The Fairy Kingdom Part 2

  We walked around the floating stone that the fairies called their home. It stood out within the entire structure of the small, surviving fairy kingdom near the tree. Beneath the shade of the Mother Tree, the air vibrated with ancient energy as if the moss-covered roots guarded millennia-old secrets. Queen Aledra rested on a stone polished by time. Her semi-transparent wings were folded formally. Her subjects watched from the surrounding branches. Their tiny spears were lowered in a tense truce, though they still gleamed.

  Queen Aledra sat on a throne of living branches that sprouted from the damp earth as if the land itself recognized her. Her expression remained serene, but her eyes scrutinized every gesture and shadow of our unspoken words.

  It was then that Tamamo-no-Mae stepped forward. Her nine tails fanned out behind her, she raised her hand with the grace of a priestess and the command of an empress. Her voice was clear and gentle and it echoed among the natural walls of the living hall.

  "Allow me to introduce the person who will speak on behalf of our group," she said, bowing solemnly.

  "Not for lack of voice, but because of the greatness of her presence."

  The fox goddess then turned to me with a gesture of innocent mischief and a sly smile, delighting in tormenting the fairies and me with her way of speaking. Then, her gaze returned to the queen and her court.

  "Allow me to introduce Elise, the creator and mistress of primordial water. She is the empress of the jade throne and the sovereign of the primordial dragons of will and terror. She is the huntress of forgotten gods and the heir to eternal realms. She will represent us in this important meeting with your people."

  "She is the Goddess of Primordial Water and the Goddess of Ink, with which every book has been written, She is the one whose words give shape to reality."

  "It is she who will determine the future of your people through her questions, wisdom, and experience."

  The silence that followed was absolute.

  All eyes turned to me. Hidden among the trees and leaves, I could see several faces trying not to be noticed—intruding fairies watching with curiosity and fear as their future was reduced to a single discussion with beings they did not understand who had appeared out of nowhere. Inside, I was laughing to keep from crying. I could tell Tamamo had greatly exaggerated my introduction just to make me nervous—an innocent little joke between lovers that the fairies weren’t aware of. But I could see Tifa covering her face in embarrassment, hoping we would stop the nonsense.

  "I do not come to speak as a goddess," I said redundantly.

  "I will not speak in flourishes, riddles, or wordplay."

  "All of that invites double meanings and allows the message to be lost among the words."

  "Instead, I want direct words with no misinterpretation—the meaning is exactly what is said."

  "That is the best way for your kingdom to defend itself and for me to obtain the information I seek."

  Despite what I said, I tried not to dismiss my wife's efforts. I attempted to follow through with her grandiose introduction because I knew it was important for the fairies to see us as significant if we wanted them to heed our request. I summoned my Jade Throne, the very same seat that had once stood atop Atlantis. I had used it to govern Atlantis in its final days and during the war against Xian Fang.

  It was a throne designed not for comfort, but to dominate. It was a single, colossal piece, sculpted without cuts or joints, as if the jade had been born with that shape already imprinted in its depths. Its surface gleamed bright green, like the neon lights of the cave or the Fairies’ tree. The most imposing feature, however, was the backrest: an immense arch of gaping jaws. It was the bodiless mouth of an ancient dragon frozen in the act of devouring me. It was so exquisitely carved that I truly sat inside the dragon's mouth, with jade fangs curving above my head and enclosing me in an eternal threat.

  Its eyes, sculpted high above, looked inward—into the throne itself—as if watching my back and ensuring that whoever dared to sit there would do so with caution of the willingnes of the sacrifice. The seat was the tongue: a mystical stone slab that curved as if to receive me. It was as if the creature were devouring and protecting me at once. It offered no relief of the devoring; it was an altar, a judgment, and a prison of responsibility carved for emperors and dragonlords. I was being swallowed by the throat of the eternal dragon—a sacred creature I had created myself—and my body was vanishing into the open gullet of an ancient beast.

  The monster’s jaws curled around me like a dark halo. It was as if I were not seated upon a symbol of power but within it, one with it. The image was majestic but also unsettling. To rule from this seat was to accept the curse of being devoured by the burden of being a dragon. The surface was so polished that my body's reflection in its center appeared like the echo of an empress who no longer existed—a living memory projected onto eternal stone.

  The dragons carved along its surface—some roaring, some sleeping, some locked in combat—did not merely adorn the throne; they guarded and demanded it. Each dragon represented an emotion, a decision, or a memory, and all seemed to come alive under the gaze of those who beheld them. Some saw glory, while others saw a threat. Perhaps they were all right, proving that what Tamamo said was true.

  Queen Aledra remained motionless for a long moment. Still seated upon her throne of living branches, her wings did not stir, as if the slightest flutter might shatter the dense fog of tension hanging over the sacred glade. I could see the faint tremble of her breath and how her fingers barely clutched the edges of her seat. It was as if the touch of the bark offered her an anchor against the presence now occupying the center of her world.

  My eyes met hers.

  Her thin, pale lips parted slowly. When her voice finally emerged, it trembled like a nightingale’s song at dawn—soft yet weighted with the urgency of someone who has no choice but to speak.

  "Great Elise," she said, pronouncing my name as if she were afraid that doing so might awaken something dormant within me.

  “Lady of the Primordial Waters... Empress of the Devouring Throne...”

  She faltered. Her eyes shifted toward my shoulders and the colossal arc of the dragon that seemed ready to swallow me with every breath. The reflection of my eyes shimmered on the stones—not red, at least, but the usual cyan.

  "What is it that you wish to know about my people?"

  Tifa sighed somewhere behind me, surely wishing this felt less theatrical. She only wanted to help, but to her, it seemed like a waste of time because she already knew how it would end. She nudged me gently, urging me to hurry up. Almost immediately, I could hear the fearful sound of several fairies holding their breath as if witnessing one of their own commit an offense against a powerful goddess. In truth, though, it was just my little wife gently telling me to get on with it.

  "Very well, let us try to begin with something simple."

  "Tifa has told me many times about the Fairy Kingdom and how, despite your limited resources, you have managed to thrive in a relentlessly hostile world through ingenuity."

  "She told me how each family had a tree from which, with the love of the parents, a new fairy would blossom in the form of fruit."

  "And yet, now that I stand before the kingdom of those stories, I see nothing but ordinary bushes and fruit. What happened to those family trees?" I asked.

  "It was necessary."

  "The kingdom hid beneath this dome, not out of cowardice, but out of obligation."

  "Light became our enemy; the skies became a trap."

  "After the war against the demons, humans intensified their search for new riches and horizons in a new era of peace. They began to venture deeper and deeper into the forests we once used as hiding places."

  "With the growing risk of our kingdom being discovered and exterminated, living on the surface became a constant threat."

  "So, in hopes of preserving our race and our small village, we ventured once more into the unknown. With nothing left to lose but our lives, we decided it was best to bravely go where humans dared not tread out of fear."

  "In the first months after our arrival, the lack of food haunted us like an invisible beast." "The cavernous soil, though rich in magic, bore no fruit under a sun that no longer reached these depths. It was then that we transformed the trunks of our family trees into beds of earth, our hands trembling in pain. There, we planted bushes that bore crystalloid berries—fruits born of the cave itself—capable of feeding us without light.”

  "In their place, we planted bushes that we named Lumniberry."

  "They grow in darkness, feeding on the energy that seeps from the deepest depths. They need no sun...” The queen pointed to the nearby bushes, whose fruits glowed with a bluish shimmer like fireflies trapped in crystal shells.

  "What about the seeds of the family trees?" Tifa asked, afraid of the answer.

  “I know how sacred the bond between a fairy and her parental tree is. That's why we didn't make the decision lightly."

  "We traded the sacred for the necessary."

  "Where our children once blossomed, the fruits that sustain us now grow. It was a choice—a forced one—not taken lightly. Every family tree was bid farewell with songs, and its seed was preserved."

  "Each trunk was turned into a seedbed."

  "In the Nest of Memory, a chamber carved into the heart of the Mother Tree. There they lie, wrapped in rose petals, sleeping and waiting for a better day.”

  "When the world is safe again, when food is plentiful, and danger has passed, we will plant them again."

  "We are not trying to destroy a legacy, but rather, transform it into a promise."

  Her words turned my gaze once again toward the sacred tree—a large tree whose blue wood and bioluminescent pink and sky-blue leaves drew the attention of anyone who saw it. It was the symbol of the kingdom, not just for the fairies.

  I couldn't help but remember a similar tree growing in the secret gardens of the great palace of Atlantis—the very place where I had secretly married Nanami. This tree seemed to fit there perfectly, as if borrowed.

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  Beside the tree stood a castle that the fairies clearly used as the home of their queen and as a place to make important decisions. Yet, despite its significance, the castle was small and ridiculous. No human could fit inside, yet it seemed too large for just a few fairies. It looked more like a toy castle made for a playground—something Nanami might have played with as a child. I had to ask about its origin.

  "Queen Aledra,"

  "Your people have shown great ingenuity in converting darkness into sustenance. But something doesn’t add up."

  The castle of your kingdom...you didn't build it yourselves, did you?"

  "I also want to know the origin of the tree behind you."

  "How did it come into your hands?"

  "The castle isn’t ours," the queen confessed regretfully.

  "Nor is the tree. Both are relics of the First Ones—those who fell from the sky wrapped in fire and remorse."

  "When we hid here, we discovered that the walls of this cave are not just stone. They are unique and unnatural—everything around us is the work of someone else."

  "There are markings, hieroglyphs, carved by hands that do not belong to this world."

  "We’ve spent the last few months researching and documenting as much as possible of the surrounding ruins."

  "Trying to understand the past and perhaps earn ourselves a future."

  "... "

  "But our discoveries have only revealed more stories of damnation and loss.

  "A history better left forgotten."

  "Around us lie the ruins of the Kingdom of Atlantis, the defeated."

  The queen spoke with fear not only because of the great ones standing before her, but also because of the past. What they had uncovered here only added to her already heavy burden. Tifa, Tamamo, and I glanced at each other, once again awestruck by the remnants of a civilization whose mistakes refused to die. The queen told us the origin story of the world of Etria.

  Its history began exactly where mine had ended. By combining the knowledge she had discovered with what I already knew, I was able to piece together a clearer account of what had happened here.

  Right after I defeated the Overlord and made my wish with the Codex, I returned to the human world—the present day—on the day I had been vacationing in Russia. But not for Atlantis. The misfortune continued for the Eternal Kingdom, just as Orion or Yazmagrel had feared.

  After I left, the continent remained suspended in space, awaiting its fall onto the frozen, ruined Earth. It seemed my wish was not as simple to grant as I had hoped, and it had somehow twisted in a way I did not want. The world didn't simply return to how it was before the dragons. Instead, it moved forward. The only thing that changed was Atlantis's place in history.

  Cast out of Earth and out of time,

  Suspended in nothingness.

  In a twisted way, Atlantis split into two identical halves. The version I possess—the spirit of Atlantis—holds power, will, and the essence of might. Meanwhile, the physical body was left to its fate: forgotten, exhausted, and dead.

  Somehow—perhaps through the work of weary angels or by chance and forgetfulness—the floating continent drifted aimlessly through the cosmos, uncontrolled, in a universe believed to be dead and devoid of stars, created solely to imprison the cursed land. It crashed into an uninhabitable rock at colossal speed—an impact that pierced the world like a dagger through the heart. The majesty and solemnity of Medui Tamn are merely the remnants of that impact and the decay of time, the Remains of Atlantis.

  The most astonishing part of all this is that the continent of Atlantis still had survivors. They were the last Atlanteans to endure the war against the Dragons and be forgotten by God Himself. The little remaining energy of Atlantis kept them alive through the fall, the impact, and the first years trapped on the lifeless planet. They took Nanami's body and returned it to the Jade Throne after I made the wish. They continued to live.

  They are known here as elves.

  It is a sorrowful story, but the tragedy never ended—not for Atlantis or its people and not for those who refused to take responsibility for their power. Not for those who never earned my favor or even my pity. They became nothing more than the cockroaches they already were, and I continued to crush them with disdain beneath my heel.

  Trapped on the lifeless planet, they were forced to make the best of their situation—to create the atmosphere, the water, the rain, the plants, and the sun. It was a titanic task, a task for gods. As if trying to honor what Orion could never achieve in life, no matter how hard he tried, these survivors faced all that and more just for a chance to survive.

  But sacrifices were necessary. The work demanded many hands and willpower. The remaining Atlanteans were too few in number for such a task. So, once again, they turned to the very knowledge that had doomed them in the first place—their desire to be greater than the gods and their belief that they knew what was best, when, in truth, they knew nothing. With pride and arrogance, they created humans—or rather, they made clones from the remains they had secretly gathered while we fought to the death.

  We did everything in our power to contain the dragons and overcome the Atlanteans' disdain during the war we waged to help them. But they were plotting behind our backs to enslave us once the war was over. Only my wish before the Codex caught them off guard.

  With the clones they had created, they began to work the land. They gave them tools, not to free them but to use them as slaves. With their blood, they planted forests where there was once only stone. With their pain, they carved rivers into the desert. But the humans remembered every step of that torturous path.

  All of this ties back to the story Tifa told me about this place: It's about how the Unknown Emperor lit the flames of revolution and how humans began to rise from their oppression. It's also about how the elves foolishly decided to silence the revolution by killing the man who sparked it. But that only made the flame stronger—the idea, the change.

  In their struggle to seize power, the elves ended up with nothing—driven to the brink of extinction and forced to hide in the forests their slaves had prepared centuries earlier.

  Then, after the humans triumphed over their oppressors, another great myth was revealed with the weight of a bomb: even at the peak of their well-earned victory, misfortune found a way to return unexpectedly and uninvited.

  "Wait a moment!"

  "Can you say that again?" I asked, surprised.

  Aledra looked at me, on the verge of tears from the suddenness of my question. Trying to be brave, she repeated the last sentence she had said.

  "That's how the Goddess Nediadis appeared to unify the world under a single civilization."

  "She appeared among the humans during the war to decide who would become their new leader.

  "Taking advantage of the fresh wounds from the revolution against the elves, she conquered each warring kingdom one by one until she managed to unify the entire planet."

  "It was by her order that all records of the war between humans and elves were erased."

  "Overwhelmed by her power and the technology she salvaged from Atlantis, the humans ruled the world for more than ten thousand years."

  "What is known as the Time of Darkness was the period of her reign."

  "The ruins of Medui Tamn were only revealed to the outside world when the goddess's castle was taken as a war trophy by the Dragon God."

  "Damn it, that opportunistic fox again."

  Stealing my things and passing them off as her own accomplishments."

  One of these days, I’ll visit her and kill her again just to get even,” I muttered to Tamamo and Tifa.

  "Is she a goddess known to you?" asked the Fairy Queen, having noticed our reaction to the topic.

  Tamamo skillfully answered the question, presenting it as a quarrel between goddesses and not the fairies' fault, as it was a matter beyond them.

  "Do not worry. All this is merely a squabble between us and Nediadis," she said with the patience of a loving mother toward her children.

  "Nediadis was known in our courts in times long forgotten. I cannot say her memory is pleasant, but I can guarantee it was fleeting—thanks to the intervention of the great Empress Elise, who stands before you today."

  The fairies hidden throughout the area began to murmur; it seemed like a great revelation to them. Even the queen herself could not hide her surprise at the revealed information.

  "But is that even possible?"

  Her story doesn't align with our records."

  "According to our research, the Kingdom of Nediadis was destroyed by the wrath of the Dragon God!"

  Like all of human civilization, which was once grand yet became corrupt and degenerate, even life itself stirred the fury of the God of Dragons. He saw that the fate of his world was stained by pleasure and selfishness.

  The Primordial Dragons awoke from their celestial, eternal slumber."

  "They emerged from the cracks of time, their tails carving blazing comets across the sky. They took their place in the heavens like winged furies against tyranny."

  "The Dragon God, with his scarlet eyes, consumed the oppressors without mercy."

  "It was the night the sun was born."

  “The dragons, guardians of primal justice, ascended once more into the dusk, leaving behind nothing but ashes and their bones as proof of the cruel people's fate.”

  "That the greatest, longest-lasting, and most powerful civilization on the planet was destroyed by the greatest civilization above all others, the most powerful race that lived for just one night."

  "Nediadis was merely a twitch on the skin of the Dragon God’s eternity.

  The Queen spoke of that small yet great event as though she were a child telling her favorite story. She spoke with the hope of a child who still believed there was goodness left in the world. She seemed to believe that one day, these beings would come as answers to her prayers and suffering. The poor thing didn’t know that the dragons who caused the fall of Atlantis were the same ones who destroyed Aria's world.

  "I can't believe they're not realizing it—even with Elise literally sitting on a dragon-head throne," said Tifa, exasperated with her people.

  "This time you really outdid yourself, Goshujin-sama," Tamamo teased me once again.

  "Shut up. I didn't mean for it to be such a big deal."

  "I was just angry because she kidnapped my mother."

  "I didn’t expect all this to come back as some ancient legend." I replied to the Lady of the Moon.

  "But didn’t Elise just defeat Nediadis only a couple of months ago?"

  "Then why is it an ancient tale from a millennia-old legend in my home world?" Tifa asked, confused.

  “Well, Goshujin-sama had already mentioned before that the dragons of Atlantis invaded the modern world on Earth.”

  “Which means they had the ability to travel through time in some way.”

  “Nediadis stole their technology and magic to create her kingdom, so maybe she did the same.”

  “History can be both horizontal and vertical, depending on how you travel through it,” rationalized the wise kitsune.

  “What happens in the normal and boring today will one day become history or legend.”

  “What Elise did that day would become an important and great story after some time—we just arrived at that moment from a different path.”

  While Queen Aledra spoke in detail about her people's sacrifices, I looked around at the glowing veins of the Mother Tree, the plants, the mushrooms, the edible shrubs, the crystals, and the ruins. This entire place was nothing more than forgotten Atlantean ruins. The origin of this world explained why the Celestial Forge was hidden in these caverns.

  Though it was an impressive tale, Tifa kept looking at me intently. She wanted to save her people, not relive their tragedy again. She had already endured it for far too long in the flesh. I felt the same way. They were just another victim of that transgressive civilization.

  As the last empress of Atlantis, I felt it was my duty to repay those who had been wronged by the nation I despised so much. It was time for hope to return.

  “Queen Aledra.”

  “I have heard enough. I have learned what I needed to understand.”

  “........”

  “Now, it is my turn to propose what the fairies' future will be.”