The petals of its wings are wind-blown and bruised, buffeted by an unexpected sea-crossing. I hold it carefully, balanced on the bridge of my nose as he cross the low-tide strait that separates Ischia from Tephra, and only when we have reached the shore do I allow it to find a more comfortable spot clinging to the long blue-violet strands that hand over my shoulder. I hadn’t wanted to risk drowning one of Isilya’s flower birds, and the relief I feel at having returned it (mostly) unharmed to the kingdom where she lives is strong.
Papa has told me I am too young to answer the summons that the bird had carried. I am one year old, I had retorted, I could answer anything I wanted!
(I hadn’t really wanted to, but being forbidden made it seem all the more alluring. Even Daddy’s disappointed look as I trotted off toward the sea to return the flower had not been enough to give me pause.)
Now, though, now that I am standing on the beach and staring up at a volcano that is much larger than it had been in my childhood memories, I grow hesitant. I am very good at ruling our tiny island (even if Aureus and Barley never listen to my commands), but this place is far from tiny. My earliest memories are of these Tephran jungles, and yet as I make my way through the forest I find that little of those half-remembered memories match this place. Perhaps it is my vantage point, I think, and try lowering my antlered head to where it might have been as a child. No, that’s not it either.
Before I can determine what it might be, I’ve found Isilya. Or she has found me? Magicians are tricky, sometimes, but I have only ever heard benevolent stories about this one.
“Hello!” My greeting is perhaps overloud, shouted from the edge of the copse, but I nod very politely when I am a little closer. “I’m Asena! I found your bird and Its wing is a little bit torn so I brought it back to you!”
The more important task complete, I decide it is time to launch into the speech I have prepared on my way over from my home in the Tephran territory.
“Also I think I could be a good queen! My daddies said no BUT they have also told me that I am brave and stubborn and headstrong” (the two latter are listed as proudly as the first), “and also I can make flower birds too! Well, almost.” At her words, a flock of them burst from a nearby bush, shades of red and orange like the hibiscus they emerged from. They flutter about Asena’s head, and she recalls her last, but perhaps most glowing, endorsement. “AND I talked to a fairy. Not just one time but twice!”
@[Isilya]
A S E N A
i’d rather run the other way
than stay and see the smoke and who’s still standing when it clears