Ali

Ali stood dramatically on the top of the dragon statue high atop her fortress, thinking. Few nights were there that Ali found herself victim to insomnia, but tonight was among those select nights. After all, tomorrow was the Day - the Day she would annihilate that fire-fleshed Lavos. For good, or at least die trying, in which case she could join Schala in the afterlife. Either way, Ali would win bittersweet victory. One way, all of her relentless years of studying and training would have been for naught, the other, she would still be quite assuredly alone, and without much of a purpose - find a way back to the past. It was unlikely she’d ever do so, but she had it all planned out since she was seventeen in case he did.

She sorely missed the vain kingdom of Zeal, even though she had loathed it when he actually lived there. In spite of being royalty, she had had little back then, and in the latter days less, but it was more than she’d ever had in the Middle Ages. The only thing she had left was power; it was even greater power than she’d had in Zeal, and it was both comforting and intoxicating, don’t minsunderstand, but it came with the high price of having to serve pot-bellied swine. Ozzie was a base, weak mystic who just so happened to be king. It was true that the mystic possessed animal cunning, but that scarcely showed itself anymore. And was he ever stupid! High taxes were enforced, even high for wartime. Law was lax and strict in all the wrong ways. If he was to be overthrown sometime in the next few years, Ali wouldn’t be shocked at all. Then again, she seldom was.

Most mystics and humans assumed Slash, Flea, and Ali were close, but it was hard to think of Flea as anything other than a fellow mage and even harder to think of Slash as anything but a swordsman. She didn’t know even the simplest of things about either of them beyond their battle skills. She didn’t know Flea’s favorite song, or why Slash seemed to detest Ali so, didn’t know what kept either from mutiny.

She also didn’t really care. She hadn’t cared about much of anything during the twenty years she’d been in this damned era. Except Schala, Schala, Schala. She’d been Ali ’s unwavering light since he was still just a child. Her haunted green eyes and ubiquitous kindness were the only thing she remembered now, but she wanted her more than anything else and more than ever, but they were separated by such a profound chasm that it was nearly inconceivable that Ali would see her ever again. But it had been inconceivable so long ago that they would be far apart at any point in time. Who knew for sure if it was really so far-fetched?

Schala was not all she missed. She missed her mother, her father, both too far gone to warrant a thought of entertaining hope. While others scorned her for her lack of magic, before Lavos they had loved her anyway. But her father had died in an earthquake inside an Earthbound cave, and Celesta Zeal had perished, so to speak, and in her ashes rose a colder, unloving queen. All because of Lavos…

Ali turned her back to the moon, the word “tomorrow” dancing through her brain. Everything depended on tomorrow. She smirked suddenly, then laughed a resonant cackle. Down below, some roving dogs barked loudly. Yes. Tomorrow. She wouldn’t lose. She wouldn’t win. Wasn’t that just the story of her life?

Feel free to send Ali an e-mail to remind her of what a huge slut she is.