Ice

 I was cold. So, so cold. Everything around me was featureless, hidden in the dark. That’s all I remember of my beginning. Cold and dark. And alone. So, so alone. No one to hear me scream.

Eventually, I stopped screaming. It wasn’t worth it, and it meant inviting the cold and dark into myself, something that only made the aloneness worse.

Once, there was a flash of light. Somewhere far above me, for less than a moment. The flash of light was what told me I was alive, that I wasn’t completely alone. But it didn’t happen again.

Not until he came. For the first time, I heard voices, speaking a language I couldn’t comprehend. To me, voices were for screaming, crying, whimpering. I’d never imagined communicating.

Above me, the ceiling of my prison cracked open, letting light come streaming in. Scared, I huddled in the corner.

A man was lowered on a rope, until he stood with me on the floor. For the first time, I wasn’t alone.

I had no idea what he was saying, but the sounds he made were soothing. Eventually, I let him wrap me in a blanket and hold me to his chest, where I could hear his heartbeat. The men he was with pulled us out of my prison.

The world above was huge. My lake bled into the land, the land morphed into trees, the trees blanketed the mountains. High above, the sun gave watery light.

They were all speaking at once. One of them  held me close as the others gathered around. My fear returned. I had no idea what was happening. The warmth of his touch burned, the pain worse than anything inflicted by the cold.

Then, like a bolt of lighting, I caught a word. A single word. Ice. Quietly, I repeated it, rolling the strange sounds in my mouth. 

A moment later, I squeezed my eyes shut, screaming inside with pain. Someone, something, was stabbing into my head, stabbing through my eyes. Black spots filled my vision, the darkness warm and welcoming.

And then it faded. But I was different. The chatter made sense, made words. 

"How did you survive?" one of the men asked. 

"What happened?"

"What's the matter?"

"P-please," I whispered, my teeth chattering. My voice was hoarse from not being used. As they quieted, I became aware of another sensation, of a gnawing at my ribs. A sensation from what can only be called another life. Hunger. "Do you have anything to eat?"

"Of course. Men, back to camp. The poor girl is probably starving." That was the man who'd come into my prison to rescue me. He seemed to be the leader. His eyes were kind when he turned back to me. "What is your name?"

"Eirwen." The name was on my lips before I even considered the question. I didn't know where it had come from, only that it wasn't my name before the ice. 

"That's a beautiful name," he said. "My name is Akio. Let's get you onto a sled."

"A-a sled?"

Akio smiled, wrapping his coat around my shoulders. I hadn't realized that I was cold. After so long, the cold felt like a friend. "Come this way." Even though he must've been freezing, he didn't complain or even shiver.

He helped me into a strange carriage that had a flat bottom rather than wheels. It was pulled by a huge dogs, rather than the horses I expected. 

"Don't worry, Eirwen," he said, tucking thick blankets around me. "You're safe with us."

*****

The dress was beautiful. It hung to the floor, somehow woven with tiny crystals that looked like droplets of ice. Meant to represent the ice I'd come from. Its sleeves seemed to melt away at my wrists, with no discernable line where fabric became skin. Akio's seamstresses were masters.

Once, my hair had been black, as black as the night and the darkness. Now, though, it hung to my waist, a soft curtain of snow. Akio said that he liked it, but I felt ashamed. It was a constant reminder of my frozen prison.

There were whispers that I was a witch. No mortal could survive an ice prison. Not for a minute, and definitely not for the eternity I remembered. Akio told me to ignore them, that I was the most beautiful woman he'd ever met, that he loved me. But, in my heart, I had to admit that I didn't even know the truth. Even a year after I'd been rescued, I still had no idea where I had come from.

Those rumors were not unfounded. In a land where winters would kill no matter how well a person covered up, I could go outside dressed as though it was summer. Often, if I was in a room for more than an hour, the windows would be frosted over when I left. Sometimes, frozen footsteps would follow me as I toured the grounds. The kinder of the gossips whispered that their prince had somehow captured the spirit of winter, that any child born would have the power to end our cursed cycle of ice and sun.

The Queen Mother was afraid of me, and made no secret of it. She refused to be seen with me, refused to even eat at the same table as I did. Akio tried to talk to her about it, but she refused to even speak of me unless she had to. Our marriage was against her express wishes and we were doing it without her blessing.

One of my maids was waiting for me, watching as I examined my reflection in the mirror, a mirror that was edged with frost. "Milady," she said finally, eyes carefully fixed on the floor, "If we are to be on time, we must leave now."

"All right," I replied, turning away from the girl I didn't recognize.

*****

"You're doing it again, Eir," Akio said, laying on the grass next to me. The king of our country always made time for picnics, no matter how harsh the rumors about me had become. 

"Doing what?"

"Look."

I sat up. The outline of my body was perfectly traced out by a ring of frost. Frowning, I tried to rub it away, to melt it, but that only froze more of the new spring grass. "What am I?" I whispered, forcing the words past the self-loathing in my throat.

"What do you mean?"

"I'm a freak, Akio. You know that I am. Everyone knows. They're saying that I'm a witch, that I ensnared you, forced you to marry me."

"Nonsense."

Tears gathered in the corners of my eyes, threatening to spill over. He always dismissed my fears about what I was, my concerns about what the people were saying. To him, I was his queen and the woman he loved. That was good enough. "Is it, though? I still don't remember where I came from, why I was in the ice. I don't even know who I was before the ice."

Akio propped himself up on an elbow, meeting my eyes. "Eir, stop. You are beautiful, and unique. The rumors about you are from petty people who have nothing better to do, that's all. As to where you came from, I'm sure you will find out someday. But we will find out together."

The tears began streaming down my cheeks, only to freeze in tiny droplets as they fell to the ground. "I don't have a heartbeat."

That made his eyes widen. "What are you talking about?"

"I don't have a heartbeat. I can hold my breath for longer than a council meeting. Whatever I am, whatever I was, I wasn't human."

"Don't be ridiculous. I've felt your heart beating, watched as you breathed at night."

"Look." I picked up one of the knives we'd used with our meal, cutting my fingertip. Pain was something as foreign to me as the chocolate imported from our neighboring country, and there was no blood. My skin had retained the slightly-blue tinge that had colored it when I was in the ice. No amount of sunlight would darken it.

Akio stared at me, horror written across his features. "Eirwen," he whispered.

My tears were coming faster now. I regretted it, losing the only person who had ever truly loved me, but he had to know the truth. He had to know that I wasn't human. For his own protection.

"I'm sorry, Akio," I replied, getting to my feet. And I was sorry. Sorry for the pain I'd put him through, for the rift between him and his mother, for allowing him to waste years of his short life on me. "I have to go."

Closing my ears to his cries, I turned and began to walk into the forest, tears freezing the fabric of my dress.

He gripped my arm, spinning me around. "Eirwen, stop. Please. I love you." I met Akio's eyes, blurred through my tears. "Don't leave. Please. Stay here, with me."

"I-I can't, Akio." I was shivering again, though I was not cold. "Let go."

In response, he pulled me closer, pressing his lips to mine. For a moment, he was warm and soft, the Akio I loved. The Akio that could almost convince me to stay. 

But it wasn't to be. I twisted away, turning to leave. His hand grasped at my arm for a moment, then became cold. Horrified, I pulled away, hearing a dreadful cracking noise. Akio stood before me, transformed. A perfect replica of himself, carved out of the clearest ice. Forever reaching for something dangerous, something he loved but couldn't have.

*****

I know why I was in the lake. The lake and I had an agreement. It would take all my memories, and in return, I would freeze it, keeping away the animals and people. I would keep the people from growing too strong, from venturing too close to the lands that the lake protected. And every hundred years, I would find someone to love me, someone who had a chance at thawing my frozen, cursed heart. But not this hundred years. 

For now, though, I sank into the waters, relishing the comforting cold, the friendly darkness. The safety that came with forgetting. And everything faded away.

Hero

 Hero

“You see,” he said, walking around me like a vulture circling its meal. “A hero is only as good as his opponent pushes him to be. So the darker my actions, the better you became.”

That’s not true! I wanted to scream the sentence, to write it in the clouds, carve it into the moon. It couldn’t be true. The hero is made over the years, from fighting to stay the hero in a world that kept getting darker, that kept rejecting me. He had nothing to do with it.

I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t. The gag between my teeth kept me from anything more than an angry grunt of protest as I shook my head.

“Oh, you don’t believe me?” he asked, noticing the motion. “You should. I've seen a lot more than you. Take out the gag." One of his men obeyed immediately, cutting the gag away.

"You give yourself too much credit," I told him, stretching out my jaw. "Because I obviously wouldn't have become a hero if you didn't exist."

"It's true." He was staring out one of the enormous windows, back to me. His voice was cold and hard. "Tell me honestly that you didn't want to prove yourself, that if I was a different person, you still would have become what you are."

I couldn't reply. It was true, he knew it was.

"Are you ashamed of me, Sammy? Trying to prove you aren't like me, or Dad?"

That touched a nerve, one I'd thought had scarred over. "Do you know what it's like, growing up with the names of two serial killers following me, like ghosts I could never get rid of? How I felt about leaving everything and going into hiding after you escaped? You destroyed my life."

"And so you had to prove that you were better than me."

"Of course I had to!" If there had been any strength left in me, I would've attacked him without a thought, even though we were family. Even though the guards would kill me for it.

"Why? Why didn't you just break?"

That got my attention. Our eyes met in the thick glass of the mirror, and he was the first to look away.

"Why didn't you break?" he repeated, softer. "What makes you better than me?"

Again, I had no response. That wasn't a question that could be answered.

"Why?!" He shouted, spinning around. His hand lashed out, knocking me off my knees.

Spitting blood, I whispered, "I don't know, Michael."

"The worse I was, the better you became." He crouched down, gripping my chin in strong fingers that used to catch everything I'd throw at him. "I tried everything I could to make you like me, but you just got better. Kinder, stronger. What makes you different?"

"I-I don't know. Honestly. Please, Michael. Don't hurt me."

He let me go, standing and dusting himself off. "If you truly knew what I am, you wouldn't beg for mercy. All it will do is make things worse for you."

"I'm sorry. Please. You're better than this."

"Nice to see you never let go of hope, Sammy. That will be fun to watch as it destroys you from the inside."

"Michael, please. I'm your brother."

"Family means nothing. Not to us, anyway. Besides, don't try to pretend you haven't spent your whole life wishing you had some other bunch of losers for blood."

"Most families don't have two psychopaths in them."

"Defiance? From you? I thought you were Mommy's golden boy. Always obedient, always quiet. The kind of son she wanted."

"Don't you mock our mom that way."

"YOUR mom. She never loved me. Anyone could see that. All I got was Dad's cruelty." He turned away and lifted his shirt, just a little. There was a twisted scar that ran across his lower back, a wound I couldn't even imagine. "But enough pandering. Take our golden boy away, and we'll see if we can't break him."

The guards dragged me from the room while my brother ignored my screams.

Beauty

 Hurray! Post number 50! 

Much excitement. Anyway, I’ve got another new story for you today, this one by Fawn. 

It’s a sci-fi fairy tale, titled Beauty.

“Are you sure?” I whispered, staring at the council.

“Yes, Princess. It’s the only way. We have to make the prince think you’ve died.”

“What about when I wake from this cryo sleep? How will you explain that away?”

The man who’d suggested it shuffled nervously. “That’s the thing, Princess. We aren’t quite sure if you will even wake.”

“So you want me to go into this sleep without knowing if I will ever wake up?”

“Yes, milady.”

I thought about it. I really really thought about it, allowing the council room to sink into silence as I considered the options. This was the one with the least risk to my people. If I refused the marriage, Prince Hadeon would attack the villages. If we fought, he’d cut off trade with us, and the other nations of Earth would follow. Of course, I could marry him, but he’d made his intentions for my kingdom clear. We were to be slaves.

“I’ll do it,” I said quietly, my voice clearly audible in the stillness of the room.

For a second, the silence remained, and then clamour took over. The supporters of the plan cheered, glad that I’d chosen their option. Those against the plan yelled and hollered, trying to change my mind with sheer volume.

“Thank you all for being here today.” They fell silent again as I started speaking. “And thank you for serving on this council. There are many here that I consider friends. The prince will be here tomorrow, and I have much to prepare, so I’ll take my leave now. Goodnight, and goodbye.”

I had no way of knowing if I would ever see any of them again. This was my way of saying goodbye. 

As one, they got up and bowed to me as I left the room, desperately trying to hide the tears that were gathering in the corners of my eyes. There was no other way. We’d been trying to find one since Prince Hadeon declared his intention to take my hand in marriage.

My advisor was standing outside the door, his face pale. He was the closest thing I had to a father, ever since my own parents had died at the hands of an assassin. “You can’t go through with this,” he told me as I walked past.

"I have to," I replied. "There's no other way."

"Kalliste, please. Don't do this." There was something very much like desperation on his face.

"I-I'm sorry, Bronimir. This is something I have to do."

"Just because an option is the most foolish, it doesn't mean that it's the best one. Think about this. Please. For me."

"Stop," I whispered, tears rising. 

He saw them and fell silent, pulling me into a hug. "All right, Princess," he said finally. "I won't argue. If this is what you think is right."

I couldn't answer that. There wasn't a good answer.

"Princess?" A man I didn't recognize came toward us.

"Who are you?" I asked, straightening and swallowing my tears.

"My name is Acyn Sahar. I'm the one who developed the technology to keep you in suspension indefinitely. "

“Nice to meet you,” I replied. Bronimir looked like he wanted to rip the man’s head off.

“Shall we get started, Princess?”

“Now? Couldn’t I have a bit of time to say farewell to my people?”

“I’m sorry. The machine has to be calibrated for each individual and that can take some time. However, I can wait another hour. I’m assuming you wanted to be in suspension before Prince Hadeon arrives.”

“Thank you. Your lab is the one in the outer dome?”

“Yes. If you could meet me there in an hour?”

“Of course. What should I be wearing?”

“Something befitting the most beloved ruler of our nation,” he said quietly. “Something a great ruler would be buried in.”

I nodded, again fighting tears. If they couldn’t wake me up, I was going to my death.

****

An hour later, I and Bronimir were making our way to the lab. He’d grown ever sterner watching the maids prepare me, watching them do my hair, makeup and jewelry. I fought tears, and more than one of the maids had a perpetual sniffle. But none of them tried to argue.

“Are you sure?” Bronimir asked once more, just outside the doors to the lab.

I nodded, throat too thick to speak. 

“All right.” 

Without warning, he wrapped me in a tight hug. At first I resisted, then melted into the embrace. “You are the bravest princess I’ve ever met,” he whispered into my ear. “You will be remembered for your sacrifice.”

Just as quickly, he let me go and opened the door. I took a deep breath and approached my fate.

**** 

(Fifty years later)

“What do you mean, you want me to investigate the rubble?” I stared at my commanding officer. He couldn’t be serious. I was a scientist. I didn’t go into the field.

“Exactly that. We calculated that the radiation levels would have sufficiently dropped by now, so you can go in safely. The Moon Colonies had technology far beyond what we could even imagine. Prince Hadeon ordered them destroyed as penance for keeping their princess from him. But he never considered what scientific treasures he was destroying. Just go there and poke around, see what you can find. If it’s nothing, you’ll be back in a week.”

“But sir, I’m a scientist, not a soldier!”

“Which is why you need to go. A squad will also go with you, in case you meet any hostiles. You’re a damn good scientist, Erasmus. If anyone can recognize something useful, you will.”

I nodded. There wasn’t any other argument I could make. “All right, sir. What of my experiments?”

“Daemon will take care of them while you’re gone. Now go pack. You leave in three days. The ship is ready, but look over the lab and see if there’s anything else you need.”

“Yes, sir.”

****

The soldier watched as I rearranged the lab, taking careful stock of where everything was. "I'll need several more writing tablets, as well as an extra microscope. A camera to document everything I do. Do you know if we have any information or even legends about the Moon Colonies?"

I could've sworn the boy's pen was smoking. At my question, he looked up and shook his head. He hadn't spoken a single word to me for our entire acquaintance. 

"Right. I'll need every bit of data you can find on that. Doesn't matter if it seems unimportant. Everything."

He nodded. 

"And I shall need to know your name."

"W-why, sir?" His face had gone pale.

"So I know who my assistant is. I assume you'll be the one helping me when we reach the moon as well."

"Yes, sir."

"Call me Erasmus. I'm not important enough to merit a 'sir.'"

"Yes, sir. Erasmus. Sorry."

"And your name?"

"Alister, sir."

Apparently the 'sir' was a habit I'd have to gradually break him out of. That was all right. I liked a challenge.

"All right, Alister. Have you any experience in a lab?"

"I-I've conducted experiments before. On my own time. Never in any kind of official setting, though."

"Well, it'll be official now. I need someone to document everything I do here, for scientific posterity. Perhaps I'll even need an assistant for some of the more complex attempts."

"Are you sure? I'm a little clumsy, sir."

"We'll train that out of you. If the Colonies were as advanced as my superiors seem to think, we'll be up there a while."

"If anything survived."

"Yes. If anything survived."

****

"Are you sure this is where we should be, Dr. Erasmus?" The commander stared at me. This looked like nothing, but every map of the Moon Colonies said that there had been a laboratory here, a large one. It was also one of the few places Prince Hadeon had been on his short visit. Something in that lab was important enough to show a visiting dignitary.

I nodded, feeling doubt like a rock in the pit of my stomach. We'd been here a week already, and hadn't found anything to merit more investigation. Of course, many of the guards were more concerned with the riches that were said to positively drip from the walls here. A small part of me suspected that was the real reason we were here, but I'd investigate anyway. 

"Erasmus!" Alister waved his arms, trying to get my attention. He'd been poking around where the center of the dome would've been. 

"What did you find?" I called back, stumbling through the rough terrain.

"A book, sir. The text is intact."

"Are you sure?" I felt my heart begin to race. If this book had any scientific value, it would make the whole trip worth it.

"Yes. I can clearly see the characters, though I don't know the script."

He handed me the book as I managed to regain my footing. Getting more excited by the second, I paged through it. It was a journal, belonging to a man named Dr. Acyn Sahar. "This is fantastic, Alister."

Then I came to the last page, stopping to read it. It was like it had been written by a different person than the rest of the book. The script was cramped and messy, scribbled down by a man in a hurry. What I read took my breath away.

"Alister!" I called out, summoning my friend back to my side like a yapping puppy. 

"Yes, sir?"

"Get all the soldiers digging in Quadrant C," I pointed, in case he'd forgotten what we'd designated the four parts of the dome.

"What are we looking for?"

"Trust me. You'll know when you find it."

While the soldiers hunted, I read the journal. It was a logbook of Dr. Sahar's experiments in something called cryo sleep, which had to be very much like what we did to criminals for the duration of their sentence. A sleeping man causes less trouble than a man who can escape. 

Apparently, the doctor had managed to put several of his subjects to sleep, but the problem lay in waking them again. Cryo involved freezing the body in a matter of seconds, so the person didn't have any ill effects. They'd wake up years later, without any knowledge that time had passed at all. He'd had little success, until the last few entries. Sahar had found a breakthrough, one that we were still searching for. The secret lay in an element, one that had a different composition on Earth. Somehow, he'd noticed the difference and managed to manipulate it.

"Erasmus!" Alister was calling me again, yanking me away from my thoughts. "We've found something!"

I hurried over. This was where the journal had told me the doctor kept his stores of what he called Kallistum, an element he'd discovered in his studies. It also held the secret to waking from cryo.

But that wasn't what the men had found. Not in the slightest.

The soldiers were staring at her, indeed, even I couldn't force myself to look away. This woman lay in a glass tube, protected somehow by the thickness of the material. She'd lain here for fifty years, waiting to be woken.

There was something else. A plaque, held in her hands. It was very simple, inscribed with only a handful of words. Princess Kalliste. Beloved by all.

We'd uncovered a tomb.

****

"Are you sure about this, Dr. Erasmus?" The commander was forever skeptical of my decisions. To his military mind, it didn't make sense to carry a coffin back to the ship. The princess would only take up extra space.

But I knew better. It wasn't an accident that she'd died hours before Prince Hadeon arrived. Even before his family was overthrown, it was well known that he was a monster. Of course she would rather kill herself than be wed to him.

"Of course. Bring her to my lab. Alister, you clear a space for her. I need to go back to the dome. There's something else there that we need."

"Yes, sir." Alister was becoming a capable scientist. Perhaps I'd consider requesting that he become my permanent assistant when we returned to Earth.

Following the instructions laid out in the journal, I carefully shifted the rubble, hunting for the element that Sahar had discovered. Some part of me respected the man, no matter what the Earthen Kingdoms thought of the Moon Colonies. He had been willing to push the boundaries of science, and had documented it meticulously. Also, by most reports, he was left-handed. Only other lefties will understand the satisfaction one feels upon discovering that another person shares that quirk which makes us different from the right-handed majority.

After hours of digging and searching, I finally discovered the small container that held the samples Sahar had managed to create. Somehow, the man had found a way to stabilize an element that should not have existed at all.

Exhausted, I returned to the ship and fell into my hard and uncomfortable bunk, sleeping the sleep of the dead.

****  

"Princess, princess," It was a voice I didn't recognize. Certainly not Bronimir. Maybe it was the scientist, the one who had somehow discovered how to put someone in cryo sleep safely.

"Doctor Sahar?" I whispered, my voice dry. For a few panicked seconds, I couldn't open my eyes. It was as though they'd been sealed shut.

"No, Princess. My name is Dr. Erasmus."

"I-I don't know you. Where am I?" Fear gave me the boost I needed to open my eyes, thought they immediately filled with tears. The room I was in was painfully bright, and I was cold, so cold.

"It's all right. Please, lie still. You're safe."

"M-my people, what happened to them?" By squinting against the lights, I could see a figure next to me. I'd been taken out of the tube that Dr. Sahar had helped me into. "Where's Bronimir?" I struggled to sit up.

"Calm down, Princess. Please. You've just woken after a long time. You aren't strong enough yet."

Ignoring him, I managed to prop myself up on my elbows, while my eyes finally adjusted to the light. "Where am I?"

"This is the scientific lab aboard the S.T. Explorer. Currently, we're on the moon."

"Where are my people? Where is Bronimir?" I was careful to enunciate. This man seemed to want to avoid my questions.

"I'm sorry, Princess. After Prince Hadeon discovered you were kept from him, he ordered the Moon Colonies destroyed. Only a few survived."

I could feel myself pale. That was exactly what we'd wanted to avoid. "No. How long has it been?"

"Princess, you've just woken up. That's a shock in itself. Perhaps you should rest."

"How. Long." A small part of me screamed not to ask, that I didn't want to know. But I had to.

"Fifty years."

Fifty years. Slowly, I lay back on the table. Unable to believe it. Bronimir, my maids, my people. They were all dead, and had been for longer than my father was alive.

"Princess..."

"Am I?" I whispered, my voice barely audible in my own ears. "Am I a princess, when all I have left to rule over is a mass grave? A destroyed kingdom of ash and bones?"

The scientist had no answer for me.

"Wh-what of Prince Hadeon? Has he become king?"

"No, Princess. There was a rebellion. The royal family was overthrown."

"Who leads the Earth Kingdoms now? Who am I prisoner to?"

"He wanted to introduce himself. When he heard that we'd found you, he ordered us to return. I need a stable environment for my experiments, so we waited until I'd managed to wake you. Come. There's a bed waiting for you in the infirmary."

I stumbled after the man, who wasn't that much older than me. Of course, my appearance was deceptive. There were fifty years I couldn't remember.

****

The entire flight back to Earth took a matter of hours, when once it would take nearly a week. Obviously, they'd improved their rockets.

I lay in my bed, staring at the ceiling, wishing I could see my people. Wishing I'd died with them. Everyone I'd ever known and loved was dead. Gone. The grief was so overwhelming I couldn't even cry.

Dr. Erasmus and his assistant, a soldier whose name I didn't catch, stayed close to me throughout the flight, checking my pulse every half hour or so. I wished they'd let me be. 

The dress I wore felt like a mockery, a feeble reminder of a life that had belonged to someone else. Much of my jewelry had been removed, taken by the soldiers most likely. 

"Princess Kalliste, have you ever visited Earth?"

I ignored the question, as I had all of Dr. Erasmus's questions. They didn't merit answers.

"Welcome to my planet," he said after a long silence. "Our ruler will be here to greet you shortly. He is quite old, though, so his grandson may come as well."

Not quite sure why he was telling me, I pushed myself into a sitting position. Grief wasn't an excuse to ignore a ruler.

A soldier I didn't recognize opened the door to my private room, prompting Erasmus and his assistant to bow low.

The first person through the door was a young man, one I vaguely recognized. There was a simple circlet in his hair, contrasting the darkness of it. He was supporting a much older man, one whose back was bent and whose crown sat askew on his head. 

"Grandfather," the young man whispered. "Here she is."

"Bring me closer," their ruler stammered, and they approached my bed.

His eyes widened in recognition, a second before mine did.

"Kalliste," he said, his voice suddenly clear. 

"Bronimir!" Forgetting my weakness, I threw my arms around him, on my feet in a second. My advisor hugged me back, though not with the strength he once had. "Bronimir, I feared you were dead."

"Just as I feared you wouldn't be found while I lived. I've missed you, Princess."

"What happened?"

Bronimir opened his mouth as if to reply, then sagged in my arms. Suddenly, my oldest friend took my place in the bed, and I realized that he had to be at least a hundred years old by now.

"He tires easily, nowadays," the young prince told me. "But he insisted on coming to see you personally."

"Of course he did," I replied, smiling sadly. Bronimir was the last remnant of my former life, as far as I knew. Losing him would be like losing my parents again. "Stubborn old fool."

My friend held out his hand, and I took it. "Kalliste," he whispered, "You are the best ruler I've ever known. If anyone can fix the mess that Prince Hadeon and his family made of this kingdom, you can. My last act as king is to name you my successor. Amadeus will help you."

I stared in shock, as did the young man next to me. "Bronimir, no!"

"Yes, my Princess. I've held on in hope that I would see you again. Now that I have, I will die in peace. The kingdom is in good hands."

With that, my friend closed his eyes and was gone.

This time, the tears came. They flowed as I clasped Bronimir's hand in mine, begging him to come back, to stay and guide me. I couldn't be me without his help, his constant support.

****

Queen Kalliste appointed me her head scientist, and we spent long hours going over what she could remember about every detail of the technology her people had possessed. 

Alister became an admirable scientist, someone I was more than happy to entrust with the day to day management of the lab.

King Amadeus and Queen Kalliste had five children, two sons and three daughters. The eldest boy was named Bronimir, the second Acyn. The three girls all had similar names, Ayla, Helene and Luna, each of which means 'moon', as a memorial to those who perished at the hands of Prince Hadeon.

Under their kind rule, Earth prospered. By Queen Kalliste's order, the moon was never recolonized. She declared that it was disrespectful to the dead who had lost their lives to the Earth.

She never spoke of those she'd lost while she slept. No one, not even the king, really understood what it was like to lose all her people and be powerless to stop it. No, she never spoke of it. But sometimes, on nights when the moon was full, hanging in the sky like a silver penny, she could be found on the palace rooftops, tears streaming down her cheeks as she drank in lonesome memorial to her lost life.

The End.

Sorry this took so long to post. Fawn was a little blindsided when I asked her for it.