~~~~~ She snuck back towards the castle. Thanks to her powers, it was a dark and foggy night. Nobody would see her slip into her old room. All she needed was closure.
~~~~~ She blew the winds hard behind her, raising her steadily into the air. She reached her window, and climbed in, falling to the floor. She stood, looking around. Everything had been ransacked.
~~~~~ All of her things were on the floor, broken, destroyed. Nothing from her life at the castle remained whole. Nothing except for her memories. She looked towards the door. Beneath it she could see a ray of light. The lanterns of the hall were lit for the night.
~~~~~ Slowly, she creapt over and opened the door, peeking out. Nobody there, so she opened the door and steadily moved down the hall. Their room wasn't too far from her own. That's what the Empress had wanted.
~~~~~ She reached their door, and slowly opened it. She noticed that they were already asleep, but with someone approaching the hallway from the stairs, she quickly rushed in, closing the door silently behind her. She stared through the dark, allowing her vision to adjust.
~~~~~ She creapt over to the bed, and looked at their faces a moment. They did look like her real parents, but they couldn't be. They just couldn't be.
~~~~~ The flames soared into the air. They could feel the heat licking their bodies, even while they were so far away.
~~~~~ The screaming echoed through the air.
~~~~~ She began to slowly shake her mother, "mom. Wake up. I need to speak with you." Her mother opened her eyes, and looked over to Dré. She opened her mouth to say something, but Dré placed a hand over it before she could speak a word. "Mom... I won't be able to see you anymore. The Empress is out for my life." Her mother removed the hand from her mouth.
~~~~~ "My poor daughter."
~~~~~ "I need to ask one thing though... I just need some sort of closure on this situation." Dré stared into her mother's eyes. "How did you and dad survive the destruction of the kingdom?"
~~~~~ "It's simple. You see, your father and I escaped through the tunnels underneath the kingdom and..." Mom began. Dré began shaking her head.
~~~~~ "You're lying. I remember the tunnels. That isn't how you escaped. The tunnels collapsed in three years before the kingdom was destroyed. It was devastating to the miners, but there was nothing we could do. You and dad agreed to never re-open the tunnels... to never rebuild them because you wanted no more deaths..."
~~~~~ Thedad stood at a podium, hundreds of thousands of Faeries stood before him. Watching. Waiting to see what the king had to say.
~~~~~ "It is my worst fear that anything should ever happen to my people. It is my worst fear... that any of my children get hurt. I want to tell you... that I am sorry. One of my greatest fears has come to pass in the last twenty-four hours..."
~~~~~ "Please... how did you escape?"
~~~~~ "Well..." Mom began. She tried to think of any answer.
~~~~~ "I found your crown in the ruins of the kingdom." Dré stated. Mom began to speak. "But." Mom hushed herself before saying anything. "I also found it on your skeleton. Your dead body. You aren't my mother, and I can only assume that he isn't my dad. So tell me. How did you escape?"
~~~~~ Mom looked absolutely shocked. She also looked ashamed of herself. She sat up in the bed, looking at Dré. "You know... I do still have the memoried of your mother. I know that she loves you still. Even though she no longer lives." Tears began forming in both of their eyes. "The Empress... had abducted us one year before she destroyed the kingdom. She took genetic samplings from both me... from both your mother and father."
~~~~~ "You two are... clones?" Dré asked, now crying.
~~~~~ "The Empress created two perfectly healthy clones. And then once she accomplished that, she placed us in incubators and destroyed the kingdom."
~~~~~ "Why were you put into incubators?" Dré asked in confusion.
~~~~~ "You see, you can't clone an adult. When she cloned your parents, we were only babies. She put us in incubators to accelerate the aging process. We had eight years to grow older. With the incubators help, we aged about two and a half years every actual year." she explained.
~~~~~ "But that would make you, what... twenty years old? That's still a year younger than both myself and Eon." Dré pointed out. Mom nodded.
~~~~~ "That's where Iria's potions came in. It was just a while ago that the Empress saw the need to have us out and about, to distract you and Eon. Since we were both still in our prime, she had Iria concoct a potion to age us a few more years. All she wanted was for us to be older than you. After the potions we were about twenty-five. After the genetic tampering... we're about thirty-nine. That's when she decided to give us to you."
~~~~~ "M... Mom? Daddy?" she covered her face with her hands in wonderment.
~~~~~ "My children!" their mother stood before them. The parents who they thought were dead for the past eight years, were standing directly in front of them.
~~~~~ "Mom!" Eon screamed as he rushed over and hugged her. Their father walked over and gave Dré a tender hug aswell.
~~~~~ "Amazing..." Dré muttered.
~~~~~ "I'm so sorry for deceiving you..."
~~~~~ "Thank you... for the truth. Even though you aren't my mother... I want you and dad to know that I love you." Dré crouched over and hugged her mother's clone.
~~~~~ "I love you too... my child..." Mom started to cry. Finally, Thedad awakened, turning over and noticing that there were two women beside him blubbering like children.
~~~~~ "What's happening?" he asked sluggishly.
~~~~~ "She knows... everything... I told her..." the crying continued. Dré rushed to the other side of the bed, hugging her father's clone.
~~~~~ He hugged her tightly, stroking her hair, "I'm so sorry we had to do this, my little water lilly..."
~~~~~ Thedad crouched over her bed, kissing her forehead goodnight. "Sweet dreams, my little water lilly." Dré smiled and closed her eyes.
~~~~~ "Maybe I'll see you both again someday..." Dré released her hug, and stepped towards their window. "Goodbye."
~~~~~ "Farewell, child."
~~~~~ "Be careful." Thedad whispered.
~~~~~ "Sweet dreams."
Written by: Eon
