Beryl’s Requiem: Era of Innocence
by:
How funny life is with its twists and turns and quirks! For the creature I die and the girl I was born are as far removed as.... as Metallia and that damned Queen Serenity.
I was born in the Kingdom of Arcadia, many more centuries ago than I care to remember. The Silver Millennium was at its height and harmony practically reverberated though the universe. Arcadia was a sweet country, with glistening purple mountains, pine forests that perfumed the crisp air and rivers so clear and pure that it made your heart ache to look at them. We were a small country, but rich, my Papa even had his own chair on the High Council of Earth. Our great wealth came nor primarily from our bountiful timber of our vast forests, nor from the large deposits of gold found in our mountains and streams. They helped, of course, but it was the beryls we mined that made us affluent, those semi-precious stones prized by mages. Who needed jade and emeralds, beautiful and worthless, when one could have a beryl that stored spells and magnified power. That’s why my Papa named me for them; I was a vessel of power and his most precious object.
How I loved my Papa! Things might have turned out differently if only he had lived long enough to see me married, or even old enough to be out from my brother’s reach! Even now with all the intervening centuries I still remember him. He was a large man, tall, broad of shoulder and thick of girth. He had a huge red bush of a beard that reached his chest and bristled when he spoke and tickled when he kissed me. And he was strong, so strong. As a little girl, I’d be tossed high in the air and caught gently in his arms, then have my face tickled by his beard as he brushed it over me. He never dropped me, either, no matter how much I squirmed or squealed or tugged at his beard. My Papa was a wonderful man, and a good and just king, even-handed and wise. I regret losing him as I regret nothing else.
Aside from Papa, the only other kin I had in the world was my elder half-brother, Mykel. My mother had died when I was very young, leaving me with only vague impressions of soft, smooth hands and the scent of roses. The smell of roses always makes me weak and emotionally vulnerable, how ironic, then, for them to be so intimately involved in my downfall! Mykel was Papa’s son from his first marriage, and he never let me forget that I may have been Papa’s favorite, but he was Papa’s heir.
Mykel’s mother had been a foreign princess, beautiful, proud and as cold as ice. Indeed she was a glacial beauty of the far north, pale blonde hair, glittering ice-blue eyes and skin whiter than frost with a heart to match. Theirs was an arranged marriage and she made no secret that she felt she had wed far below her station. Once Mykel was born she banned Papa from her bed and set about raising Mykel to be just like her. Papa wasn’t allowed to see his heir, except at state functions and formal occasions when the queen had no choice but to appear in public with Papa. So, for Mykel’s early years, Papa had but the most cursory relationship with his only child and the queen raised her son as she pleased. Indeed, there was very little of Papa in Mykel, thin and pale, with neither Papa’s height nor breadth, and the lightest blonde hair most Arcadians had ever seen. Come to think of it, the majority of my troubles have come from blondes. So much that for several centuries I gave serious consideration to declaring blonde hair to be illegal, punishable by death. Now that I look back on it, that doesn’t seem like that bad an idea.
By the time she died, Mykel was fourteen and completely her creature. Quite the Oedipal relationship, it seems. I won’t go so far as to say that anything sexual went on between mother and son, but there was certainly a great deal emotional incest at the least and a whole lotta codependency. I think Papa had hoped that after she died, he could finally get to know Mykel and start a closer relationship with him, but it was no use. His mother’s work was done, even at that young age. Mykel held Arcadia and everyone in it, especially Papa, in the utmost contempt. As Mykel aged, whatever love and pride Papa had had in him at his birth shriveled up and died. He despised my brother as much as Mykel was contemptuous of him. The last thing Papa wanted to do was give Mykel the throne upon his death, but as Mykel was his only male progeny, Papa had no choice.
As for me, I think Mykel resented me from the moment I was born. Not because Papa loved me, I honestly believe that Mykel couldn’t have cared less about that, but for both what I represented and who my mother was. My mother was a beautiful, gentle lady, perhaps four years older than Mykel himself. Mama had been sweet and kind and it was no secret Papa loved her and had even while his first wife was still alive. She had been his mistress after Mykel’s mother had retreated from the marriage bed. The queen hadn’t even been cold in the ground before Papa took Mama to wife, and there was not a soul in Arcadia that did not rejoice in their union, except Mykel. He saw my mother as an insult to his mother’s memory, and hated her for it. I think there was a bit of twisted and perverted love in there as well. Mama was young and the most beautiful woman in the court. He had once approached her for an assignation and she had rebuffed him, and for his father. Mykel’s pride could not bear the insult.
To make matters worse, I was born two years after the wedding and from that day on, I eclipsed him in the hearts and minds of the courtiers. He had their obedience, but I had their love. Here I was, a tiny squalling infant and people revered and respected me as they never had for him. I doubt he ever forgave me for that, though I had no control over it. Actually I know he never forgave me, his actions loudly proclaim it.
Mama and Papa had five years of bliss together before she died. I honestly don’t believe he ever looked at another woman after that. Arcadia mourned for an entire year, and her birthday was proclaimed a national holiday. Far more than Mykel’s mother ever got, and he knew it. Papa continued mourning far longer than just the year. The only time he approached his natural joviality was when he was with me, far from the castle and the head-aches of ruling. Mykel made no pretense at mourning, instead he openly rejoiced at Mama’s death. Oh, he paid lip-service, both to her memory and to Papa, but always with a sneer. As for me, I never got to really know my mother and so, I never really missed her. I yearned for a mother, for the ephemeral woman I could never remember clearly, but never really for the woman herself. I had my Papa and I was the most happy, carefree girl in the kingdom. How the Senshi would stare could they look back in time and see me for what I was! A tall, skinny little filly, with twin long red braids and freckles from playing out in the sun. When Papa was away, or too busy for me I had a whole bevy of servants to care for me. My nurse, Clothilde, was a constant presence in my life, never ever far away. Aside from my Papa’s, hers was the only hand that could still me when I was restless or soothe me when I was sick. I loved her, with her wrinkled old face and gnarled, bony hands. I also had a governess who taught me to love and appreciate the beautiful earth. Yes, I, who tried to destroy this planet, once loved it as much as anyone. And all the children in the castle were my friend, high-born or low. What did bloodlines matter to a child who only wanted to run and jump and play? I have never been so happy as those golden summers as a child in Arcadia when my world was new and I was loved.
My happy existence, indeed my entire world, blackened and crumbled the year I turned ten.