A note from the author: Firstly, thank you so much for reading! This material and all other material from the Unbroken series is copy written, so please be respectful, as I am sure you will. Most importantly, enjoy! P.S. photo is public domain and proper for commercial use :)
"Mama, mama, tell me a story."
"What do you want to hear, my son?"
"Tell me of the Fairylands. Your people. The Fiyori."
"Ah, you always want to hear of them."
"Because your childhood was so interesting."
"Well, this time, I will tell you the story of 'you'."
"Me?"
His mother taps his nose playfully, "Yes, you, little one."
The boy's bright brown eyes alight. "Okay!"
"This story is about the Fairylands of the Fiyori people and the Wolflands of the Canvasi people and how they finally ended the conflict over the northern Shye River. It was fall, that year, just like it is now. Except, the forest of the Fiyori was golden, and absolutely breath-taking."
"Those are both your people, right?"
"Yes, my grandfather was a Canvasi, but my grandmother was a Fiyori. I was raised among the Fiyori."
I once told my mother, "I wish to be like you one day when I grow up..."
She said, "Be better than me, Child."
I stand in the mirror now, long black hair down my back and golden eyes staring back at me, golden like the flaxen fall leaves decorating the trees outside.
"Mariah, are you ready?" Aunt Earline enters my room.
I shake my head and turn back to the mirror.
"Your parents are taking a patrol to meet with the Canvasi about the upper part of the Shye River. If you are not ready soon, I will leave you."
I touch my stomach. I can feel a heartbeat inside. Perhaps I shouldn't go, but if I do not go, then they will question why. Still...
"I am not going."
I braid my hair into a ponytail, taking note of the tribal tattoos that decorate my arms. The lines around my wrists and ankles I got when I was just five years old, initiating me as a warrior. The arrow I got on my left shoulder when I made my first kill. The flower I got on my back when I became a warrior. The berries I got on my wrists when I survived a terrible siege with our neighbors, the Marshlanders, known for their poison weapons. The sword I got in memory of my father when I saw him almost killed by one of the king's overseers, and I fought by his side to get away; my mother etched that one herself, on my lower back, just below the flower between my shoulder blades. Each is blue like the flame that forged them into my skin to tell the story of my battles and my hardships that I have gotten through.
"You are so pretty," my Aunt Earline clucks, putting her hand on my shoulder, ignoring my remark.
The lime green dress drapes down to my long umber toes. I stand up on them for a minute, bouncing like a ballerina, nervously, then let my heels sink back down to the ground slowly. Sinking...just like the feeling in my stomach...and not because of the baby inside me.
Aunt Earline straightens my dress and extends my ponytail over one shoulder. She circles me for a second, smiling softly. "And who is the father?"
I am struck cold all of a sudden, and then I breathe.
"How do you know?"
"Little girl, I am like your second mother. Been lookin' at ya since you were born. How could I not know?"
I press my lips together. It is not the fact that I am having a child. I am twenty-three and old enough and settled enough to raise...the child...of course I had not planned it to happen like this...but...who the father is...well...
She grins. "You don't have to tell me. I already know. Little Canvasi boy that I see racing around the river. Son of Lord Tylan of the Wolflands, huh? You went and got with a complicated matter, little girl." She half chides me, half sympathizes. "But when the heart falls in love, it's just that. I told your mama about letting you run the river like a wild little filly. Pretty little thang, you are. She always wanted you to be an elite warrior, wild as the horses, and you are; but even warriors fall in love."
I laugh, and she takes my hands in hers before resting one hand on my stomach and one to my back. I feel pressure, and my heart races.
"Calm down, now, I ain't hurting him."
"Him?"
"Yeah..." Her grey-tinged golden eyes are full of concentration; she is our best midwife. "Yep, a boy, and you about four months along, huh? How long have you known?"
"Just a month or two. I suspected before then, but I..."
"You were in denial," she finishes. "You love him?"
I nod confidently.
"And he love you?"
"Yes."
"Then, what you worried about?"
"The world is going to keep us apart."
"You told him?"
I shake my head.
"Well, you best tell him and prepare to leave your people, young lady."
"What?!"
"You cannot stay here and be with him too. You best decide, and that man is going to want you to come to him. You got his son in your belly, and by the feeling of it, that boy is going to be a hardy colt, a strong warrior. He is going to need his daddy. Now, you willing to give your son up for your people?"
I put my hand on my stomach and look in the mirror. I still cannot believe it is real, that this child exists. I am barely showing. I am a little thick naturally, but I still do not look like I have gained weight.
"Well?"
"I guess not."
She takes my chin between her forefinger and her thumb and squeezes, like she is going to pinch it off. My eyes tear up, but she does not relent.
"You better know...that baby inside you, you better not let anything, and I mean, nothing, take him away."
I let the tears flow, but I am not crying because of my chin. I am crying because my people mean everything to me.
"You better not go off being angry at the world either. You brought him here, now you take care of him. You are going to go and be with Walter, and you are going to be just fine. We will always be here for you."
I nod.
"Now, dry your face and come on outside. I got Carousel all ready for you."
Carousel is my grey mare that awaits me as I follow my aunt outside with a handkerchief.
I shake my head. "Won't you come with me?"
She gives me a side-smile. "You are a grown woman, now, not the little girl I used to lull to sleep. Time to start handling your own battles...but I will tell your parents you ran off somewhere, running wild as usual."
I close my eyes and slip onto my horse's back, sending Carousel off at a trot. Those days of carefree running are over. She seems to sense my mood because her ears flick back and forth anxiously. I pat her neck beneath her white mane in a soft apology.
I watch the landscape travel by: the towering golden trees that I have climbed for as long as I could walk. Suddenly, I send Carousel into a gallop and release the long ponytail. I lean down against her neck so that our manes are one: a black and white storm whipping the wind.
"Fly, my sister!" I yell, and I extend my hands out to the sides of us like wings as we rush toward the Wolfland prairies.
She flares her nostrils, tosses her forelock, and I laugh as we splash across the Shye River. I direct her with my weight to the northern part, where his patrol will be waiting. Carousel trots alongside the river with her ears pricked forward to the unfamiliar territory. Slowly, we integrate back into the forest cover of our own territory.
I stop her when I catch sight of the figures up ahead. Walter is there, dressed in a light blue colored shirt and coal black dress pants. His jacket is folded across his saddle. His reddish brown fuzzy hair is neatly trimmed, echoing against his caramel brown skin. He looks around nervously and licks his lips once. Suddenly, his eyes dart toward me. He frowns, but I do not move. Carousel is just as still as I.
"Father," he says, "may I go take a breather?"
"That nervous, boy, eh? Well, get used to it. The king has agreed that you will inherit my position," Lord Tylan chides, half bemused. "Get on then, and do not be too long." Lord Tylan is an old cheerful man, despite losing his wife not too long ago to a sickness. He is almost ready to retire.
Walter rides toward me on his young bay colt. The colt is still in training, by the looks of it. He has a gaily trot, not paying much attention to his rider. Walter makes sure no one is watching, but everyone else is too busy laughing and awaiting to meet the Fiyori patrol. He quietly crosses the river just as my parents' patrol arrives to meet them.
"What are you doing here?" he whispers. "Do you know how dangerous it is?"
I close my eyes. "I am having a child."
When I open them, he is speechless. "What do you mean?"
"My aunt says he is going to be a strong boy."
Walter paces a bit, but when he turns back to me, he is grinning. "My son...our son."
"What are we going to do?"
He shrugs nonchalantly, like there is an obvious solution. "Get married, of course. Mariah, I love you. I want to marry you."
"How, Walter, how? We cannot marry within the hierarchy. You are an heir! The king will never allow it. We knew this. We knew this all along."
"But love has gotten us this far, Ri, it will take us all the way...it will," he insists.
Now I am scared for me and my unborn child, but when I look at him,...
"Mariah...I know that you will have to leave your people, but I promise I will give you the best life that I can. We will raise our children and give them an even better life than that. And their children's children, and theirs...Please, this is what I have dreamed since I met you in this very place, 2 years ago...2 years, 5 days, and" He looks at his pocket watch, "10 minutes."
I laugh, "Really?"
He cups my face in his hands, "Really, my love, really...and God as my witness, I plan to make it a lifetime...countless more minutes, a billion more days, and a century or two together."
"A century or two, impossible."
"You and me, forever, baby, forever."
He holds me tightly, then finally, he slips his hand in mine. "You ready?"
I nod. Carousel follows beside me. Wherever I go, she goes. I lean into her neck. Here is to a new beginning. She tosses her mane.
When we reach the patrols, they are in a heated debate. Of course, they are rendered speechless by our arrival.
"Mariah, what is this?" my father asks softly.
"What does it look like, Vance? Your daughter has fallen for my son," Lord Tylan replies heartily.
My father glares at him, but Walter speaks first, "No, Father, quite the opposite."
Lord Tylan laughs, "Oh, son, don't I know it? It is always that way: a man falls for a good, beautiful young woman and is enamored for life."
My mother shakes her head. "Mariah, this cannot be."
"I am having his son," I murmur, and the warriors in my parents' patrol whisper amidst themselves in disbelief.
"It is true," Aunt Earline sends her old grey mare forward and winks at me.
"Sister, you knew of this?" my mother asks.
"Hold your horses, it was just an hour or two ago that I found out, Maggie," Aunt Earline jokes.
"Mariah," my mother turns back to me.
"I wish to marry him, Mama."
"So, you will turn your back on your people?"
"It is the only way. You cannot change my mind."
My mother rolls her eyes to hold back the tears. Her golden eyes, just like mine. Only, I never thought I would see them broken. She dismounts from her coal black stallion and walks over to me. She holds me tightly.
"My little lady," she whispers. "No need in asking the why's and the how's, a little too late for that." She looks meaningfully over her shoulder at my father, gripping his dagger. "You know once you go, you cannot return to us? The king does not allow association between territories in the hierarchy. You will have to be loyal to the Canvasi. Your children will not know who they are."
"Yes, they will. I will never be far from you or my land, Mama. It washes in my blood and my veins."
She nods. "I will write to my half-brother to tell him to be expecting you. You have a cousin over there as well, bout your age. Perhaps you will seek him out," she whispers. "You have followed in the footsteps of you grandmother, you have. I never thought you would be returning to the Canvasi." My mother's father (my grandfather) was Canvasi.
"I do not return to them," I whisper. "I have never been them, only Fiyori, only you, Mother."
My father squeezes my hand. "I will still give you away at your wedding. I know that the Canvasi have weddings different from us."
"Thank you, Father."
I take a deep breath, and my father leads me back to Walter and Lord Tylan. "If this is what you truly want..."
"He is a good man."
"I know, but I imagined so much more for year, my love."
"I am sorry I disappointed you."
"Never could you do such a thing. You are your father's heart."
He kisses my forehand and presses my hand into Walter's. My father grips both our hands in his. "Take care of her, young man, or else..."
"I will see to it," Lord Tylan promises. "Although I do not think I will have to."
"No sir," Walter promises.
"Well, then, son, since you have your wife and your heir, I imagine you are ready to take the throne yourself. When your son is born, I will step down. Until then, you will both train to inherit the throne." He turns back to my father. "Sir, we will have a patrol meet you on the day before the wedding. I believe Mariah's mother will want to help her get ready." I can hear my mother's sniffles, but I do not turn to look at her. Lastly, he faces his warriors, "This incident does not leave this river." They nod. " And as for the river..."
"It is yours," my father murmurs. "Consider it a gift for my daughter's coming reign, and my grandson."
So that is how the northern part of the river and its banks where the wild horses run came to be part of Canvasi territory. As for me, we wed, and my mother gave me her wedding dress. A beautiful lace and pearl beauty. My father walked me down the aisle. It was genuine the happiest day of my life.
I am always Fiyori, through and through. My son's name is Silas, meaning forest because my heart will always be there running wild and free; but it is also here beating loud and strong beside my beloved as I hold my young son with his black curls and deep brown eyes. He looks so much like his father. Walter.
And our love? It is still the same, growing stronger even as we learn more about each other. The future is uncertain, of course, but I am sure our love is forever. This year and next year. Countless minutes. A billion days. Centuries and centuries. Timeless.
A note from the author: Firstly, thank you so much for reading! This material and all other material from the Unbroken series is copy written, so please be respectful, as I am sure you will. Enjoy.
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