Sacrifice, 1912 words,
http://www.gaiaonline.com/guilds/viewtopic.php?page=1&t=18372709#239954293SuccesionMy dear May,
Do not find me hasty for writing you this letter so soon. I know very well you’ve never set eyes on written words yet. I am aware if I were to give you this letter now you would merely snatch the paper out of my hands, drool on the ink, and giggle at the running words. Do not think me arrogant either. I do not claim to be anything grandiose, but this sacrifice, it is bigger than life. I will not accept to forget it, not completely at least, or I may come to believe I was not a good father and that’s all I have now. I do hope one day you will choose to recognize what I have given you.
I was once a king, and once the leader of a utopist anarchy. When I met your mother, it had become an epic tale we nostalgically fed on. This utopia is a gift, passed down from generation to generation and can only be exclusively owned by one immediate generation at a time. Some Generations around the world never get the slightest peek at the blooming seasons of Koriania. These poor people become spoiled with the reality in which I must soon embark. Others, who have tasted the nectars of Koriania’s fair cities, sometimes enter this other strange reality and grow to believe stubbornly that it is the only true reality. When this latter reality spoils you, you start having delusions that other people are your property and you may control them as you wish. They proclaim themselves Gods in such a stagnant existence.
There is a man I knew; he went by the name Gavin. He never got to visit Koriania yet never proclaimed himself anything anyways. Instead, the latter reality spoiled him by making him a martyr. He, unlike sterile Generations, had the chance to inherit Koriania only, the generation he was begot from was in a way terrifyingly greedy. It’s as though this man never had latter reality parents. They were holding onto Koriania and he had no choice but to survive in the reality I must now venture into.
But I am fortunate; I have had the privilege of ruling over Koriania. Slowly building its universe with bits and pieces that were provided to me, the never-ending plains of Lawn and the blue horizon tainted the latter reality to a point where it became nowhere to be found. Koriania was a land inconceivable to latter reality folk, from its castles in the sky, to the secret conclaves of the woods, the breeze that would venture to the salty oceans of the south, trailing the freshwater rivers feeding the land, the lakes and waterfalls at the bottom of Treasure Chasm, all the way north where it could get chilly and blizzards could keep me suspended the time for me to sleep. All this was mine, my home… The weather was, as you wanted it to be. The adventures were exactly and more than anything you could imagine on a whim. The Korianians were just as you wished them to be also.
I would bring all my latter reality toys to the world of Koriania. Your grandparents were obsessively fond of purchasing heaps of toys for my brother and I. I would skip about the crown city of Oneiron hand in hand with an airy spirit and a giant plush lion when out from behind the candy store my parents would materialize, beaming as always. They would have a curious demeanor though, hiding their hands behind their backs. “We have a surprise,” they would announce holding their breaths. They would pull out before me a plastic toy sword that glistened as the vibrant sun’s rays dueled with it and a new teddy bear that grew the size of the lion as it was set on the ground and blinked as it took its first magical breaths. I would scurry to my parents and they would eclipse from my arms as grand ideas filled my head beyond the rim with things to do with my new friend. I would later dub him my first knight of Oneiron, and I christened him Sir Caramel.
My brother enjoyed observing the way I would thoroughly explore Koriania. He was the Deity of Oneiron city, and from the top most tower of my estate I’d look back at his grinning-self hovering about the wooden rooftops. My people would wave at him from the streets all through the day but he only had eyes for me. He appeared quite distant, as though disconnected and disembodied from Koriania, but everyone prayed to him no matter. When the yellow dawn would seep through my bedroom window I would wake up. The first thing I would do is walk to the window; open it to let the adventurous breeze roll onto me. It smelled of dreams and carried with it all the odors of Koriania. It seemed to generate from one place, my brother, who still hovered spot in the middle of town. I would smile at him, shut my eyes, and breath in the fresh new day.
As I mentioned before, in Koriania I could do with everyone whatever my heart desired. I did not realize the rule did not apply at all costs. I could not control those who came to Koriania but came from elsewhere. I had brought Sir Caramel to the latter reality school for show and tell one spring. I had managed to get a few friends interested in my favorite knight. Of course I believed I was still in Koriania, looking at the latter reality with Korianian eyes and through Korianian atmosphere. I optimistically brought one of my friends to my beautiful world that very twilight, just after the banquet my parents had prepared. At school I had always been to the highest mountains of Koriania with him, so he shared my fortune (I don’t know what has happened to him afterwards, if he’s found the latter reality, if it has spoiled him), and I thought he might enjoy the hospitality of the magnificent town where Sir Caramel was from. It took only a few moments, we’d only just set foot in Oneiron and my brother caught a misery-complected expression. He was actually quite frustrated. The skies came in somber around him like a whirlpool. I had not ordered a storm and the situation embarrassed me greatly in front of my friend. I was forced to ask my Deity what plot drove him to do what he was doing and he merely whispered though the entire land could hear him in echoes, “Why did you bring that idiot here? You mustn’t let anyone inside Koriania!” I was forced to cast my friend away, beyond any rational reason, but my brother was my lord and in Koriania you accepted the irrational.
I became quite fearful about bringing anyone back here, anyone I met in the latter universe at least. A lot of people felt I became quite disconnected but I saw and felt nothing, and nor did my parents who were often interviewed by the school about my behavior. They could not help me and I didn’t need their help. I cared nothing for all the nonsense because I could find solace in the welcoming arms of the Korianians.
I grew even more apart as a teenager. Lord knows my hormones were butchering me up, and though shady areas made their appearance inside my universe, it was still through Korianian eyes that I observed the latter reality. I had no friends outside Koriania but I was happy. What did the latter world have more to offer than Koriania? Nothing. I could live there forever, with my people, my parents, and Gavin.
Or so I thought I had Gavin, until the day I woke up to the bright sun, smelled the honey scent from the land and the fragrance of lies on the empty Oneiron rooftops. My brother had disappeared, exhausted from the too tangible latter reality he had to endure and unable to find enough morsels of Koriania for me and for himself. My parents were devastated by their loss. With their sobs ringing like church bells I finally started to truly understand what had happened to Gavin, what they had done to him. I started then to decay from the wretched pain of the latter reality, there where the air is harder to breathe.
I had to open up to this reality’s population because I had to leave my wretched parents and I would die out there alone. I completed my education, got a career not too discoloring, and met, whether by chance or destiny, another fellow Korianian. She was actually a Landarian, but I introduced her, after years of keeping my world a secret under Gavin’s rule, to my fertile universe. We shared bits and pieces of each other’s worlds, together free from distress, and out of this exchange you were born.
My guardian was like another Generation to me and only now can I appreciate his sacrifice. Had he not abandoned all his scraps of Koriania to me I would have been left with sterility. Had he not sacrificed his life to me I may have made the same mistake my parents made and never give you, in turn, this world that you deserve. This world that you need.
I will probably be confined to the latter reality once your mother and I gift you Koriania, in which case I will forget but vague adventures of my childhood. While I do my best to keep from falling down in this agony, while I work day and night to condition myself to this strange world so you can survive it too one day, I will look to you for solace. Your smiles and laughs will ring the air and shine on me like the rays of the lively Korianian sun. You will never have the burden of supplying Koriania to your future brothers and sisters as Gavin did because while your mother and my Generation will have surrendered our universe and left without a crumb of any of it, you and your siblings are each born with it in your hearts. You will have the duty though, and I will make you swear an oath on it, that you will surrender it at your turn to your own children when the time will come. Believe me May, it is no easy decision to make and no easy thing to do, but I’ve decided to have you and I have the responsibility to hold no greed. Your grandparents ignored the consequences of their actions but I will not. I think I forgive them now for it is an unbelievably heartbreaking thing to do, but I love you more than everything in Koriania. I know you will love it there. Hopefully, in the later years of our lives, when Koriania comes to us from the shining warmth of our grandchildren, we can find ourselves transported once again. I think it’s where I would like to retire once you are old enough. Surely you will understand by the time you read this letter.
In any case, I’m still holding onto Koriania right now but the moment I will seal this letter it will evaporate from my soul and mist into yours and the reign of Queen May of Koriania will commence.
With love transcending worlds,
Your beloved father
