(Dazzlings) Before the New World Was New

>”Ooh, look how green everything is!“
>”Looks just as bad as the palace grounds to me. Can we go back in the ocean?”
>Be Adagio.
>You’ve… encountered some obstacles in taking over the human world.
>Again.
>You were honestly very close this time, if only they hadn’t abolished the divine right of kings at the last minute.
>They executed the emperor you were advising just before you could unite them under one flag and overthrow him.
>But hey, that’s what puppet rulers are for!
>You’re not bitter or anything.
>It’s just that everyone needs a break sometimes, especially from politics.
>So you’ve taken the girls on vacation, starting with a soothing two-month swim.
>The three of you are finally back at your personal haven.
>A very long time ago, this is where you were banished.
>Well, much closer to the western shore, but still here.
>Everything here was immaculately secret, as far away as possible from the rest of society.
>There were humans in some of it, though.
>Sometimes they had darlingly intricate names and deliciously cursed artifacts for you.
>But you could avoid them if you wanted.
>In fact, you all thought the world was deserted for the first decade.
>Ah, youth.
"You can go swimming again if you like, Aria. Sonata and I are going to go find dinner."
>She strolls wordlessly back toward the tide.
>You head for the forest, thick green trees without measure.
>Sonata’s staring at you, and she’s trying to look cute.
>”If I catch something, I don’t have to cook it, do I?”
>You laugh gently and muss her hair.
"Of course not. We’re here to be ourselves, aren’t we?"
>Her expression stops being cute.
>Her grin is toothy and unpracticed, nothing like the polite, wan, elegant thing she would share in banquet halls with your former courts.
>You can’t help but return it.
>The things you eat will be remembered someday as hidebehinds, splintercats, teakettlers.
>Today they don’t have names, and that’s the beauty of them.
>You’re all sitting on the beach, looking where you came.
>Aria points straight to the horizon.
>”Don’t you have a husband back there?”
>You startle.
>You hadn’t remembered that, and you’d arranged the marriage yourself.
>You were getting old.
"I guess so."
>You say, reclining on the sand.
>”What was his name again…?”
>Sonata cocks her head, trying to think of it.
>Aria settles in, watching the waves, trying to decide whether or not to go to sleep.
>She’s calmer out here.
>For the longest time you thought her hostility was just a defense against a nasty world, but it isn’t.
>She acts that way because there’s no one here to reason with.
>For the three of you, not taking control is the same thing as accepting failure.
>Every time you’ve gotten bored and tried to take over the world fairly, it’s ended horribly.
>Without someone to argue with and seethe about, she looks more… neutral.
>Placid, maybe.
>You know because you feel it too.
>You want to come at your problems from another angle, so you’re walking across the continent and swimming to the other end of civilization.
>This is nice, but...
>Well, you need to pick up your feet sooner or later.
>You should tell them to head out tomorrow.
"...Should we head out tomorrow?"
>It becomes a lazy, floating question.
>”Not unless you really want to.”
>Sonata says, forgetting your husband entirely.
>”Nah.”
>Aria says, and decides to go back into the ocean for a while.
>You watch her dive in, then let your eyes close.
...
>In the years to come, you would avoid this place, wondering if you led the humans to it somehow, or if one of the others made one too many hints.
>You didn’t.
>No, they found it all on their own, just like the warrior-tribes who picked you up and took you to the rest of civilization centuries ago.
>There was a war over who got to build their awful infrastructure on it, and you had to stop politicking for a while.
>Sonata was curious about what was going on there, and sometimes she’d ask to swim over.
>Aria, on the other hand, was like you.
>She didn’t want to see what people had done with her beaches.
>You got over it eventually, and contented yourselves with the islands they still hadn’t discovered.
>But many years before then, you’re dreaming on a continent that belongs just to you.
>The ocean air billows over you as the stars of home wheel across the night sky.
>And, for a little while, that’s adoration enough.