Synopsis: Content with living in solace amidst the beauty of her Flora, Myria has escaped the curse of immortality and now enjoys a peace that she is not entirely sure she deserves.
Chapter 1: Spoiler: 1 The gardens bloomed under the descending light of the orange sun. The bright green carnations opened widely to grasp the last remaining light of the day. Behind them, rested in the dissipating warmth of the sun lied a group of roses. They were splendid plants, Myria thought loudly. Sitting on the beat-up porch on a dirt brown rocking chair, the green-yellow and velvet landscape opened before her. The vast sea of flowers, trees, and bushes clashed and fused under the orange glint of the sun that hovered just below the horizon. The orange tint of the sun shone most brightly on the bed of velvet flowers near her beloved Chrysanthemum flowers. Sprinkled around the empty patches of land lied the Green Trick Dianthus’, they covered the landscape and to Myria, made the colors of the other flowers more pronounced. Myria had always adored her flower garden and had through the years been taken with their upkeeping. Her small cabin adorned in a myriad of flowers was filled to the brim with shelves of red, white and blue concoctions to aid the growth of her flora. Most of her day was taken with the making of these concoctions, but she would always make time at the end of the day to sit on her porch and view the setting sun. Sitting on the rocking chair with a small blanket covering her frail frame, Myria sipped on a cup of warm tea as she enjoyed the silence of her garden. The solitary life she led on this small hill was one that had suited her, or at least that was what she comes to believe. She hadn’t always been this frail in stature and with peace at mind. But it was a state that she was content in continuing. Her flower garden was well-known amongst the people of Revia. The large port city that lied just below her hillside home. The city had grown vast under her eyes and the walls had widened to near gargantuan limits. For Myria, the repercussions of such an increase of inhabitants was an experienced she had grown to despise. Her flower garden had become a tourist spot for the romantic youths of the city, a place of wondrous colors to walk through as they indulged in the companionship of their adored. At first, she had vehemently denied any person to enter her vast flower garden, but as time had changed her core personality, so had the vehemence she felt for others and finally, she had relented to the garden becoming a spot for the youths of the city and its surrounding communities. She had lived inside her small cabin home for a long time and had enjoyed the solace only found in being surrounded by beauty and silence. But now she found herself once again adjusting to the change in scenery. The small voices of passioned youths and the laughter of children as they journeyed her collection of flora with their parents had introduced a new form of solace into her being. Pride in the flora she had collected and now let adorn her garden of tranquillity. She had known pride before, but one it was only found in the displaying of her craft. She had changed, but so would anyone after the life that she had led. She sipped her cup of tea, still hot and radiating vapor. The silence of the late afternoon garden was a welcome treat after the vast amount of people visiting earlier that morning. She didn’t know why no one was around right now but nonetheless was glad that no one was. She closed her eyes and leaned back on her rocking chair and let the silence take her. She felt the faint kiss of the wind on her cheeks and the occasional singing of swallows atop the trees of her garden home. She relished in the near-total silence of the garden. That was she did until shouting was heard near the bed of salvias to her far right. She was annoyed but didn’t feel the need to stand and shout at them for silence. And yet, as two voices continued their bouts of shouting, she stood up with a reinvigorated vigor that she had not felt for years. Her day had been long and filled with failed concoctions. She had been in a foul mood and today of all days she wished for silence. She tossed aside the blanket that still clung to her waist and stormed towards the two voices that continued. She maneuvered between the various anthuriums and evening primroses until she came to a circular opening with a fountain with no water near the bed of salvias. She saw a young man, no, it was a child of more than fifteen summers she thought, and a girl in that range also. He wore a beat light brown tunic and had his hair in a top knot. He looked somewhat frail, not too dissimilar to her. The pale looking girl wore a yellow dress and had short hair. They hadn’t realized that someone that joined them and looked on with anger. “What do you mean?! How could you do that, Yira? How could you do that to me?!” He said as small droplets of water escaped his eyes. He looked visibly angry, confused and sad. Myria had seen many with that look before. It wasn’t one that she had expected to see here. She quickly turned and decided to hide behind a tall bush to let it cover her frail frame. Just as she had masked herself fully, the girl adorned with a small necklace that she had not seen previously, opened her mouth. “I am doing this for us, Lan.” She said sounding quite meek. “Lan, this is an opportunity of a lifetime! I could join them and become an immortal. They said I have a great talent. I could return and make life better for my family and for us!” She continued, now with a fire in her eyes that was unmistakably one of determination to follow through with her words. Myria now understood why they were shouting and why there hadn’t been that many people in her garden today. A group of would-be immortals must have come to the city and looked for anyone with great talent and they unfortunately for the child named Lan found one in his beloved. It was a sad affair all around, Myria thought. Lan, wiping away the tears from his eyes looked at Yira. “Why can’t they just teach you all of it here? Why do you need to leave the kingdom to be taught how to become an immortal, it doesn’t make any sense!” He shouted, not really at her thought Myria. She was leaving him, maybe forever and maybe for a time. He didn’t know. But Myria did. The girl looked down at her feet and took a deep breath. Myria could feel the girl was about to break into tears but had held herself from doing so. “I’m sorry Lan. But I must and nothing you say will change that. This is my choice and I have decided to follow them to their school.” The boy then quickly walked up to the girl and grabbed her arms with tear covered eyes. “Please, Yira. You don’t need to do this.” He said beseeching her and before the girl could answer, the boy was blasted back into a bush. Soon a man appeared out of thin air next to the girl. He also had a top knot, but instead wore a white robe with a sword resting on his hip. He was good looking Myria thought. “Don’t touch her weakling. She has already told you of her decision, you either accept it or wallow in your own despair.” Myria didn’t like this fellow, he had just ruined her bush to make a point. A point she very much-loathed and found too condescending. But she wouldn’t aid the child, nothing good could come out of that. “Lan!” The girl shouted to the child stuck on the bush. “Why did you have to that to him! He wasn’t going to hurt me!” She shouted at the youth next to her. The youth just smiled at her and then turned to look at the Lan in disgust. “ You don’t know what he could have done. I told you to end it in a public place. Trust me when I say that it never ends well when you do so in a remote location.” The girl just looked at him in anger and ran to Lan stuck in the bush. He soon extricated himself out of the bush and just held out a hand to the girl. He turned his face from her so that she couldn’t see his now slightly bloodied face. “Just leave Yira. Please, just leave.” He said as he turned his back to her. “Lan, please.” She said, now meeker than ever. “We are done here Yira, you’ve already told me that it's over between us. Just leave, I don’t want to see your face right now.” Yria couldn’t hold her tears back and slowly began trudging backward as the tears flowing down. She soon joined the youth but continued to look at Lan’s now turned back at her. The youth now with a smile on his face said. “ You won’t regret this Yira. And you, good of you to know your place.” Yira turned to angerly look at the youth but said nothing. The youth took her arm and soon she was airborne and away from the garden. The sun had now fallen over the horizon and the lonely silhouette of the moon appeared in the sky. The child wiped his tears from his face and turned. He looked up into the sky, towards where he believed them to have gone and once again wept, but this time in the silence surrounded by darkness. Myria felt pity for them. She knew of the heartbreak the girl felt and the betrayal he now wallowed in. But unlike them, she knew their feelings of sadness were to inevitably come to pass, for so was the curse of time. It eroded all things made beautiful and the remorse and sadness of emotions. It had a certain dulling effect. Myria stood there in silence with the youth in hiding, but joint in sadness. Feelings made dull by the time had begun to ache at her and she also wallowed silently in its embrace. She felt both delighted and saddened that she could still feel a touch of the emotions that time had made absent at this point in her life. Soon Myria was taken out of her trance as Lan began moving. He began walking south, not towards the city but instead to the woods. She didn’t know where he was going, as the woods were made uninhabitable by the city government to protect a large amount of wildlife there. Curious, Myria slowly followed but hid in the shadows of the trees and bushes so as not to make him aware of her presence. She found the whole thing silly really, but since she had seen all that transpired, she made sure to see that nothing happened to him there. Lan soon came to a clearing where the woods became visible. There was nowhere for Myria to hide so she waited for him to get over the clearing and enter the woods. Soon he was over it and had entered the vast sea of trees under the guiding light of the pale moon. Myria, not sure where he was going began to feel slightly edgy. She entered the woods and tensed as she found him nowhere in sight. After some walking she found him standing near a cliff edge. He was here to take his own life, and now she had to stop him from doing so. “Stop!” She shouted, hoping that the deafening silence would amplify her voice. She sounded old, and to her ears somewhat defeated. She didn’t realize her voice had begun to sound like this, but quickly laid that aside and focused on the matter at hand. “There’s no reason for you to take your own life. Just walk away from there and we can talk this out okay?” She attempted to sound assuring, hoping that he would walk from there. He turned to look at her. Despite being quite away from him, she could see the tear streak and his defeated face. For some reason that made her angry, she wasn’t sure why. “And why should I? There’s nothing for me here anymore.” He said under his breath. “And why do you care? Who even are you?” He continued. Myria could feel a small tinge of anger in his voice that she knew wasn’t directed at her. “We can talk about all of that if you could just move away from there.” “No. I don’t think I will. Nothing you say will change my mind. So please, just leave.” He said, his voice now removed from the previous anger. She felt nothing but sadness and depression emanate from him. She slowly began to walk towards him. “I won’t. I know what happened Lan. Trust me when I say that the pain you are feeling right now is one that I am all-too-familiar with. Betrayal leaves a wound the heart will have a hard time mending, but mine did. And trust me when I say that yours will too.” Soon she came face to face with the boy, just beside the cliffside. She slowly reached with her hand and took his. “I know it hurts. And I know that what I am telling you will not amend anything that has just occurred. But neither will you free falling to your doom. Trust me when I'm telling you this Lan, time mends all wounds, even those appearing unamendable. So please, just take a step back. This isn’t worth it.” “Okay.” He said defeated, letting her take him a few feet away from the cliffside. Now, a few feet away from the cliffside, Lan embraced Myria and let his tears fall once again. He cries too much, she thought disapprovingly. Under his tight embrace, Myria fished out a tincture from the purse she had on her hip and brought out a small vial filled with a green watery substance. She took hold of Lan’s shoulders and threw the contents of the vial on him. He quickly jumped back and shouted. “What the”. But before he could finish his cursing, he felt the darkness creep up on him and envelop him fully. He fell headfirst on the forest floor. Myria, now standing over the unconscious body of Lan, closed the vial and returned it to her purse. “By the gods what a stupid child he is.” She didn’t know why she had attempted so irately to aid the youth but still felt quite satisfied over the ending of the entire ordeal. She glanced at his body and sighed. “Now let’s get you back to the city.” She grabbed the hems of his tunic and rose into the air. Under the guidance of the pale moonlight, a frail bronze-colored old woman flew over the beaten grey walls of the port city of Revia and in the darkness and ruckus of the night placed the body of a youth near the entrance to a tavern before disappearing into the sky. Now glad that Myria was free of dealing with the child, flew back home to her silent flora covered cabin. She opened the entrance and laid down on her bed just near the door and lied soundly amongst her failed concoctions of the day. She was tired and was quickly taken by the darkness of the night. * With the sun now rising above the horizon, Myria awoke to the small droplets of rays of light penetrating her narrow windows. She awoke, more tired than usual. Typically, she would awake and feel rested, but for some reason today she just felt the weight of her body forcing her to lie on her bed. Still, she had much to take care of, so she stood up and walked over to the well outside her home for some water. She went outside and went around the house, as her backdoor was bogged down by shelves of concoctions. There wasn’t space for her in her small home, but she still found it tolerable. She walked over some small patches of grass to the and entered her back garden, she had two small beds of flowers on her right and left side. In the middle lied the well, made of stone and hung a bucket that collected its contents. Slowly she dropped it into the well, and hearing the bucket land in the water, she collected it and began to wash her face. After washing her face, she went over the right side of her small garden, and plucked a green mint plant and began to chew on it. While doing so, she returned inside and like usual, began working on her concoctions. As time slowly began turning and the drifting voices of people in her garden entered her home, she decided to go outside for some fresh air. She didn’t know for how long she had been working, but as the voices began filling up in her garden, she knew that it was probably noon. She opened her front door and was greeted with the sight of a frail-looking youth. She looked at him in both dismay and shock. The vial had been supposed to wipe his memory of her. It should have succeeded, and yet here stood the youth before her. “Yes? Do you need anything?” She said. Hoping for him to have come for some other reason. Belatedly, she knew it to be unlikely. “ What did you throw on my face, and how did you get over the walls? The gate was shut and no one gets to enter after it has been closed.” Her heart sank. She cursed at her concoction that for some reason didn’t work. They always used to. “ I don’t know what you are talking about, please leave. I have things I need to do.” She said as she began walking away from him. But before she could completely move away from him, he appeared in front of her. “ Move Kid.” She said annoyed. “Make me.” He said in while crossing his arms. Myria looked at him for a second and turned backward instead of moving forward. But like earlier Lan ran in front of her. “Kid, I don’t know what game you are playing, but it’s getting on my nerves. Move. Now!” She said and let a tinge of anger appear in her voice. But the youth did nothing. He just stood there with crossed arms and wearing an apathetic expression on his face. “As I said. I won’t leave until you tell me why and how you did all that yesterday.” Getting quite annoyed, Myria once again turned, but this time the youth did not run in front of her, instead of her up to her and grabbed her frail arm. She turned just as he had tightly grabbed her, and exuding more anger than she had felt as a result of this annoyance, let slip some of her power. Lan, feeling some heat beginning to emanate from her body, looked on in shock as he flew back into a bush once again. Stuck there, he looked at her in absolute shock and fear. Feeling quite satisfied, Myria left him as he attempted to extract himself out of his predicament. She went on with the daily tour of her garden and turned on her senses to see if the youth had followed her. He had not, he must run away in fear she affirmed. Glad to have got rid of him. The day went on as usual. She returned to her cabin home. I began working on her concoctions, especially the one that failed yesterday and sat out on her porch with a blanket and a cup of tea while watching the sunset. Before long she had completely forgotten about the youth and feeling quite satisfied, she slept like a child that day. The next day though, the youth returned. Though this time not in a quest for truth, but on his knees in front of her door. She found him just as she went outside to her well, once again annoyance rose in her. “Kid, I told you to leave me alone.” He said nothing and continued to stand there on his knees. She looked on as her annoyance shifted to anger. “ What is wrong with you, can’t you just leave me alone!” She yelled at him. This time the youth who had looked at her in the eyes, now kowtowed and raised his voice. “Please teach me how to become an immortal like you!” He shouted. Myria looked in annoyance and cursed at herself for not making him forget everything yesterday also. Now it was too late, and no ability or concoctions could remove three days from one's memory. “No.” She said. And moved towards her back garden. He did not rise, nor did he finish his kowtow. He just lied there, face on the ground. He didn’t say anything after that, and Myria just continued on with her business. Though feeling annoyed at his presence before her home, she just decided to ignore him and hope for him to leave. But he didn’t. As Myria attempted to fall asleep, the image of the frail-looking kid in front of her home just haunted her. She couldn’t remove his image from her mind. And once again in annoyance, left er home and seeing the youth still kowtowing shouted. “Leave now! I won’t take any more of this!” But the youth just continued to kowtow. Feeling justified in her anger, Myria let forth a blast for her palm and sent the young man flying. Not caring for whether he still lived, she entered her home. Inside, she began to curse at herself for striking him and feeling quite slighted over her own actions, deeming them shameful ran outside to see if he was well. And he was. Now slightly bloodied, he crawled over and continued kowtowing. Now sooked Myria looked at him in despair. He wouldn’t stop, she thought. He had made mind up about it. She sighed. “Kid. Come back tomorrow and I’ll help you. Please, just leave so I can get some peaceful sleep. Lan raised his head and looked at Myria with a smile. Please don’t smile at me. She thought. “Thank you!” He shouted and with some difficulty raised himself. He bowed a few times and headed back to the city. Myria looked on he wabbled towards the city, deciding not to aid him in the slightest. By the gods, what have I done she thought. I shouldn’t have meddled. Damn this karmic knot, she sighed. After decades of peace and quiet, the heavens had forced her hand once again. She spat on the ground and cursed at the sky. The heavens truly never forgave anyone traversing its outer limits. Silently, Myria went inside and slept. Dreading the karmic curse she had taken upon herself once again. * The next day Myria awoke alert, feeling a presence at her door. She looked at the bright sun entering her windows and heard voices all over her garden. It was noon, and she had overslept. She raised herself with some difficulty and went outside. Lan was there. Now with a shallow scar on his cheek. She looked at him for a minute, as he squirmed silently under her gaze. “I won’t teach you.” She said, and Lan began to turn ashen. He was about to jump to his knees again, but a silent force kept quiet and standing still. “I made a pledge to myself that I would leave that world. That is why I live here. In the middle of nowhere, tending to my plants. Alone.” She said, more as a declaration to herself than to Lan. “The life of a cultivator is a cruel one. And to me, not one worth living.” She said as her eyes turned to the sky. What a worthless life it was, she thought. She turned once again, just as Lan now was able to open his mouth. “Please Ms. Myriel, I need to become an immortal, I need power so that I don’t have to watch my loved ones suffer and disappear again. Please, I beg of you.” He now said with tears in his eyes. She saw herself in those eyes. She saw the tears of a young girl vowing to gain power and the burning carnage created to fulfill it. ”What does power matter when those that you attempt to gain it for are dead. The road to immortality is long, and you will most likely outlive your loved ones faster than you could ever imagine.” She said as images began to cover her mind. She hadn’t thought of them for a long time, her parents. She couldn’t remember their faces, nor could she recall anything of real significance. Sh enow only held in her mind a small collection of pictures. Images of a life, that only reminded her of what she had become. It hurt her, more than she would care to admit. Time was cruel, and having gained more power than she could ever have dreamed of, found it to be wholly useless. She now stood here, alone in the world. No friends and family to share her success with. A success made in the blood of countless people. Lan just looked at her with an ashen face, not saying anything. Her saddened face had made him silent. She continued. ”Would you give up everything for it Lan? Would you forsake that which makes you whole for power?“ She said, pushing him for an answer. She looked at him trying to form words. She hoped he would say no, but she knew better. She always did. Just one reason to make you lose yourself. That was how they made you a cultivator. That was how the heavens would trick the feeble-minded. That was how they had tricked her. ”Yes.” Lan said. ”Yes, I would.” And with that, Myria knew that she had lost. She sighed and knew that nothing said would change his mind. ”I will not teach you, Lan. I had made that promise to myself long ago.” She said and saw the visible sadness appear on his face. But the heavens are cruel, she though. And they will always find a way to gift you the curse of immortality. ”I will not teach you, but I know of someone who might.” She said and turned to walk inside her cabin. She didn’t look at Lan but felt the happiness radiate for him. She wishes she could wallow in it with him, but she couldn't. She wouldn’t. She walked over to a cupboard and opened a drawer. A clean piece of white paper. She put it down on the table and laid down her right hand unto it. She embedded into it some of her will and then folded it neatly. She walked outside and saw Lan with a huge smile on his face. She slowly walked over to him and handed him a piece of paper. ”Deliver this to Rakim in the city of Jutra.” She said and slowly began to walk towards her cabin once again. ”Good luck and may the heavens forbid you from going down this path.” But she knew it wouldn’t. She closed her door before Lan could give his thanks to her. She stood with her back to the entrance and waited until she heard him walk away. Soon he was gone and she returned outside. The garden was now silent once more and Myria wallowed in the knowing despair of having sent a child to his death, just so that silence would once again return to her small garden home.