Weekly Drabble #255: Now and Forever (Patreon)

This week's prompt is 'always a bride, never a bridesmaid' from Pethrai D'Arkos and we have a story told from the perspective of such a bride. Enjoy!

~Now and Forever:

Today, I will wed my fifteenth husband.

(Not concurrently, you understand)

He is the youngest son of a proud family and the least accomplished, but in him I see potential. More than potential, when he looked at me, it was not with indifference, disgust or worst of all – pity. That was why I chose him. There is only so long decorum allows me to remain unwed. Alliances must be maintained or created, the realm must be protected and the never-ending web of intrigue and political maneuvering between its houses and those beyond our borders must be cultivated and controlled.

(After fifteen hundred years of such things, I am long used to the pettiness of my court. There are the noble and the good-hearted, of course. But there are quite a few of less upstanding moral character.)

I have lived so very, very long. I have outlived each and every one of my suitors, almost all of my children and many more of my grandchildren and great-grand children...

(And on and on and on – fifteen centuries is a very long time, you know. No parent should outlive their children, but even with lifespans of centuries, they pass before me.)

Before the nigh-impenetratable walls of my tank, my handmaids and servants scurry about to arrange the final aspects of the royal wedding, stopping before it occasionally to ask my opinion or offer assurances and updates. Some of them have been with me all their lives, entering my service when they were just children and now direct and teach others in their turn. The tailors and attendants will be here within an hour to wrap me in silks from specially-bred animals and put makeup on that will not wash away as they fret and make sure none of the fabric will get tangled in my life-support systems. I have heard that it is quite the fad for other noble brides to be dressed while immersed in water.

(Of course it would be water and not what I spend my days in.)

They call me their Eternal Queen. Immortal (I think? I don’t actually know if I am), ageless and beautiful. The last daughter of a great line. The last scion of a forgotten people and they can not, will not, let me go. I don’t know how long they laboured to save me after they found me on that blood-stained floor, an arm and leg missing, half my skull shorn away and my brain exposed. No one but I could have survived those injuries, but there are limits to everything. I was still dying and nothing they could do would save me.

Nothing but this.

(Nothing comes without a price. The Gift gave my people much, but it has its own costs. The medical treatments that would have regenerated and cloned the damaged and destroyed tissues in my subjects will not work with my physiology. Magic and science get along very poorly, but you know this well, don’t you?)

My left arm and leg are master-crafted prosthetics. The ruinous scars across my torso still make suitors and attendants who see me for the first time glance away. Amidst my flowing hair are long cables that keep my ravaged brain functional, cords in my spine letting me use my limbs instead of being paralyzed. Implants keep my lungs breathing and my heart beating. My body accepts these gifts and uses them to fight as hard as it ever has to keep me alive.

This tank, larger than a small lake, is a broth filled with hyper-oxgenated, medicine and nutrient-rich liquid, specially formulated to be almost as viscous and clear as the purest water, to let me move and swim and sometimes even pretend that I am free.  Every liter of it costs more than a wealthy merchant’s monthly income. The walls can project images, the floor can shift into different shapes like the waving fronds of a kelp forest, the bright colours of a coral reef, the ice-strewn seafloor of an arctic ocean and more.

(They are still trying to genetically engineer animals that can survive in here. I know it is for my benefit, but I think that would make me feel even more like a prize exhibit in an aquarium).

Some days – some years and decades – I have wished to die instead, but my people will not let that happen. They need me, or so they say. I think they are terrified of what will happen without me. For fifteen hundred years, their Eternal Queen has kept their nation stable and safe through upheaval. Wars, civil conflict, plague and famine, invasions from beyond – all of these and more I have seen during my reign. All of those incidents, they believe, they could not have survived without me.

(Some even worship me. I find that silly; I am no goddess, but the faith remains and promulgates regardless of what I say)

Oh, it hasn’t been all devotion and love. Not even remotely. There have been multiple attempts on my life. The ‘glass’ walls of my tank are specially-formulated to withstand anti-tank weaponry after an incident in which mere bullet-proof armour was found insufficient. My security detail arrived to find my would-be assassin and I in a pool of fluid from my broken tank, both of us gasping. Me, because my ruined lungs can no longer properly breath in air and him because my hands were around his throat, choking the life from him even as I asphyxiated.

(At that time, I think you can guess, I did want to live.)

Though am I physically confined to this tank, I am not without entertainment. The implants within my brain allow me an instant connection to the planetary network. I can see anything I want, from viewing the clouds through the eyes of high-flying drones, to watching multiple episodes of whatever program catches my fancy, to speaking with any member of the palace or beyond if I wish.

(I can still speak; a little mercy that my voice was not taken from me on that day)

Whatever I desire, I need only ask for it and it will be brought to me... but that does not change the fact that for fifteen hundred years, this chamber has been all I’ve known. It may be all I will ever know now. Perhaps one day they will be able to fully heal me, but some small part of me wonders if they can do that now, but are afraid that they might lose me. I don’t think my nation will fall if I take some time to live, but they might not want to risk it. My subjects... they will do everything I ask of them and more, except the one thing I need more than anything else.

One of my handmaidens signals me. I have an intercom in my tank, but I can turn it on or off at will. On days like today, that gives me a respite from a barrage of questions. My eldest attendants can answer most concerns and I prefer the small respite. Even for someone not in my condition, weddings can be exhausting and this is a state affair. It will be broadcast live across the world and carried to all the other systems within my empire. The Eternal Queen must be at her best.

(There was once a lot of bickering and bitter arguments about how I should be presented. Some in the court wanted to cover up my injury with body doubles, holograms and computer-generated forgeries, believing that my condition would be taken a sign of weakness and undermine morale. I refused. This is who and what I am now; if they cannot bear to show their handiwork to the rest of my people, then they shouldn’t have saved me.)

All my people know what happened to me. The Equalist movement that spread from world to world, an ideology subverted and turned to savagery as those who followed it turned upon anyone deemed greater than they in self-assured cruelty. The massacres of my people. The chants of ‘No gods, no kings’ that swept my nation, the rebellion that turned to wanton slaughter. The siege of the palace. The final stand of the King’s Own, dying to a man to allow us to escape. The relentless hunt for us and finally, the butchery of my family, down to my youngest siblings and the tortures and perversions inflicted on us by self-righteous zealous.

The sight of me, broken, brutalized and clinging to life, has become an iconic image in our culture. The rebuilt regiment of the Queen’s Own has taken an image of my severed arm as their new symbol – a reminder both of their previous failure and as a symbol of defiance. Apparently, I was much harder to kill than the assassins anticipated.

(I told you that in my left arm they found a knife with assassins’ blood on it and under the fingernails of my right hand there was blood and skin from another of my family’s killers, didn’t I? I don’t remember that night well. I don’t want to, but apparently after my father and elder siblings were murdered, I was quite... incensed. One of those I killed was found fused into the wall. I hope she suffered.)

I turn on the intercom to listen to my handmaiden. “The artists and tailors are here,” she tells me. “They’re just passing through the last bit of security now.”

It will hardly be the last bit. Anyone who comes into this tank is subjected to one final and very rigourous examination by my guards. Two of them will be joining my attendants. There was another attempt on my life during the preparations for my eighth wedding that I just barely survived. Now, no chances are taken.

Makeup is first. I put a respirator in and float on the surface as the pair of artists pat my face dry and painstakingly do their work. They are so involved in it that I don’t think they even remember how closely my guards are watching them. Their work is lovely. I get few opportunities or reasons to dress up and it is one part of these events that I do look forward to. Next, the handmaidens and tailors. They’ve practised and trained for months, sometimes even years for this. They enter the ‘water’ with me – after the guards, of course – breathing masks in place. The liquid here can be breathed by others, but it is specifically tailored to me. Some people have had severe reactions, from oxygen toxicity to autoimmune responses. My attendants go through careful medical screening to avoid that and just need to watch out for hyperoxia from breathing the fluid in.

Like gentle naiads, they swim around me, careful wrapping me in precisely-placed and layered ribbons and cloth that will move with me, flowing gently like ripples of colour instead of weighing me down, while being appropriately modest for a monarch who will be seen by hundreds of billions. The colours are lovely, the fit perfect and the work sublime.

(I wish I had more occasions to dress up.)

My outfit and appearance complete, my bridesmaids go through their final checks before they enter the tank with me, women from court and several prominent worlds. Most nervous of all is Bryna, a commoner from one of the systems farthest from my throne. Every wedding I choose (and did I not have to fight for that?) an applicant from outside the normal avenues of proprietary to attend me. She is freckle-faced and lovely in a way that contrasts with the other high-born around her. If they give any sign of annoyance at a commoner being included in this event, they know to hide it. I’ve dismissed entire parties of bridesmaids save for the target of their cruelty before, leaving the wedding planners and my court scrambling to find replacements and smooth ruffled feathers, but the lesson has sunk in.

I greet each of them individually with a smile and a few words.

Finally, I am ready.

A royal wedding takes time. Too much time, but I suppose I have that to spare. Guests arrive, slowly filtering through the layers of security that brings them here to my, ah, ‘throne’ room. The entire chamber is unrecognizable from its normal appearance, to an extent that some believe that it is indeed a different room entirely. I suspect the hallways that reconfigure themselves to direct guests along an alternate route also play a role in giving that impression.

Each guest presents themselves to me first, bowing dutifully as they are introduced. Some of these men and women are old friends whose families I have known for generations. Some are new allies. Some are rivals; most of those simply wish to take the place of my current ruling council and prime minister. A handful of those men and women would gladly do it through any means they could as long as they succeeded. Some of them have an eye on the throne themselves and sadly, some of those aspirants even have my blood.

One of my daughters, two hundred years old and looking two decades older than I, bows respectfully. Kristin is a strong, intelligent woman. She is a worthy successor, but my people will not let me abdicate. She loves me, but she also wishes that she could be queen. I silently support her efforts to allow for a line of succession to be created, though I suspect it’s doomed to fail. If the court won’t let their queen go, then they certainly won’t let one of her daughters create a method for her to depart. Despite her ambition, I have nothing to fear from Kristin.

She presses her forehead to the glass and I kiss my fingertips and touch them to the other side of it. Her twin Kristoff is next, clad in his admiral’s dress uniform. He supports his sister’s political efforts, but only to an extent. He, like many others, values the continuity of the Eternal Queen’s reign. He has no eye to rule, only to serve the empire as best he can and he has done that ably for his entire life. One son and daughter among many that I am so proud of.

Eventually, we reach one of my descendants that I am less proud of. I am the last of my kind in the empire, and over generations of my children marrying human, my blood has thinned, the longevity and power there waning. Carlos has almost nothing of me within him and his dark eyes are arrogant, smug and cruel. If he thought he could get away with it, he would drag me out of this tank and slit my throat himself. He is a dangerous man. His cousin Alonzo shares his desire for power, but is a coward. Thin-blooded whelps like them are one reason I have not found a way to give up my rule. They see themselves as just as fit to take the throne as those such as Kristin and Kristoff and they’d challenge any claim.

(I do see the reason why my court wants to keep me around, even if I often wish it were not so).

Finally, all the guests have arrived and have been greeted in their turn.

This chamber is not fit for grand entrances so, (again, like I am a prize exhibit being revealed at the opportune moment) great curtains draw across the front of my tank to give my arrival a more fitting sense of awe than to have me bobbing idly and waiting for my groom. This is when the broadcast begins; the news dregs only start filming once I am hidden away. It provides a much greater boost to their ratings if people have to wait to see me. After I heard that, my wedding planners had to beg me to accept the curtains. This was for the guests and the groom, they insisted. Not the newsies.

(As you can probably guess, I acquiesced. I can be flexible.)

I hear the music playing in my earpiece and I know when he arrives. The curtains begin to open and I swim forward, my bridesmaids with me and I see my betrothed (not beloved, but that may come later). His eyes light up as he sees me in my bridal gown, an expression of unrehearsed and honest awe upon his face. He does not look upon me with pity or indifference like some of my spouses (and even many in my court) have. That was why I chose him over his brothers.

I meet his eyes and I smile back. He is young and handsome. His life will be gone in a flicker compared to mine, but in this moment, he is my choice and his acceptance pleases me. We speak our vows before the priest and every god or gods who are watching. He climbs the steps to the top of the tank and opens the main hatch. I extend my arm of flesh and blood to him and he slips the ring upon it, as I do for him.

“You may kiss the bride,” the priest intones and he leans down towards me as I lift up to him. He gently cups my chin in his hands and, without hesitation, kisses me. It is sweet and loving and only when my ruined lungs strain for oxygen that I (reluctantly) sink back into the life-sustaining water of my tank.

There is applause, but I scarcely hear it, offering him my hand again and he kisses it. “Tonight,” I tell him, and he nods. There will be the reception, speeches and more but tonight when all the guests have gone home and this room is silent and still, he will return. He will shed his clothes as I will mine and he will slip into my perfect, endless prison and we will consummate our marriage. This will not be the first time he has visited me this way and the feel of his flesh against, upon and within mine is a precious, warming thought.

I am the Eternal Queen and I have lived fifteen hundred years, but tonight and for the next few decades, I will again, have someone to share my reign with.