This blog is for me that others may read. I spend at least an hour on each prompt then go back and edit it then post it. If I come back to it I come back to it but if I don't then oh well. I have so many stories in my head and get depressed if I don't write something so this is more therapy for me. Enjoy!
They have given me the crown. They will regret it. The horrible things they had done in my name. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. As Queen Asteria Lyra of the House of Vega I ruled over part of the Pegasus Galaxy. I am an Imperialist. The Republic of Soterias remains our arch rival. My mother Lady Dido along with her network of rats and junkyard dogs was always an ambitious woman. More ambitious than smart. She liked to be on top making her many enemies. She claimed to love me more than anything and yet she has wounded me most of all.
At the coronation I sat on that cold golden throne looking out at the sea of faces that lay before me. Some were excited. Others were livid. While some were curious. I was 26. Quite young to be a queen but they said I had my father's noble bearing and cautious nature. I was cautious. With my heart most of all.
The priest placed the heavy crown upon my head, laying a scepter and orb in my hands. Before I was a girl playing dress up. A doll wearing royal finery that meant nothing to me. But today I took hold of these objects with new meaning. I had the power. Me. Not my mother or her politicians. I stood up and led the procession out onto the balcony to address the people of Corona. My mother was behind me. She basked in the people's cheers. She must have been fantasizing how they were her applause for her accomplishments.
"You should smile, dear," she whispered to me. "This is your day. No one wants a dour queen."
"Yes," I whispered back coldly. "It is my day, mother." My mother felt the cool breeze from my tone. I think there was a flash of fear in her eyes. The banquet seemed to drag on. I sat at the head watching my mother and her cronies eat and drink their fill. They were making plans for the future. I had been a recluse as a child. My father had many wives and concubines, my mother being his 7th wife. I was the youngest child of 14. So far down the succession line my tutors didn't think it important to educate me in politics. Naturally they all assumed I would need their help now. They would rule through me. But I had sat in meetings with my father as he met foreign dignitaries. Read the documents on his desk in his office. I had a better grasp on politics than my mother realized as she would soon discover.
"Your Majesty," I turned to see a servant boy with an Ambassador wearing the Soterian colors of red, gold and grey. "This is the new ambassador from the Republic of Soteria. Master Galen Ramsey."
"Your Majesty," Ramsey gave a deep bow. He was handsome. Young perhaps mid 30s. "You're a bit young to be an Ambassador," I pointed out. "Most of the Ambassadors I've met have been white, old, fat men." I was always blunt. Sometimes this worked in my favor. Other times it earned me a slap on the wrist by my tutors and nurse maids. Being a tactful politician, Ramsey laughed then mused, "Your majesty is a woman who speaks her mind. Honesty is rare in a monarch."
"Also in a politician," I countered. I bade him sit beside me shooing away the timid boy. "How's the Chancellor?" I ventured at polite conversation as I took a sip of wine. "I heard she had a bit of gout earlier this year."
"Usually Chancellor Iona Yates doesn't like to make her illness public," Ramsey spoke cautiously.
"Leaders don't like to appear weak, I understand," on reflex I rotated my simple silver band on my left third finger. "Everything must be kept hidden behind a suit of armor."
"Your majesty seems well versed in this lesson," Ramsey noticed my attention to my simple ring. "Such a simple piece of jewelry for a fine lady. Your court is dressed like a fleet of ships but you don't seem to care for such things."
I smiled knowingly. He was trying to get a full assessment of me to report back to the Chancellor. Only natural to see the enemy's stronghold but I would not give in so easily.
"The most valuable gifts are often the most simplest, Ambassador Ramsey," I answered cryptically with dignity. "Some aren't even material." Ramsey nodded, his indigo eyes searching for chinks in my armor. That simple silver ring was a gift of love. I had given my heart to a man when I was 18. He was much older than me. Only 32. A soldier. One that had charge to guard me. We fell in love and thinking that I had the freedom to follow my heart I let myself love this man, Leon and we were going to have a child. We would have been wed happily with a child if my mother had not intervened.
"You may tell your Chancellor this, Ambassador Ramsey," I spoke plainly, "I intend to reform my government post haste by the end of this month."
"Really?" Ramsey seemed intrigued. Usually reformation took time in normal democratic institutions but in royal houses reformation took on a more bloody approach.
True to my word, one by one my mother's supporters were being bumped off. Some were murdered while others were whisked away to far away planets or colonies. My mother didn't show fear until one of her supporters, a captain of her guard, a brute named Cezar was placed in her room without his eyes. I remember her screams of terror. I woke up to her cries of horror but didn't stir from chambers. I never even left my bed. I think it hit her then what was happening. Sure enough she went to see me but on several of those occasions she was barred from my door.
Then when I had decreed a new trade agreement with the Republic my mother really lost her temper. Without ceremony she burst into my office, her face red and puffy, eyes flashing, nostrils flaring. She was like a raging bull. I had little feeling except some satisfaction at her distress.
"Lady Mother?" I didn't even acknowledge her presence with my sight just kept writing on documents.
"How dare you," she fumed. "You can not go through with this new trade agreement!"
"You seem upset perhaps you should see Dr. Keller he could prescribe you something," I gave her a short once over then returned to my work.
"Look at me when I'm talking to you!" My mother hated being ignored. When I didn't look at her she grabbed my pen and threw it across the room. I took a deep breath then calmly looked my mother in her angry opal eyes.
"Yes, mother?" I spoke in a level tone.
"You're agreeing to trading with those arrogant Soterians?"
"It's good for the people," I explained. "It'll open new relations as well as fill our pockets which my father and you have emptied over the decades. It's a good deal."
"Your father would never have done this," my mother continued to rage. I sat back in my chair, "I'm thinking of sending you back to your old home on Epona."
"What?" my mother gaped. Her age truly showed when she was angry. In her day she was quite the beauty. My father fell in love at first sight with her.
"You always used to say to me how you missed it and there's nothing much keeping you here is there."
"You're here," she was almost pleading now. I saw some real pain behind her eyes, "I'm your mother. You're my daughter."
"Yes you are my mother. That is the only reason keeping you alive," I spoke with such venom that my mother winced. I touched the silver ring that Leon had given me when I told him I was to have his child. It was his mother's he had said. She died when he was only 6. My mother saw the ring and she finally understood.
"The murders and disappearances...," she remarked slowly. "Truthfully I didn't want to believe it was you..." My mother regained her regal composure.
"So this is how you repay me for getting you the crown?" she crossed her arms, her spine straightening.
"Murdering my brothers and sister and then...," my words caught in my throat at the memory. The blood soaked sheets and the lump of flesh cradled between my legs. I was 2 months pregnant at the time of the miscarriage.
My mother softened. Some sign of a human being in there that soon gave way to the monster that she was, "I did it for your own good. That marriage with that common soldier would have ruined you. And I spared you from that creature germinating inside of you!"
"How dare you justify your actions like a dutiful mother!" I slammed my fist on the table making everything on it's surface jump. "You are a grasping harpy who wanted the crown only you couldn't get it so you had to give it to me!" It all came out. My throat was hoarse from all the emotions I had kept inside all these years.
"I did it for you," my mother insisted. "Foolish child."
"You did it for yourself only you've made a grave error, mother," my voice cracked. I didn't see my mother but my baby's bloody corpse and my lover's ship blown to bits. She had sent Leon on that battle ship during one of our skirmishes with the Republic. She knew he would die in a scuffle that was bound to arise. Republican and Imperial ships often engaged in light scuffles over disputes.
My mother stood there in silence. She was dumbfounded that a child of hers that never rose her voice to her was speaking to her in this way. I regained my composure and called in my guards.
"I have already made arrangements for you to live out the rest of your days in solitude on Epona," I explained as I called in two guards as I knew she would struggle.
"You can't do this," she insisted.
"Yes," I affirmed to her despair, "I can. I am the Queen after all."
The guards took her away, my mother making protests on the way out. It was the last time I ever heard her voice to my relief.
No comments:
Post a Comment