Feedback is necessary if anyone wants me to continue.
Warning: I don't like Liz, so Max gets Tess instead. All other couples are termed 'Conventional' - e.g. Maria / Michael, Alex / Isabel, Kyle / random girls. OK?
This is my fic, but the characters are borrowed.
Remember Me 1
He doesn't care that I love him. He doesn't care that once we were married. He doesn't care that once he pledged undying devotion to me. He doesn't care that once he was my King and I was his Queen. He doesn't care that once I bore his children. He doesn't care that together, the four of us are invincible. He doesn't care that the fate of our home planet lies in his hands. He doesn't care that Kivar is evil and that he is the only one who can stop him, with our help. He doesn't care that we are aliens and don't belong here. He doesn't care that we are meant to be.
He doesn't care for me.
All he cares about is Elizabeth 'Liz' Parker.
And it's killing me.
He doesn't understand that what we have is real. He thinks the love of his life is a tan skinned, doe eyed, skinny, flat chested, straight haired brunette. Not a busty, blue eyed, slim, pale skinned, curly haired blonde. I could change my looks. I could make him believe that I was Liz, but that wouldn't mean that he loved me. That wouldn't mean that his feelings for me had changed. It would just mean that he was with Liz once more.
She's worse. He saves her life, and time and again risks it for her, and she comes to the conclusion that their love is destined in the stars.
She doesn't even know what that means.
The stars to humans are only far away suns, with planets revolving around them. How stupid is that? Who cares about a bunch of rocks and gas in sky? No one.
To me, to Max, to Isabelle, to Michael, hell, even to Nasedo, the stars are home. Liz doesn't understand that. She will never understand that. She can't. The furthest she will ever get from home is the other side of this planet, and then she's only a plane ride away.
We're already on the other side of the universe, and we can't get home. No one else in the world but us four knows what that is like. We are the Royal Four. We were designed to be together, but I'm the only one that remembers. The only one that feels the pain of a million souls crying out for their leader, and knowing that at that very moment his life blood is seeping out of him because he was betrayed by just one.
Isabelle thinks she killed Max in our last life. Vilandra, it's true, was beautiful and beloved, and she did betray Zan, now Max, to our worst enemy, Kivar, but she doesn't remember the end. She doesn't remember him forgiving her and telling her that he loved her with his last breath, or her redemption when she destroyed Kivar's stronghold from within, dying with it, bringing the war closer to its end that it was since Zan was betrayed and lost his army on the brink of victory. We did not win though. Kivar was too strong, and without Zan's brilliant leadership, we were doomed.
I remember the last day, when Kivar stormed the palace, and Rath and I were the only ones left of the Royal Four to stand against him. Then we fell. The pain was terrible. Zan and Vilandra's mother was saved because we had hidden her deep under the palace, along with our maids, women relations and sick. Everyone else was with us, fighting, dying. There was no surrender. We fought for. I suppose you would think of it as 'democracy' - there is no word in English for what we had. We did not suffer under a tyrant. Zan came from a line of rulers, all chosen to rule by the people, not by birth or government. He was chosen before he was even born, out of all the children of the world, to be our King - though that word is inadequate to describe what he was to us - because the people could see into his heart, and saw the goodness, the strength and the courage there. Above all, they saw his kindness.
I think I loved that kindness best in him, though now I don't know if he still has it, so cruelly does he treat me.
Sometimes I think perhaps the others are right, and I should forget, but then I remember those last few days, and the way the people begged me to fight on, to save them, and how I couldn't, because I had lost Zan and Vilandra, and Rath and I weren't strong enough alone.
Then I remember a little girl, a perfect combination of her mother and father, of Zan and Ava. Of Max and I. She was our darling. She was our future. She was the next queen of our planet. Now she is Kivar's bride and he is bound twice to our Kingdom - once by force and once by marriage - and I know, no matter what happens here on Earth, she is more important than anything. She is the reason I cling so tightly to a man who has forgotten that he ever loved me. She is why I can't give up the fight as the others have and accept my life here. If Zan / Max only remembered her, he would fight too. For now, though, I am the only one who remembers. I must keep the faith, because otherwise, my little girl is lost, and I cannot accept that.
"Tess?" I have been wandering aimlessly for what seems like hours, but as always when I wander aimlessly, I end up at my favourite bench, the one where Max and I sit together and talk about everything without fighting.
"Max," I can't think of what to say next. He sitting, slumped over, on our bench and there are tears on his dark cheeks. "Are you OK?"
He doesn't try to wipe away the tears, but lifts his head to look at me. "No."
I want to hug him, but I know he only push me away again. Instead I just sit next to him, and feel my heart pound as I feel his side against mine, his leather jacket rubbing against my blouse, almost his skin against mine. "What's wrong?"
I already know the answer. Liz. Only she can do this to him, can make him cry. I wish he'd let me help him. I could make all the pain go away, if he'd just let me love him. Instead, he loves a girl who treats him badly and he won't love his former wife, no matter what I do.
"Liz," his voice is halting and the words come slowly, but I make out what has happened, and feel my fists clenching. If I could dream- walk like Isabelle, Liz would suffer some very nasty nightmares tonight for doing this to Max. She slept with Kyle. I know that she and Max are on a break, but that didn't work for Ross and Rachel on Friends and it sure as hell isn't going to work for them.
I don't understand how she can choose Clueless Buddha Boy over Romantic Alien King. I know my interest in Kyle has been considered by the others as romantic at times, but it's never been more than my interest in Max. At one point, I thought I could live as my husband does - with the humans, loving them, being with them, but now I've seen what that does to you. It kills the alien inside you, and leaves the shell of the human alone. Max is losing part of himself by being with Liz, a part that I can give him back.
"Max, it's going to be OK." I can't believe how stupid that sounds, even to me.
Max lifts his head from his hands and looks at me, his big brown eyes full of yearning. "You think?"
"Definitely," I give him a warm smile, which he can't return, but his tears have stopped. Perhaps there is hope for us yet.
His eyes change suddenly from brown to silver, and he slumps backwards in his seat, his entire body limp.
"Max?" I start shaking his arm, but I get no response. Oh God of all my Fathers, what am I supposed to do now? Max is the one with the healing powers, not me. I don't even know what's wrong with him. This isn't like a cut finger. He's turning ash grey, and his lips are faintly blue. "Max?" I repeat, but still don't get a response. At last I start thinking. If I make a connection with him I may know what's wrong, and the fastest way to connect is to kiss. I lay my lips on his and reach out for him with my mind. I don't care what we must look like, something's wrong with him, terribly, terribly wrong. Max is scaring me. For all I know, this is what happens to aliens with broken hearts. They die. Then our world will have to wait for another fifty years for their old, strong, brilliant leader to be born again, and I don't think it will last that long. Clutching Max in my arms, I pray, Oh, God of All my Fathers, Lord of the earth, sky, stars and oceans, save him.
I can't live without him.
I can't.
I reach out, my mind searching for his. At first I'm slammed back. There's something holding me out. Ignoring the painful headache that's beginning to set in with a vengeance, I reach again, and this time I see white light. It's so strong as to be blinding, and I want to close my eyes against it, but they're already closed, and anyway, I'm not seeing it with my eyes, but with my mind. Then I realise how beautiful it is. It's warm too. I let my mind slip into it. My body seems to be floating, and then I see Max, but he isn't Max anymore. It's Zan, and he is so beautiful.
"Ava?" He's calling to me, the alien in me, not the human Tess, and I run forwards to him. He holds me in his arms, and I feel so warm, so happy, so safe.
After a delicious forever of being together, I turn my head and see our palace. It's home. It's unlike anywhere else in the universe, because Zan, Vilandra, Rath and I built it from our love, our minds, our imaginations. The colours reflect everything we feel in our minds, our souls even. Our rooms are for us alone. The rooms for the servants and other members of the household are more traditionally decorated, but here, the room reacts to our moods. Colours that the human eye can't see are flowing around us, patterns are made by light and the very walls sing to us.
Yet I remember this day with sadness, not joy. Today is the last day of our freedom, and in a moment, the old life of happiness and peace will end. In a moment, the betrayal will begin.
My husband is holding my hand, and our daughter, named for our sun, Relia, plays at our feet. I don't understand if Max is remembering this or if I have somehow drawn Max's dying soul into my own body and together we dream of a life that had once been.
He is signing papers of State, and as I read over his shoulder, I can feel the room change as he reads a letter from an ambassador from another world.
"Ava," he says slowly, "do you trust Kivar?"
My body goes cold. Why is he asking me this? I glance down at the paper. It bears the mark of Camero, the most respected ambassador in our part of the galaxy. If he is warning us that Kivar is plotting something, I know he must be. "No, Zan." I can see him shake his head. He doesn't want to believe it any more than I do, but like me, he must believe.
"Rath!" He shouts abruptly, causing Relia to jump, then sends a mental shout out in case Rath is further away than two doors down in Vilandra's room.
His second in command comes running in. Poor Rath, I suspect he was with Vilandra before he came running in here. The walls around him are pulsing with embarrassment.
"You yelled, Oh Great Leader?" Same old Michael, the Tess part of me thinks, but Ava is too worried to laugh.
"Rath, this is serious," Zan's aura is dark, worried, turbulent. I want to calm him, but I know that the very turbulence that makes me uneasy makes him a brilliant leader. He's too scared and fearful to be anything else. "Kivar's betrayed us. He's joined with the Nyns, and that means."
"We're screwed," Rath interrupts. Zan nods. Oh God of All my Fathers, I think, save us. If even hot headed Rath thinks we're in trouble, we must be on the verge of destruction.
"Papa?" It's Relia, I think we'd all forgotten she was still here.
Zan's expression softens immediately. "Yes, mahic (my little one)?"
She is looking worried, and oh so innocent. I want to protect my child's innocence for ever, but I know that I won't be able to. War is coming, and in war, all innocence is lost. "Has Kivar done something wrong?"
"Yes, Relia." Zan and I long ago agreed never to lie to our children, no matter how young they were or how bad the truth was. "He's hurt a lot of people, and now we have to go to war to stop him from hurting many more. Do you understand?"
"No," Relia looks calm, "but I trust you, rhia (a term of affection for which there is no English equivalent, but darling is close)."
My poor Relia. My heart breaks for her. So innocent, so young, and doomed. All because her aunt fell in lust with the wrong man.
"I know, child," Zan looks so sad. He knows lives must be lost in this coming war, and he is a healer, not a killer. He longs to mend their bodies, not destroy them.
"Zan," it is Rath the friend, not the military commander, that speaks to my husband now. "We have to do this, there is no other choice. Kivar wants your throne, and you must defend it." His own aura is almost as clouded as Zan's. A ripple of darkness runs through it. "Imagine what it will be like if we don't."
That particular thought does not need to be finished. It is quite bad enough as it is. Worse, as I know what will happen when we don't stop him, and there's not a damn thing I can do about it.
Then my lover looks past us all and shouts, mentally and physically, without warning.
"Kivar!"
Warning: I don't like Liz, so Max gets Tess instead. All other couples are termed 'Conventional' - e.g. Maria / Michael, Alex / Isabel, Kyle / random girls. OK?
This is my fic, but the characters are borrowed.
Remember Me 1
He doesn't care that I love him. He doesn't care that once we were married. He doesn't care that once he pledged undying devotion to me. He doesn't care that once he was my King and I was his Queen. He doesn't care that once I bore his children. He doesn't care that together, the four of us are invincible. He doesn't care that the fate of our home planet lies in his hands. He doesn't care that Kivar is evil and that he is the only one who can stop him, with our help. He doesn't care that we are aliens and don't belong here. He doesn't care that we are meant to be.
He doesn't care for me.
All he cares about is Elizabeth 'Liz' Parker.
And it's killing me.
He doesn't understand that what we have is real. He thinks the love of his life is a tan skinned, doe eyed, skinny, flat chested, straight haired brunette. Not a busty, blue eyed, slim, pale skinned, curly haired blonde. I could change my looks. I could make him believe that I was Liz, but that wouldn't mean that he loved me. That wouldn't mean that his feelings for me had changed. It would just mean that he was with Liz once more.
She's worse. He saves her life, and time and again risks it for her, and she comes to the conclusion that their love is destined in the stars.
She doesn't even know what that means.
The stars to humans are only far away suns, with planets revolving around them. How stupid is that? Who cares about a bunch of rocks and gas in sky? No one.
To me, to Max, to Isabelle, to Michael, hell, even to Nasedo, the stars are home. Liz doesn't understand that. She will never understand that. She can't. The furthest she will ever get from home is the other side of this planet, and then she's only a plane ride away.
We're already on the other side of the universe, and we can't get home. No one else in the world but us four knows what that is like. We are the Royal Four. We were designed to be together, but I'm the only one that remembers. The only one that feels the pain of a million souls crying out for their leader, and knowing that at that very moment his life blood is seeping out of him because he was betrayed by just one.
Isabelle thinks she killed Max in our last life. Vilandra, it's true, was beautiful and beloved, and she did betray Zan, now Max, to our worst enemy, Kivar, but she doesn't remember the end. She doesn't remember him forgiving her and telling her that he loved her with his last breath, or her redemption when she destroyed Kivar's stronghold from within, dying with it, bringing the war closer to its end that it was since Zan was betrayed and lost his army on the brink of victory. We did not win though. Kivar was too strong, and without Zan's brilliant leadership, we were doomed.
I remember the last day, when Kivar stormed the palace, and Rath and I were the only ones left of the Royal Four to stand against him. Then we fell. The pain was terrible. Zan and Vilandra's mother was saved because we had hidden her deep under the palace, along with our maids, women relations and sick. Everyone else was with us, fighting, dying. There was no surrender. We fought for. I suppose you would think of it as 'democracy' - there is no word in English for what we had. We did not suffer under a tyrant. Zan came from a line of rulers, all chosen to rule by the people, not by birth or government. He was chosen before he was even born, out of all the children of the world, to be our King - though that word is inadequate to describe what he was to us - because the people could see into his heart, and saw the goodness, the strength and the courage there. Above all, they saw his kindness.
I think I loved that kindness best in him, though now I don't know if he still has it, so cruelly does he treat me.
Sometimes I think perhaps the others are right, and I should forget, but then I remember those last few days, and the way the people begged me to fight on, to save them, and how I couldn't, because I had lost Zan and Vilandra, and Rath and I weren't strong enough alone.
Then I remember a little girl, a perfect combination of her mother and father, of Zan and Ava. Of Max and I. She was our darling. She was our future. She was the next queen of our planet. Now she is Kivar's bride and he is bound twice to our Kingdom - once by force and once by marriage - and I know, no matter what happens here on Earth, she is more important than anything. She is the reason I cling so tightly to a man who has forgotten that he ever loved me. She is why I can't give up the fight as the others have and accept my life here. If Zan / Max only remembered her, he would fight too. For now, though, I am the only one who remembers. I must keep the faith, because otherwise, my little girl is lost, and I cannot accept that.
"Tess?" I have been wandering aimlessly for what seems like hours, but as always when I wander aimlessly, I end up at my favourite bench, the one where Max and I sit together and talk about everything without fighting.
"Max," I can't think of what to say next. He sitting, slumped over, on our bench and there are tears on his dark cheeks. "Are you OK?"
He doesn't try to wipe away the tears, but lifts his head to look at me. "No."
I want to hug him, but I know he only push me away again. Instead I just sit next to him, and feel my heart pound as I feel his side against mine, his leather jacket rubbing against my blouse, almost his skin against mine. "What's wrong?"
I already know the answer. Liz. Only she can do this to him, can make him cry. I wish he'd let me help him. I could make all the pain go away, if he'd just let me love him. Instead, he loves a girl who treats him badly and he won't love his former wife, no matter what I do.
"Liz," his voice is halting and the words come slowly, but I make out what has happened, and feel my fists clenching. If I could dream- walk like Isabelle, Liz would suffer some very nasty nightmares tonight for doing this to Max. She slept with Kyle. I know that she and Max are on a break, but that didn't work for Ross and Rachel on Friends and it sure as hell isn't going to work for them.
I don't understand how she can choose Clueless Buddha Boy over Romantic Alien King. I know my interest in Kyle has been considered by the others as romantic at times, but it's never been more than my interest in Max. At one point, I thought I could live as my husband does - with the humans, loving them, being with them, but now I've seen what that does to you. It kills the alien inside you, and leaves the shell of the human alone. Max is losing part of himself by being with Liz, a part that I can give him back.
"Max, it's going to be OK." I can't believe how stupid that sounds, even to me.
Max lifts his head from his hands and looks at me, his big brown eyes full of yearning. "You think?"
"Definitely," I give him a warm smile, which he can't return, but his tears have stopped. Perhaps there is hope for us yet.
His eyes change suddenly from brown to silver, and he slumps backwards in his seat, his entire body limp.
"Max?" I start shaking his arm, but I get no response. Oh God of all my Fathers, what am I supposed to do now? Max is the one with the healing powers, not me. I don't even know what's wrong with him. This isn't like a cut finger. He's turning ash grey, and his lips are faintly blue. "Max?" I repeat, but still don't get a response. At last I start thinking. If I make a connection with him I may know what's wrong, and the fastest way to connect is to kiss. I lay my lips on his and reach out for him with my mind. I don't care what we must look like, something's wrong with him, terribly, terribly wrong. Max is scaring me. For all I know, this is what happens to aliens with broken hearts. They die. Then our world will have to wait for another fifty years for their old, strong, brilliant leader to be born again, and I don't think it will last that long. Clutching Max in my arms, I pray, Oh, God of All my Fathers, Lord of the earth, sky, stars and oceans, save him.
I can't live without him.
I can't.
I reach out, my mind searching for his. At first I'm slammed back. There's something holding me out. Ignoring the painful headache that's beginning to set in with a vengeance, I reach again, and this time I see white light. It's so strong as to be blinding, and I want to close my eyes against it, but they're already closed, and anyway, I'm not seeing it with my eyes, but with my mind. Then I realise how beautiful it is. It's warm too. I let my mind slip into it. My body seems to be floating, and then I see Max, but he isn't Max anymore. It's Zan, and he is so beautiful.
"Ava?" He's calling to me, the alien in me, not the human Tess, and I run forwards to him. He holds me in his arms, and I feel so warm, so happy, so safe.
After a delicious forever of being together, I turn my head and see our palace. It's home. It's unlike anywhere else in the universe, because Zan, Vilandra, Rath and I built it from our love, our minds, our imaginations. The colours reflect everything we feel in our minds, our souls even. Our rooms are for us alone. The rooms for the servants and other members of the household are more traditionally decorated, but here, the room reacts to our moods. Colours that the human eye can't see are flowing around us, patterns are made by light and the very walls sing to us.
Yet I remember this day with sadness, not joy. Today is the last day of our freedom, and in a moment, the old life of happiness and peace will end. In a moment, the betrayal will begin.
My husband is holding my hand, and our daughter, named for our sun, Relia, plays at our feet. I don't understand if Max is remembering this or if I have somehow drawn Max's dying soul into my own body and together we dream of a life that had once been.
He is signing papers of State, and as I read over his shoulder, I can feel the room change as he reads a letter from an ambassador from another world.
"Ava," he says slowly, "do you trust Kivar?"
My body goes cold. Why is he asking me this? I glance down at the paper. It bears the mark of Camero, the most respected ambassador in our part of the galaxy. If he is warning us that Kivar is plotting something, I know he must be. "No, Zan." I can see him shake his head. He doesn't want to believe it any more than I do, but like me, he must believe.
"Rath!" He shouts abruptly, causing Relia to jump, then sends a mental shout out in case Rath is further away than two doors down in Vilandra's room.
His second in command comes running in. Poor Rath, I suspect he was with Vilandra before he came running in here. The walls around him are pulsing with embarrassment.
"You yelled, Oh Great Leader?" Same old Michael, the Tess part of me thinks, but Ava is too worried to laugh.
"Rath, this is serious," Zan's aura is dark, worried, turbulent. I want to calm him, but I know that the very turbulence that makes me uneasy makes him a brilliant leader. He's too scared and fearful to be anything else. "Kivar's betrayed us. He's joined with the Nyns, and that means."
"We're screwed," Rath interrupts. Zan nods. Oh God of All my Fathers, I think, save us. If even hot headed Rath thinks we're in trouble, we must be on the verge of destruction.
"Papa?" It's Relia, I think we'd all forgotten she was still here.
Zan's expression softens immediately. "Yes, mahic (my little one)?"
She is looking worried, and oh so innocent. I want to protect my child's innocence for ever, but I know that I won't be able to. War is coming, and in war, all innocence is lost. "Has Kivar done something wrong?"
"Yes, Relia." Zan and I long ago agreed never to lie to our children, no matter how young they were or how bad the truth was. "He's hurt a lot of people, and now we have to go to war to stop him from hurting many more. Do you understand?"
"No," Relia looks calm, "but I trust you, rhia (a term of affection for which there is no English equivalent, but darling is close)."
My poor Relia. My heart breaks for her. So innocent, so young, and doomed. All because her aunt fell in lust with the wrong man.
"I know, child," Zan looks so sad. He knows lives must be lost in this coming war, and he is a healer, not a killer. He longs to mend their bodies, not destroy them.
"Zan," it is Rath the friend, not the military commander, that speaks to my husband now. "We have to do this, there is no other choice. Kivar wants your throne, and you must defend it." His own aura is almost as clouded as Zan's. A ripple of darkness runs through it. "Imagine what it will be like if we don't."
That particular thought does not need to be finished. It is quite bad enough as it is. Worse, as I know what will happen when we don't stop him, and there's not a damn thing I can do about it.
Then my lover looks past us all and shouts, mentally and physically, without warning.
"Kivar!"