AUTHOR NOTES: I wrote this back in 2003 for my original website. I am just reposting for prosperity.
GARDENS OF ELYSION
“I awoke one night and was overwhelmed by the bed of blue and lavender rosepetals that I found myself in, with him by my side. It was right then when a flash came to me… a flash from my past, not the past of now…. but the past of yesteryear. The past that I had only begun to remember…”
Strange is it not? How sometimes it is the little things that trigger the hidden memories, the ones from your past. Not the past you have lived not that long ago, but the past of another life, another time. In my case it was upon this very planet, this star planet, what was once known as the Elysion Kingdom, now known as simply Earth.
One of my earliest memories, and still is, are the times I spent with my family, my father, my mother, and my brother – Endymion. I remember when I was still so very young, my brother and I would go to a special part of the palace gardens, this was our own little ‘special area’ where we were able to roam free and enjoy that little part of our lives where we are not swept into the holds of royal duties.
Amongst the rose beds were my personal favorite blue and lavender roses. Once in a while a perfect rose would be in bloom and Endymion would go and pluck that perfect rose and tease me with it, but in the end he would decorate it in my partially pulled back hair making sure that there no thorns upon it, say how one day I would be ‘as pretty as mommy’.
Endymion and I very were close since we were so young and as we grew older we still kept that youth within us for a time. We were never afraid to act young once in a while, just as long as we would continue to be that way for years to come.
Mother was precious to me, I hardly ever saw her during the day, for it were the generals and the nursemaids that I had for company, but every night, before I would go to sleep she would come to my room and sing me a special lullaby, one that the both of us would know. Even now, I could still hear her voice, soft and gentle as the cool spring breeze, that is how I know, that even now, thousand years later she is there watching over me with a smile upon her face, the same soft smile I remember from so many years ago…
Father was the one that taught me the intricacies of the sword. He knew how I would watch the generals and my brother many times alone, and once in a while with the Lords from the Moon Kingdom, and my clear longing to train with them. Though I was happy with the element of dance, it was not the same. No clear competition, no where to go but down, for I was already at the top and showed no signs of faltering.
And so begins my life at Elysion, no knowledge of the kingdom from whence I came, for the family I was with, was my family and always will be.
‘What is a name? A Rose by any other name would smell as sweet’ – Shakespeare
So would it really matter if I were not from Elysion? I would still be same child by any other way, would I not?