Poison Queen

I watch with irritation as the flames lick up my right arm, not feeling the burn from them but feeling a slight pull in my heart at the person who set them ablaze. When she had burst through my throne room doors, screaming some foreign battle cry, hair wild and flowing behind her as she raced towards me, setting my throne and me in it on fire, I will admit to being startled. In response to her futile attempts at killing me (fire, really?) I had swatted her with my own magic, sending her body flying across the room and slamming her into a stone pillar. The sound of her bones cracking and breaking had sent a wonderful shiver through me.

My gaze lands on hers, and our eyes meet for the first time. My breath catches for a moment, and a small crack begins to cross the stone heart inside my chest…I know those eyes anywhere.

“Haven’t you heard?” Looking back to the flames lapping at the flesh on my arm. “I was born in fire.”

Her violet eyes stare into mine, hard and narrowed. Blood stains her visage, adding to the intensity of her glare. "You will be the end of us, Poison Queen," she growls; if I weren't who I was, her unnerving timber voice would have startled me.

But I am afraid of no one.

“I have brought us to greatness.” I swirl my right hand over my left arm, and the flames instantly recede.

“You have brought us to the brink of extinction.” Her body trembles as the words leave her tight lips. She begins to stand, whispering words in the same foreign language as before. I don’t understand most of it, but one word stands out, evil.

“You are wrong, young one. I met evil when I was a child. His name was King Velam.” I turn from her.

The Ogres and Trolls hordes are at my gates, war is brewing on the horizon, and the council has abandoned the pixies. I don't have time to bicker with a little girl, but I can't bring myself to end it just yet…

“We will fight you. Kill me if you want, but we will never bow to a Queen who wears a crown dripping in the blood of her own people.” Her words crack a little, even as her face stays confidant. Her body was broken when it hit the wall; she is in pain. I can't help but admire her fight to hide that fact.

People have always hated me because of the scar on my face. But they don't know how I got it; they don’t know that their beloved King gave it to me. Disgusted by my birth, causing my mother's death, and ashamed by my lack of power, my father cast me away. Beatings and verbal abuse were my everyday life. I lived in solitude, as my father feared the people knowing me; I was only allowed to speak to the few maids he sent me. As a child, I loved when my favorite nursemaid would tell me stories of princesses and Queens. Heroes of their stories. I dreamed of being a princess from those stories, beautiful, strong, and finding my prince. So I tried to follow in their footsteps and sacrificed everything for my father and my people. The only thing I ever got in return was pain and to be called a villain.

The day my father died was a mixture of emotions for me. On the one hand, I was so excited I could come out of the shadows he has kept me in all my life. But, on the other hand, my people looked upon me with the same disdain as my father did. The crown was mine by birthright, but I never wanted it. That is, not until it was placed upon my head, and the sobs of my people echoed through the halls. When I saw my people's faces filled with horror and sadness, I decided to show them all who I could be.

My father raised me in fire, the fires of his abuse and hatred. I was put on the throne because of my birth, not what I could do for my kingdom. I have seen war; I have caused the deaths of many. I’ve bled for this kingdom, and done unspeakable things to keep us at the head of the Fae council. I’ve fought off hordes of trolls, and battled with the fairies to keep my people’s farmlands. Yet, do they cheer my name? No, they whisper "Poison Queen” when they think I can’t hear them. Yes, all these tasks cost blood, lots and lots of blood. But no one sees that all I am is a broken girl, a princess that never got saved.

I have known love… Something I will never poison my heart with again. The male fairy had come in the night, woo’ ed me, made love to me, then left just as quickly. As I grew with child, I feared my people’s judgment, a bastard child of a disappointing Queen. So I hid during those days, not letting anyone look upon my growing stomach. Unfortunately, by doing so, I became lonely. I found myself conversing with my unborn child, not knowing if it could hear me.

I loved her before I knew her.

The day came for my child to be born. The pain was worse than anything I had experienced before, and I had my body smashed by an ambitious Ogre. When I felt it was time, I quickly made my way to the gardens of my home. Hiding in a place I knew no one dared to go, I laid my head back on the bank of my river and screamed to the heavens. Then she arrived, bloody and screaming, both mother and daughter raw in the unforgiving world at that moment. I sat along that riverbank for a long time looking into my daughters’ violet eyes, brilliant and beautiful, the same as my own. Her innocence was admirable, and I wished I still had a fraction of my own. Then, her tiny little fingers reached out to me, and without realizing it, I leaned forward and let her touch my cheek. As her fingers grazed my raw scar, the scar my father gave me as a young child, my heart hardened again.

Could I keep her? Raise her in a court that wants me dead? Can I risk my own heart? Loving someone would make me weak. She would become a weakness, and my enemies would hunt her all her life.

Now I look into the same familiar eyes of the girl who has come to kill me; my daughters' eyes glare back at me. I don't know how, but her eyes tell me she knows exactly who I am to her, other than the evil Queen she claims me to be. Again, I am forced to remember my choice, the choice I felt was best for us.

I had set her little body in the river the day she was born, and placed her upon a log floating past at the right time. I gave her a kiss on the forehead and let her go. Tears flowed free from my eyes as I watched her float away, and I sat there long past listening as her little wails slowly faded. My heart became a solid stone that day; what was left of any tenderness floated down the river with my daughter. I never thought of her again; I never wondered if she had survived. I couldn't. Caring about anyone or anything would make me weak and unable to do what I needed to do.

"What are you waiting for?" The girl's voice spews venom at me, and this makes me chuckle a little. Daughter of the poisoned Queen, indeed. She kneels at my feet, waiting for the evil Queen to strike her down.

Both of us are surprised at my hesitation.

“I will kill you if you don’t kill me now.” The hatred in her eyes reminds me of my own, the hatred I had spent years obtaining for my father. The hatred that had become complete the day he marked my cheek.

My hesitation in killing this girl startles me and sends a flicker of fear through my veins. I have killed many; as my daughter had reminded me, my crown is a symbol dripping in my victims' blood. Sadly, not just my enemies have died at my hands; many of my own people have met their ends at my feet. I was born with not much of my own magic, so as I have grown, I have found that I can take other pixie's magic. Over the years, I have killed and stolen many pixie's magic, growing substantially stronger and making all my people weaker. I am the most powerful creature in the world, holding all pixie magic in my veins. I have won wars singlehandedly; the other races cringe at my name. Yet my people still call me evil, cower before me.

“What is your name?” I don’t know why I care, but I am suddenly overcome with questions.

“Samanya," We both are surprised when she answers.

I can see magic in her eyes, one of the few pixies left with any hint of magic. She has been hidden from me, as her magic seems to be hidden within her. Interesting. Where has she been? Who has kept her safe and alive?

"Well, Samanya. I will allow you to walk away. Right now, leave. No one will stop you." I motion towards my throne room doors and take a few steps back from her. Internally I struggle with fighting back the warmth my heart has started to feel, fighting to plaster over the cracks this girl seems to be causing. A part of me screams to know her, and the other part screams for me to kill her.

Love is a weakness. I will never be weak again!

“Why?” Her gaze turns from angry to weary as she slowly stands, holding her injured arm close to her chest. Her ginger hair matches my own, unruly and wild, and I cringe when my fingers ache to reach out and heal her.

“I don't know why." But, again, I am befuddled at my inability to just end this girl’s life force, take her magic, and add it to my own.

The Ogres and Trolls hordes could break through my gates at any moment, war is beginning, and I alone can stop it. Yet I am standing here, intrigued by this girl I assumed was long dead, unable to kill her.

"I know why." She begins to stand; her gaze holds mine as she positions herself confidently in front of me. Her eyes have no malice as before, this time with something else.

“Do you know who you are?” My voice comes out more like a whispered confession than a question. How could she? No one had known I was pregnant; no one watched me place her in the river.

I must have let my guard down; I must have been too confused by her words because I don’t notice as she steps closer to me. I don’t react as she draws a short glowing sword from behind her. I don’t move out of the way as she thrusts it into my gut.

“I am your daughter. The offspring of the Poison Queen, blood that flows through you flows through me.” Her intense eyes hold my own, and her words drip with more than venom. She smiles softly, like a dream she has had since she was young is finally coming true. She is destroying the monster she feared all her life.

"I…" Shock slams through me, both at the sharp pain emanating from the steel impaling me and the words flowing from her lips.

I can’t think straight; I’m unable to call upon my magic as too many questions and emotions bubble to the surface of my mind. Finally, I drop to my knees, blood pooling around me. I look up into my daughters’ eyes and see tears forming there.

“I never wanted to be evil, you know? All I wanted was to be accepted and loved. I needed anyone to look at me like I was worth something, but all they did was whisper behind my back." I felt blood overflowing into my mouth, choking me, causing me to cough and spit it out. "I wanted to protect my people. I wanted to be their hero."

She doesn't respond, she just stares at me as I fall to the ground. Laying on my back, blade firmly lodged into my gut, I struggle to fight the blood filling my chest. The stories tell you that your life will flash before your eyes seconds before death, but I am thankful mine isn't. I find a sense of peace in not reliving my life, recounting my choices. Instead, I get to lay here, staring into the eyes of a child, a child I should have let into my life. Maybe if I had held onto her, she

could have saved me. Perhaps she was the hero all along? The tears began to flow down my face freely, and I let them. For the first time in my life, I felt no anger, sadness, or discontent.

I feel my life force starting to release from my body, and fear prickles at me. I want to warn my daughter, who still stands above me, her tears flowing as freely as my own. But, as my life force b

egins to spill out, so does the magic. All pixies magic. At this moment, I know I really screwed up; all this time, I thought I was saving my people, making them stronger. Yet, all I was doing was taking their magic away from them. With my death comes the end of Pixie magic.

“I’m sorry, mother," Samanya whispers as she leans down and strokes the hair from my face. Then, as my last breaths leave me, the truth fills me.

All my hate and anger has destroyed my people.