We were supposed to live a quiet life. No trouble. How do we get ourselves into these situations?

Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Atheria 2nd Generation
Current Date: July 29, 2058

Character: Elyanor Ursi
Race: Faery
Age: 251, physically about 24
Current residence: Atheria City, Eresiel
 

---

I was never an adventurous child. I think that was best left to my brother. I was the quiet one who minded herself and didn’t bother others. It worked out well for me up until it didn’t but all of that is in the past, is it not? By all means it should be and it had been until my dreams began to try and dig up little things from my past that have possibly slipped on by without my notice.

Though, at this point, the question that sits on the tip of my tongue is whether or not what I’ve been witnessing in these dreams really are memories that have drifted on by without my notice, or if they are made-up things that my mind seems to want to believe were real, once upon a time. To be honest, neither of these options truly matters. They are what they are and whether the dreams are real or not changes little, not in the long run.

Dreams of talking to an unseen person, telling them that we were supposed to live a quiet life without trouble and yet, clearly, by the tone of the discussion, that was furthest from the truth as trouble seemed to find us no matter where we might have been. I don’t know who I’m talking to in that dream, nor do I truly care.

As far as this dream is concerned, I know for a fact that my mind is clearly trying to make something up. Something that has nothing on my life as I know for a fact that I very rarely got into trouble. It wasn’t my cup of tea and even now, that hasn’t changed. I think that the biggest, life-changing decision I’ve ever made that had anyone—looking at you, brother dearest—worried about said decision, is when I agreed to take Kannon in.

This was one of the best decisions I’d ever made. I can understand that there was plenty of worrying to be done by all parties when you take things into consideration, but I feel as though it was happening for a reason. I hardly know whether or not Vivianus had dipped in fingers into my world as I know he has done for a few others—for their own good, he states usually, with an amused smile—but I’m fine with the results that have come from it.

Have I ever feared for my life once he stepped foot into my house? Not for a moment. Even then, I felt that I knew better. I knew of his history but there was nothing about that, that was frightening to me. Perhaps because I am made my peace with the idea of living the remainder of my life ever alone and so, adding someone, only meant perhaps a little companionship and I felt ready for that.

Some of the other dreams had less to do with how stressed out I might have been because I hadn’t gotten all the peace and quiet that I’d always longed for and seemed to be more in tune with just everyday things I might or might not have done while I was younger. Not that I’m terribly old but I am older than a good few people here in the city and I’ve lived a good life before I came to Atheria. A good life lived, well, mostly alone.

Reading, gardening, minding my own business. Now and again possibly helping others that might have come my way but nothing that would lead me to believe I’d been led into trouble while all I wanted was some quiet. Certainly, there is that one main reason that led me to come to Atheria but that is something I’ll never forget, and it is something I don’t talk about. There’s no need to discuss this part of my life, it was a long time ago and no one wishes to hear about it.

Does it frustrate me that it changed my life in a way that felt rather drastic? Somewhat. Do I still let it lord over me now, so many years later? Certainly not. For one thing, had I not been here, there is no knowing whether or not I still would be alive now, would there? With the war as it happened and the fallout and everything else, my chances of survival would have been slim. I know that there have been pockets of survivors out there, but they were far and few in between.

I’ll take that one thing that certainly made my life less than quiet and deal with it. It was a one-time thing, and my dreams can let go now and sink back into dormancy where nothing else truly matters.

Final Word Count: 791

Not to alarm you, but I think we aren’t alone.

 
Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Atheria 2nd Generation
Characters: Elyanor Ursi
Race: Faery
Age: 250, physically about 24
Current residence: Atheria City, Eresiel
Final Word Count: 805 words
 

---

As I was losing both my sight and my hearing, I believe I’ve witnessed things that are usually kept for those on the edge of the nothingness. I’m aware that there is a thin separation between those of the living and those of the dead. It is much thinner than one might imagine and when you find yourself on that ledge of the in-between, you begin to see things that others do not.

The issue with this is that at no time during these years when I was easing into a visual darkness and audio silence was I anywhere truly near death. I was living in relative misery; I was keeping to myself these issues that I somehow believed I deserve and which, of course, I did not deserve in any way, shape or form, but I was, physically speaking and in a general sense, healthy.

That the veil thinned enough for me to be able to see things in the settling darkness is still something I am trying to wrap my mind around. I cannot understand why the veil did what it did, and I woke up often at night, darkness around my vision in a permanent way until Kannon convinced me to do something about it and being able to tell that I was not alone in my room.

Now, the presences that were in my room, that I’m sure harmlessly roam through Atheria on any good day, were not dangerous. They were just a presence, one about as lost as a child abandoned by their parents on that first trip out into the woods. I know that most of those that roam so close to the veil are merely looking for their way home. They are the ones that usually have not accepted yet that their lives are just not what they were anymore.

I still somewhat remember what that particular day was like. My sight was going faster than my hearing did so I still could function mostly well though I had been seeing these so-called others along the corner of my eyes often by that point. I’d accepted that they were part of things. On that particular morning, however, as I do remember it, it was more of a case that I remember how poorly I had slept and how tired I felt.

It really came out of nowhere, that little mumble to him about how I had no desire to alarm him, but I had to point out that I felt as though we weren’t alone. My brain wasn’t working to the best of its ability on that particular morning. Not that he reacted in a bad way, I don’t think he could have. Not with the chips they’d set on him before dropping him into the dark.

The surprise on his face is something I do remember clearly enough but it was at that point that I did have to fess up about the loss of things. It only is through him that the curse was lifted though not fully. It was too late for one eye, but I suppose this is just one of those things and it’s all right for the most part. One eye is better than none at all and my hearing is about as good as it used to be though there are days when I do wonder about that.

Thinking back, I’m trying to remember when it was that I stopped seeing through the veil. It makes little sense to me still that I could see through it; maybe there was more to the curse than I first had figured out, but it has been years at this point, and I don’t see the point in dwelling on it. Things did change slowly, but surely, after that little snippet from me, however.

I remember how it is that he came to live with me; a chance encounter after his retrieval from the dark, I was the one manning the hairdressing chair when he came in and, well, he needed a safe place to stay where he would not be encroaching on Amrit’s… territory and I admit that I needed companionship though I might not have been willing to admit it to myself. I thought that with my usual luck of things, he possibly would stay for a short while and then find a home for himself in a place he could truly call his own and yet, here he still is now, years later.

I cherish every second of time we spend together. I did not expect that I would ever want for someone at my side the way I need him with me and yet, I do, and I would not do well if he were to be taken from me. I know that it won’t come to happen but, still.

Listen, all I’m saying is that the noble in that painting looks awfully similar to you.

 
Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Atheria 2nd Generation
Characters: Elyanor Ursi
Race: Faery
Age: 248, physically about 24
Final Word Count: 696 words
 

---

I have been to places, I have roamed, I have seen and heard of things that a lot of people would dismiss as hogwash but I beg to differ. There used to be so much to discover about this world before it was destroyed. That’s not to say there isn’t a lot left to discover now but most of it is buried under still partially radioactive waste. I know that it’s been long enough that most places are actually safe to visitors but some aren’t and I think they’ll stay that way for quite a long time yet.

It’s odd, the thoughts that can surface when, all you’re doing, is looking through potential virtual museum visits. I’m not going to lie, I wasn’t very much interested in the idea of museums before in my life but a girl can change and, while looking at the offered choices, one particular painting used in the pre-visit display made me pause and look it up.

As I took a closer look at the painting itself, I found myself grinning somewhat because right there, looking at me, though the name would have led anyone else to believe otherwise, I was looking at a not-so-distant cousin. A cousin that was the age I was now, when I was young and that painting was likely done. The painting itself depicted a noble upon a fine-looking steed. It was the features more than the clothes or anything else that gave him away and, had he still been alive, I would have been curious to ask him about it.

I’m pretty sure that cousin still was around when Ultan was a child and I may very well have to bring the painting up to him. I doubt it would help much but I’m curious to know whether or not I’m right about this being our cousin or a simple doppelganger. The thing is, it’s the just barely, slightly pointed ears that seem to give it away. Anyone else might not notice these things but they’re there and it’s very hard to ignore them, as far as I’m concerned.

As is, I can safely tell myself that none of us were ever nobles in England back in the 1800s. At least, as far as I’m aware. We weren’t located anywhere near England though it’s quite possible that he wandered around quite a bit and yet, I remember him being around when I was young and, just the same, around when Ultan was young. There is such a huge age gap between the two of us, however, that I know it is quite possible he travelled.

I don’t know why it stays with me, that thought. It isn’t as though it will change much of anything to my life or the life of any of the members of my family. It isn’t as though the knowledge that some cousin of ours was possibly of noble-blood will change a single thing. It might only be a fun fact to think about.

All in all, the more I looked at the painting, the more I was certain it was him, in there. The more it made me giggle to imagine him in the every day wear of those years and I admit that I had a hard time keeping a straight face. What I remember of that cousin puts him as a nature-loving kind who preferred to cover as little skin as possible so that everything could ‘air out’. It made me cringe as a child but, as an adult, it only amuses me.

After all, it takes all kinds of people and he was the eccentric one of our family. I don’t know that he ever had kids of his own but that’s one of those things, isn’t it? I have no room to judge him, in the end; I never had, and at this point very likely never will, have children of my own. Four-legged companions likely could count at this point but I’m fine with the idea of not having been a mother. It’s one of those things and I don’t think about it very much, not usually.

You never should have offered to help if you weren’t serious about it.

 
Timeline/World: Atheria – 2nd Generation
Characters: Elyanor Ursi
Race: Faery
Age: 247, physically about 24
Final Word Count: 646 words
 

---

There were days and nights during the dark years when I would have recurring nightmares that I could do absolutely nothing about and they wore me down. They exhausted me in a way that I didn’t think was possible. I was sleeping whenever I could, during those years. There just was something wrong with my ability to sleep and I think that it was probably the only thing he could do to me, since he couldn’t pull at my strings the way he’d done it with almost everyone else.

The nightmares were recurring but the faces in them weren’t. Not often. I crossed paths with a lot of the residents over the years, before this happened, and while I might not have truly spoken to them, I had seen them and likely heard them speak and it was enough for my memory to pull their features up to the forefront of my nightmares when they happened.

The idea behind the nightmare itself was simple, put in one of the people that had been forced away or apart, give them a haggard look and then have them blame me for not being serious about helping them break the curse, about not trying hard enough, about how I shouldn’t have offered to help at all if I wasn’t going to be of any help. It may seem like a simple thing but to have these people—most I barely knew, some I knew more—blaming me, essentially, for being at the source of their misery, I could barely handle it.

I know that the puppeteer was trying to make me lose my mind in some other ways, slowly taking my sight away while giving me repeated nightmares about the people I could do nothing for. Could you imagine, once my sight would have gone completely dark, how it would have been for my mind to see nothing, or even just hear nothing more than these voices accusing me of getting in their way, instead of helping them?

I’m not going to lie; the nightmares still persisted after the others had come back, after my sight kept on creeping towards the darkness. Without Kannon, I would be completely blind and, very likely, completely mad, to boot.

On some days, I do regret not doing more than I did but I was a bug compared to the puppeteer. There was nothing I could have done that would have actually done any of us any good. A blip on a radar, a grain of sand on a beach where he was the sandcastle.

It’s been so many years, do I still think about it all? I do, at times. I think that the memory will likely stay with me until the end of everything, I’m not going to deny that it has marked me. It has left its mark on me in a way that is decidedly different than the one it has left on everyone else and while I might not have suffered heartbreak and other things the way they did, there was plenty of suffering for me to struggle through.

So yes, I do still think about it every so often but Kannon makes it hard to think about it very long. His presence alone is so soothing that it makes me forget most of my worries easy and I get lost in the time I spent with him. I never imagined that I would ever find someone to have at my side in this way. I never thought my life would take such a turn for the wonderful.

In a way… I never thought that I deserved to have someone in my life the way he’s with me. That might be why I’m still so surprised every morning when I see him still there, at my side, with me until the end of everything. I cherish every second.

I was getting the impression that you didn’t want me here.

Timeline/World: Atheria 2nd Generation
Characters: Elyanor Ursi
Race: Faery
Age: 245, physically about 24
Final Word Count: 540 words

---

I watched them all scatter to the wind, pulled away by invisible strings and I wondered what it felt like, just for a moment. I had no one really keeping me here, in the safety of these walls, at least not in the way everyone else was and I’m not sure how it made me feel. I know I wasn’t the only one without any real ties to others but I never gave it much thought. It wasn’t that I was selfish—though maybe I was? I paid the price for that—it was that I just didn’t see the point in getting tangled with others.

I’ve always been something of a loner, even while still back home and growing up. I’ve never liked being around others much and this whole thing screamed of heartbreak. It was all over their faces. They left in anger but it was confused anger, wondering anger, ‘what the hell is going on?!’ anger. I watched my brother and his mate part ways like that, she looked so broken about the whole deal, I didn’t see him much, he must have left by other means.

The culprit paid me several visits, I knew he was at the source of everything but what could I do? He had power beyond my own meagre ones and by the time he was getting ready to try and manipulate me, everyone else was already gone. Well, almost everyone else. Some he couldn’t touch, I don’t know how they managed but they were free of his control. Every time he would visit, he’d mock me; tell me that he was getting the impression that he wasn’t welcome in my home. I could only keep my mouth shut; agreeing to his words would have given his powers strength.

I wish I had tried to stop him, I do. Not that I can go back in time and change things, I don’t know that perhaps sacrificing myself for the good of everyone else would have done much good. While people were forced apart, those who really were meant did come back to be together again. Some with scars that may never truly heal but it has been so long that I don’t know if it really would change much, in the long run. They’ve all been back so long that while these scars may still be present, for the most part, they’re buried deep, almost forgotten, lost somewhere.

I have physically paid the price for not helping, however. The loss of sight in one eye is something I’ve adapted to. I would have lost sight in both eyes if Kannon hadn’t made it his mission to get this curse taken care of and I’m grateful to him. It took some working, to be able to adapt to sight within only one eye but it is better than having gone completely blind. I think my quality of life wouldn’t have been very good. I still am in awe of those who can adapt to such a different lifestyle. Those who are born blind are different but those who lose their sight later in life are the strong ones. That is how I see it and nothing will change my mind on the subject.