In Alia Vita

Fleeting vestiges of the faraway islands suspended in the sky seemed to taunt Ceres. Silken light from the setting sun lengthened the rosy shadows of her favorite trees—swirling silver and violet flowers on glistening black branches that spiraled high into the clouds, providing shade and respite for children, for travelers, for merchants with horses and wagons that clinked with glittering jewels and pointless trinkets alike.

Tomorrow, fifty years will have passed.

It was a thought that had been burned into Ceres’ memory, one that she hoped to forget. (She had never truly wished to forget.)

The elf looked towards the forest that had housed her for as long as she could remember, praying desperately for the ability never to forget. This forest used to house four others. They had laughed freely under the two moons, wisteria wine in hand, gathered around in a cave made of worn stone and white crystal.

Those memories had long grown blurred.

“You’re wasting food!”

Ceres kept her face carefully blank as she wiped the oil off with a wet towel. “You threw it first, idiot.”

Her friend huffed, and they returned to silence. Ceres ate half-heartedly, conjuring a mental list of everything that had felt off, lately.

1. Her friend is only impulsive when she’s on edge.

2. She doesn’t throw food unless she’s avoiding something.

3. The others have been avoiding me.

4. Right, so something is definitely wrong.

The elf studied her friend, eyes tracing the braids that led into an elegant half-bun, noting the wisps of stray hair that framed her large golden eyes perfectly, moving with her anxious fidgeting.
She sighed and cleared her throat. “You’re hiding something from me.”

Her friend winced.

Ceres stood, gathering the dishes and setting them off to the side to be cleaned. She spoke without looking back. “It’s about the library, isn’t it? The one you guys have been obsessed with lately?”

“Yes,” she heard her friend whisper.

Her fists clenched, and her nails dug into her palms hard enough to draw blood. Control yourself. Her temper flared. “So that’s it?” Anger seeped into her voice. She gritted her teeth and made an effort to sound normal, turning her eyes down to stare at the wooden table. “You’re leaving? All of you?”

“Ceres,” her friend pleaded, and even without looking Ceres could imagine the look on her friend’s face—the sorrow in her wide golden eyes, the hunched shoulders that gave away her desperation and hurt, the tears threatening to fall. She had always been sensitive, sympathetic, selfless. Her friend could never stand anyone being upset with her. Not that anyone could be, with her kind eyes and even kinder soul.

“Ceres,” her friend murmured again, louder this time. The gentle weight of a hand settled on her shoulder.

“Ceres, look at me,” she begged. “Please. Let me explain.”

No. Just go. But she lifted her eyes, anyway, because she would always listen to her. From the moment they met when they were kids, Ceres had always listened to her friend. Now, it was no different. Stay calm, she implored herself, relaxing minutely as her friend brushed a stray strand of silver hair behind her ear.

“Ceres?”

She looked down at the floor. “Okay,” she whispered.

The weight on her shoulder vanished. An audible inhale. “You’ve heard the prophecy. No, don’t lie, I know you have, there’s no way you haven’t. The sages believe that the library is real. It could store the very thing that could save these islands from falling out of the sky!”

Ceres didn’t look up. “You’re leaving to search for it. For that chance.”

“Yes.”

“With the other three?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

Her friend sounded incredulous. “Okay?”

“If you and the others are so insistent on finding this library—” Ceres pushed past her friend, ignoring the tears in her friend’s eyes, ignoring the tears beginning to form in her own. “—then be my guest. You’ve already decided. My input doesn’t mean anything, does it?”

Her hand was already on the doorknob when she heard her friend sob. She froze.

“Ceres! Why won’t you listen? I don’t want to leave you!”

Ceres spun around, throwing her hands up in anger. “Obviously, you do! You know what this means. Searching for this place is a death wish!”

Then came the words that would haunt her for the rest of her immortal life, out of her own mouth: “If all of you want to die so badly, then don’t let me stop you!”

And even when faced with such cruel words, even when frustrated and dejected beyond belief, the golden-haired elf rushed forward to grab Ceres’ wrist. “Listen to me,” she pleaded again. “Come with me, Ceres. Come with us. We need someone like you in case we need to escape, or scout an area, or treat any injuries—and you know how clumsy ■■■ is, right? And you know how much you mean to me, to all of us!

We were never going to leave you behind!”

Ceres was trembling. “I can’t,” she said, her voice tight.

“Why not?”

Because someone needs to remember how good you all were when you inevitably fail. Because I can’t let you be forgotten when you die. “Because I need to stay here. I can’t just. Leave.”

Her friend blinked. A stretch of heavy silence.

Then, she smiled excitedly. “I get it. Alright, but I have a request, Ceres! Give us ten years. If there’s no news of us by then, come look for us. You always get the most excited about these kinds of discoveries! And, who knows? Maybe you could join our party once you find us. Ten years is enough time for you to give this more thought, right?”

I can’t. I’m sorry. Please be safe. Please succeed.

For me, for all of us.

I’ll remain here as proof that you once existed.

It was a calm day. Streaks of shimmering pink and warm gold dusted the otherwise blue sky. A red sun cast a soft vermilion hue on the crystal clear rivers that flowed like pale ribbons of glass, connecting the nation of islands in the sky.

Fragile, Ceres thought, gazing down from the mountain. The rivers look so fragile.

A tightly woven basket made of plum wood floated by her side. Mindlessly, Ceres kneeled, skimming through the packed amber leaves of the brush, picking golden asters and gently placing them in her basket. The breeze rustled the gilded leaves of proud dwarf pines, rippling the water of the small pond beside her.

As grasses swayed with the breeze, the day turned into night, but Ceres remained unaware. A blink, and she was walking carefully down the mountain, taking a different route than the one she used before, the basket now full of multicolored herbs. The winds seemed to be whispering to her, carrying with them its wisdom: you do not have much time left. Either you go now, or you will never find them.

It is too late, anyway, Ceres thought back. She ignored the flicker of regret.

Today, fifty years have passed. Fifty years since Ceres had last seen her closest friends.

It was alright at first. When they left, Ceres busied herself with her work at the apothecary. Was everything in stock? Was the garden doing well? How was business going? She often asked the owner, a reserved, middle-aged elf with golden earrings and a knack for the healing arts, if anything needed to be gathered. He would give her a list, and when she came back after finding everything, he would thank her. Their relationship went no further than that.

Ceres couldn’t remember how she became the herb-gatherer for an apothecary in the middle of nowhere. She wasn’t sure if he remembered, either. When she tried to recall how the arrangement came to be, all she saw was a little girl with gray hair and light green eyes, lying cold and frozen in clear waters, begging to be saved.

Silver stars twinkled in the moonlit night. The two moons shone brightly as the elf kneeled, lost in her thoughts. A sharp sting of pain laced up her finger, and she flinched back, her vision clearing to see the sharp fangs of a small winged serpent the same color as the pale green leaves it had slithered out of.

“Sorry,” she murmured faintly, gently nudging it aside to reach for the small horn-shaped flowers.

Faster than she could follow, the serpent coiled tightly around her wrist, squeezing. A small hissing noise followed the flick of a forked tongue.

The elf just stared down at the serpent.

It stared back, its black eyes unblinking. It seemed to be asking: what are you doing?

I don’t know. There was a fog in her mind that wouldn’t clear. A daze that she couldn’t seem to snap out of, no matter how hard she tried to. It made her head fuzzy, shiny, as if there was an opaque film obscuring her from seeing her memories, repelling the crimson sunlight and shrouding the landscape in thick mist. The only clear memories were those of her friends—the ones who left fifty years ago.

(Though Ceres found that she could no longer remember their names.)

“Am I intruding?” She asked hesitantly. The little serpent didn’t respond. Obviously. Its pearlescent wings fluttered, and it only coiled tighter around her wrist.

The elf stared at the serpent for a while longer, and then set her hand down on the forest floor. Reaching up, she used her other hand to pick one of the flowers.

Above her, the moons, bathed in the glimmering light of stars, continued their journey across the sky.

Behind her, a man’s voice. “There you are.”

Ceres jumped, pushing herself off the ground, nearly tripping over the roots of the golden trees, aura flaring as she prepared to face an enemy. A thief, perhaps? A monster? She was a weak mage, but she was agile, and her ability made her hard to catch—

The elf blinked as the moonlight illuminated short alabaster hair and familiar golden earrings on pointed ears. Oh.

This wasn’t an enemy.

Her hold on her ability dissipated. She cleared her throat. “Sorry,” she murmured, avoiding the apothecary owner’s bright yellow eyes. “You startled me.”

“That’s okay. Are you alright? It’s getting late.” He eyed the herbs in her floating basket. “Did you forget to bring them to me?”

“Oh—yeah.”

He smiled. “That’s okay,” he repeated, and he was about to thank her when the horn-shaped flower in her hand caught his gaze. A frown furrowed his eyebrows, and his shoulders grew tense. “What were you doing with these?”

Ceres glanced down at her hand, holding a bright yellow flower in the shape of her friend’s favorite instrument, and then at the winged serpent coiled around the other. It lifted its head and hissed again, though Ceres got the feeling that it was hissing at nothing in particular.

Remembering that she was asked a question, the elf looked up. “I was going to eat it.”

A tense pause. “Why?”

“To see if it will help me recall their names.”

The taller elf pinched the bridge of his nose, concern settling into his bones. “Every part of the lur plant is toxic, especially its flowers. I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you, Ceres.”

She took a deep breath. “I know. I don’t—” a sudden panic overtook her, desperation bleeding into her voice, begging to be set free from the shackles in her heart, escaping by the only means it knew how—through her voice. “—I don’t want to forget them. My friends. It—these flowers. They help with clarity, right? With memory issues?”

The serpent hissed again, its pale green head swaying.

“These are toxic,” the owner repeated, voice strained with the effort of staying even. “The only times we use lur plants is when we can decrease the concentration of toxin, and even then it needs to be mixed with many other herbs.”

“I know.”

“So, why?”

Ceres, stalling for time to think of a response, brought the serpent closer to her face, inspecting it and patting it gently on the head with a finger. She looked up, worn resolve pushing her life’s purpose past her lips and into the night. “Because I can’t forget them.”

The owner’s face was blank. His fists clenched. “You could’ve asked me to help you. I could’ve written a prescription for you, Ceres. What you almost did today could’ve killed you, do you understand?”

She nodded, warm tears falling onto the serpent’s shimmering scales. Standing, eyes fixed on the blue moss beneath her feet, she pressed the basket of herbs into his hands.

Her whisper was barely audible above the howling of cold wind. “I know. Thank you.”

But I am unworthy.

That night, Ceres dreamed.

Maybe in another life, I would be able to touch them too.

“Ceres!” ■■■ ran up to her, nearly knocking her over when he tripped on the exposed root of a tree. His long green hair was tied back with a white ribbon. Beaming up at her, the male elf was breathless with excitement. “We found an unexplored ruin!”

Excitement. “Where?” She asked, frantically opening the pouch at her belt to check for necessities. There was a time when she never checked for anything and ran head-first into anything “old-looking,” starry-eyed, craving another adventure, another chance to spend time with her friends. They loved this just as much as she did.

So, naturally, she had to crave it a little less. If her friends couldn’t take care of themselves, the elf would take care of them until they got sick of Ceres’ scolding and random objects being thrown right at their heads. Stupid, she would say with love, applying a balm to her friend’s injuries. Do that again and I promise I will strangle you myself.

Her friend would giggle, a hand in Ceres’ gray hair. You’re the youngest, but you have the oldest soul. And then to their friends, laughing: seriously, we’re going to drive her to violence if we’re this careless all the time!

Then start being more careful, Ceres would hiss, batting his hand away—

She blinked, and the green-haired elf shoved a map in her face, grabbed her wrist, and began to drag her toward the location. It was on a different island, so they would have to cross via one of the rivers.

When they reached the edge of the island, the river’s waters, clear and glasslike, seemed to flow off the land, winding through the sky, carving out a pathway to their destination. The wind carried with it a breath of anticipation, of fear, of something in between. The green-haired elf reached down to the hollowed-out trunk of an old oak, towards the white ball of pulsing energy. Grabbing Ceres’ arm with a loud Come on! and tucking his hair behind his pointed ears, he used his other hand to release a trickle of magic into the orb. It shone with the radiance of another sun before the world went white. A feeling of weightlessness. Then, nothing, and the two elves were on another island.

The rivers connect these islands, an apothecary owner had explained to Ceres before, golden earrings shining in the light of dusk. It’s the only reason we can travel between them. Without the rivers allowing transportation magic to flow, only an elf with a teleportation ability could make it across.

Ceres had been amazed when she traveled on them the first time, marveling at the feeling of a bird finally able to set off on its first flight.

What if you have no magic? She asked.

All elves have magic.

The shorter elf shook her head. What if a human had to cross?

A pause. Why would a human be here?

Ceres just shrugged. She missed the other elf’s curious look—

“What do you think we’ll see there?” ■■■ asked, green eyes blazing through the memory. “Armor? Potions? Treasure?”

The shorter elf walked alongside her friend. “Where did you find this map?”

“Huh? At the last ruins we explored. Why?”

“This symbol—” she pointed at the circular symbol at the top right corner. The ink was faded, but it resembled the seal of the Royal Library. “—I don’t recognize it.”

Her friend paused, looking down. “Huh! That’s strange. I don’t either.”

At the time, neither elf had thought too much about it.

They met up with the rest of their little adventuring group, and the party of five set off into the ruins. There was nothing truly special about that day—half of the group decided it was a fantastic idea to touch a suit of armor that was radiating something dark and sinister, and the others fought off the animated suit while their friends remained immobilized by a spell.

The immobilization spell dissipated with the armor, but Ceres’ anger did not.

Her friends’ sheepish expressions did nothing to soften the bite of her words as she threatened to throw them off the island if they ever pulled a stunt like that again, rubbing ointment into their wounds with gentle hands even if her tongue was sharp enough to cut stone.

Not that she would actually throw them off the island. She just didn’t know how else to express her worry.

Decades later, she would be back at those ruins, watching the crumbling stone and marble with a heavy gaze and even heavier heart, wondering when and why it had gone so wrong, and if she could have stopped it if only she had been a moment faster.

“I should give you a name,” Ceres mused, watching the winged serpent eat grape after grape as it coiled lazily around her hand. The elf hadn’t meant to befriend the creature, but it seemed to like her a lot and constantly followed her around.

Ceres constantly thought about how the serpent acted on the night they met. The way it hissed and coiled tightly around her wrist when she reached for those flowers, almost as if it understood what she was trying to do and it had been trying to stop her, trying to tell her to get away, trying to tell her that these flowers were not for eating.

It must’ve been very lonely to cling to her like this. Perhaps that’s why it tried to stop me. Her eyes drifted closed, a warmth spreading through her body. Because we’re both lonely souls, and we both could use a friend.

When she woke again, it was midday, and the heavy clouds promised the heaviest of rains. Ceres stood, waiting for the serpent to coil itself around her belt before dusting herself off and heading towards the apothecary. In her mind, a conversation she had a lifetime ago split the normally choking mist.

What do you think of humans? Ceres had asked the elf with golden earrings.

Humans? A pause. They’re like weeds.

…Is that a good thing?

Sure. Depends on how you look at it. The taller elf kneeled and brushed his hand gently across the petals of a little white flower. Some weeds have flowers, and you can hardly distinguish them from the real thing. But they’re still weeds. He stood. I don’t like them. A breath of hesitation, and she imagined the wind curling around him in silent comfort. But the kindest person I have ever known was human.

Ceres jerked up. “You’ve met a human?”

The apothecary owner shot her an amused look, pausing in his action of sorting herbs into glass jars and wooden drawers, worn and faded with use. “Where did that come from?”

Ceres just shrugged, sitting back down on the stool. She returned to taking inventory of the herbs preserved for winter. “I remember asking you what you thought of humans. You said they were weeds, and that you’ve met one before.”

He ignored her, turning away, golden earrings flashing silver in the light of blue fire. “The prescription seems to be working well, I see. I am glad you warmed up to the idea.”

And so silence fell as both elves stopped speaking, the sound of shuffling drawers, clinking glass, and scratch of quill on parchment dampening as the clouds hung over the proud trees and unleashed a torrent of cold rain.

Weeks passed following this same routine. Every day, Ceres stayed at the apothecary, organizing and preserving herbs during the day. As winter approached, rain became a more common occurrence, and many herbs could only grow in a dry environment. The elf with golden earrings had long created an indoor garden to combat this issue, but he still couldn’t perfectly recreate the conditions in which the most effective and rare herbs grew. With winter coming, he didn’t allow Ceres to go herb-picking herself. I’m worried for you, he had admitted the day after he found the gray-haired elf with a lur flower in her hand and a winged serpent coiled around the other.

When night fell and the two moons rose, they paused what they were doing, deciding to trek up the mountain to see the sunset and moons rise, to see the swaddle of stars that had grown alarmingly distant in the past years.

“Will these islands truly fall out of the sky?” One asked, gray hair spilling down her back as she stood, gazing at the stars that used to be so close. A small winged serpent seemed to be using her forearm as a bed.

The other, sitting, ran a hand through his short white hair, earrings rocking with the movement. “I don’t know,” he responded, voice barely a murmur.

She turned to him. “Why don’t you care?” An accusation, or something close to it.

His eyes slid up to meet hers, yellow and glowing in the moonlight. “There are a lot of things I don’t care about,” he whispered. A confession. A lie. Both, but not quite either.

“And yet you care about me,” she mused. “You care for everyone you see. You dedicate your life to saving others.”

Hesitation. “It’s just my job. Don’t think too much about it.”

But she barrelled on, green eyes fixed on yellow. “So why don’t you care about the destruction of our world?”

Yellow eyes tore themselves away, finding the two full moons in the night. “Pallas,” he murmured, and then his eyes moved to study the smaller moon. “And Ceres. The humans have no names for the two moons, did you know?”

And just when the gray-haired elf began to believe her question would again remain unanswered, the other began to speak again, his voice steady. “If the islands really fall like the prophecy predicts, then our society would be destroyed,” he said slowly. “The royals would have nothing to rule over. The ecosystems destroyed, the history lost, the lives taken—we would have to live where the humans do: on the ground. But I wonder, sometimes, if all of that is so devastating.”

A breath. The slithering of scales as a serpent opened its eyes.

“Would it be so bad for all of us to live on the ground below? Elves are immortal. We would recover eventually.”

But then our world will become nothing more than a fairytale.

Anger. “You’ve accepted that we’ll never be able to subvert the prophecy. You think it’s just our fate, and that we can’t change it no matter what we do. Even if they do find the library.”

He nodded and closed his eyes.

A piercing gaze rested on him. “You’ve given up before the fight has even begun.”

If the male had a response to her words, the other never heard it.

Time passed as it always did, flowing with the rivers of clear water, uncaring for the creatures that attempted to stop its flow, always unsuccessful. The rivers, the streams, they continued winding through bustling marketplaces and flower fields and groves of pink wisteria and blossoms and caves dimly lit by the faint glow of white crystal. Life continued as merchants and their customers bargained over prices during a time in the morning too early to be deemed reasonable, but they had never cared before and they never will.

It continued as the seasons changed, the pulse of spring replaced by the drumming of summer, then slowing down as leaves turned gilded and clung on to life before relinquishing their hold, falling to paint the scenery with a swirl of vibrant red and gold before winter saw it pelted with ruthless rain. It continued as an apothecary’s garden expanded to include more seasonal herbs, removed from their home yet still standing proudly, ready to be of service to the elf with golden earrings and a gentle smile.

They did everything together, Ceres and Pallas. The serpent often hated being separated from her elf companion and would often sleep coiled around her belt or neck, or any limb that she could get ahold of, really.

Sometimes, the elf would leave the serpent in a bush of luscious fruits and leave to pick flowers or just wander off. Sometimes, when it was a particularly rainy day, the elf would leave the serpent behind in the apothecary whenever she had to go out. Ceres realized quickly that Pallas hated the rain, and had made an effort to avoid it if possible. Recently, she’d been thinking of sewing a pocket in her cloak in case they were caught outside in a downpour, but she hadn’t quite gotten around to it yet.

No matter where one left the other, though, the other would always be waiting. Sometimes asleep, caught in the throes of a sweet dream. Sometimes awake, gazing at the sky with love and tears. Sometimes both.

Sometimes neither, but they healed all the same.

As the elf stood on the edge of the island, studying the red sun to see if it had gotten any further away, a winged serpent with black eyes coiled around her neck seemed to study it with her, wings fluttering in the spring breeze.

A hand was placed on the serpent’s pale green body. “The islands are falling out of the sky,” she whispered. “This—I can’t ignore this much longer, no matter how much I want to.”

The serpent only hissed softly.

Her eyes traced the path of the rivers, connecting the islands with their clear, flowing currents. “There’s still no news of them, Pallas.” There was a tremor in her voice, but she continued anyway. “Do you think they’re dead? They must be, right? It’s been—

“It’s been sixty years. She asked me to go after ten, and yet I am still here.” She sank to her knees numbly, sitting down on the cliff’s edge. “Sixty years,” Ceres repeated.

Pallas looked at her kindly, tilting her head in a way reminiscent of a cat.

“They must be dead by now.”

And then a darker, more sinister thought: what if your presence could have saved them?

You were the medic.

What if you caused their deaths by staying here?

They probably hate you now. I know I would.

You’re pathetic. You could’ve been a hero, you know.

Who would love a person who left them behind?

No, she corrected desperately, the wind whipping fiercely at her face. They were the ones who left me behind.

In her heart and in her memories, frozen and blurred as they were, she knew that wasn’t true. Her friend had asked her to come with them—had begged. And when she refused, she asked Ceres to look for them: a final favor, like the last requests of a dying loved one. Yet Ceres had failed in that endeavor, too.

No, that wasn’t quite right. It wasn’t fair to say she had failed when she hadn’t even given it an attempt.

The film that had settled over her memories only grew darker with time.

Ever since she was a child, she would think that as an elf, she would always have enough time. Now, nearly two centuries later, when she chose to stay behind sixty years prior, she understood that her belief couldn’t be further from the truth.

Time. An infinite thing, but there will never truly be enough of it.

(To Ceres, regret seemed infinite, too.)

“The islands are falling,” she whispered again to herself. Laying back against the soft green grass, she finally allowed herself to despair. Pallas slithered onto her chest, offering a silent comfort as the elf’s eyes grew warm and wet.

“Everything will be lost if these islands fall.” Her throat tightened. “Elves will die. Humans, too, probably, when these islands fall and crash into their towns and villages. Our towns and villages will be destroyed, and our home will become nothing more than a footnote in the history books with a question written next to it, asking if this piece of information is correct. Because, sometime in the far future, no one will be able to prove that it once existed. Not even the elves who lived there.

“It’ll—it’ll all be gone. We’ll be forgotten.”

Fate, some would call it. The way of the world. Destiny.

Ceres’ gaze drifted to the lur flowers she had tried to eat when she was overcome with misery and desperation a decade ago. A bitter laugh of self-derision tore its way out of her raw throat. I’m truly useless, aren’t I? I stayed to remember, and I can’t even do that properly.

Then: another voice. One that she had never heard before, one that was burning with something akin to rage, akin to passion. If this is fate, it stated, then I reject it. We will not be forgotten so easily.

In another life, the winds chorused, soothed, chastised. In another life, maybe you could’ve remembered. Maybe you could’ve been remembered.

And yet there was a fire at the very bottom of her heart, lit by a spark made of days spent sitting silently under the forgiving shade of a forest with nothing but the stars and a winged serpent for companionship, of a lifetime of conversations and care and compassion gifted to her by the owner of an apothecary established long before her birth, of moments when her bond with her four friends felt thicker than blood could ever be, of times when a familiar kind of affection overtook her as she gazed quietly at her found family. They were dumb, yes, and careless and stubborn and infuriatingly impulsive, but they were her family. They loved her, and she loved them in return.

That’s all there was to it.

Ceres began to smile. No, she answered as the winds stilled. In this life.

It’ll never be too late for you, my friend.

Tomorrow, an elf with a winged serpent coiled around her waist will visit an old apothecary, not for the last time, and her joy will be mirrored when she bids farewell to an elf with kind eyes and a golden smile.

Tomorrow, the winds will blow the sands of time towards a better future, and the red sun will be just a bit further away.

Tomorrow, Ceres will begin her journey to an ancient library that held the secrets of the world.

In this life.