I did not think about before, a time when I was brought into the world to fulfil a purpose or have an idea to live by. I did not care to know who I was, what I wanted, or what motivesmade me reach this place, where I was so eager to dive in and take all the suffering away.
“He’s deep into it, I’ll go to dinner and take a nap afterward, I don’t expect him to become aware anytime soon,” a voice sounded from very far away.
‘“I’ll stay with him till morning,” another responded, a different side of the ethereal place I found myself in. This one seemed more benevolent and shadowed specks of compassion, whereas the first one echoed tired and unwilling like it had lived on repetition and barely now, could it escape for a short while.
I did not want to think about it, did not want to know and every impulse in me vibrated with the desire to return to the white veil of nothingness, but parts of my body had become aware and muscles started jolting at hearing the two voices.
Why wasn’t I alone? Why couldn’t I turn into nothing and fade away? Why couldn’t I just exist as a dash of air, so light and never-ending? They had been talking about me, I knew it deep down and they had used masculine pronouns. Making me a male. Strange, I did not feel like a male. I felt like a blob of ink pouring down a goose feather, here one moment and vanished in the next, with no purpose or higher goal than to just be.
Why did I have to be a male? It meant I had things to do, responsibilities to attain, and a moral code to follow. It meant I belonged to something, or someone, maybe even had a family, that I had existed through generations in the blood of my ancestors, and my turn to come to life had been decided for the present day.
“No…” I grunted, supplicating my body and mind to return to that time when we just were. I did not want to wake up and face the world, understand what came around me, and be forced to move towards my death.
“Ansgar?” that second voice called, from deep down a cloud of wondering and perdition. It called again and again, the same name resounded until it came closer and closer to where I was. Until I understood it was what defined me.
A name. My name. I was Ansgar.
“I am Ansgar,” I said to the voice and a dash of a smile poured onto me, even though I did not yet have eyes to see it.
“You need to wake up,” it told me and as soon as it spoke, an earthquake of sensation overcame my muscles, forcing them to jolt up and down, disturbing the sweet bliss that kept distributing across me.
“Go away, voice, do not drag me with you,” I murmured, even though I did not know which direction it came from or if it had the power to hear me. If I had arms and a body I could have found it and shoved it away, making it fly outside of my white veil, the nest of my bliss.
“You are prince Ansgar of the Earth Kingdom, third son of Farryn and Bathysia, you have two older brothers, Vikram and Damaris. Do not forget them, do not forget who you are. You must fight this, do not let the serum drag them away.”
It continued to repeat the same information, over and over, and every time I heard those names, my name, a part of the veil shrank away, leaving me on my own to face reality. To become that Ansgar the voice called for and search through painful memories I needed to forget. There was a reason I had chosen to forget them, to move on and become someone else, something else, but no matter how much I struggled, my synapses snapped and images flooded my mind like erupting damnation, releasing everything at once.
“You are prince Ansgar of the Earth kingdom,” the voice pressed needles into my senses. Vivid images pierced through me, but each one came with pain.
A garden full of orange trees appeared. They were in bloom and I had just snapped one of the branches, releasing a soft rain of rosy petals all over me. A huge library filled with leather-bound books and a massive rounded skylight with decorated branches adorned the ceiling. I loved to sneak in there before Damaris came home, with a generous portion of his seed cakes, and watch the craters of the moon, thinking they were the footsteps of giants.
“Bathysia,” the voice said and the image of a woman with dark skin and beads of stars in her hair caught me and spun me around, making some of the cakes fall on the floor. She would kiss my forehead and each of my cheeks, she always loved to give me three kisses.
“My mother…” I said to no one in particular, except the memories that forced the recognition.
“Yes, your mother. The queen is your mother, do not forget her,” the voice pushed. “Hang onto her memory and fight this. If anyone can do it, it’s you.”
“No,” I heard myself interacting with the voice without my consent or realisation. “I will not let the woman with stars in her hair bring the pain back. I will not let you do it either,” I urged and went beyond my mental barriers to keep the recurring memories at bay.
I did not want to do this, I could not do this, and every time a new one resurfaced so did the pain. So sharp and poignant, that I could not face it again, I did not have the strength to do so. There was no fight in me and I did not want to go back to whatever I had been before this, before the veil covered me. I would not.
Diving deeper, I surrounded myself with nothingness, I let it fill my body and cleanse those memories away, like a blood-stained shirt in cold water. Slowly, they disappeared down the stream and once again, I remained floating and alone.
I would not fight this, I had no strength left in me and I did not understand why I had to, why the voice insisted so much that I did, instead of allowing me to enjoy a sentiment where I just was, without anyone or anything beyond what I sensed and felt. My mind dominated everything and I struggled to turn into a floating mass yet again, leave my body behind and travel along the routes of the blissful liquid that gave me so much peace.
“Rhylan said you are mated to a human. Sometimes you call her name when you think no one can hear you. You call her Anwen,” the voice echoed with desperation, as though this new information was kept in a precious spot, to be used as a last resort.
A halt. Everything came to a stop, even my organs stopped drinking the liquid that had already become thickened with my blood. I knew that name, I loved that name and its bearer. Anwen. It came crashing at once, like I was a fallen leaf on a lake and a waterfall of emotion had just been dropped with the force of a hurricane. I remembered her.
She was my mate. A part of me that I had waited to meet for so long. I responded to her touch, it bound me to her. A connection impossible to break, part of me became her, and part of her would always carry something of mine. As mates.
I remembered a sweet smile and a dimple shining in the sunset, making my heart flutter like no other female had ever managed to do. She fed me and cried at my side, and I kept apologising. I did not recall, but it seemed important. I had hurt her somehow.
So much that she wrote to me. I felt excited and hopped to her door like a fidgeting pixie who had swum in lavender wine, but she asked me to stay away. A piece of wood carried the message, and I had to obey. I recalled the hurt and knew I deserved it. I understood.
But then she came back into my arms and kissed me. Chains. Did she want to hurt me, same as all these other beings? No, her soft hand caressed my cheek while I slept. The iron did not burn; she wrapped it in fabric. Why? Why did she want to restrain me so?
I had kissed her so many times that her taste inundated the roof of my mouth and flowed on my tongue like sweet nectar, the only aliment to give me relief. I knew every part of her body and had been inside of her. Many times.
