Aetheria Arising : Relic of Time Wars- Missing centuries story.

Prologue- I'm what now?

Part removed to comply with Kindle Vella TOS. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Almost 3000 years later, he stretched as he awakened. Kaleth's first thought were of Daisy, just like last time, only this time he wouldn't have to wait hundreds of years to see her. Unsteadily, he rose and carefully walked to a healing bed. The longer the sleep the longer the recovery, he remembered his father teaching him. Elder Healer Myles was the first one to awake, Kaleth was the second. Myles was off checking the conditions of the other sarcophagi. Kaleth looked over at the ones containing the 21 chosen to wake up first besides himself, the Healer, the Princess, and the Oracle, if the Oracle woke up. He shook his head, he would not let himself think that way. She would live, his oracle father had promised him, they would have a life together, Kaleth reminded himself as he reclined in the golden glow of a healing bed, waiting on it and his rejuvenation factor to strengthen him. As the last full blooded Aetherian, he healed much faster than others.

Kaleth focused his mind and soul on Daisy, "I am here, my love. Are you?"

He thought about every moment they had spent together, they seemed so few. He remembered the first time he saw her, when she was fighting for his sons, how she had wept over her failure. The way she looked lying asleep in the wildflowers after the battle. Their first fight and first kiss seemed only moments apart. That kiss had sealed his heart as hers, even though he had thought in those moments he may never see her again. Yet his father spoke of her often, Adamos had called her his little flower of hope. Kaleth had seen her only once afterward for almost half an hour, mere days before his murder. Then she had come to Atlantia to save his people, and at first, she resisted his love because his murder by Damien several millennia earlier had broken her heart. He thought about what had happened that night on the ice when she had saved him. Her love had allowed her to use the ancient magic of the Oracle stone to save him from death by time poisoning. The same magic that had healed him and protected her, had created a life. A special child now grew within her, a child of light.

He would not be able to court her as he had planned. The magic had fused their souls together, there would be no getting to know each other, as they now knew almost everything about each other. Looking through her memories, he did not understand most of it. Her world, her life, and her science was so strange. She was so different from him. None of that mattered anymore. He would love her and only her as long a she lived, it was the way of his people. He loved a human and it didn't matter to him that she would not live as long as he. He would cherish every moment, no matter how few they were, as long as they would be together. Kaleth wondered if his father, Adamos, had somehow known. He felt a flutter of warmth and light reach out to him, and knew she was still alive.

Kaleth whispered, "We made it, Daisy, we're home." Comforted, he slept and strengthened.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Daisy could hear voices coming from another room. She struggled to sit up and gaped at her hair. It had changed from being dyed lavender back to its normal warm caramel brown color. She didn't know the healing beds would remove her artificial hair color. 

Meara will be peeved, Daisy thought tiredly but amused. 

Her foster sister had picked the color to match Daisy's eyes as part of their time-camouflage. When she noted that when they went to rescue Atlantia, it wasn't this long either. As a trembling hand pushed it back, she touched her ear. She reached up with both hands in her shock; her breath struggling to get into her lungs. Her ears were pointed, like Karstien's ears, like an Aetherian's ears.

I'm not human any more. 

She could see her reflection in the golden glass of her healing bed, except for her ears, she looked mostly the same. Her mind reeled with the implications... if a human could be made into an Aetherian... disease and even death could be conquered for a time.