The Phoenix Queen

[DanteriusAvius]

"When I was a little girl, before I came to Dal'Thala, I was sick often. My antlers growing in pained me, I was wracked with colds, and kept company by books alone. But I remember one time, when I was feeling well enough to travel, we went to a hunting cabin deep in the woods. It was early winter, when the first frost had barely graced the lands, I was playing near a pond. It was still, almost unnaturally so, and I looked at its surface to see myself looking back. The stick in my hand that I imagined to be a staff was clenched in my right fist, but my reflection looking back, had it in its left.

And I wondered, was that girl in the water ill as often as I? Or did she play like this as often as she wanted?"

"Grandma that story's boooooring!"

"Oh. You're right of course, just a silly old tale."

At the age of thirteen I came to Dal'Thala. Elanil had reinvigorated the house, and my branch sent me to aid her. The sickly girl, with her mind in the clouds, obsessed with mirrors and artificing, convinced she would change the world of magic forever. That under Elanil's leadership we would climb the tower, unravel its mysteries and bring the house, and the Faeborne, to a new golden age.

It's strange now, to see how that golden age did dawn, and in no small part by my own hand, but all the people who I originally wanted to build it wish, had died or passed on. Was the cost worth it? For Delphina of course, but for me?

"Were you a Faeborne I might have fallen for you." Perhaps the most foolish statement I'd ever said. Yet it opened a door did it not my Lord?

I valued the people close to me highly, having seen so few of them in my childhood, I clung desperately to those I loved, and despised those who took them from me. 

Monica Moore, I regret that I did not kill you, but I drank a toast when I heard of your death all the same, for taking Elanil from me.

Jokul, you became the symbol of the giants, those who stole many from me, too many names to mention, and for you as well, I drank a toast when you passed on.

But I'm lingering too much on grudges settled. After a hundred and seventy years in Meranthe, I have collected many stories, knowledge of magics unknown, experiences I could scarcely believe, and instead I'm talking about something we all shared.

Grief. The reason I didn't seek immortality. It was offered, I was told in no uncertain terms, that there would be those who would deliver immortality to me, if I would just take it. I would not. I could not. Perhaps that makes me weak. Perhaps it makes me strong. Philosophy was never my strong point.

I never wanted to be a Queen. Or a Queen Consort. I never wanted to take up a mantle of leadership, to be the one that people looked up to, relied on. I despised people. Politics gave me a headache. I wanted to sit with my mirrors, with my plants, with my books, with my rocks and metal.

"Together then, for a future we can both find pride in." How peculiarly prescient of me. We were barely courting, and yet, we would create that future would we not my Lord?

I remember Red Psychosis. I remember what it did to me, how it infected my very discipline, my emotions. Sapped me of heat, brought me bliss in flame. Spread through my dreams, turned me against my own people. Orlisarte, and Camino, both had to subdue my blind bliss. More than anything though, I remember how happy it made me. In that, its most insidious torment, was the cure robbing me of that jubilant joy, to never know it again. It was for the best. Yet, you knew as well as I, did you not? How at my lowest moments I would miss it.

How I would need it. I remember our secret, the brutal core of my guilt. Guilt I never had the chance to redeem. Would he hate me for that failure I wonder?

"What good is a supposedly brilliant mind if it fails the people you wish most could succeed? The people who are better than you."

I was Queen. The Phoenix Queen. The one to restore the Caewynn house to its rightful place.

I loathed it. I utterly despised it with every fragment of my being. The energy I wished to pour into the Grove, into other matters became locked behind endless diplomacy, endless conflict. A reign spent fending off Vdalion's horrid impulses. A war that cost us Orlisarte and Ushi. I never forgave them for that. Especially for the indignities inflicted on those two. And then instead we were joined by the first five of our children.

Maeve, our Lightgarde who wanted to be me. Ariamis, our rebel. O....that one who turned his back. Fritz, the pirate who would see the world if she could. And Tarathiel. The Faeborne who looked up to his human father.

They turned out better because of you, not me. I never really understood how poor of a Mother I was to my children. But you never held it against me, you knew I tried. Especially with Ariamis.

That boy made us try. We were ready to destroy Pantheon for that...

Tarathiel took the throne, the war ended, you, my love, restored Delphina. Finally I could rest. For once, responsibility, duty, revenge, weren't all I could find.

I could continue to summarize, I could say more, but you know those words. A hundred forty years of marriage. Longer if you include our courtship. Not once did we have cause to doubt each other. I did not love you when we began, I wondered if it would be possible. When we wed, I assumed I was marrying down. I never once considered the truth.

That you had married down.

It would've stung my pride in my youth. Now it only makes me ever more proud. I see the Caewynn house for what it is. Small, as it always seems to be, but you, Vanitas, Soryn, and moving onward.

I have more regrets than I can count. I have a thousand bleeding wounds of hate and fury I could call upon at a moments notice. Projects I never completed, dreams I never saw to the end. But we saw more than one era pass us by, and we changed the world together, always with the other at our side, pushing us ever onward.

I'll wait for you here my love, before we make our final journey. However long it takes, time never meant as much to me. And when that time comes at last? You know the words, the words we spoke a thousand thousand times, our covert renewal of vows spoken every day.

The only one I ever saw as my equal, who I would follow without question, and who I know would've done the same for me, reaffirmed with every greeting.

"Dor'alanor, my Lord."

We both knew what we truly meant.

"I love you, my Lord."

-Aurona Caewynn, 1987 - 2157

Matriarch of the Caewynn House

Phoenix Queen

Mirrorwalker

"As for the rest of your prying eyes. Adell aul eruna, may Nemea bless your paths."