Unexpected Answers ...

[This is an ongoing chapter a week story that began with the first Words for Wednesday for 2025 on 1 January. I'm hoping to continue it through 31 December, the last Wednesday of the year. To start from the beginning, click on the Words for Wednesday 2025 label to the right and it will pull up all of the weekly posts.]

  "I'm sorry, who?  My what?  I thought you said she had no heirs.  And how am I related to Queen Legodia?"

  "Ahhh, Thalion, I was very purposeful in my choice of words.  I said she had no 'known' heirs.  Queen Legodia inherited the kingdom from her father.  She was the eldest of ten children.  At the time of her death, when her cousin, Oom, assumed the throne, eight of her younger siblings had been silently assassinated by his henchmen in neighboring kingdoms and communities."

  "Eight?  So, there was one still alive?"

  "Queen Legodia's mother died giving birth to her ninth child, a son.  He was raised by a young milk nurse, who had recently lost a child to stillbirth.  When her husband later died in battle, she became the king's concubine in order to support herself.

  After the boy was no longer nursing, she unexpectedly found herself pregnant by the king.  Fearing that the king would be angry, and that the baby would be ostracized as a bastard, she fled the kingdom during a solar eclipse."

  "Where did she go?"

  "She traveled on foot for several weeks.  At first only moving at night in case the king was searching for her.  She sought shelter that winter in a small village called Hog's Breath where she worked with a seamstress and was able to disguise her growing body for a time.  When her mistress questioned her about the father of her pending child, she told her that he had been an abusive drunk who had raped her one night.  Which was not far from the truth.

  By the spring she had saved enough coin to purchase a small donkey, and shortly after the baby, a boy, was born she felt it was time for her to move again in case the king had sent men to find her trail.  She couldn't have known that the king had died a week after the eclipse, and his eldest daughter was now on the throne."

  "How discouraging.  All of her efforts to flee, and she really didn't have to after all."

  "Oh, but she did.  It was well known that she had been the king's concubine, and her pregnancy would have started tongues wagging.  If she had stayed, it is likely her son would have been killed with the rest of Queen Legodia's siblings after her death.  In order for the prophecy to be fulfilled, it was imperative that he survive."

  "Prophecy?  What prophecy?"

  "Do you believe in luck, Thalion?  Or do you believe in fate?"

  "I'm not sure.  What's the difference?"

  "Imagine that the Universe has already charted your path.  You set out in life, believing that you are making all of your own choices, but in reality, the Universe has already chosen for you.  It simply puts options before you, like sending them down a chute, and no matter which one you chose, it will still lead you to the same destination they have chosen for you.  That is fate.

  Now imagine you pick up an acorn off the ground, and you kick punt it into the air, hoping it will land in a small oval you can't even see on the other side of the forest.  That is what you call luck."

  Thalion laughs, "Well, I'm still not sure I know which one I believe in.  Most of the time I'd like to think that fate has determined my life, but there are times when it feels like I've just gotten lucky."

  Chuckling in agreement and nodding her head, Elowin continued.  "As far back as the records of elf-kind go, there has been a story of an unknown king who will rise up from humble origins to save all of the forest folk from an unknown evil.  Even long before King Oom and the division of the land, and long before Queen Legodia and her father.  Each generation has patiently waited and wondered if he would come in their lifetime."

  "And of the evil?  What of it?"

  "The Grimma.  It has risen up every few generations, which only hinders the hope of the faithful and believers in fate."

  "You said that the origin of it came from a curse that a wizard advisor of King Oom put on the land?  Why would he do that?"

  "King Oom was a jealous, little man who only surrounded himself with those he believed would be loyal to him.  But in truth, they were only loyal to themselves and cared nothing for him, or the forest.  When the wizard placed the curse on the kingdom and the forest, he believed that he would one day be able to sit on a throne over the entire world.  But that was not the fate that the Universe had set out for him, and his plan backfired.

  Half a century later, when the battle over the kingdom had been forgotten, The Grimma rose up one evening while the wizard was camping in a different part of the forest to gather herbs.  His magic that created it the first time was unable to stop it, and he became just another victim of his own selfish greed."

  His forehead wrinkled with confusion, Thalion sat quietly for several moments.  "But if the wizard couldn't stop what he created, and the true heir to the kingdom is just a voice in my head, how can The Grimma be stopped?"

  Elder Elowin looked at him gently.  "The wizard's curse can only be broken when the true heir to the throne sits rightfully upon it.  And that, my innocent young sprout, is you."

This week's Words for Wednesday can be found here.