Aniña chucked and nodded, "If that is what you want then yes, I can read you something snappy and romantic." In all honestly she needed a sappy romance story too, not that she would admit it but she did. This place had scared her more then normal.
(Heading to bed. goodnight.)
"It is what I want. An absolute bodice ripper with a muscular man and some whiny asshole narrator girl." Sequoia just wanted to get her mind of the dumb room and its creepy black blob. Aniña sounded a little nervous as well, and Sequoia was glad they'd be reading something stupid and distracting.
(night)
Aniña sighed and nodded, "I'm sure I'll find something like that." They both needed to relax. Coming down here was not a good idea, not when they were now both on edge and creeped out. A distraction was what they both needed and Aniña hoped her story telling skills were good enough.
The mural filled hallway was still incredibly creepy, but it seemed less threatening now that Sequoia had seen the torture room and the freaky dark blob. She looked forward to seeing the more peaceful images of farms, mountains, and all the lovely beautiful gods. Soon they could chill in the library and read and distract themselves from the freaky rooms. "Good."
The hallway eventually started to lighten up, sunlight streaming through the windows and the creepy paintings stopped. Aniña released a breath she didn't know she was holding, glad to be away from all the spookiness. After a bit more walking, they made it to the library, "Here we are."
Thank the saints! Sequoia plopped down on the first couch she saw, inhaling deeply. They were free of the creepy hallway and there was nothing bad here. The library was well lit, full of books, and completely safe. How anything evil could attack them in this mahogany colored room of learning was beyond her. "Romance time! Go grab a grossly sappy love story!"
Aniña chuckled and ruffled Sequoia's hair, "Fine, fine. I'm going." She was still laughing as she went to go wander the rows of books for a good story. She knew a few but just had to narrow the list down and pick a couple. She frowned and ran her hands over the books before her hand landed on one and she pulled it out and practically skipped back over to Sequoia.
Sequoia grinned, making grabby hands towards Aniña to show that she wanted the book. Hopefully, it would be in diplomat's tongue and not Aniña's language so she could tell what it would be about. "How horrendous is this? On a scale of 1 to 10?"
(So sorry, the internet has been down all day)
Aniña chuckled and sat down on the couch, “How horrendous? 1. Sally romance, like 8 or so.” She hadn’t actually reads the story for a while, not since her mother passed anyway. But it was a good story, and romance like Sequoia asked.
"Perfect." The book was written in Aniña's language, so Sequoia passed it back to her wife with a hearty grin. A deep, emotionally investing love story was exactly what she wanted right now. And it would definitely be better with Aniña reading it to Sequoia in her beautiful voice.
Aniña took a breath, flipping through the pages of the book until she found the story she wanted.
“Centuries before my capital was founded, a young woman lived on the outskirts of the Feran Forest. The girl, Kalli, lived happily by herself, content and blissful in the presence of the forest and the animal is that surrounded her. Only as time went on, she became lonely. As much as she loved the peace and quiet, sometimes it became too much.
One day when Kalli was out collecting firewood, she stumbled upon a dragons egg. She reached out towards it but at the last second a man appeared in front of her. Tall, dark and handsome, he was everything Kalli ever dreamed of having for a husband. Yet he looks angry with her for trying to touch what was his.
Kalli asked where the mother was, forgetting to ask for the mans name. The man, only replied with that she was lost in a battle. Kalli, filled with guilt that the mother was gone, offered to let the man stay with her until the baby was hatched. The man decided to stay with her and they headed back to Kalli’s cottage.
When they arrive, Kalli asked for the guys name. Darium. A strong name for a warrior. As time went on, the baby still did not hatch and Darium still did not let Kalli touch it. The days past and Kalli found herself being more drawn to the man, and him her. It was becoming harder to stay away from each other and happiness spread throughout them whenver they were near.
After weeks and weeks of them ignoring the signs, the final,y admitted their feelings towards each other, kissing under the moonlight sky with only the stars for company. After they broke away, smiling and giddy, did the egg hatch. A beautiful baby blue and gold dragon hatched, smiling as best he could. Turns out he was waiting for Darium to fall in love before he came into the world.
Kalli and Darium raised the dragon together, they married and had a child of their own and when the dragon was old enough, left with their child to explore the rest of the world.”
Sequoia cooed, sighing dreamily when she thought about the story. It was adorable. And interesting, more interesting than she'd thought it would be. She was expecting a bodice ripper, not something sweet and cute and containing a dragon egg. The dragon egg was a surprise. "That was so adorable! You kind of remind me of Darium, what with the whole 'strong independent warrior' vibe."
Aniña snorted but smiled, “Thanks. It’s not the best romance story but…” She shrugged, “We tend to not do much romance so that was the best I could find.” She flipped the page, showing a picture of Kalli and Darium kissing under the night sky with the dragon hatching in the corner.
Sequoia 'aww'ed and traced a finger over the picture. The story was sweet. Quality wasn't exactly the biggest part of it for Sequoia. As long as it had a good moral and a sweet ending, she was content. "We have a bunch of romance stories in my kingdom. Epic love stories and sappy crap shoots alike."
“Very different to the ones we have… we tend to stay away from the romance but occasionally stories like this pop up.” Aniña smiled down at the picture, memories from when she was younger and her mother filling her mind. She missed it, she really did.
"Why?" Sequoia's people valued romance almost as highly as they valued wealth. So much so that there were two different kinds of marriage. It was part of the reason Sequoia was so pleasantly surprised to find that she really liked Aniña. Their marriage was meant to be for money, and they ended up getting close romantically.
“Romance is seen as… weak. Useless. Most people marry for either money or power, not romance. Stories tend to be about power or myths and legends without the romance because it’s seen as a distraction for fighting and stuff.” Aniña shrugged. It was probably the reason why she hadn’t thought of marrying because she didn’t find the idea of love appealing. But that changed dramatically.
"For us, romance is… treasured. Almost as much as money. Close emotional attachment can make a person do so much and we value it because of that. Anything that pushes a person beyond their boundaries is important to us. People value money, so it's important. People value love, so it's important." That explanation wasn't the best, but Sequoia felt that she got the rough idea out.
"I guess that makes sense. Our cultures are total opposites. Where you value romance, we value… violence," Aniña took a breath and shut the book, blinking a few times, "I didn't know how messed up my culture was until… us."
Sequoia pulled Aniña close, pressing little kisses to the crown of her head. Aniña seemed to be having a breakthrough of some kind. "Well, I'm glad you're making new ideas. And I'm sure there are parts of your culture that are good, just like there are parts of mine that are bad."
"I don't think there's any part of my culture that's good. Maybe a few stories and gods but… that might be it." Aniña rubbed at her face and groaned a little, "God why am I so stupid…" She muttered. She couldn't believe she didn't see everything wrong with her until now.
Sequoia perked up in distress because Aniña wasn't stupid. Sure, she might not be the most brilliant person Sequoia had ever known, but she had been blinded by her culture for years. How could she expect to have learned everything about how her culture was messed up? "No, Habibi. You're not stupid."
"Yes, yes I am. Everything I've been taught and learned is… is wrong and I was too thick to see that. To… to power hungry and to focused on trying to prove myself that I didn't see what I was doing wrong…" Aniña was a damned fool if she ever knew one.
"Listen, you were taught fucked up shit, that's not your fault. You were only trying to impress the people around you, you didn't know it was wrong. But now you do. You can't blame yourself for the things other people have told you." Sure, Aniña had ad some pretty toxic stuff ingrained by years of teaching, but she was trying to undo it. She was trying. Wasn't that what mattered?
“I can blame myself for listening to it,” Aniña sighed and rested her head back against the couch, “Gods, I feel like a fucking child just being born again.”
"Habibi, you're trying. That's what matters. If I told you something, would you believe me? You'd listen to me, wouldn't you? How does that make you a bad person?" Sequoia brushed some hair out of Aniña's face, doing her best to be comforting.
Aniña rubbed at her face, “Let’s not go there right now. How about you read me a story?” She released a small breath and cracked a wobbly smile.
"Okay! Let me find something." Sequoia pressed a kiss to Aniña's forehead and began searching through the library for a good book. She eventually unearthed something called 'Dragon's Song' that looked kind of interesting and brought it back. It appeared to be a book of fables, and one of them caught her eyes.
"Once, in the time before ours, there lived a young man named Kanz. He was the only child of his town's chief, and he was well liked by the people. His father refused to do much work, preferring to chase skirts and get drunk. It was well known that Kanz did all the work of the town.
One day, a woman ran to his father, begging and pleading for him to help find her daughter, Albashiea. His father refused to help and sent the woman away, threatening to have her imprisoned if she came back. However, the woman would not give up easily. She went to Kanz behind his father's back and asked him to find his daughter.
Kanz agreed at once and left that very night, searching far and wide for Albashiea. He had no luck. For seven days and seven nights, he crossed mountain and rivers, walked through valleys and plains searching for the girl and for seven days and seven nights he found nothing.
On the eighth day, he came across a giant silver bird, laying out in the noonday sun. This bird was one of the villages local spirits, sent from the sky to help Kanz. Together they realized that Albashiea had been taken prisoner by the mighty dragon king." At that point, Sequoia pause to show Aniña an illustration of Kanz and the silver bird, speaking together in a valley.
Aniña ran her fingertips over the picture, admiring the work of art, “What happened next?”
Sequoia flipped the page and was shocked to discover that the next couple pages of the book had been torn out. The title of the next story 'Thumbling' showed, along with the beginning of a new story. "I don't know, someone ripped out the pages." She showed Aniña the torn stumps of page.