love is stored in hearts
She is to be a queen at least. In the books Ameisha was going to be a queen if the assassin didn’t find her at this very spot and leave for her father to find her, the king. He was going to house her, care for her, and yet that very guard who swore to protect him pledged to die for him, killed his daughter for him. Wants are different from needs, at least many on Earth, and what Eleonora assumes to be are the pages of Earth seem to find common ground in the misunderstanding. She doesn’t know the answer for she is no one but a person behind a desk, not even an investigative journalist because she’s- she got coffees for others.
She was just someone from a third world country with a degree that could not withstand for her appearance. Funnily enough, that language, her mother’s tongue of encouragement that neighboring prim and proper country besmirched, is the same one she longs to remember as she encroaches, with a woman on her arm into a village house she doesn’t know. Kind of like when she left for that very continent, only her mother didn’t give her a hug, and Eleonora was supposed to text her last night. She wishes for her, for something of her that she cannot find in this village.
Ameisha lives right behind the bridge, and on the very same plain of the land is the village that houses her, a stretch down from this cabin. It’s on a vast land that’s more normal than the Earth she’s from, virent greens everywhere to see, fresh produce and meat, gregarious neighbors and understanding lands. This is the land Earth could’ve been had power not been so… She’s misremembering though or just starting to remember when she’s smack dab in a book that doesn’t go this way. Ameisha was the one who was supposed to find her way into the water, forgotten except for her father’s eyes before he was bereft from his daughter that he never who killed by the man who stole his daughter. Killed her for the sake that Sani did not have.
In the book Sani rages until his own death, until his husband kills him because he refuses to give up, he is ravaged by the rage, so he never parts for his lover; there is no love for him without his daughter he never knew but always wanted to, always thought a part of him was here. That’s a line from the book Eleonora can remember, but she has never seen this side, maybe there was a little monologue of his forgotten future, a wish forgotten in paraphrased sentences that were never for the entirety of the book. Her father should’ve been here by now, but he’s not and she’s tending to Ameisha’s wounds, or watching and acting as a puppy as Ameisha does.
In the damply lit cabin by candles and the florescent hue of the moon through crystal windows. She finds some medical wrap for her hand, offering it shyly to Eleonora’s mingling mind. “Would you mind?” Eleonora nods as she looks from the room’s faded flooring to her eyes of night to her hand of hurt. “Do you have water to clean it?” She shakes her head, smiling with positivity. “This will do before we get to the village.” Eleonora nods before wrapping her lightly with the light cotton. “What’s your name?” The time passes a bit quickly as she looks from the layered, wrapped bandage to the eyes of Ameisha. She doesn’t know Eleonora’s name, but she knows hers, knows more than her, but what she was to her father, what she could’ve been and can. She almost tells hers, almost purrs it with solely Eleonora’s name, a selfish respite, but she doesn’t for the door damns her to reality, or fantasy as she stands in the pages of ink. “Ameisha!” It’s yelled, louder than the sway and slam of the door, and there he is, Sani Faarax- Sentry Sani Faarax, the only way to address him, as well as other elements she’ll have to remember, for now just him and his title, him before and what could’ve been- what is now.
“Ameisha, baby,” he breaks out, his frame sinewy and shortly tall. Compared to his husband he’s short and sinewy- scrawny sinewy as he fades to fallen hope, the anger under his tongue as he reaches further, reaches for other nations. She honestly forgets it for the life she had, what took up her life as a servile worker. Drained worker, honestly, servile is the only option when that is reality. With his sinewy form, he wears a white shirt that’s with ripples, frayed segments on his pants because he was doing something, trying something on or getting ready for bed, something that makes one cloth-leg too short while the other is bespangled with dirt. He’s a dogged dad, something she didn’t have, more a dogged mother that she wouldn’t part with for the world. Only she isn’t in the world anymore, and that world made her mother nothing but someone who suffered, who hid her tears from frustration, from not being enough for her family, yet enough for her neighbors. Eleonora thinks Ameisha had the family she did- compiled of neighbors and what would’ve been a family of only three, she returns to only three.
He drags his frame to her, broken but beguiled with his own eyes of obsidian brown lighted with the moon’s reflection in a pond of his tears. He nears her, and she doesn’t know how to react- Ameisha doesn’t as she just stands there and looks at him, nominally shifts so only her dress is the thing that gives way to her hesitance, maybe incredulity. “You’re- You’re here- Why are you-” “Rueben left a note- My guard I was writing to you about, he was… Baby, I’m so sorry-” “My name is Ameisha.” She never did hear her side, never did hear her speak except the forgotten voice in those letters that never could speak, that Eleonora never knew was so soft and delicate yet without the maturity of age. She’s her age, around it, Eleonora thinks, in her twenties.
He seems crestfallen, pulling himself up nominally to address her form drenched in nightwear. “Ameisha, I am forever sorry for everything. I never- There is no reason, excuse for me to have waited this long. The kingdom can run itself without me; I want you.” He inhales a breath, and she can remember a moment unlike this, when he inhaled nothing but hatred, but pain that singed his skin of a father’s loss. “He tried to kill me-” “I know-” “Let me speak!” She’s like him, even if she doesn’t know it, and because I know the end, it could make me cry under different circumstances, but she’s real- Eleonora is really here, and she’s watching as Ameisha holds her hands in front of her like he does when sitting on council, and she’s watching as she straightens her shoulders like him, refuses to leave his eyes like he does her, and she’s watching her speak the exact way he does, harboring her own indignation he’s known to carry because he’s a good man- he’s a ruler, he is a ruler she can be.
“You knew my mother had me in a bawdy house, you knew when I sent my first letter, that I was you daughter-” He seems to want to speak but doesn’t for she lengthens her voice like an opera singer, “No matter a hunch or less. You have taunted me with matters of wanting me and knowing you should lose me. I do not want such matters anymore- I have lived without you for twenty-five years of my life, and I could continue so if you do not realize how much of an adult I am. I am not your child, I am your daughter, I am my mother’s child, and she is dead because of that forsaken plague the conclave wouldn’t dare solve- that you did not dare try to!” Her brows are furrowed, bunched into bushy ovals that suit her face as she takes the chance to step forward with her final castigation, “You are supposed to be my father, but you have yet to act like you, you cannot be a child’s- my father, but you can be a person whom I call family; family who will, for once, do what it takes to make the world a place to live in.” She takes a breath that sounds more like a pained hiss of reluctant emotion. “I want you to be my family now-” She’s hugged, tightly, his arms wrapping above her shoulders and pulling her into him, and Eleonora watches as she struggles to give back, as Ameisha withers under his touch of a father and gives way to it all, gives way with the drop of her head onto his shoulder.
Eleonora misses her mother now, misses her more than before when she was just across continents, because now she’s across worlds, across universes she’s never heard of- she’s in a fucking book for Gods’ sake. She is nowhere where her mother could hold her- harbor her like she wanted again, like to be reborn like she fucking wanted. Somehow her thoughts must’ve slipped to the Sentry, for his eyes peek open to her standing form, awkward yet content watching the interaction wishing it were her- hers, she wishes her mother were here, because here seems okay- better than before, in that world. He stands and Eleonora lightly fears him, his authority and power and the fact that she’s with his daughter, with her and not out there- her silk, for a nominally moment she realizes, feels wet with the outside. Parting nominally from her, hand still atop Ameisha’s shoulder, he asks, “Eleonora, what are you doing here?”
Her name being called was not supposed to be, in no rendition of this book does her name become the tongue of the king’s- the Sentry’s. She can feel her face fall, can see him looking at her like he knows her, but all she can come forth with on her own tongue is, “What?” He shakes his head incredulous, gaining her mind with his next words, “Eleonora Jain, daughter of Orator Shamir Jain.” She can only prattle her thoughts, the look of hope drowning her eyes and mind and mouth and being. Her mother- Her mother Shamir Jain is here, and she’s someone just like she always talked about her past being, how there were a long line of her family that were royal before the future came for them solely, for their faith and family, and their beings, just their beings for fun. A fun they never did partake in. Maybe now instead of harming the vastness of this land, Sani can help it, help what he’s done even before she passed, but after his father did; he could make this the home she could’ve had. “Shamir? You mean my mom-” She takes a breath close to a breaking inhale before the dam breaks, and the Sentry comments on her looks with a furrow to his brows, the moon no help for her here, “You seem… paralyzed with… amazement almost…” he shakes his head, moving his attention back to his daughter that lives- she lives. “You can take my carriage with us back to the palace-”
“Dad, I’d- I’d like to stay here for the night, please.” Eleonora watches with wait- she could see her mother, she could see her if he just would let her leave, because even the queen doesn’t come this close to her family, to the ache and hope and destitution of destiny she feels for them. He nods his approbation. “Very well, we will bunk together.” His smile is sickly like a father as he looks to her and instructs, “Eleonora, you may take my carriage back to your palace for safe travel.” “Palace,” she parrots, incredulous and credulous with her eyes of a deer. “Why yes, unless you also want to stay here in the village-” He’s amused when she exclaims, “No! No, I’d-” She swallows with some embarrassment tickling her fingers at her fervor. With an inhale, she relays, “I’d love to see my mom.” He nods with a muse of his lips, rubbing his daughter’s arm as he says, “Yes, I think that is a mighty fine reason.”
She does not care and hustles to the carriage, intent on reaching the interior of the wooden box he stole from some merchant after finding out the news- he was near the bawdy house, if Eleonora can remember, but she doesn’t care because she can see her mother, watch her mother be something here. She needs to get used to this, to knowing stuff the king would’ve been, and now going through him directly, but she cannot care completely when she can find her mother in a palace of technology, of the staggering height of glass. She can have her mother in the land of her home- of Eleonora’s home, of the ink on pages. She can be okay here.
The carriage, something she’s never had, is open on the top, a cover drawn down, so it looks mostly like a cart with wheels, a man on a horse lugging nothing but a stray base for seating. This isn't for sitting or traveling though; it’s for work, it’s loaded with hay for a job, but Eleonora doesn’t care as much as she should, sitting onto it with her silk covering most of the prickled hay. Luckily, the king is the one to close her door, help her into the area and look up to her with something she’s not felt here, something familiar she’s not used to- solicitousness. “It’s not the best of arrangements, but I do think you’ll make it home safe, albeit in a ragged path.” He looks, in the moon, alight, not as scary as he turned out to be in the books. Well, he wasn’t scary until after his forbidden daughter died, but looking at him now, Eleonora finds it devastatingly hard to find him scary when he can get everything, he wants without anyone’s tongue on his teeth. His hands move against the carriage, after locking the piece into place he moves to flip the back of the cover up, leaving it to partly hide her in the darkness of the hay and moon.
He’s a great father; Eleonora knew it the first moment she picked up the book, but she also knew her mother was a great mother, just in the wrong time, just always caught up in what she could’ve been, had for only a moment and could never get more of. “Thank you,” she whispers after a moment of adoration, of memorizing every bit of his features that the author described as something holy among the land below the moon and stars. She didn't get it until she saw him here, saw how his face is soft under the moon and kind under the star, she didn’t get it until she heard him speak in a voice that was deep but never bereft of emotion. It’s why he could be scary, was petrifying because he himself was petrified with rage. He’s not scary though, not to her, and not in this timeline- wherever this timeline is, wherever here is. What has she done?
He taps the carriage with commanding regards, “Safe travels and save hope.” The man who’s on the horse starts the carriage, wet thunks **of hooves hitting against the ground as the vehicle rocks into start. She watches only for a moment as the king sets her off, and she realizes he’s just as eager as her to see what he can have; what they can have here in this book. She’s soon faced with the night of the town, of what was described as something barren but hopeful, of what she could only feel; the ache of her chest as her heart beated alone, only the sheets as her companion as she read and read and read and cried- not for the books, but for the fact this was all there was to her; the world was shit even in books, but it was a different world, it was different. There’s not much light, but what is illuminated is by the heaty orange of the candles surrounding streets and decorating ceramic animals for lighting. There’s a lot of walkways, even if there’s barely any cement and only rocks above grass; there’s still some way for people to get around on wheelchairs for the smooth flatness of the rocks found out near creaks and forgotten land that was nothing to the people in charge.
She’s a person in charge. Orator is her mother- her mother, no one else’s. No one but her and she, not one but her mother and her as her daughter. Eleanor finally gets it- the it that her mother was in her stories, reminiscing and waiting for even a bit of good to find her future, a bit more freedom, solitude with others. Eleonora should’ve called when her mother wanted; Eleonora should’ve been something to her mother. She doesn’t remember completely the book’s positions, but she does recall the places that differ from those in charge, with even a lick of power and those without. Even in books, power does not aid the people. She’s greeted with the place of her mother’s though, the shift of the rocks finding cement and the raise of candles to lights of electricity, brightening what looks to be pillars of brick homes- castles, would be more befitting. Everything looks higher, encroaching on an old modern feel as the carriage wobbles against the now-cement road. There’s something about it, something that makes her peak her head further out of the top covering, espying the barren parts of town that sleep during the night the moon rises. The carriage stops actually, just as she espies a decent house, one that looks like all the others but with red door rather than brown or black or any greyed or whitened color to show- Eleonora really doesn’t know, but she wants to say how lifeless power makes someone, how one lick of it makes someone want it for all eternity, to look down on others, to have a foot imprinted on someone for all eternity.
Her mother she can’t picture as that, so when the carriage stops and she sees the bloodied red of the door, she knows her mother is home; she knows her mother is everything she was in her stories and she doesn’t care to leave her anymore, to hate her for what she was to her, for letting her leave without her only person; her mom. Eleonora is the one to step out of the carriage, so rushed she scrapes her fingers on the wood and shakes as she unclips the carved lock from the latch, stumbling further to find her mother inside her home. Of course, she does let it slam back and attempt to hold it together, but she gives up for the appearance of her dress. Her mother has always said that she doesn’t care how she looks, that she’s her daughter and no matter what it can’t be worse than baby’s shit on her own clothes, but Eleonora has never stopped seeking her mother, what her mother swore she was and who Eleonora could’ve been had- had the world not been the world.
Her, the world is distant, and Eleonora is in silk that the cotton of the man on the horse could not afford. She pats the few grass blades away and lets the stain be so she can fidget with the thickness of her hair and maybe tidy it as she walks up to the steps, pushing it behind her ears before she finally knocks. Her slippers stick to the ground of cement before the door opens and her mother is there in all her glory, like an angel with the sun of the lights inside surrounding her, emulating the image she created. Her hair is down, cut into a bob but sharing the same thickness of hers, the same pattern and darkness of shade, and her outfit is like hers as well brown with silk yet not as stained with the health of the planet. She has that same round face with grown jowls that weren’t as prominent as before, but her dark circles are gone, and there’s more melanin to her skin, a deep gold that the lights could never aid to; her mother is healthy here. Her lips wobble as she speaks, but she does so anyway with a scream, what feels like a scream even if it sounds more like an exclamation with her eyes of warm tears, “Ma!”
Her face scrunches, not so much in indignation as much as there’s concern drowning her features, the callouses to her hands almost completely gone as she rubs the supposed dirt off of Eleonora’s cheek. “Finally, you show; come on in, it’s cold.” She’s shaking, but not form the air, from whatever is going on outside, btu from what’s inside, from the ache she feels as she slips her feet off of the cement and into the house, refusing to let herself from her mother as she collapses into her arms, grabs her back like she might fade away, or fade into her. She is a part of her mother after all; she’s never not going to have a part of her mother that she won’t want. “I missed you for supper, too,” she laughs out with her own hand finding the silk of her covered back. She moves from the similar height of her mother, parting from her neck to look up at her. Eleonora smiles so deeply it hurts her face, pains her cheeks as she feels her breath catch her, the tears clouding her eyes. There’s another voice that rings without her mother’s, “Must’ve been starved with just tears as feed.”
It’s her aunt she finds when she looks to the white arch of the doorway, nursing a cup of what smells like chamomile; incapable of not letting the soft calmness graze her teeth. Her hair is up in the back, a few wisps of black falling from her low, messy bun. She’s not with the curls of Eleonora or her mother, but she does have the healthy thickness of it, a few strands covering strips of her face from how thick it is, btu she does have the wear of silk, though a bit more of a burnt orange. She parts nominally from her mother, asking, “Auntie -? What are you doing here?” Her bushy browns scrunch as if offended, parroting the word back to Eleonora, “Auntie?” Her mother seems even more offended, which was always their dynamic, never ones for their own defense, but biting for others’, “Eleonora that’s no way to address your mother.”
Her eyes widen, looking between her mother’s hazel eyes. “Mother? Isn’t it just you?” Her mother’s eyes accost her as she informs with as much light as she can to a twenty-four-year-old. “No, it’s both of us, has been since the day you were born. Did you-” When her eyes trail too fair, she almost screams in a way Eleonora did not, “Oh my Gods, blood! Are you- what happened, Nora?” She missed it, that way her mother looks at her now, the way she called her a name no one else did just like Eleonora called her mother. It feels right here, even with her aunt it feels right because there was never not a time her father’s sister wasn’t around, of course, she never met the man, so it worked perfectly; she was raised by a village that loved her.
She shakes her head, already finding remembrance again, a piece of her mother she can finally grasp, “I’m fine Ameisha was hurt is all.” Her aunt is near her without her cup, and instead her wrist to touch her flat forehead. “And who is this, Ameisha?” She says with a tone of askance intrigue, pulling her wrist back to reveal the sharpness of her features, the care that still finds them in a book of all places. “Um, she’s…” She loses her words, turning back to her mother to see her eyes still there, her touch still just a fraction away- and she hugs her, hugs her tighter because she doesn’t think she ever did it right in the first place. She never got to hug her mother after moving countries to start a life she regrets she could’ve had there no matter how difficult it was for her mother, and would’ve been for her with that assumption. She could’ve hugged her mother more if she stayed. hugs her mother again instead of answering.
“Oh honey,” her mother whispers, and her aunt even finds her back with her hand in a way she knew it to feel, even after shifts at the hospital, she found a way to find her at the end of everything, albeit more ephemeral than she can remember here. “I think it’s best to get to bed, c’mon, mother will help you with cleaning.” She untangles from her mother as much as she doesn’t want to, feels the pain in her eyes double form even a breath being shared to part them, but she parts and looks to her aunt. Her aunt who was her mother’s roommate all this time, her mother’s lover.