Larien Arcamenel was enjoying the day out in her garden. The days were getting warmer and she had to clear out the old debris to make way for the new sprouts and plantings. She always enjoyed puttering about in her garden. Larien knew that her body would rebel against the strain that she would put on it by pulling weeds and planting, but to see the new beds with green growth was worth it to her. She was already thinking ahead to when the perfume from the flowers would permeate the soft summer breezes and warm nights with their heady fragrances. The herbs would be used for her Angels to heal and help keep them healthy. The vegetables always tasted better fresh from the garden than purchased in the marketplace. If her crops were plentiful, Larien would be able to give those to her neighbors in need or take them to the tavern for Earnest and Carl to use. She gathered her baskets and gardening tools from the planting shed and looked over the garden area to decide where she should start first: flowers, vegetables, or herbs.
As Larien started working in the herb beds, she let her mind drift back to earlier days and the celebration the Angels had at the Diova Gruss. The Angels had been excited about beating Corvintheus and his army. She felt saddened that she had to be the one to tell them the true nature of the battle and the real reason that Corvintheus was fighting in the first place. Although she knew that Corvintheus brought this sorrow to her friends by his righteous greed and impatience, she still felt responsible for having to be the one to possibly change their thoughts about him as a demi-god.
Why would Corvintheus fall so far from grace, from the demi-god that all knew or thought him to be? Larien had a problem trying to figure out the difference between what she knew of the demi-gods and what she saw take place on the battlefield. The demi-god Corvintheus is about protection, courage and honor. He watches over those who uphold his virtues and pay blessings honoring him. Knights and paladins religiously believe in his teachings and follow him devoutly. By following him, the knights express a belief in chivalry and spending their lives protecting those around them with their strength, both through their battles and by their will. Corvintheus teaches that the “Road of the Warrior” is filled with many difficult choices which define the course of one’s development. It is important that they understand the ways of the world so they can guard themselves from false temptation. False temptations! It seemed to Larien that he might be the one to fall into his OWN false temptations.
These thoughts were all going through Larien’s mind as she continued to pull weeds and turn the soil. One particularly hard, deep-rooted weed was resisting Larien’s attempts to free it from the herb bed. After digging deep and giving it another firm tug, Larien felt the weed explode out of the earth, sending dirt up into her face and onto her arms. While it startled her, it also brought back the memory of a picture in her mind – the flash of blinding white light on the battlefield! Corvintheus and Aurelius were both there fighting before the flash and both were gone after it. Larien tried to remember exactly what happened on that battlefield. Something was teasing her memory.
She sat back on her heels and closed her eyes, her hands resting on her knees, her body stilled and trance-like. She took herself back to that day on the battlefield. Larien felt the sun beating down on her skin, the weight of her healing bag over her shoulder, her clothes sticking to her body. She closed her eyes in anticipation of what else she would remember, her heartbeat increasing its tempo. She could smell the sweat from fighting soldiers and the stench of dead bodies slowly decaying on the ground around her. She heard the clash of metal sword blades hitting other blades, other weapons, and other body armor. She winced remembering the OTHER battle sounds – the cries of those in pain and those dying! She shivered at her cruel and haunting memories in spite of the warm sun caressing her skin. Someone, she couldn’t remember who it was, was fighting Corvintheus, and as his sword blade thrust into the demi-god, she remembers seeing his image flicker between that of the demi-god Corvintheus and that of the Rebel Aurelius. Then came the immense ball of energy and the blinding flashes of white light. In the blink of an eye, Corvintheus was gone and so was Aurelius. She looked, as did other army members, and no one was able to find the bodies of either man lying anywhere on the battlefield. As Larien sat in the dirt in thought, she felt that it had something to do with the flickering images. WAIT! That was it!!! Flickering images! The Corvintheus that the Angels battled was not the real demi-god but had to be Aurelius in some magical disguise. Why had she not noticed this before now? If the Corvintheus battling his people, her Angels, was the magical reincarnation of his image and was really controlled by Aurelius, the message that was being sent to the people of Valeria and the Castle Angels now made sense. Wasn’t that the same message that they heard the Rebel Aurelius speak when the Angels battled him many months ago? Oh, the pieces all began to finally fall perfectly into place.
Larien shook herself from her memories and went back to her garden. She now had to contemplate what she should do with this new insight to their battle. Should she keep it to herself, share it with the people, or share it with just the Council members? As she dug at the weeds under the warmth of the sun that afternoon, she battled with herself as to her next course of action, taking her frustration out on the weeds. Larien decided that, for the time being anyway, she would keep it to herself and momentarily wait. Since no Angels had lost their lives and those injured were healing well, she felt that it was alright to keep her thoughts to herself before revealing them to anyone else.
She continued working until the shadows from the surrounding trees grew longer, stretching their shadowy branches across her completed herb beds. Larien knew it was time to clean up. As she slowly stood, her back stiff from bending, she perused her handiwork. The beds were all cleared and looked inviting, waiting for the coming plants that would fill in the bare places. The baby sprouts now had room to grow and spread out. Yes, this was a good day’s work. Maybe one more day of work in the flower and vegetable beds and she would be done. Larien took several trips carrying her filled baskets to the far back corner of the garden and threw the weeds into the fenced area. She would let nature do Her work over the next year, after which she should have some lovely new earth for next years’ plantings. She stored the tools back into the shed for the next use and went into the house.
Galeran Glen with its warm waters and soothing surroundings beckoned to Larien’s spirits and stiff body. What a wonderful ending to her day of strenuous work! She packed up a change of clothes and set off for her oasis. It had been a few days since her last visit to her little piece of heaven on earth. It was also the one protected place that she could go to which few could find their way. That was due, in part, to the magical properties of the glen that dated back to when she was a little girl. Her father, Farren Arcamenel, knew early in Larien’s life that she would need a place to call her own that was safe and protected from evil influences and where she could go for peace and healing. He also had placed it between the lands of her people and the Castle Angel’s Keep so that she could visit the glen no matter where she was – with either her elven people or the humans. And Larien, over the years, continued to keep Galeran Glen safe from outsiders. She could literally count on one hand the number of people that actually knew their way to her special glen – her brother Finn, Zigaroth, and Mark. They were also the only ones that had been granted the ability to see the special portal leading to the glen from Wildon Woods.
Today, as Larien journeyed to her glen, she missed having her father around so she could go to him for guidance. She really needed to ask his opinion on how she should handle her insight to the battle between Corvintheus and the Angels. While she lost her father during the Dragon Wars, she still remembered him as a wise and understanding man, a just and noble king, and a warm and loving father. There was rarely a day that went by when she did not think of him and wonder what he would do or say if he were faced with the questions being posed in her life and the guidance she gave. She wanted to be like him – understanding, wise, just, noble, strong, and well-loved. Larien hoped that, given time, those people that looked to her for leadership and advice would compare her favorably to her father, King Farren.
As she made her way through Wildon Woods to the portal that would take her to the glen, she noticed that the sun was getting ready to set. While Larien could not see the sun sink into the horizon, she could see the effects of its actions. It was painting the clouds’ undersides with tinges of pale gold at their centers, then blending that into pinks from light to dark, and finally feathering the clouds’ edges with a pale purple. It made the clouds so exquisite and they seemed to glow with their own life force as they changed with the setting sun, their colors intensifying. This color of sunset always made Larien smile. When she was a child, whenever the sky and clouds were this exact color, her father would always ask her what the color of the sky was. He would tease her when she told him that the sunset was “sky-blue-pink” by telling her there was no such color as sky-blue-pink. Larien would always tell him that there was too and all he needed to do was look up at the sky and it was painted there for him and the world to see.
When the sky’s colors were at their most intense deep blues, pinks, and purples, she broke from the woods and into her special getaway place – Galeran Glen. Larien stood transfixed as her eyes took in the glen. It did not make a difference how often she came here. It always seemed to be able to take her breath away and Larien could find new pleasures. It could be as simple as the way the sun reflected off the water, or a new flower pointing its head through the moss, or a butterfly gracefully hovering in the air. It was a source of healing for her, whether it was for her body, her mind, or her soul. She could come here and let the tranquility soak into her very being. Here she could be free. She could be Larien; just a woman without titles, without worries, without responsibilities, without a past, and without a future. To her, it was a haven where time stood still and nothing existed beyond Galeran Glen.
Tonight the sky, in its sky-blue-pink glory, was reflected in the water pools giving back a mirrored image to the lazy clouds. The clouds looking down from their vast heights could see just how beautifully unique they had become, transformed by the setting sun. Their images rippling in the water gave them a special and unique motion, their colors blending together in the water. Even in the fading light she could make out the rock formations that formed the waterfalls that surrounded the pool and protected the glen’s secrets. Time and the cascading waters had worn the rock faces smooth and covered those not directly under the falls in thick layers of verdant green moss. Small blue and yellow flowers grew in the crevices giving splashes of color over the rock formations. Larger bushes and plants in pinks and reds and oranges grew where the rocks were bare of moss and their roots could find rich soil. Sometimes when Larien came, the sun would be shining at just the right angle, reflecting prisms of rainbow colors which danced all around the falls as if the fairy folk themselves were dancing between the droplets, playing tag. The honey bees could be heard buzzing around the flowers, and the butterflies floated effortlessly in the air. The falls themselves held a secret, too. There was actually a chamber-like area behind it where you could sit and think or stand and bathe without being seen from the waterfall pool. Larien smiled to herself thinking of all the times she would disappear and her father didn’t know where she went – or so she liked to think.
For now, she climbed the rock steps to the largest rock. This was dubbed her “thinking rock”. It was covered with a thick mossy cushion and large enough for her to do whatever she wished – contemplate life, dry off in the sun after a swim, sleep if she were tired, or lie down and look at the sky and watch the clouds make formations of rabbits or birds or other things on a lazy, sunny afternoon. She also liked this boulder because part of it was close enough to the edge of the waterfall that she could reach her foot or hand out and let the water run over it before hitting the still waters beneath and the other part jutted out over the pool making her feel like she were floating on an island. The sound of the running water was calming to her spirit, its flow like a heartbeat - slow, steady, and constant as it made its way down the rocks and into the pool. Sometimes she would go behind the falls so she could watch her world through the curtain of water, pretending she was playing hide and seek with the fairy folk dancing on their rainbows.
Larien needed to stretch her body and relax the tension she felt from the day’s gardening. She stood at the water’s edge and slowly disrobed. She took her time, letting each garment fall from her fingertips to cascade around her feet. She reveled in shaking the worries and cares and tensions with each garment piece she removed. She lifted her face to the darkening sky and closed her eyes trying to clear her mind and relax her muscles. She felt free! This was Larien’s time. She stepped to the edge of the rock overlooking the pool, raised her arms in a diver’s stretch, and dove into the water, her body slicing through the dark waters without a splash, without a sound to disturb the early nightfall.
created originally 5 September 2011
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