The Living Kingdom

As the shackles around her wrists were unlocked and fell to the ground, she rubbed at the sore skin, yet couldn’t help but feel that their weight still remained.

“You’re free to go,” the man in front of her said. She paid him no response as he mounted his horse and disappeared down the dirt road with the three other guards. She stood there until the clacking of hooves was long gone.

Only then did she look at what laid in front of her.

The sparsely cloudy, pale blue sky created a backdrop for the sharp mountains, each peak higher than the last. The range went on as far as she could see in each direction, the grays and browns of the rock face seemingly plain, yet somehow inviting. Beckoning.

But it was what sprawled across picturesque green hills, smooth and rolling, that had stolen her breath.

A kingdom, wide and densely packed where it lay across the hills.

The kingdom that ran through her blood, the kingdom that her family once called their own—a kingdom she had never stepped foot in.

Born and raised farther south, she heard tales from her parents of this great living land, of the merciful mountains that shielded from wind and storms, and the generous soil that could sprout even the smallest seed. A land of magic, but only for those whose blood carried traces of its history. Only for its people, its kin.

But those tales quickly became childish bedtime stories when a grave illness struck both her parents and stole them from her. Forcing her to fend for herself from too early of an age, to live and beg on the scum-filled streets as a young child dressed in scraps and barely survive the life she had been thrown into.

Only in the darkest of the coldest nights would she allow herself to remember this place—this magical kingdom, and imagine it was not some far off fantasy. The kingdom whose soil her bare feet now dug into, whose air she inhaled, whose sun touched her face.

She didn’t know that after her sentence was up, she would be dumped in the place she claimed to be born in on her impulsively forged paperwork—perhaps her last subconscious effort at hope. But she supposed it was better than going back to her old, unforgiving streets, back to undignified begging and upturned noses.

It had to be better.

She had been dropped on the border by the prison guards, allowed nothing to her name except the rags that hardly qualified as clothes on her back. Her body ached from the long journey, from the chains shackled to her, the lack of nourishing food.

After spending ten years in the dank, overcrowded prisons of the southern kingdom for the acts of survival she was forced to get herself into as a young adult—thievery and trickery that soon landed her fate in the control of a man she had deceived too many times for his liking—she was used to the soreness. It had grown to become a part of her and she didn’t know who she would be without it.

And now, standing in her kingdom, she realized she didn’t know who she was at all.

But, unbeknownst to her, the living land had recognized her, and magic thrummed beneath her feet.

The trees that lined the dense forest edge she stood on swayed with what she thought was no more than a breeze, but was really a message. From the forest to the rest of the land, that another one of its kin had arrived home.

Without hesitation, and much to her surprise, the ground began to split. A path emerged, opening up right before her eyes as the soil and roots groaned to forge a trail down the hillside to the kingdom. Along the edges, flowers sprouted out of the ground, popping up one by one as the path opened and winded down. And as she watched it happen, she fell to her knees.

Real, it had been real. Her dreams had been real. That far off place her mother wrote and sang lullabies about was real. The Living Kingdom. And its magic had recognized her, her blood, her roots that were planted here long ago, just as the trees’ were.

She sat in the dirt and grounded herself with fistfuls of the fresh soil, not caring that it made her dirtier. She did not know if she would be able to move, let alone stand. But then she felt another breeze, this one more directed and careful. It lifted her to her feet, balancing her.

As she looked back at the sky once again, the clouds began to move and configure themselves into different shapes. One moment they were a large castle with towers and spires; next, they were a book, pages turning in the wind; next, they were a house, small balls of fluff acting as puffs of smoke from the chimney.

And despite the filth covering her skin and the pain in every limb, she started walking.

The flowers bloomed in every color of the rainbow along the dirt path that curved through the vivid grass and down to the valley. Birds chirped above her, conversing amongst the trees, and twigs snapped as a small creature—a rabbit, she pulled the name from her memory—scampered into the path and stood up on its hind legs, wiggling its nose at her scent. When the rabbit smiled and waved at her before scurrying off, she couldn’t help her own smile that danced across her face. Behind her, as she walked, the path closed and once more became trimmed emerald hills.

She could smell the earth around her: the soil and the grass and the wind. And—water. Fresh, crisp water as it bubbled down a small creek that stretched across her path, directly in her line of travel, created by magic. She couldn’t get to it fast enough, couldn’t get on her knees again fast enough to scoop the icy water and drink it. The first taste of home.

Is that where this was? Home?

Perhaps she’d decide later.

She watched, mesmerized, as the water became warm and trailed up her arms on its own accord and scrubbed them clean of the grime that covered her skin, remaining warm as she washed her face. The tiniest fish of different shapes and sizes swam with the current, and the frog sitting on a drenched log croaked so loudly she startled. But she gave the small, slimy creature a wave, as if to return the greeting.

She walked and walked, walked until the winding path straightened and she knew she was deep within the valley. The sounds of civilization began to find her. Voices, footsteps, shrieking children and rough hooves. Dogs barking, savory foods cooking. Laughter.

On edge of the kingdom lay its villages, all nestled near one another like a blanket covering the hills. Gray smoke rose from several brick chimneys as she loitered near one house in particular whose window was cracked open. In it, she could see a family—a mother and father, a younger daughter and a babe in the father’s arms as the hearth’s roaring fire created shapes and figures, just like the clouds, that made the young girl giggle with glee. And only for a brief moment did she imagine that kind of life for herself.

But was she the daughter—the life she never got to live? Or was she the mother—the life she could live?

The land did not allow her time to decide as the wind once again gently pushed her in the direction of an arrow-shaped sign planted at the mouth of another path—this one of mismatched cobblestone that constantly rearranged itself like a puzzle—telling her that if she followed it, she’d reach the market. The sign began to wiggle up and down as she studied it, as if to say off you go.

So off she went, the wind accompanying her, of course.

It was a shorter walk than she expected. One that led her to what she could only describe as life.

Truly a market, densely packed with vendors and patrons and dogs and horses and children. Smells and shouts and shrieks of laughter; rows of teeth and hands patting full, satisfied bellies. Music played from somewhere. Stringed instruments she had not heard in years, if ever, played a happy tune.

An unfamiliar, foreign sight to behold. One from her deepest of dreams—the ones she rarely dared to think about, for the disappointment that hit after reality was thrown back at her—after she was spat on or pushed into a rat-infested alley—was worse than reality itself.

This time, she forced herself to move without the help of the wind. To weave through the teeming market and do something, anything, besides stand and wait for magic to guide her.

She walked with no destination until she was stopped by another’s shoulder ramming into hers, and she could’ve sworn the wind had pushed her right in the man’s path. She was used to it—human contact that brought pain, big and small. She had learned, trained herself, how to not react to it. But she had never known anyone to apologize for it.

“Are you alright?” the man asked, hand going to his chest in apology. “That was my mistake. I should have watched where I was going. I hope I didn’t hurt you.”

She blinked.

Words.

Did she have them? After all those years of silence, did they remember her?

She studied the man, who seemed her same age, his features sharp under the sun and against the mountainous backdrop.

“No,” she said, voice no more than a rasp. “You didn’t hurt me.”

The man nodded. She couldn’t help but notice the way his eyes scanned her, the dirt on her clothes, the tangle that was her hair.

“Are you alright?” the man asked again, but she knew he meant it differently.

In this new place, with these new people, she didn’t know what to do, who to trust, how to live. Because she would be allowed to now—to live, if only she allowed herself to. Perhaps it might’ve been easier to retreat back to the woods on the border and live out the rest of her life with the birds and frogs and magic paths. She certainly knew how to get by with less.

But the breeze that kissed her face again and the anticipatory eyes of the man still standing in front of her seemed to fill her head, instead, with something more.

She made to respond, to tell him yes, but he spoke first again.

“Wait here,” was all he said before disappearing into the crowds, cobblestone twisting and shifting behind him.

And despite the suspiciousness of it all, she listened.

She waited, hearing once again the barking of dogs and neighing of horses. The steady, friendly breeze that sang her mother’s lullaby and the mountains that seemed to harmonize. She felt the sun, the sun, that she had been kept from for so long. The magical rays that came down and curled around her in a tight, warm hug. The warmth from her dreams.

In that moment, she allowed herself to remember the stories from her mother. Stories that turned into dreams. Dreams that turned into a new reality when she blinked open her eyes and saw the man had returned.

“Take this,” he said, offering a parchment-wrapped slab of dough baked to perfection, topped with crusty cheese and fresh herbs that smelled like her early childhood.

“Thank you,” she said, blinking at her own words. She could not remember the last time she had uttered that phrase, or the last person worthy of her thanks.

The man nodded. “My name is Inizio,” he said.

Her name.

What was her name?

It was not the number the guards referred to her as, the number that identified her in the prison for ten years. No, she was no longer a number.

Perhaps she never was to begin with.

She heard her name, reverberating through her in her mother’s voice, deep inside her soul. The name that meant life, that had been buried along with her dreams of this place. The name she made herself forget.

“Eva.”

Merely a whisper, but Inizio heard it.

“Are you from Living, Eva?”

Eva shook her head slowly. “I was born and raised in the south, but my family hails from here.”

“Then welcome home.”

The word struck her like lightning.

Home.

Yes, she had found home.

For the first time, Eva was home.