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Anyone who wants to can continue the easter event. (ie. find an egg, answer a riddle, and the man (Jesus) will grant you one wish ;p ) but just in case, I’ll go ahead and continue…

 

Abirami

 

A tear fell down my face as I gazed into the man’s face. Surely only the Maker or the Maker’s Son could have the power to grant my wish. I ignored the noise as the group of people behind me argued back and forth, trying to figure out the second riddle.

He was real! The crown of thorns, the holes in his hands… who else could it be?

Motion broke my train of thought. What was it? I was staring right at it. The Maker’s Son, he was waving at me to come near. Was that okay? Could I come nearer? His kind words filled my mind, and I gathered the courage to stand, my knees weak beneath me.

I shuffled forward till I was standing at his feet. He stood to greet me, his arms wrapping around me.

“Your selflessness gained you those wounds,” he whispered into my ear. Pulling me back, he stared into my eyes, a soft smile upon his face. “Not unlike my own.”

“Are you truly-”

He placed a finger gently to my mouth, keeping me from speaking. “You shall know what you need to, and nothing more.”

“Then why are we here?” Ku asked, standing beside me. I hadn’t noticed her approach.

“I’m afraid it would be best for you to find that answer for yourself.”

I looked down. Grateful, yet concerned. Could we really figure this out? So far, beings from another word with strange powers had gathered, none of which seemed to know why or where they were. Then there was the dead tannink’esh, which strangely didn’t look like the descriptions I’d been given of it.

The man placed a hand on my cheek, his other gracing Ku’Aya’s face. “There is one thing I can tell you.”

Another tear fell from my eyes. If this truly was the Maker’s Son, I was so unworthy. A 19 year old nobody, fighting to keep his family alive. Fate had thrust an important mission on me, sure, to keep an evil emperor from conquering the known world, but even then, the Maker was the Maker! And his Son was King of not just many worlds, but the entire universe!

“The room just ahead is a room of mirrors, though be careful. The mirrors have a way of revealing your soul. To escape the room, you must face yourself, and conquer your fears.”

The man pointed to a door to his left, one gilded in silver. Something about it, I couldn’t take my eyes from it. I walked to it, ignoring the excitement from the others as they came to an agreement for the answer to a riddle.

Opening the door, I entered into darkness, Ku’Aya beside me. As my eyes adjusted, I could see mirrors all around me. The mirrors were angled so I was looking at an infinite number of mirrors, all depicting me staring at me. Ku was no where to be seen.

There seemed to be nowhere to go, but as I lowered my gaze, I noticed a path along the floor. Following it, a path opened, though if I looked at the mirrors, I quickly lost my bearing and my sense of equilibrium.

After a while, a path opened, and widened into a room with blackened walls. They looked muddied and burned. White smoke filtered up from large potholes in the ground, and I suddenly felt dirt beneath my feet. Looking down, my robe was gone, and I was barefoot. Not only that, but my body was strange. Smaller, somehow. I put my hand to my face, and the stubble Semiramis had made a fuss over before I left was completely gone. Not even a hint that it had been there before.

Looking up, I was in the field behind the castle, just after the battle that had taken my father’s life, and I knew where I was… and what I was. I was back to my 12 year old self.

“Weak.”

I turned toward the voice of my father.

“I died protecting you, and for what?” He was frowning at me.

This wasn’t my father. He wouldn’t say those things to me. I knew this, but his words cut quick to my heart, and I knew it might as well have been true.

“I didn’t train you to be so foolish.” My father raised a sword and charged at me.

I raised my arms to block, my old falcata blade in my hand.

The clang of our swords echoed back and forth in the barren room of the scarred battlefield.

It wasn’t fair. He’d left me too soon. My training hadn’t been finished, and all the things he’d never told me sprang to my mind.

Anger rising, I fought my father back. “What about you?” I yelled. “Triskelion warrior? Why didn’t you tell me about the curse? Or that mother wasn’t your first wife?” Tears blurred my vision, but still I struck out, pushing him back. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

My father locked swords. “Would it have made a difference?”

“I don’t even know you!” I screamed, breaking the lock.

“What’s most important?” he yelled above the clanging of our swords.

“How should I know?” I hollered.

Father redirected my sword aside and kicked me in the hip, causing me stumble backwards and fall.

I quickly stood up again, sword at the ready as my father approached.

“What’s most important?” he hollered.

“I don’t know.” I charged him, but he batted my sword to the side, then struck down against it. The sword ripped from my grip and clattered to the ground. He struck me across the cheek, and I twisted and fell on my face.

Turning, his sword was pointed at my chest. My tears fell like hot lead down my face as I stared in defiance up at my father. Why was he doing this?

“What’s most important?”

The face of the Maker’s Son entered my mind at that moment. What had he said? You must face yourself and conquer your fears.

Was I facing myself? But I wasn’t my father, was I?

Donning came to me. It wasn’t that I was my father, I wanted to be my father. And of course, I feared I would never measure up. He had been a great war general, a triskelion warrior, and had saved a nation on more than one occasion, and he had been my father.

I wanted to protect those I cared about, just like he had protected so many others. Always comparing myself to him, asking myself, what would he have done. But I could never measure up to him. At least, my memory of him. Deep down, I knew he, too, was just a man.

Blinking the tears from my eyes, and only meeting partial success, I gazed up at my father. He was frowning, but he wasn’t angry. He had tears of his own in his eyes.

I gasped. What was most important? I had pushed down so many things, angry that my father had kept so much about his past from me, that I had to learn so much of vital importance about him from complete strangers; I had lost sight of what I did know.

“You love me.” My voice cracked as the words left my lips like distilled cocoa; bitter, yet sweet.

The sword fell from my fathers hand, and he knelt and embraced me. “Always, my little Abirami.” I closed my eyes and held him tight, never wanting to let go as his final words echoed in my ear. “Always.”

I opened my eyes, sleep clinging to my lids. Rubbing them aside, I looked around me. The room was dark, but the mirrors were gone, and a dim light outlined the door on the other side.

Wiping my eyes once more to rid it of its crustiness, I looked over to see Ku’Aya sleeping soundly beside me. I nudged her shoulder, but she didn’t wake up.

“I guess the room puts you to sleep, then,” I said to no one in particular.

The prone shadow of a few other figures were scattered around the room.

“I guess some of the others decided to follow me.”

Shrugging, I sat down to wait for Ku’Aya to wake from her dream.