To Be Wanted

Something is in the Air

      After a week of planning, today was finally the day. I was internally screaming, simply beyond excited, Jet went and invited Vetayo, Caliama and her subjects to the coronation and Pironem took the time to somehow track down some old photos of my parents around the age they were when they died and put them in frames to set in a couple of the seats in the rows they were planning to set up.
      Even Rhicarra was getting in on the action. You know how some weddings have ring bearers, carrying the rings in on a pillow and present them to the betrothed? Yeah, that is what Rhicarra is going to be doing but with a crown.
      Vetayo and Caliama were absolutely amazing during the preparation period of the week, Caliama and her subjects helped to design and create the decorations and Vetayo sewed together the most gorgeous blue dress for me to wear during the ceremony, in addition to a little cape to drape over my wings.
      I think that it was really more of a style thing because it really was rather impractical. It all felt like a dream, something I had been wishing for since I was a child, though I suppose most would still consider me to be one.
      The morning of the ceremony, I flew to the High Grounds, where the ceremony would be hosted, and immediately got changed into the dress, with the assistance of Vetayo in some places, and I also managed to find a pair of matching heels at the thrift store that was nearly the exact same color.
      I pull my hair back, waterfall braiding it in three areas, attaching them in the middle and then I curl the loose strands.
      The closer that time grew to the ceremony, the more stressed and nervous I began to become. I paced back and forth for I wasn't even sure how long until I was finally called into the Throne Room, which had been cleaned up and made pretty by Jet and Pironem.
      I look around nervously, the crowd appeared rather large all things considered, my gaze shifting through the crowd before finally fixating on the pair of chairs where the pictures of my parents sat, the Marrow egg resting on the chair next to them.
      I smile a sheepish smile to everyone before being guided to the throne by the now very professional looking pair that was Jet and Pironem, who they themselves were fighting back smiles
      From the moment I am seated and am looking out at everyone, I begin to freak out, this was all seriously happening.
      It finally was becoming real, I was going to be the ruler of an entire dimension, I couldn't even begin to tell you how many doubts were racing through my mind at that moment.
      Everyone, they were all looking up to me, to be a good ruler, but I know somehow that I am going to screw things up. They give me a reassuring smile before looking back to the crowd, all of whom stand, turning to me and kneeling, Jet in front of me, Pironem to his left and Caliama to his right, Vetayo behind him and Caliama's subjects filling the space behind them.
      Jet stands, looking at me with a big, bright, proud smile on his face. Pironem, whilst still kneeling, snaps his fingers and in comes Rhicarra, a bright red pillow hanging from her mouth, a glittering silver crown carefully placed atop it.
      The metal appeared oddly similar to the Snow Pendant so I give it a questioning smirk. I hold the Pendant in my hand and raise an eyebrow to Jet, who nods.
      Okay, so this thing was definitely created in the Ice Forge much like the Snow Pendant. What are we going to call this then? The Frost Crown? I stifle a laugh. Jet takes the crown from Rhicarra, who goes and sits by Pironem, and returns to standing in front of me. He then begins a rather unexpected speech.
      "Since the day that Queen Taima fell, the day that I was thrown into a cell to be forgotten for five thousand years, I, alongside the dimension of Iveska, hoped and prayed for a new, preferably benevolent leader to appear, one who would guide us from the darkness of the war.
      Many years have passed and those prayers have come to fruition all at once, and I can say with absolute certainty that you, your majesty, are going to give Queen Taima a run for her money." He begins, a slight laugh forming in that last sentence.
      My eyes begin to grow misty as he steps forward, placing the crown atop my head, tucking my stray hairs behind my ears before returning to position.
      "I, Jetimel Fierlen, last remaining member of the high court of Iveska, am truly honored to crown the new ruler of Iveska, Queen Serrima.
      And if I might add, your majesty, as long as Iveska stands so as it does now, you shall always have a family, my queen."
      Oh okay, great, here I go. As Jet returns to kneeling, I allow a few stray tears to drip down my cheeks. I try to wipe them away as quickly as I can, however, as everyone begins to stand, they manage to notice the mess I am becoming.
      Jet and Pironem come to give me a big hug. All at once, my emotions just, I suppose, spillover, I suddenly start to sob into their arms. They softly soothe me as my mind begins to plague me with thoughts and images of how my life would have been had my parents not died.
      Caliama and Vetayo join in as well, even Rhicarra comes and loves on me in her own way. It was really nice to know that I had their support, even though I know that it will take me a while to learn the ropes of being a queen.
      We had a sort of after-party with food and drinks, compliments of the Uriiempes, and tons of corny jokes involving kelp from everyone. It was great, we were all laughing and having a good time.
      Then Jet goes silent. Pironem does that thing where you wave your hand in front of someone who was spaced out, and suddenly Jet grabs and old sword from nearby and points it near the entrance to the Throne Room.
      We stare in utter confusion, wonder what exactly came over Jet... Until we hear the faint rumbling of dozens of pairs of wings flapping in our direction. Everyone is now standing to attention their gaze fixated on the door.
      Something felt seriously wrong, not about the flapping, of course, that was bad too, however, somehow I had the feeling that there was something more going on. As I am contemplating, the entrance to the Throne Room bursts open, about twenty Veltsen soldiers rush in with their leader, Altridem, following in the back.
      The soldiers form a sort of path for him, standing to the sides, keeping my friends out of his way. Altridem had an overly confident look on his face as he approaches.
      Jet and Pironem try to block him from getting to me, however, I grab the sword from Jet's hand and stomp it against the ground in front of me.
      As much as I believed that he deserved to be killed, threatening the leader of the Veltsen with twenty of his soldiers pointing their own weapons at my friends was probably not the best idea. He looks between us, finally settling on me with an amused expression on his face.
      "Oh, look! You made it official! Good for you!" He exclaims in a tone almost as though you were talking to a child who just made a minor accomplishment that you really don't care about but still want them to be happy with themselves. He then noticed the picture frames in the audience. "Oh and look! Mommy and Daddy are here too! You must feel so special!"
      "And you've come to congratulate me! Thank you!" I reply in the same tone. Two can play at this game.
      "What do you want, Altridem? You are too late to take the throne now that Serrima is officially the queen." Pironem glares at his winged sibling.
      "Oh, no. That is not what I am here for." He smirks. "I just wanted to take a look for myself at the fabled High Grounds before it comes crumbling to the ground." He laughs. We give him the most confused yet threatened look, he just acted as though it were so blatantly obvious." Oh, did it not occur to you? While you guys are all up here, who is protecting the citizens down below?"
      Our eyes widen, I quickly grab the Snow Pendant and hold it out, an image of the town that I grew up in appears, everything burning and crumbling to the ground.
      Lake Corrisea is being drained and the buildings and castle in the kingdom being ripped from the ground. The crowd of Uriiempes screams in horror before rushing off to defend their home, Caliama gives me an apologetic look before following closely behind.
      The devastation was already severe and was only going to get worse. Something clicked in my head, and I narrow my eyes at the black-winged being.
      "How did you know that we would all be gathered here, in this spot, on this exact day?" I inquire suspiciously, he seemed to grow even more amused.
      "Let us just say, I got an anonymous tip." He smiles and his gaze shifts to Vetayo, who turns her head in shame.
      "How come I could have guessed. The daughter of Hades. Of course, she would spill." Jet growls whilst Pironem and I just have this dumbstruck look on our faces.
      Vetayo runs off crying, a little blazing trail being left behind as she goes. In her defense, I suppose it really couldn't be helped, her father is a very influential person, after all, he does have Altridem wrapped around his finger.
      Now, only Jet, Pironem, Rhicarra and myself stand against this arrogant follower, and I think that Pironem felt a little guilty having to fight his own brother.
      "How sad, the queen can't even keep one of her own allies from crying. Pathetic." Altridem scoffs, still grinning. He turns to begin leaving when he leans into one of his soldiers and whispers, just loud enough so that we could hear him, "Distract them.".
      The soldiers run for us and, while we were fighting them off, Altridem snatches the Marrow egg from its seat and begins to fly off.
      Jet quickly follows suit to try and get it back, leaving Pironem and me to fend for ourselves against the multitude of soldiers. Rhicarra does her best to assist, however, she still has a limp from her injury a few weeks prior when we were at the lake, so she could not be of much use in this situation.
      I think we did pretty well, all things considered, managing to knock out most of the soldiers, not wanting to kill them. We were almost through the last couple when one of them hits me upside the head with one of the chairs.
      I collapse to the ground, clutching the side of my now bleeding head and watch through blurry, pulsating vision as the remaining two soldiers restrain Pironem, practically picking him up, and begin to drag him out of the castle.
      I weakly push myself up off the ground, with some help from Rhicarra, who had not yet noticed that her master had disappeared, and it almost felt as though the world were spinning around me. I follow, as quickly as I can, to try and catch up.
      The entire time this is happening, I am trying to call out to Pironem, trying to let him know that I am coming to help him, Rhicarra now running after the group, barking and growling as she does.
      I could barely move though, I was in so much pain, even clutching onto the wall to keep myself from falling to my knees. My vision was pretty bad, however, I could see enough to make out my surroundings and the soldiers a good distance away. I rest against the wall for a moment, trying to catch my breath as I rub my eyes.
      It helped a bit, however as soon as my vision cleared up enough, I watch in absolute horror as they proceed to, whilst fighting Rhicarra off, throw Pironem over the edge of the High Grounds, big smirks on their faces as they do, despite the pain they likely were feeling from the many bite marks they were receiving from the large hound.
      "Pironem!" My body forces out the most bloodcurdling scream that I think it ever has, likely all of Iveska could hear that scream.
      All at once, it was as though the oxygen had been sucked out of my body, an almost drowning feeling with this massive wave of dread and numbness, now I felt nothing, no pain or anything.
      All I knew what that I had to do something. Upon seeing my expression, the soldiers went from grinning to having completely blank, pale-faced looks on their faces.
      I run faster than my body probably should have allowed me to, push aside the soldiers and dive head-first over the side of the High Grounds. I knew from countless action movies to make myself as flat as possible with a downward angle to go as fast as I possibly can, trying to get to him as quickly as possible
      As much as I enjoyed flying, the weightlessness of falling and the sight of the ground as it quickly comes into view was horrible, his terrified expression as he spins to the ground. My poor wingless Veltsen.
      I grab his hands, holding onto them for dear life, pulling him close to me and not letting go for anything. I extend my tired drained wings and flap them with everything that I have left.
      While it did slow us down, we still painfully crash to the ground. I wrap my arms around him to try and protect him as we slam into the grass and dirt. It definitely knocked the wind out of us, however, aside from that and the damage to my head from earlier, we appeared to be fine.
      We take a minute to relax and get our breathing back under control because, in case you have never had the wind knocked out of you, that is not something you can do right away.
      Pironem stares at me with these big, bright and watery eyes as he wheezes, then, in a sort of "Screw everything, I just saved this guy's life." moment, I pull him to me by the hem of his shirt and kiss him, tears running down my face. Upon parting, he just blinks at me, his jaw dropped open.
      The pain starts to return to my body, causing me to feel very light-headed. He grabs onto my arms and begins to examine the large gash on my temple, the whole side of my face and now part of my neck were covered in blood and it was only getting worse.
      He tries to clean me up as much as possible with his sleeves, however, it doesn't put that much of a dent into the mess. He pulls me into a hug, his head resting on my shoulder, hands running comfortingly down my back.
      It clicks for me that there is still something that we need to do. I push him off of me and stand up, wrapping his arm over my neck and trying to fly off, however, I was so weak that I just collapse to my knees.
      "What in the world do you think you are doing?" He squeaks, pulling me back to him.
      "Altridem... He took the egg... We have to give it back." I force out weakly.
      He gives me a faint smile before scooping me up, holding me close in his arms. He makes sure that I am secure before taking off running. He makes his way into the city, or rather what remained of it, a lot of the buildings were piles of rubble on the ground, smoke filling the air and bodies everywhere.
      It was the most horrible sight I had ever seen, so much for a good start as queen. At the entrance to a park, which had been walled off from the rest of the city due to reports of stalking by some of the people who often frequented the area, we find Jet and Altridem, who were currently engaged in battle over the egg.
      Pironem carefully sets me down and jumps in to help, meanwhile, I painfully crawl my over to swipe the egg from Altridem whilst he is distracted. I stumble to my feet, sneaking up behind him and grabbing the egg from the bend of his arm, holding onto it like the world would end if I lost it again.
      Altridem turns to me, a death glare on his face, raising his sword to me before being pinned onto his knees. Jet looked about ready to cut that idiot in half, meanwhile, Pironem stands up, keeping Altridem in check with his foot, which he put a good amount of pressure on so that he could not slip away.
      Pironem then pulls me to him, keeping my face pressed to his chest as gently as he can manage so that I do not see what is about to happen, though I do not think that he himself wanted to see it either.
      "Altridem Zeties," Jet huffs, worn out himself. "You have been found guilty of conspiracy against the queen. Those found guilty of such an offense shall be subject to death by beheading, a punishment that, given the nature of the offense, I personally disagree with, as it is such a quick death.
      A person such as you deserves far worse. Do you have any final words to hereby be witnessed by the queen of Iveska, Pironem Zeties and myself, Jetimel Fierlen?" Jet grimly announces. Altridem turns his face to me, smile on his face with blood dripping from his nose.
      "The time will come when the shadows come for you and your little friends won't be there to help. They will snuff out your light and drag you into hell because he is coming, Serrima Torvido, he is coming for the crown, and there will be blood." He laughs with the most demented tone.
      Pironem's hand wraps around the back of my head, keeping me to him as he closes his own eyes. I didn't see it, however, I could hear it, the sword cutting through his flesh and bone, the thudding of his head as it falls to the ground, his body following suit.
      I wince, peeking my eyes out from being pressed against Pironem's chest and look to Jet, who appeared as though he were about to throw up. He drops the sword by Altridem's body, huffing as he cleans a small amount of blood off of his hands before tending to the gash on my head.
      Whilst Jet works, Pironem uncomfortably and rather sadly drags off his brother's body to go bury it. We had a few people come over to check up on me and ask if the devastation was over.
      I look around to the city in ruins, crumbling and burning, these were my subjects' homes, now gone. I swear to them that my first act as queen would call for the total reconstruction of the affected areas of the planet.
      If I end up having to do so, I shall do it myself. Pironem returns, tears pouring down his face, he was truly devastated, the only family that he had left was gone, and I suppose in a way, I knew how he felt.
      He sits next to me, wrapping an arm around me and silently cries with his head on my shoulder as Jet finished up his work. Pironem gives me a brief kiss on the forehead, causing Jet to go bright red in anger until I explain what happened after he left.
      Jet actually turned pale, blinking at us. He sighs and nods, I think he was finally starting to accept that he can't stop whatever happens between Pironem and I, though he can still try if he really would like to.
      I hold the egg in my lap and find myself caressing it, I don't know if it was the fact that I nearly just lost this thing to Altridem or simply because I wanted some comfort after all that trauma, and the blood loss, of course, that too.
      I then notice that the shell of the egg felt more... Rough than usual. I kept thinking "What did mean old Altridem do to you?" as I feel the Marrows shuffling around in their egg. Their movements made me happy, it told me that they too were okay despite everything that has happened.
      I'd like to imagine that there were moments like this when my mother was pregnant with me, smiling as I shuffle around in her belly, perhaps it gave her a little bit of happiness even during the dark times after losing my father.
      And silly as it sounds, I don't think that I had quite imagined how much I would grow to love this little egg. Okay, I say little but that thing was bigger than my head, you know what I mean though.
      I give the egg a big, though as gentle as I could possibly be, hug, trying not to break it. Then comes the crack. I hear the shell beginning to splinter and I quickly set it down on the ground, seriously freaking out, thinking that I had damaged it.
      Jet and Pironem stand beside me, watching in awe. I had not hurt it at all, in fact, at the end of all the death and destruction, the egg that I had cared for over the past couple of months or so had decided that it was finally time to hatch.
      The egg shakes around almost violently, cracking further and further, until a little beak slams through and pokes out the other side of the shell.
      It makes a high pitched noise, an almost horn-like sound, before retracting its beak back into the shell, meanwhile, we sit chuckling at the sight.
      A few bystanders come to watch the event as well. A few more beak hits later, the shell splits open and out fall two beautiful little Marrows. Cue the in unison "Awe." as they shake their heads before immediately fixating on me.
      They make a couple more of those little honking sounds before racing up to me and wrapping their necks around me, lying down on my foot. I kneel down and begin petting them on the head, their feathers were absolutely beautiful and were actually super soft.
      There was not much color to them at this exact moment, they appeared to be mostly white, however, you could see some black towards the root of the feathers. Jet gives a bright smile to the pair.
      "Both are girls." He chuckles, watching me gently love on them.
      "How can you tell?" I ask, scooping them up with my wings. They seemed rather content there, all curled up and comfy.
      "Look at their eyes. Male Marrows have brown eyes, these lovely creatures both have blue, which means female." They honk again, presumably in agreement.
      "What are you going to name them, Serri?" There Pironem goes again with that nickname, though I think Jet was starting to get used to it.
      "Hmm..." I look at them. They perk their heads up in curiosity, I think they wanted to know too. "Well, first of all, how are we going to tell them apart?"
      "Set them down." Jet chimes in.
      I carefully place the pair back on the ground, and they immediately stand next to each other. Jet takes a good look at them, holding out their wings, checking their feet, anything that he could think of.
      He deduced that one had a longer wingspan and more of an orange hue to her beak whilst the other had more black already in her feathers and deeper blue eyes than her sister.
      I nod, deep in thought. They sit there, patiently waiting for their mother's decision, and somehow, one pair of names called to me as I look at them. That might sound stupid, how there were only two names that came to mind that I felt worked for them.
      "Maeolai for the one with the longer wingspan, and Nuraia for the one with more coloring." I smile. They honk happily before beginning to chase each other around.
      That was when the hair on the back of my neck began to stand on end. Even Jet and Pironem appeared to be having the same sensation as their brows furrow, eyes looking to me. You could almost feel the pressure in the air changing as the sky goes dim and some pretty strong winds pick up.
      I scoop Maeolai and Nuraia into my arms and hold them close, their heads resting against my neck. What almost looked like a bolt of lightning begins to spin in a quick circle, faster and faster, the air around it turning into a purple fog that follows the direction of the lightning.
      Then it began to open, and through it, from what we could make out, was a dark red and fiery world, it almost seemed to be a world opposite ours, only with a much deeper sense of evil coming from it. Stepping from the portal appeared a group of those dragon angels which, since we never learned a name for them, we began to call the Faeklesai, a bat-like creature from old Iveskan folklore.
      We had every intention of calling them whatever they were actually called once we officially learn their name, however, for the time being, that is what they are called. The crowd splits and out emerges the one person which we hoped never to meet.
      It was Hades, and he did not look happy.