d been hiking up the mountain for well over three hours and then onto this massive rock yet he still refused to tell me just where we were going. What could be up this high anyway?

        We had to hug the wall to get around a little corner of the wall, then I was crawling through some sort of miniature cave and out another end.

        “Just up here,” I mocked, huffing as I tried to keep up with him.

        “Just right around this last corner, I promise.” Oh if father knew just what we were doing we would have been confined to our bedrooms for eternity. We squeaked around another corner and I kept reminding myself not to look down as Vorion held my hand the whole time.

        “Look,” he said once I managed my way around completely on a safe (but slanted) ledge. I looked in the direction he was pointing and I gasped.

        You could see all of Aynah from there. It was fascinating. Aynah was known for its exotic colors which were so clearly displayed as I looked down. The green was perfectly ripe, the roofs of the houses had a maroon color to them. And the castle. My home. It stood out, tall and majestic, impossible to miss. In the sun it looked like it was almost silver, maybe even gold. From there we could see the pond we loved to play at, the courtyard was slightly visible and the lake was shimmering with its grand splendor. I couldn’t look away. It all seemed like such a fairy tale.

        “And look over there,” Vorion added after a moment. I let my eyes drift off to the side in another direction. “That’s Kaithron. And over there is the battlefield-” he seemed so caught up in all this excitement, “and that’s where our camp is.”

        I didn’t linger much on the battlefield and camp but I made out bits and parts of Kaithron. It seemed very similar to Aynah. I couldn’t have been more than nine years old, and curiosity struck me as I stared at what I could see of Kaithron. It was quite a ways away.

        “Vorion, they look so similar. Why are we fighting them?”

        Vorion shrugged. At this point he didn’t have much more knowledge than I did about the whole war. “They’re bad people, I guess. My tutor told me that they look different than we do. He didn’t say much just said they had a certain… charm about them, which was kind of dangerous. But when I asked him what he meant he shrugged it off. I think what he meant to say was that they’re naturally more comely, but I don’t see how that could be possible,” he rolled his eyes. “Has he seen my sister?”

        At this age, beauty was a new thing to me and I hadn’t discovered yet that it was a curse. I giggled. “I guess not,” I stated. “Have you ever seen a Kaithronese person before?”

        Vorion pondered for a moment, then concluding he shook his head. “Not even in pictures.”

        I questioned the truthfulness of what his tutor said but I let it wave by. My gaze averted back to the town and the blue, cloudless sky. It had been raining for the past week so everything looked so clean and pure, and all of nature’s colors shined to their fullest.

        “You like it, Callea? I thought you would, I mean…”

        “I love it,” I responded. He seemed pleased with that answer. Then, Vorion put down his sack that we were carrying everything we decided would be needed for our big adventure. “Are you hungry?” Vorion questioned. We nagged the cooks long enough to get them to provide us with both a lunch and a dinner before we left.

        We talked and teased and played all day. We spent some time playing hide and seek on the vast rock and we adventured along through the mountain. Vorion, being overprotective even then, made sure I wasn’t hurt or even scraped and kept warning me to be careful, so neither of us got hurt. As night fell, Vorion pulled me back to the top where we had a light blanket and a dinner awaiting. We ate quickly, not realizing how hungry we both were. 

        The town at night was another sight of it’s own. Blue lights, green, yellow… all kinds. As I stood in awe, Vorion just kept silent, letting me be pleased with everything. It was a time later when Vorion interrupted with a whispered, “There just went a shooting star.”

        My head snapped up to the sky and again I gasped. There were millions of star looming right above our heads it seemed. “Vorion, why can’t we see this many at the castle?”

        “Because the lights are always on. They’re harder to see. Plus, now we’re much closer to them, and there aren’t any lights nearby.”

        “They’re so pretty,” I mused, just as I saw a white color come and go so quickly I couldn’t decide if I’d really seen it or not. “Was that…?”

        “Yes,” he clarified for me. I didn’t know the sky could be so fascinating but somehow the two of us were able to lie down and stare at them, for what felt like hours. No words spoken. In all my life to that point, I had never had such a moment in my life. It was happiness without paying for a single thing. And nothing ruined it. It was one of the last times I got to spend with my brother before he was sent off to the war.

        The stars looked just as they used to, back the last time I was here.

        Dang it Callea! You promised yourself not to cry. You promised we would just come up here like old times and just try to forget that he was gone now, that he wasn’t with me, but you’d smile just because it happened. And you were so lucky to have it once.

        I gulp back the tears, closing my eyes and leaning against the blanket I’d dragged up here. It was even harder climbing up the steep slope then I remembered and each time I rounded the corner or had to duck through the cave, painful memories I didn’t want to recall so harshly just came at me the wrong way. Why couldn’t it just make things easier to come up here? Why can’t I just be happy? Will I feel this numb forever?

        Coming up here was a stupid plan. I thought that in a way if I came up and became closer to the stars I’d feel closer to him too, because this was our spot.  Our very special spot. And now I felt like it was all being taken away from me. Like coming up here was only showing me that things will never be the same, ever again.

        I curl the blanket around me, turning my head from the sky to the town. The town used to be kind to me as a young girl. Every time I was there with Vorion they greeted us with kindness, welcoming our presence. Now they detested my soul and the fact that I breathed. Sure, I knew from the beginning that they were only kind because we were royalty, but did they even remember the young girl they knew? Did it matter?

        Thoughts tangled my mind, and I didn’t want to think of any of them. I just wanted to be back in those younger days when everything was so simple and the only thing that was considered hard was learned practical etiquette. But now that stuff was like reciting the back of my hand. 

        Somehow sleep consumed me. I woke up to a bright light shining my eyes as the son started rising in the distance. Compared to a nice warm bed, a rock hadn’t been a very good sleeping spot, and my back especially did not appreciate it. At the break of morning I didn’t want to start myself off on a roll of painful memories I hardly wanted to remember so I instantly forced myself up, I packed my belongings, then headed down off the rock as soon as I could, not thinking about what I was passing and trying to ignore the little engraving on the sandstone rock.

        ‘Remember always.’

        I passed by trees and rocks that I could recall, but I certainly did not want to. I strained as hard as I could to allow myself to think of other things- like the fact that I was to be engaged to some stranger soon and that I was soon to rule a kingdom.

        It helped but I still felt a sense of emptiness lurking about the air. 

        At the bottom of it all, when the hill stopped stooping down I found myself cuddling into a ball on the ground. I took in a large breath of air.

        I can do this. Callea, you can do this.

        For a while I sat in thought. But in happy thought. It was peaceful around me and not much noise was around. The bugs were being bothersome but other than that I felt at ease.

        Brushing the dirt off my skirt, I stand up and walk towards the town. Being morning I knew the streets would be packed so I put the cloak on over my hair so no one would recognize me, hopefully.

        I made it most of the way through town.

        It all happened so quickly.

        In town I heard a chant of my name. I looked up, only to see a small crowd gathered around the common fountain. “Princess Callea is going to destroy this country. Are we going to let her kill us all? Ladies and gentlemen, understand this; we are fighting this war for our lives. Are we going to let her take away from us our God given right?” The crowd went wild.

        “Now who does she think she is? Aynah, we need to act now. Royalty or not, we’re going to need our say on whether or not we live. All those who disagree may leave but here, I propose a plan.”

        Against everything, I did the stupidest thing imaginable. I pushed my way through the crowd and took off my hood, revealing myself. The crowd fell silent. The man speaking chuckled.

        They waited silently as if expecting my to say something. But I didn’t know what to do, let alone say. What am I even doing up here? Being an utter fool? Where was my brain? I swallowed.

        “Aynah I wish you no harm,” I squeaked out. But that’s all I could say. I knew how I felt, I knew what was deep inside of me, but nothing else would come out. And I didn’t have a guard with me, and nobody in the castle knew I was there. I’m a fool.

        The crowd erupted and before I could make my feel, they had a grasp on me.

        “No harm princess? The town would like to have a few words with you,” the man chuckled, grabbing a firm grip on my arms. I struggled but another man held onto me as well, and they started dragging me away.

        “Let me go!” I holler at them, trying to fight it. They were much stronger than me though. “Unhand me or you can be sentenced to die!” I threaten.

        “So much for no harm,” one man chuckles. “You refuse to fight in a war meant to keep us safe but you don’t object to a fine hanging? Now why should we believe anything?”

        I continue to struggle as a crowd, getting bigger and bigger, drags me through the street calling chants and evil cries. What were they going to do to me? This couldn’t be the end could it? They wouldn’t kill their own heir?

        Against my screaming I find myself in a stock. They couldn’t do this! I’m royalty! “My father won’t have any of this!”

        They ignored my threats. I gasped when suddenly something hit me, right in the eye. A tomato plopped right to the ground.

        “All hail princess Callea, the ruin of Aynah, the shame of us,” one man chants. Others laugh.

        “Please, people, hear me out!” I plea. It wasn’t like me to plea, or to bed. This wasn’t right.

        “Talk, perhaps a man or two will listen,” but with that another particle got chucked out my head, surely staining my hair a ripe color before falling to the ground.

        “This war began before any of you were born. Your fathers died, your brothers died, yet still you fight!” 

        Another vegetable.

        “Don’t you understand? Continuing this war will be the corruption of two great countries, each very similar to each other.”

        “How can you say that when a Kaithronese murdered your brother, yet you wish the Kaithronese man no harm?” Yet another particle clunks on my head.

        “You hypocrites-” two more, “can you not say you haven’t killed the brother of the Kaithronese royalty? Does it not mater you that they weep as well? You killed their heir as well.” This was years ago when Aynah had successfully murdered Prince Elliot- a victory for us but I knew from the very beginning that it was unjust. Cruel. Repulsive.

        “Listen, princess. It was our lives or theirs. They have no hearts, and they would kill you in a heartbeat, princess, if ever one saw you.”

        But that wasn’t true. I refrained myself, biting my lip. 

        “Think carefully princess. When you understand we’re right and you’re not, you can be free, princess, from these stocks. Until then,” the man grins, “well, I hope you can catch food with your teeth.”