THE SEA-HEART

From the Diary of Princess Mercia…

We are Aquatitans; Aquarius is our home.

The land of this Sixth Earth is a scorched plain by a burning sun; or an arctic demise due to a devastating winter. The skies are alight with electricity or smog; and are prone to hunting forces. The sky and land of Sixth Earth have constantly given themselves away to war. None can exist on Sixth Earth by day during ¾ of the year; or night OR day during the Tundra. Land dwellers have been driven underground and only technology, and an insatiable appetite for conquest, can continue to save the dwellers of the sky.

Aquarius is our safe harbor and the only haven that Sixth Earth has left. In our strength, we Aquatitans keep it that way; and in our wisdom, we do not use our strength to intercede in affairs beyond our own. Sixth Earth’s demise was due to former generations; and THESE Earth-dwellers would live beneath the ground rather than clean up what is around them. As for the Skylanders, they are bitter, cold, and would not advance a conflict if they were not surrounded in the technology to make it worthwhile.

Our place is in the sea; my father has always told me so. To even enter a scorching Earth could lead to great sickness for me; or lead to a misunderstanding that my walking the land would mean that my people have chosen a side. If I had listened with a diplomat’s brain and not my youthful heart, I would not have lost the Aquatitans’ Heart, our greatest treasure; and a presumed token of alliance should it be returned…

His name was Koran. He was Aquatitan’s most beloved protector and, in a conflict, would have been our mightiest warrior. He was called “The Sea-Dragon” and constantly carried a broken half sword and claw shield as tokens of the great strength that he so thought that he had. Our people fawned over his physical prowess and his presumed boldness. I had been the loudest fawner of us all.

King Ocen saw Koran as his closest honor guard. Queen Sealah saw him as a mighty warrior. I observed him as a potential paramour; especially given my coming of age and our close quarters.

He would never see me as the same. I relented that most of all. Koran had the adulations of THOUSANDS; including maidens his own age. My dreams were those of a foolish teenager. My mother had advised me to dismiss them as such and was even ready to transfer Koran elsewhere so as to not always be around me. My father, never very observant of emotional matters, refused to lose his best honor guard. The secret of WHY Koran should be moved remained between a queen and her princess; Koran was in Aquarius’s Royal Palace to stay. Logic said this was wrong; my heart couldn’t have celebrated louder…

I lay in my bed chamber one particular evening, admiring the golden heart locket that had been the royal heirloom. It looked as a locket to the outside world; it was the true “Heart of the Aquatitan Royal Household.” My father had pledged it to me at my coming of age a mere three weeks before; I was to promise it to a suitor who I thought was most viable.

The screams of jet engines could be heard in the night air far above our undersea kingdom that evening. The Skylanders were circling once more; and with a large enough squadron that they could be distinctly heard this time. The cruel vultures must have found something to pursue.

I heard a tapping at my bed chamber window. I should have been startled by the sound; my heart skipped a beat instead. My real heart always knew when Koran was in the vicinity; was that not evidence that he DESERVED the pledge of the “Heart of the Aquatitan Royal Household?”

“My princess?” Koran hissed for confidentiality.

My naturally blue skin purpled at the sound of his voice in whisper. Koran sought a conversation of confidence with me! I flung open my chamber window to meet Koran face to face. He reached in with his palm not covered by the claw shield instead and smiled tantalizingly.

I reached up with my likewise hand and the two of us held our palms together intertwined for a moment.

“Do you trust me?” Koran asked.

“Trust is an insulting understatement!” I blurted back, fawningly.

“I trust that that is a ‘yes,’ then.” Koran chuckled back deeply.

He then freed his palm from my own and gestured until a whirling pool portal was barely visible beneath the sea.

“Then take a walk with me,” he added, “on Earth.”

“Earth; you and me?” I asked as concern ushered its way in; then, though it pained me: “I do not know. My parents would…”

“…the King and Queen would not have to know.” Koran scoffed. “Why do you think that I chose a destination of a scorched earth? Our people would never find us, we would return before they ever knew of our absence, it is moontime where we can survive without the heat of the sun, and there is something adventurous about dodging the Skylander patrols together!”

I had no further arguments with a man who had guarded me since he was a youth during my cribtime. Besides, my initial arguments had been half-heartedly weak at best. I nodded vigorously and clasped my hand to Koran’s once more as he pulled me out my window and into a long swim right at his portal. We were two people in love; I was in love and was determined that THIS meant that Koran had agreed…

Soon, Aquarius was a memory and I stood before what my history tablets told me was called a pyramid. I was on Earth; above ground! I was an Aquatitan who belonged to Aquarius; and I was BRAVER than the big, strong Underdwellers who were meant to WALK this world. I took in my surroundings for a moment until the sole problem with my arrival here through someone else’s portal occurred to me.

“Koran?” I called-whispered into the dead night as my light blue skin began to burn darker. This was night on Sixth Earth; yet, it was warm enough to already be affecting me so.

The discomfort of the heat, and even the pain of my drying, were forgotten as I took in the broken sword and claw shield on the ground instead.

“Koran!” I repeated, glancing about the open plains.

A cruel chuckle was my answer as a swirling blue portal tantalized me once more. This one showed Koran’s cunning, sneering visage. The cruelty in his face detracted something from his grandeur; a fact that might have helped me before.

“Come and find me, princess!” he answered. “What would dear old dad say about his royalest heart showing up on landfall?”

“I find no humor here!” I answered. “I…l am drying out fast even beneath a night’s heat. Please; help me back!”

“Oh; and do please bring me back my spoils when you come.” Koran’s distant voice snorted.

A joke. I had been abandoned to a prank. Koran, the Trickster, now thought that I, a royal princess, would still be so blinded by love as to be his weapon courier as well. I took in the weapons on the ground and lunged for the portal home. If Koran was so bold, let him bring himself to landfall; he had promised me that coming to Earth had been his idea!

I almost reached the portal when it vanished. I could still hear Koran’s cruel chuckle. As I made landfall clumsily, I heard the snap that had dislodged the “Heart of the Royal Household.” Nonetheless, I was weakened by my time away from my kingdom, by a heat too intense for me, and by a true broken heart.

The screams of engines overhead informed me that the Skylanders were nearby and could have spotted me as their next viable prey. As an Aquatitan, I had two powers even away from home: to heal my own wounds or to create a portal home. As royalty to Aquarius, I had a telepathic bond to call aid to my side. I was not about to test the third power with a potential enemy already overhead; and who was I to merely heal my wounds and rise in the middle of the sands with a hunting party overhead?

My portal to safety appeared in the sands and swept me back home to recover in Aquarius. I had certainly left without the sword and shield of a cruel prankster; I had forgotten the heart as well.

The “mere locket,” Aquarius’s greatest royal treasure, belonged to the land for the moment. It was a token of good fortune for whoever could fetch it first and return it to us. My father would assuredly trust such a courier; my own trust was damaged at the moment…