Atlantis Eternal

The colossal walls where the throne was located were not enough to tell all the great deeds of Atlantis, the windows had ornate stained glass decorations showing the most important moments in the history of the kingdom, a room more reminiscent of a church than an Imperial court. And I was sitting in the highest and most important part of it, the Jade Throne, admiring such ostentatious decoration while patiently waiting for someone to arrive. The huge, heavy door opened magnificently and the person in question entered the room. A goddess entered walking calmly, with golden hair, she carried her nine tails behind her, proudly displaying them, dressed majestically in her white robes, carrying only a mundane bag, it took her several minutes to reach the top of the stairs leading to the throne when at last she was relatively close she spoke happily. 

"Sitting there you really look like a really important emperor, Darling"

"It's the first time I sit here and I can admire the scenery peacefully"
"It feels strange to be here, I had promised not to come back"

"Hey, do you think you could let me remodel some of the rooms nearby?"
"How about that one over there?"

"And what do you plan to do with it?"

"Oh, well, I was thinking of maybe opening my second branch"
"Another temple dedicated to me, the beautiful Tamamo-No-Mae"

"Why do you want to do that?"
"Nobody lives here anymore"

"Well, I thought maybe it would be great to have another one in a place as majestic as this one"
"Near the throne of my loving darling"
"May I do it? Please"

"Well, I don't really care much about this place either"
"I grew up in the mountain and the jungle, so I don't care about temples or palaces"
"But first I need you to get to work first" I said pointing to my poor mother turned into a wall candle holder now lying on the floor.

"Do you really want me to take care of that?"
"The angels are treating the rest of the girls right now"
"I'm sure they can do a better job"

"Yes, after all, you went through the same thing, didn't you?"

"They are different things"
"This here is nothing more than a curse"
"I was sealed by human monks doing their best to lock up a goddess forever"
"I was surrounded by seals and talismans all the time trying to contain my attempts to get out"
"I was only able to escape because the talismans weakened over time"

"Can you do it? Please!"
"I trust you! I'm trusting my mother in you"

"Yes, of course, I will try"
"Although I have to study the curse first, so it could take me several hours"
"After all, it is a curse created by another Goddess"

"Oh well, that works for me anyway"
"I was planning to visit several places nearby anyway"

"Well, then if you don't mind I'll borrow one of the benches down there"
"I also brought the food, you must be hungry for sure"
"Oh, and the stuff you asked for is in the red bag"
"Strange, I thought you didn't drink alcohol"

"Oh it's not for me"
"I don't like to drink since one of my father's brothers died of alcoholism"
"At his funeral, my father was devastated by all the drama that happened"

I got up from Jade's throne and took the bag. Tamamo and I took my mother to one of the benches so she could start working. Once she was settled she put several of her talismans on the floor and drew a circle with a bag of salt that she had bought, she began to pray a little and a multitude of lights and smoke of cabbages began to come out, as she explained it was similar to what our daughters used to do with computers, things like analyzing data, files and texts but in their magical equivalent. I warned her not to go too far because it is easy to get lost in this place, then I went out of there, heading towards the huge stairs that led to the entrance of the Celestial Palace.

The majestic and imposing stairs were not in the original state of their glorious days. Bones and rocks adorned them, reminders of the eventful day when the Capital was silenced forever. Skeletons of dragons were scattered along the stairs, hundreds of swords and spears littering the floor, and shattered armor lying on every step. I continued down, careful not to slip and fall, I was heading to the base of the stairs, where there was a huge circle, in it there were only two things separated from the rest of the debris of war. The skeleton of a mighty Dragon knight, and that of a majestic white armor, whose wearer was lying on the first stairs of the long path. It was the place where The White Banisher rested, defending the palace of his empress until the last breath of his life.

I checked the bag and took out a can of beer, I put it next to the gentleman, at his feet there was also another bottle of alcohol, it was vodka, it was half full, indicating that someone else had visited the place before, probably shortly after the fight and paid his respects with what little he had left in his time. I sat down next to him and took out the food as I was pretty hungry, to be honest.

"Hey, you better finish mine too"
"Just look, you haven't even finished the bottle Rose left you"
"She's gonna be pissed that you spurned her favorite drink like that"
"You know what this is about? Yes, beer from my world"
"As promised, here you go, in your honor sir hero"
"Happy victory my friend"

".........."

"Hey don't look at me like that"
"This is my lunch, if you want yours you should go upstairs"
"I think a tree in one of the gardens upstairs must still be producing tasty fruit"
"They'd sure be happy to give you some of their fruit"
"I'm sure you'd like those better, after all you protected them"

".........."

"No, I have never seen her again, I'm sorry"
"Since that day I never heard from her again"
"But let's stop talking about me"
"What about you, what have you been doing?"
"Oh, I see, on guard duty"
"Isn't it boring? I don't think many people come through here lately"

".........."

"How much do you look in that direction?"
"....."
"!!!!"
"Oh I see, that girl over there"
"The one with the spear in her chest, she's the girl you loved, isn't she?"
"Have you talked to her yet?"
"Not yet?"
"What are you waiting for?"
"Come on, don't be shy, she won't bite you for talking to her"
"Buy her a drink one of these days, you can't just stand here staring at her all day, you know?"

".........."

"Tell me you haven't seen Jared again?"
"The guy owed me money and disappeared shortly after I gave it to him"
"Last I heard, he came back here"
"He's probably still at the bar, hell that bottomless barrel"
"I still can't believe it was a dark cloak after all this time"

".........."

"Yes you are right, when he got married he became much more cautious....."
"......
"You know.... talking about that ...."
"You won't believe this, but I got married again!"
"Stop! Stop! Stop!"
"I can explain, just let me talk first!"

".........."

"Well, the truth is that many things happened and it's hard to explain."
"But, yes, I did"
"We are living in Japan, you know the place where those things that Nanami always read about happened"
"We have 2 daughters, they came into our family this year"
"They are so cute, look here I have a picture of them"
"This one here is called Kasumi, and this one here is called Charlotte"
"Yes, exactly like her, the one who helped me to pilot my Walker"
"I never knew what happened to her"

".........."

"Who are they?"
"Oh...."
"Well to be honest, I didn't get married just once, I got married multiple times"
"This one here is called Momo, I don't know if you already know her, she is an angel, she is always behind me helping me"
"This other one here is Lisa, you remember her right? Yes, she has changed a lot but she is still good at heart"
"The one in the wheelchair is Levia, can't you guess where we are?"
"You know that section that was missing a piece with no explanation? well, it appeared on an island near my house"
"Yeah I know she's a mermaid, but she's a good person I swear, she's been trying to change a lot"
"Hey! don't discriminate against her just because she doesn't have feet!"
"The next one is hard to see in the picture but she's flying here, she's Tifa a fairy, "
"I met her on one of my trips, she was being harassed by some thieves"
"Yes, it reminded me of what you would have done, and by the time I realized it I had already killed one of them"
"The other two are my mother and my sister"
"You see in the end after all they were fine, after so much I managed to see them again"

".........."

"What? No!"
"Of course I love her!"
"....."
"It's just that a lot of things have happened since I last saw her"
"....."
"....."
"Hey, do you think she'll get mad?"
"Do you think Nanami will get mad if she realizes that I've moved forward?"

".........."

"Yes, you are right"
"....."
"....."
"Hey, I have to leave soon and I wanted to visit other places"
"I hope you don't mind, it was fun to sit and talk a bit like we used to do before."
"Take care of yourself!"
"And remember to finish drinking the vodka, Rose will get really mad if she doesn't see that bottle empty"

".........."

I got up from the place and started to climb the huge staircase back up. Halfway up I took a moment to admire the destroyed city and see how the only thing still intact was the Palace. How the streets and houses were littered with bones everywhere, both male and dragon, all scattered without any order. My next stop was one of the lower cellars, in one of which there was a very particular one compared to the rest. In it there were several tents and military equipment, here was one of the places where people from Earth could stay, but only as an exception, as a desperate measure in case the Dragons attacked we could act quickly. I continued walking inside where I found a simple mattress and a backpack. It was so stupid, that of all this huge castle, with all its corridors and glorious halls, with all its opulence, this was the only place where I really felt at ease. Remembering what I used to do, I took off my shoes and lay down, put the sheet over me, and closed my eyes for a moment. Everything felt exactly the same as I remembered it, I was resting for a moment, waiting, watching the time go by without any particular thought. It was quiet.

When I got up I put my shoes back on and rearranged the bed, I wanted it to look tidy. Then I took the bag and checked its contents, there wasn't much, nothing flashy, mostly my weapons from when I was here, not much really. Except for a rather worn notebook, I opened it only to find my own handwriting in them. It was the notebook where I wrote all my old subway trip, the second one I made. In it were the notes of the traps or places to avoid, the secret corridors, the tunnels, and also the marked place where Luna died. I put everything back in the backpack and took it all from there.

The next stop was further up, on another of the upper floors. Luckily the elevators were still working, as I would not have made it because of the fatigue of the trip. I arrived at one of the highest parts of the castle, where vertigo gripped anyone who looked out of the windows. The hallway was majestic and beautiful, but still had claw marks, these were made on a very special day. I followed until I came to a beautiful garden, which the horrors of war never knew, it was full of flowers and fruits regardless of the date of the year, it overlooked another smaller castle, a castle within a castle. I put my hand on the door and the imperial symbol appeared on it, thus unlocking the sealing magic it had, this huge place was the royal quarters, it was here where the Royal Family lived, it was here where she lived locked up.

I continued walking through the corridors, I got lost for a moment because maybe this was only the third time I was using the main entrance. After several minutes I finally found the right corridor, I even found again the entrance to the secret access after all these years, I went ahead until I found a white door adorned with beautiful golden details. I put my hand on it but I didn't push it right away, I needed a moment to concentrate on the courage I needed to open the place. After a few long minutes, I opened it and walked in.

It was only a room for one person and yet it was bigger than our current house. The place was full of things, both of Atlantean and Earth origin. On the sofa in the living room, near the fireplace there were several objects, a Rubik's cube, she could never solve despite how hard she tried, and also an instant camera, it was huge and light blue, I remember perfectly how happy she was when I gave it to her, she spent all the paper in just two days, Rose was angry thinking about how to try to get more smuggler but in the end she did it, unfortunately, I never knew what she did with the pictures she took. There was also the bike, still, in its training wheels, I still remember how scared I was that she would fall in the garden. What a scare I got when she played a joke on me by pretending that she fell off the cliff.

As I made my way to the place I wanted to see I came across his personal library. The one that used to be full of Atlantean history and magic now only had comic books and earth books. From world history books to fantasy novels like Puss in Boots or horror stories like Dracula. A whole section of books was dedicated to Sherlock Holmes until reaching the most decorated part with postcards, the books she liked the most were here, the manga, where there was not a single continuation for any of the stories. They were all single volumes of some central part, they are out of context of what was going on, and yet somehow she was fascinated by them, she would sit with me and we would both try to figure out what was going on. Some were in Japanese when I didn't know how to speak it yet, so we could just look at the pictures and guess what was going on. In the end, I managed to get to her personal room, where she slept, nearby there were a couple of chairs with a sheet on top, pretending to be a house. I think that day was the last time we played, there was also a maid if I remember correctly, Nanami told her not to pick up yet, it seems that time never came if it is still like that.  Nearby there was a desk, this was where she wrote and studied languages, she tried so hard to learn English so she could communicate better with humans, and somehow she also took time to study Spanish, just to talk to me. I went over to look and found something rather peculiar. The book of the Happy Prince was there, open, on the page where the bird dies, there were several watermarks on the page, it seems that she read it again on her own. It was surprising that she had brought it with her all the way back here.  But he wasn't alone, there was also the chocolate wrapper that I had given her that night, she had kept it even though it was garbage.

My eyes couldn't hold it in and I started to cry. I lay there on the bed crying for a long time until it was time to go back to the throne room.