Once Upon A Moon

I Speak With His Majesty

He had fainted.
And I was here, watching him.
Well, not really, anymore, I'm reading a book, 'The Seven Sins: What has to Their Legacies?', intriguing, truly, and fun too! With my face buried in the book, leaving only reading light through, fear coursed through me once a so soft and intimidating sound broke through. It was the sweet calling of a melody, a melodic voice, it was.
"Kareem?"

He was a king, high status, a servant yet ambitious, but his voice... if he had channeled magic through it, I'd be as dead as a demon between an angel's hand and forces.
I looked up from my book and brought it down.
I dared not meet his eyes, he neither did mine.
"What was the war like?"

His eyes were hidden: I could not read them or him. His voice was a question, carrying no destruction nor ignorance. I was stunned, stunned so much I almost forgot myself: both my lips and the months of my past.
"My king, may I question your inquiry?"

I had softened my voice to a whisper, I had closed the book with a soft touch; in return, a loud thud. My hand shook to the noise, nevertheless, I placed the source of it atop the table. He turned away from the ceiling, to the wall opposite me, soft rustling in the sheets. He spoke to me in gentle wind, the light from out the window dimmed to meet his quiet brightness.
"Entertain me, please?" Then, a murmur.
"You sit there alone, and I lay here too, alone. A waste to not use this time to and for ourselves."

An answer, he wanted, a story, I shall give.

I recall, then I can't, but my voice broke through nonetheless.
"It was... nothing like now," I said. Silence swirled in the air, and for a moment, I stop. Not my voice, not my movements, I, myself stop: my thoughts and my heart, all at once.

It was not poison nor venom, neither was it the cold nor the heat, it was a moment in time; space and time, where I forgot myself in the present. Instead, I find myself in a sudden past. A past, which I voiced to my king.
"The time of day was naught, it was midnight o'clock. Right in the middle, the moon was centered, the war had begun. It was noise and noise, screaming and yelling.
The demons, they scrammed. The capable, took their arms and hands and fought under one flag. The flag of Pirien, I remember so clear... 'Fire over Life!' our commanding said.
I had not been a part of the capable, I was unable to use myself as a weapon for the fight, even when angels threatened to our end, I had still been... a blight."

I shivered, down my spine to my tail, it flicked and quivered as I continued my tale.
"The fight, I could not join. I could only write to the inlands, a choice praised, only after the war, as being right. Yet during the fight, no one saw the light in crueless actions such as mine. They called me cowardice and out of my mind, they said magic was my forte, but I tried to convince them otherwise. Healing was in my hands, medicine was in my mind."

I stood up from my chair, my voice filled with determination anew, my king lay where he was, silence his only response. He need not show me his interest, I knew his way of fond. Hence, when I had stood up, I walked to the empty: between the table and his place of tranquility; sitting close, closer than before, my voice no longer lacked equality, instead, I shared with hushed stability.
"My sister had fought my fight, a swift wind, they called her. Truly, she was, the angels allied with the wind, using them to move and maneuver, yet she, my sister, she used it against the holy creatures. Allies against friends, she called the method. Allies against friends, she called us, us, within the camps."

I breathed a while, a few seconds just. I sat up straight in my small space, and looked to my right, only not to meet his majesty's face. I bring together my thoughts, into a small case; I yearn to continue, but he dons a small voice, a slight plead at time's race.
"Continue?"

A beg, a request, I could not tell. What I could tell, what I could say, was the tale of my quest... my quest of glory, and a question of if whether I should be sorry.
"My sister, she helped. She was the cause of my health: the reason for my life, for if it weren't for her, I would have continued my blight... No, it had not been an overstatement or comparison, I truly had a blight. Of which took away the light from my eyes, it was not just due to the war, nor the fake guise of my comrades. The blight had not been a sight for sore eyes. The war had spread the infected.
Hence, by the time my writings, my letters, my pleading patterns, reached the inlands... I, myself, had been infected."

For a moment, I was back in the time of the present. Air passed through, wind softly whistling through. The window had been left opened, to cater to his majesty's poison.
Ah, that reminds me.
"The infection, the illness, the blight... what you have now, that is what its signs were like. It weakened the magic, the body, the soul, so much so... the patient could barely think anymore."

From my words came the breath of him, so soft and gentle I almost thought nothing of it. The bed, despite its price, creaked under the weight of my words. In my mind I could feel his somber skies, perhaps my warning was... not so slight.
"It was similar to the venom... poison in your veins; just not the fully the same. The blight hindered the psych, your state is not due to your mind.
Once the blight hit the camps, once the blight had hit me... my fellows could not call me a coward for they knew the pain of an illness such as that rain of strain. I had received my excuse, my escape... but it was also the cause of the destruction of my state.

The blight was from magic, and only to magic it would return. My sister had known this, she knew from the get-go.
So, as I healed the damaged and the wounded, she would do me the same. As I slowly gained fame to my name, as she quickly wished for the war to change pace... she took the angels by surprise. With the attack, at dawn, with her loyal soldier friends at her law... she took the angels by their wings, she took, too, my blight with her to their scenes.
With that attack, with my illness, she took with her... her life."

I heaved as I had that day, my breath came out opaque despite the heat... I smiled at the actions, of the sacrifice of my savior... my sister.
"My king, take note, please, for she used a forbidden magic on myself and herself. A transfer of cursing, a transfer of love.
I had been foolish to think all her hard work was as easy as 'done'. All her healing, all I had learned, paled in her sun. Morsel by morsel, slight by slight, she transferred the curse to her from mine. In her last battle, her last moment, in her flame of ambient glory, she said to me to not be sorry.
She told me it was all a part of her plan, so we would come out better in the end.
She had been successful, she ended the war, and in the process, removed herself from the success."

I grimaced as I tried, her name did not come out from these lips of mine.
"A curse she put on me and all who knew her, this was the price of her sacrifice. Not a single soul could utter her name, not once, not twice, nor thrice. Only now known as the Ambient Flame... she who lightens the surrounding rain."

I stand up, up from my knees, back to the seat where I had once been.
"My king, have you heard of this story?"

A silence for a moment, a moment so long I had thought I had lost him to sleep. That air of his stirred as he gripped the sheets; a disgusted sound beneath... the sound of anger, dissapointment.
"Kareem, no... I had not." His voice had gone weak, the poison once again took hold of his physique. His once calm breathing was overtaken by heavy heaving, I stand in ready.

"A tale never retold, retaken... and no way to bring glory to the maker of the story?" Once again, the sheets rustled as he turned to face the ceiling, I slowly take my seat as his heaving weaks.

"Unfortunately so...", was all I said. It was all I could say, it was the only thing I knew. For in that moment, the door knocked. Slowly turned, was the door knob, and in came a servant... the one who was to take my place. I stood for the last time. While, in time, I would walk to take my leave.
The doorway was in front of me when the wind of the outside blew, a leaf blew in and past me.
I paused for a moment, a moment long enough... long enough for him.
"Take well, Kareem."

My lips shuddered as I spoke, never had I expected our interactions to be so like the olden days... the days of our youth, our innocence, and joy.
I so longed for that innocence and the play of coy, alas, no matter the temptation to speak :'Farewell, Pyralis', no cue would bring back those times of aloof.
"Take well, your majesty."