Caught Between Kingdoms: Cecilia

     Every couple of days, I hear the flutter of wing beats and the soft cooing of a Weewoo that landed on its favourite perch. With letters coming across my desk from Neopians across the tri-kingdom area, it became something of a routine sound. Usually they would write about trade or petty squabbles between rivals, missing goods, poor harvests, so-and-so from high society doing something unbecoming of their station—not that I cared much for that rubbish—or a family asking for mutual aid. Other times, thankfully fewer as the years have passed, it was about old wounds festering.

     More often than not, the Darigani felt the brunt of it. A number of us, such as me, had chosen to live in Meridell since the second war ended, aware of the risks that such opportunities offered us. But unlike most of them, they didn’t have… other reasons for being here.

      But when you’re a former general of Kass, there are things you’ll never be able to fix no matter how hard you try. There are those in Meridell who have—quite vocally, in fact—declared their dissatisfaction that I was appointed on the Tri-Kingdom Council. Saying that “all of my actions were done out of guilt.”

     Guilt, they say, as if I had no desire to improve the world for Neopians who did not look like me! As if I had no good intentions beyond my own selfish desires…

     A part of me hated that they were right. Maybe I wasn’t so reformed, so noble, so “good” as I claimed myself to be. Maybe Lord Darigan was wrong about me.

     I gave a hard tap to my head. There I went again, my thoughts getting the better of me.

     The white delivery Weewoo made an impatient grunt, waving the letter tucked in its beak like a banner. Once I plucked it out of the petpet’s grasp, it tweeted incessantly until I fed it a treat from a special pouch at my waist. Seemingly satisfied with our transaction, it zipped away, surely off to its next delivery mission.

     The envelope looked plain white and licked shut. If nobles sent a letter, spires above would they make it obvious, with wax seals, ribbon, even the occasional fancy paper. At least the middling and common sort made no such grand gestures for my attention.

     I let out a laugh, quickly covering my beak in hopes that no one else could hear. Whoever wrote the letter had misspelled their land of origin as “Daregone Sittadell.” Considering the little doodle of a Lenny with what looked like a Darigan Gruslen, they were a child. We sometimes fielded these questions, and most of them were basic questions like “what is your favorite petpet” or “what do you do at the Summit?” One particularly adventurous young Meridellian asked “Do Darigans sleep upside-down?” Suffice to say, I kept that one, if only for the amusing image that it placed in my mind.

     With a single flick of my talon, the letter opened. In it was a tri-folded letter that I smoothed out before reading—and re-reading—their scrawl, “wat wood have happened if…” my heart instantly sank. “… If Kass one? Dad and mom won’t say. I want two know. Love, Cecilia.”

     The letter fluttered out of my grasp to the floor. For a moment—for longer than I care to admit—I thought about throwing it in the rubbish bin where such thoughts belonged. Or better yet, setting it on fire. Maybe that magic of mine could—

     No. No, no. My heart sounded in my chest. The world seemed to flicker in and out. I took a few deep breaths until the stiffness in my wings lessened, just as Kayla taught me.

     No more running away. I should tell this child the truth. Not in the depth that it would require, but… the truth, nonetheless. Better that this child never learns to idealize the Eyrie that I once did, to travel down that dark path.

     It took a moment to collect myself before I sat down at my desk, parchment at the ready and a quill sitting in the well. I dipped it lightly in the ink and began to write…

     Often had my mind drifted to what ifs, the possibilities that time forgot. Had I not been cursed to look like a child, had I not seen the suffering of Meridellians from my own prior cruelty… had I not learned that I had a half-sister who loved me, or a found family who showed me something I never knew, I wouldn’t be where I am today. I wouldn’t be the Neopian I am today. Truth be told, if I never had been cursed… I hesitate to think of who I would be now. Who I would be… for Kass.

     Back then, I was a heartless General, always projecting my own insecurities upon the Neopians who served under me. If they would not respect me because of what I looked like—the “half-thing”, the half-Darigan—then I would make them fear me instead. I truly thought that Lord Kass saw greater in me, saw me as worthy. And I would follow his ideals to the end of Neopia to see that through.

     We had great plans to “destroy Meridell like they had tried to destroy us,” or so he said. We would ransack farms, burn the fields and leave families destitute. But most of all, we had hoped to block the trade routes, to keep supplies from arriving to the capital city. Ultimately, we would infiltrate Meridell with spies while my enlisted set out to destroy everything in their path.

     It was Kass’ hope that, towards the end of the campaign when their king was locked up in a cell and their castle crumbling from our trebuchets, that I would cross paths with their Champion, with Sir Borodere, and spell his final defeat. With the war won, Kass would have sooner seen the remaining Meridellians made second class citizens in their own land, serving the Darigans that would claim their farms, and subjugate their nobility with our own.

      Of course, Meridell would not go down so easily, nor would our land be free of its “collateral damage”, as Kass would say. I imagine those who would face the largest brunt would be the “Children of Kass”, or those pitiable souls subscripted into service, lest their entire families be imprisoned. Poorly trained, thrown into battles they weren’t prepared for… as is, there are fields in the Citadel with rows of stones, some of which have long-wilted Darigan’s Lilies at their base.

     There are some—a declining number, thank the Citadel—Darigans who claim that this would have been a best case scenario. But all I see… is a nightmare. Isolation brought by force.

     A Lord with endless ambitions—ones that I doubt would end with Meridell. After all, Brightvale was just next door, with enough treasure to satiate his greed… and who is to say that the fae wouldn’t be the next to face his wrath. Revenge would be just the start of his campaign. Surely, he had larger, worldlier conquests in mind. And then there would be me, at the helm of it all, embracing the chaos as if it would fill me up somehow. As if having power could replace something I did not know I had lost.

     I let out a world weary sigh.

     Darigan knows that I had made grave mistakes. I slipped up so badly to have almost lost everything. But then, grace saved me. Kindness, love, acceptance, camaraderie, second chances—to this day, I am still amazed. Such things I would have brushed off as being weak before.

     Now, I know them to be strength.

     If I have learned nothing else these past few years, it is that only by working together, by pooling our resources and our brightest minds that we can move forward.

     I looked back down at the page. It was still blank.

     I tapped the edge of the parchment over and over, leaving a darkening blot upon the corner, until I finally lifted the quill to the page.

     “If Kass won, we would have lost everything,” I wrote in my ‘pretty script,’ as Lisha called it, and underlined “everything” twice. Suffice to say, the Matron would have sent me to the corner without a meal if my handwriting was anything short of perfect.

     “There is no improvement without trial and error. There is no future without working together. Taking something by force does not make one better; it only encourages more of the same. Revenge. Ambition. Greed. A never-ending cycle that will do little more than lead to our mutual destruction.”

     Realizing that I had used words that no child could possibly understand, I wrote beneath it:

     “It would be a lonely world of strength in place of love, and of fear instead of trust.”

     And knowing Kass, it would have been a world that only his supporters would reap the benefits of, namely the most influential families. The toiling peasants would have had to scrape for every neopoint that crossed their path. And if your allegiance was made known to a former Lord who disappeared after his brush with dark magic… then Darigan help you. Especially if they found out you were a part of the Resistance, like my father was.

     As it was, many hid, or hoped that the world would get better whilst they went about their daily struggle. And some, like my father, fled the Citadel in hopes of a better life elsewhere.

     “I am thankful,” I continued after debating for well over a minute how best to continue, “that this world, even with its many flaws, offered us a way forward, offered Neopians such as me a way to atone. When you’re old enough, Cecilia, this future will be on your shoulders as well. I await your appointment to the Council.

     Yours truly,

     Serian of the Tri-Kingdom Council & Tri-Kingdom Patrol”

     I rang the alert bell for the delivery Weewoo, which I could swear they had supersonic ears for, and one came dashing inside my office. It was a Darigan Weewoo, one with a particularly waggy set of tail feathers, and a melancholy song. Even three years ago, there would have been uproars about seeing one of those “creatures” flying about and delivering mail in Meridell. But once Meridellians realized how fast and efficient they were, even with their propensity for nibbling or shredding junk mail, Neopians from around the tri-kingdoms began adopting them. I gave this one a pat on the head before offering it the letter. The stubborn Petpet shook its head, tapping its talons expectantly against the desk. When one treat wasn’t enough, it continued to tap until I acquiesced to three. As it soared away with the words of a former Kass general turned Darigan ambassador in its beak, I couldn’t help but think…

     Despite everything, I was thankful.

     Maybe I’m exactly where I need to be.

      The End.