My father gave me a notebook when I was about four/five: "Scott, record history. It is good for you to know what has happened. It will help you keep from making the same mistakes and help you vent. I know you have been through alot in your lifetime, as brief as it has been."
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If you know me, you know that I am a historian. My father is a scientist. My mother WAS a musician. She died, was murdered by the kingsmen, and it changed our lives. We became refugees in this land called the Wolflands, a warrior people like the Spartans or the Amazons. It is one of four warrior cultures in these mountains. We were foreigners at first, but when the king, King Charter, decided to start persecuting people in that land, well, we hid the children of the highest-standing family in our obscure knickknack shop, nothing special. We made history. And as a historian, it was my greatest honor to not only make but to begin to RECORD history; I wrote my experience with the children of the court of Lord Walter and Lady Mariah. There were five of them: two brothers and three sisters. Apprently, they were traveling through the Wolflands from three years staying in the Distance Colonies, and my father and I planned to join them on their way to his homeland. However, other people began to bring their children as well, and we had to turn some away. I could see the pain that it caused my father, but we could not save everyone. That was reality; sometimes, it is bitter, and it weaves its sour web throughout history.
But there was no sweeter time than when I met her. I wrote in that journal all of our memories, alone. I turned seven that year. She was just about four or five, and lonely and scared, two feelings I was and am all too acquainted with. We were young, of course, but if I could know love, I did. Whatever it was, I loved her from the beginning. She had brown skin and bushy hair down her back, as wild and fiery as she, and her eyes..they captured me like a candle to a moth...the last time she looked at me...they were grey, like the sky, like the rain of that night. But I will NEVER forget that first day; I did not know back then, that it was love at first sight, but it was the happiest I had felt since the day I had lost my mother.
"Welcome, what is your name? Do you want to play with us?"
"No!" she snapped. "I want my Papa, and I want to go home!"
She had these tribal tattoos around her wrists and ankles, dotted circles, characteristic of the Fiyori culture of the Fairylands, neighbor to the Wolflands. She was a "half-breed" like me, part Fiyori and part Canvasi from the Wolflands. They looked fresh. Was that why she was so mad? They looked like they hurt.
"Have you live in a palace?" I wondered if she were one of the rich kids.
"No! We have lived in the caves for a long time, as long as I know, hiding."
Good, then I could definitely make her feel better.
"I do."
Her grey eyes captured me. "Where? Do you have horses?"
Typical Fiyori. They love horses.
"Yes, a big brown draft horse named Zorro."
"Zorro? Let me see him."
I nodded, and we went down to the stables to see Zorro. He had accompanied Pa and me on all of our journeys from my mother's home in the Summits to here in the Wolflands. And soon to Pa's home country outside these mountains. Zorro was perfect, hardy and good-natured. I offered him an apple from the bucket in the doorway, but when I caught up to the girl, she was already stroking him and climbing the paddock fence to mount him.
"What are you doing?!"
"I'm gonna ride."
I jumped out the way so that she could gallop around the fence line. Being so small, she kept that giant stallion under control, and I fell in love with her even more. It was breathtaking. Never had I met someone so bold in all my young life. A few seconds later, she brought him to a halt beside me.
"He's alright, not that impressive of a gait, though, a little unbalanced."
"Well, he is old and is not a riding horse."
"That explains it."
She looked over her shoulder at the sunset, and her grey eyes sparkled a little blue.
"You do not have a palace, do you?"
"No, this is my palace."
"It is not a proper palace."
I shrugged, somewhat embarrassed. "We are not rich." I wanted to say we used to be, but that is a different story I had yet gotten up the courage to record.
"Well, that is not why. You do not have a proper palace because you do not have a queen. Every great palace has a strong queen behind it." She turned to me. "I am going to be your queen, and you can call me Malkia. My aunt calls me that; she said I am a born queen. That's what it means." She smiles. "She taught me to say: 'I am ebony-skinned, I am beautiful. I am porcelain-skinned, I am beautiful. I am red-skinned, olive-skinned, brown-skinned. Beautiful. I am a Queen. I am BEAUTIFUL.
And indeed she was SO pretty.
"Uh, you can call me Scott."
She put her finger to her dimpled cheek in thought. "I already have a cousin named Scott. Do you have another name?"
My proper name had not been used since I was a young child with my mother. Yasuhiro. Although, I had told it to some of the other kids because it sounded cooler than Scott. "Yasu. Some of the other kids call me that, anyway."
"Yasu. I like it. Yasu and Malkia. You are my boyfriend now, and you cannot hold hands with any other girls."
Of course, I never have wanted to. She is my queen, and my palace is wherever she is. We made the journey to my father's homeland with her people; Malkia was trained as a warrior from a young age, as is their tradition. She was promising. Sometimes, she would have to leave to go back to the mountains while I stayed permanently in my father's homeland. Things were better for us there, but my father would go back to check on the shop, traveling with Malkia's people. Even when she left, and I had to say good-bye, I got her a passenger pigeon so that we could write; the king only allows us limited technology. She was not familiar with birds at first, but she adored the pigeon and named her Skyla. We wrote as much as we could, and whenever she returned to my lands, we were still as fond of one another as that first day. Things finally calmed down when King Charter gave the throne to his successor, and my father decided to take me back to the Wolflands temporarily, but four years into the new king's reign, Pa decided it was safe enough to return permanently. 801Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQL1Ni94DtD
And Malkia and I were reunited. She met me in the paddock of the shop just as Zorro rode up. Pa went inside to check on the shop; he was used to Malkia by now and just waved nonchalantly, focused on fixing up our store to also sell food now. It was raining, and the journey had been longer than planned. Zorro was almost ready to be put to pasture permanently to live in peace after his hard-working life, and Pa planned to buy a new horse for our travels. 801Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgb5Do6u4je
"Malkia!" I greeted, throwing my striped umbrella to the wind. "Can you believe we are free?!"
She ran to my arms, and I embraced her and swung her around, enjoying the warmth of her hug and the song of her laugh. Later that day, we shared apples with Zorro, and she told me about their journey back; they had returned permanently a few years before just months into the new king's reign. Her life had been full of eb and flow since she was a baby, moving here, moving there.
"You have been the only constant," she admitted. "Now, we have returned for good without the danger of the old king, and now, I do not know what to do with myself."
I laughed. "To be honest, I thought I wouldn't find you."
"Oh, Yasu, you will always find me."
After being together only for brief periods, we were finally able to enjoy being together uninterrupted for life. But about two years into our happy reuniting, Malkia had changed; she was training to be a warrior now, and her focus was elsewhere. As warriors must do, she was growing up fast, and I was getting left behind despite the fact I was sixteen and she was fourteen:
"Malkia, you have been distant lately."
She had requested to meet me, despite the storm and windy weather here in the mountains. I was angry. Pa and I had been reading peacefully by the fire when she had phoned me.
"I know. I will become a warrior tonight."
"That is spectacular!"
"Thanks. But...That does not leave a lot of room for love."
"So you do not love me anymore...?" I blinked a few hard times. The rain was driving my black hair into my face.
"That is not what I said!" she whispered. "It's just that you are a distraction."
"How?"
"You make me...want to not be a warrior. You make me want to be with you all the time and have a different life. You make me want a life that's not here."
"Is that bad?"
"Yes, because I have to be a warrior; it is my destiny."
"But...what about us? You are my queen. I have no palace without you."
She shook her head, her drenching wet curls. I held her face in my hands, peered into her eyes with desperation, "You are my Malkia."
"Scott," she whispered. She had never called me that; it seemed so foreign. "We will always be friends, but for now, that is all we can be. Let me become a warrior and serve my people, then...we will find each other again."
"Is this so that you can run off with some other guy?! I noticed you have not been writing me!"
"I know I haven't!"
"Why?! I know I live close, but that has always been our thing, and"
"Yasu, someone shot Sky! She was carrying a letter for me, and by the time I screamed, it was too late..." She let the tears flow.
"Oh, Malkia, I know you loved her."
"I loved her because she was amazing and because you gave her to me. She meant so much to me."
"Malkia, I..."
"Yasu, the arrow that pierced her...it pierced me too. Before I knew it, I had shot the warrior that shot her. It was just instinct...it wounded him, not killed him, but...I cannot explain it, but tonight I become a warrior, and love...I am expected to be a legacy...I do not know what I want anymore. All I know is that love is going to hold me back."
"How can you say this to me?"
"I...I have to go."
She was young, and she was wild. She was growing like a wildfire, and I was being left behind in the ashes.
"Malkia, please!"
"Yasu! A warrior's path is unknown, and I...Skyla died so suddenly, and it hurt so bad...what if..."
"Malkia! Do not talk like that! You will not be killed! I...you are hurting me now! I am losing you now! What do you want me to do?! I have always been there for you! Be here for me, now!"
"I couldn't put you through that pain. It would hurt so much worse. This is the path I have chosen, but it is not the path you should be forced to choose with me."
"Malkia, what can I do...I want to be with you through the rain and the storm, good times and bad, forever, my queen."
Her grey eyes. I will never forget them. They matched the sky and the rain, and I will never forget that day.
"Yasu, give me room, please, and we will find each other again. We will never grow apart, only together. Until we find one another again."
"How do you know?"
She smiled. "Yasu. Because you will always find me"
"You promise?"
"Always."
I remember her last kiss. It struck through me like lightning, and it was warm despite the cold. Warm with the promise: we would find each other again.
To be continued...
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