"Nanna could you tell me the story one more time? Just once more before bed," yawned a young child as he was laying down. An older lady with graying hair and gentle eyes with a calming presence chuckled softly.
"You really do love this story don't you, my child. One more time before bed." The young boy smiled brightly at the lady. "Thanks nanna."
She looked up at a wall where a painting hung with three people in it, not wearing the nicest of clothes but they all seemed happy, with the one in the center wearing a crown. His eyes shining green in the dark.
"Once upon a time," she began, "there was young man in a small village far to the East. This village was not a safe place for children, so by day he would earn as much money as he could, and at night he would give food to the other children. He stayed up even later to practice fighting with nothing more than a stick and a promise he made to himself to become the greatest King the world has ever seen. He did this all day and all night, until one night he wished upon a shooting star that flew across the night sky."
The older lady got a glazed look in her eyes as she recalled these events, as if she were reliving the memories herself. "He wished upon that star to give him the power to save and protect this broken and dying world. To give him the blessings to protect everyone and allow everyone to live happy lives." The lady smiled a gentle smile as if recalling a magnificent memory.
The boy liked these smiles just as much as the story, after all his nanna wouldn't be this expressive unless she was telling one of her many tales. The boy felt the tugs of sleep pulling at him. "What were the blessings nanna?"
"The blessings where the most beautiful things the world could have given him. He made the skies peaceful and bright, each harvest was bountiful and everyone could eat as much as they wanted, the children never faced any trouble; they had full bellies and fat cheeks. The adults seemed younger too, with less worries and less wrinkles to show. He healed what people thought were impossible to cure and slayed beasts that even grown men with lifelong experience had feared."
The boy yawned, imagining how bright and warm the sun must have felt, always having a full belly and playing with the other kids all day.
"The young man would make silvers and gold appear out of his hands, gifting wealth so the people could live comfortably. As the young man entered adulthood, he would venture out from his home village more often, returning with tales of villains he slew and increasingly terrifying creatures he killed."
"He was so strong" the sleepy child said, the excitement still visible in his brown eyes.
"The small village became very popular as stories of his feats grew, and his village stopped being so small and poor, but lively with wealth and healthy people. Soon he realized that he was doing everything that he had ever wished, but only in a small part of the world. So, he set out on an adventure, an adventure so grand that there was not a place in the known world that didn't know his name."
This part always made nanna smile the biggest, so he always smiled too. But then, just like always the eyes of the gentle lady always got cloudy, as seeing a dark rain cloud on a day that was supposed to be all sun without a cloud in the sky.
"He went on many adventures, saving many people and helping even more." It was at this time that the child no longer listened to the story as sleep finally managed to grab him.
Always strange, thought the young child, nanna is never done telling this story and I can never remember all of it. As he drifted off the eyes of the lady began to glow as soft as honey as she continued talking running her calloused hands through the dark hair of the young boy. I've never seen that expression before, thought the boy.
...
"Asleep again are you child" said the women sitting on the boys' bed of straw. "It's cruel that your favorite story if also the one that brings me great pain." The soft honey eyes of the lady kept glowing as she continued to run her hands through her grandchild's hair. She sat staring at the wall of their cabin while thinking deeply or rather viewing something far beyond reach.
The next morning the young child woke up as he always did, but something was different. Why can't I remember how they story ended? True that the child often fell asleep during the stories, but it felt like he was forced to forget. Why?
"Nanna?" Called the boy. As he looked around, nothing was out of place in the room. His Grandmothers diary that he was not allowed to read, a doll with many hands, minerals that were supposed to be rare, but the boy did not quite believe that, and rusting chains. They were meant to be destroyed by someone special, according to his grandmother.
One thing different, as always, was that the painting was gone, while the other items along the wall remained and began to show age and dust, the painting only ever appeared at night, as if watching the boy sleep.
"What is it child" replied his grandmother from outside the room. "Can you finish your story from last night?" His grandmother laughed "I did finish the story; you must have fallen asleep."
The boy huffed. "I never get to finish your stories." he complained. He walked over to his grandmother who was making breakfast. "Can you at least tell me what happened to the King, or at least why you're in the painting that only appears at night?" His grandmothers' eyes suddenly darked, then went wide, but the boy was not sure why.
"You remember, how do you remember. You shouldn't be able to remember..." His grandmother began mumbling and he realized that the look he saw on his grandmother's face was fear.
It was strange, not because he's never seen his grandmother fearful, but because why had he never asked about the painting? It felt as if he was never meant to ask about it. But why shouldn't I have asked? Why have I never asked before? Then he realized that he hadn't even meant to ask about the painting as if it was perfectly normal. Why did I ask about the painting? There was a clangor of noise as what was supposed to be breakfast fell to the floor as he had opened his mouth to ask his grandmother. He looked at her as she lunged at him and grabbed his arm, her eyes glowing.
"Like last night" he mumbled as he grew tired and his grandmothers' eyes grew even wider if that was possible. Just before the boy fell asleep, he could have sworn he heard laughing from the room he just left.
With the boy asleep again and softly sleeping and making sure the boy remembered nothing of what just happened, the grandmother looked up at the painting
"Why are you here?"
A dry chuckle escaped from the painting, nothing about it indicating it was the painting that made that sound. "Is your King not allowed to check in on his servants? Or are you asking why I am talking from a painting?"
The grandmother didn't answer for a while. "I want to know both. You should be dead; I am sure of that much."
"You would be sure of that much wouldn't you. Afterall, I gave you eyes that see anything and everything. So how could you not see me here? Though I will answer one of your questions. I am sure you have multiple questions but so do I." The painting was obviously enjoying this conversation; or at least seeing how pale the old lady had gotten.
"My dear Judie, are you feeling alright? You are looking quite sick."
"I am fine my King" Judie replied, a tight smile on her lips.
"I suppose a near century will do that to someone" the king laughed.
A while later, a middle-aged man appeared in the doorway.
"Mother? Is everything alright? What happened?" Judie only nodded slowly, looking blankly at a blank spot on the wall where supposedly a painting appeared every night.
...
Years later, after living a long and fulfilling life, an elderly man rocked back and forth on an old rocking chair, watching as an infant crawled around burbling to itself. I wish I had a more to say to such a young child, thought the elderly man. The man's eyes lit up as he remembered a story he liked as a child. A complete story about a young man from the slums who brought a bright and happy life to those around him, like any fairytale, but turned stale just as quickly. "Nanna," mumbled the man, "why is it you've hidden such a grand story from me?"
Late that night the elderly man woke up and looked at the painting in the cottage, his eyes glowing softly just like his grandmothers. The same old cabin he had been raised in. Unchanged. He looked up and asked quietly "Nanna, did you know what was to befall this land? My grandchild must bear so much. Even more than the King, the King you told me about when I was but a boy. At least, he won't be stabbed in the back as you did the King." The man raised his hand to his temple and fell asleep to the same unnatural allure he felt so often as a kid.
A young lady was there sitting on his bed, "would you like to listen to a story?" asked the lady. "YES" exclaimed a young boy, practically jumping on his bed. "Once upon a time..." began a pretty lady, one with striking resemblance to the grandmother the now elder had been raised with.
As the morning sun reached the old cottage, making the cottage glow as if it was made of gold, there laid an old man, asleep with a peaceful smile on his face. A sleep that his daughters cried over as they knew he would never wake again.
"I saw" the older daughter whispered.
"What did you see" asked her sister. "Fathers' death" she quietly replied after a pause, "the power he told us about yesterday; it has been cursed. I've seen it, I will soon die, but-"
"Not you too! Everyone in our family has been dying. Is that why!" screamed the younger sister. The older one brushed her sobbing sister's hair, "It's okay I will be the last. Leave. Leave me now and live a long and happy life with your children, in the city you always spoke of."
"But it's not okay." Yelled the younger daughter.
"Live happily with your family."
After calming her sister, the older sister looked into the distance, her eyes glowing, where a beautiful young woman was standing in the distance.
"I feel terrible, I lied to my sister, she won't be alive to see her youngest reach the age of 5. I told her to live happily knowing she will be killed in less than five years' time. I told her to live in a city where it is to be destroyed and the start of a great war.
"You did what you had to, you've seen as far into the future as you're allowed to. Besides the war has been going on for centuries. Unofficially."
"That's not far enough. What is to happen when the war ends? I know nothing of what is to become of my sisters' children."
"We will be able to watch their story end, which is more than we could ask for. It's more than you deserve, thought the older sister, as she saw the past and knew what her ancestor had done. As she looked at her, even though it was their first time meeting, she realized she would forever hate her elder. As she turned away and looked into the cabin through a window, she thought she saw the ghost of a man standing there. She jumped but realized it was just a painting. I've never seen a painting in the cabin before. A chill ran done her spine as she realized who those people were.
The afterlife will be a long trial; will my sister forgive me? These were the only thoughts that the older sister was concerned with.