Night Reign

Everyone thinks that being special is awesome. We all grow up with stories about superheros who have amazing abilities which they use to fight the bad guys and save the day. We all are bound to fantasize about what it would be like to be a superhero, to have powers and to save the day. For real life superheroes with amazing abilities, who actually save the world, their reality is divergent. For those who have walked a similar path to my own, the cold hard truth is that being special is not awesome at all, it is lonely. Others will often find that which makes you different, even if they do not know exactly how you are different from them, to be off putting and recoil from you. And often those you help the most will be the first to turn on you.

***

As I led nearly six million witches onto the battlefield, my heart had hammered wildly in my chest. For ten years we had been preparing for this war. We had been preparing for this day since the moment I had ceased trying to run from the crown and my destiny. It had taken a lot of hard work to get us here. The act I had to accomplish when I accepted my crown as witch queen was to put an end to the blood feuds between the covens that had been on-going for hundreds of years. I knew that in order to save the world I would require all of the covens and solitary practitioners within my queendom to be united, and for them to accept my rule after having failed to accept my role as such for so long. Without peace none would ban together to save the world. For me, failure was never an option. I had to prove to them that I was a commander, not a deserter.

Under one banner we had fought the good fight. The good winning, beating back the hoard as we had gained dominion over the devouring evil which was hell bent on ending all which lived. As witch queen I led the charge, sounding my battle cry as the others followed in my wake. It was a glorious thing to have been a part of. Certainly it was a cause worth laying down my life for. Each and everyone of the witches under my reign could not have made me prouder.

***

I muse on the humorousness of what crosses ones mind when they reach the end of their life. Some say your entire life flashes before your eyes. Others say that you see every mistake you ever made and that leaves you filled with regrets. Some say that you end life in a tunnel with a bright light at the end that you must head toward. Others believe angels awaited to schlep your spirit on to the after life. For me it was different, as I lay broken upon the battle ground, a fallen shield maiden witch queen. Looking up at the sky, what I saw was a crowned barn owl that had first come to me long ago. It swooped down on majestic wing to guide my soul onto my journey to Valhalla. Thoughts of my first encounter with Night Reign filling my mind.

Even as a child I had realized that real magic existed in the world. I had been born into a bloodline of royal witches which had extended back at least a thousand years. I knew that one day I would be the witch queen. That was a lot of pressure to place on a two year old's shoulders. But as the saying goes, 'heavy is the head that wears the crown'. No truer words had ever been spoken.

But then the truth of the matter was that I was no run of the mill witch. My mother had a penchant for telling me, "Even among the gifted, you are gifted." Each time she stated this, a look of honor and consternation would flit across her face for a brief moment before she was able to compose herself.

I had always been confounded by both her words as well as the conflicting emotions that seethed within her every time she thought of how different I was. My young mind simply could not fathom how it was that I could be so different from anyone, if you cut me I would still spill red blood, so to me I felt just like everyone else. Equally I could not penetrate the concept of what had made my mother so emotional when she spoke of my being gifted even among the gifted.

In time I would come to realize that it was because I had been BORN with active magical gifts. Four of them in fact. The other queens in my bloodline had come into their power at puberty. Too, what set me apart was that the others had been granted one maybe two inherent active gifts. Throughout my life more would develop until I would come to have twenty-eight in total. I would also come to realize that I was the witch queen whom had been promised by prophecy, a mere thing of myths and legends. However, my enlightenment on all of these facts would come many years later when the crown and the Royal grimoire would be passed onto me. And I would run from both for a decade until the night I had to fight a bokor and survive.

***

My entire world had been turned upside down when I was three and a half. I was ripped from my family and thrown into the foster care system. Although I had been granted an hour of visitation with my mother and grandmother twice a month, that had not been enough time for them to train me or to explain the way that things were to me. Besides, witch business was not something that could be spoken of in front of prying eyes or opened ears.

My foster parents knew that I was different as well. They had been ordinary people who were not equipped to handle an uber witch queen whom had been prophesied to come and save the world a millennia before. The differences they had found in me from other children had frightened them and in their fear the only recourse had been to get rid of me within two weeks of being in their care. I had seen the abandonment coming each time, however, when I confronted them about it they would tell me the same beautiful lie of, 'We love you, we would never get rid of you...' Until they did. Consequently I was bounced through thirteen foster homes in a matter of six months.

The night before I left that final foster home with a family that did not want me, I got down on the floor upon my knees clasping my hands together in prayer, elbows braced on the bed, my bare feet sticking out from my long flannel nightgown. Looking up at the ceiling with my eyes wide opened, searchingly I said, "God, if there is a god, and if you are really listening, please make me a normal girl, so that I don't scare my foster parents and they feel the need to get rid of me. Let the new family I go to tomorrow love me and keep me. And if you can, pretty please watch over my mommy, and protect her since I am no longer there to do it. Amen." Once said, I raised from the floor getting into the bed that I would be sleeping in for the final time, a few tears slipping silently from my eyes forging paths down my face to land upon the ruffled top of the nightgown I wore.

I had laid in that bed, unable to sleep. My mind was plagued with worry over what will happen the next day, what the new family would be like, if they would love me and keep me. All the things that should not steal sleep from any four year old. It seemed as though I had laid there wide awake and fearful for an eternity. I rolled toward the window gazing out attempting to discern the time by the position of the moon. My best guess was that it was deep midnight, between three and four in the morning, when the night's sky seemed to be the darkest. As I stared out the window, a barn owl flew in for a landing, perching itself upon a tree limb that was within arm's length reach of the window. As I looked at it I realized it had been peering directly at me as well. As we looked at one an other, the owl let out a plaintiff hoo-hoo. Even at the tender age of four I knew that there had been something special about that owl.

Unable to fight the desire to know just how the owl was different from the rest, I got out of my bed, tiptoeing to the window to throw it wide open. Reaching out a shaking hand until I could touch it, I held my breath, thinking surely that I would frightened the owl away. When my reaching hand did not seem to faze the majestic bird of the night, I allowed my fingers to shyly rub a long the owl's head and down its back, then pulled my hand back in the window as though I had been burnt.

Hoo hoo the owl cried out, then flew onto the window's ledge, closer to me. It nudged its head toward me, as though asking for something from me but I knew not what. Again and again it nudged its head which was graced with a black mark that looked oddly like a crown upon it in my direction.

"What do you want from me? I do not understand," I whispered to the bird, pleadingly.

Hoo, the owl replied long and mournfully as it entered my room. I backed up until my legs bumped into the edge of the bed which caused me to lose my balance, falling gracelessly upon it. All the while I kept a weary eye upon the bird.

It let out yet another hoo, this time she appeared to be laughing at me. I must have looked amusing to have fallen so haphazardly as I did. I let out a small giggle as well, as though the owl and I had shared an inside joke as I wiggled so that I was better situated onto the bed and sat up. Suddenly, the bird took wing from the window ledge, coming to a rest in my lap. I began stroking it as though I were petting a cat, and as odd as the situation may have seemed to anyone else, it had seemed perfectly normal to me. A soothing calm washed over me as I pet the beautiful creature that rested in my lap.

I loved feeling the downy softness of the bird's feathers. "You should have a name," I spoke gently, as I began thinking of the bird more as a domesticated animal who would be a pet more than the wild creature it actually had been.

The owl turned its head to gaze up at me, blinking. It was as though the bird understood my words, and agreed. It was as though it waited for me to name it

Minutes ticked by as I racked my mind on what to call it. "How about Night Reign? Reign as in the rule of a king or queen, because you have that crown marking upon your head."

The owl hooed at me in seeming delight, as though it had approved of the name I had chosen to call her.

"Night Rein, my mommy says that one day I will be the witch queen. I don't want to be. I want to be just a normal girl," I whispered, confessing my true desires.

Night Reign remained with me for a while longer, resting in my lap, bringing me comfort as I told her things I could not speak out loud to anyone but my mother and grandmother. All too soon the rays of dawn stretched across the sky, chasing away the darkness of night. Night Reign rose up on her legs, nestling her head into mine, giving a soft and final hoo before turning and flying out of the window I had left opened.

Sadness filled me as I raced to the window to watch her fly into the dawn lit sky. However as I watched her disappear I felt an other emotion entirely rise up within me. For the first time since I had been taken from my mother I had been given a glimmer of hope. It was with the new found sense that I found I was finally able to soar.