"The name of the eternal prince must always be kept secret from him. The one who is found, who will be the eternal prince is given a name that will complete him, that will enable him to perform the fate in front of him, be it good or bad. Some princes gain victory. Some gain failure and despair. But any prince who learns of his name will only gain death swiftly." The woman looked up from her recitation, fixing the boy in front of her with an even gaze. "This is why I cannot reveal the intent behind your name to you. Do you understand?"
The boy in front of her was balanced on his hands, and he shifted his weight around, turning his hands so he could crane his neck up and scowl at her. "I think that's pretty silly," he stated matter-of-factly, letting one leg tilt back over his head.
"Of course you do," she replied with a matching tone. "You're ten years old."
He scowled again, turning in place again so that he was now looking at her from an upside down perspective. "Everyone else knows what their name means. They know what their fate is. Why not me?"
"Would you want to know what your fate is?" she asked, returning her attention to her book. "Or is it just because you want to be like everyone else? That isn't an option for the prince."
"I'm bored with being a prince," he declared. "I think I'll quit."
"You'll quit, huh?" Now her expression was amused. "What will you do, then?"
"I 'unno. Something fun."
She snorted before turning her attention to the book again. "The prince doesn't have a choice. You understand what you were born with, do you not? You have a power no one else has. That sort of thing can't be passed to anyone else."
"You mean the cards, Pribram? I'm not too good at that. Most of what I predict doesn't happen."
"You haven't learned to let the cards speak yet. It will come with time, if you practice."
He finally flipped back to his feet, stretching out his back. "How about I give it to you, Pribram? You have power too, right?"
"Mine isn't the same as yours, Fiducius. All I can do is watch fate, I cannot fulfill it."
"But you have power. No one else here has power."
"That's the way it should be."
"I don't understand."
She smiled, patting the boy on the head. "Don't worry about it. It's not the sort of thing that makes you smart if you understand. It's just fate."
He wrinkled his nose. "I don't like fate."
"Most people don't." She put up the book. "So if you didn't come here to listen to an old sage read from older, dusty books, what did you want?"
He sat down, moving his legs outward in a split and stretching again. "I like being here. You and I are the only ones that have 'power' on Subamara. Are you a senshi too, Pribram?"
She shook her head. "Perhaps at one time. But that would have been a long time ago. I have a power that is passed on like yours, but mine can only see things. It cannot act. Our world, Subamara, must rely on you to act."
He nodded, then sat up as he heard noise outside the small house Pribram resided in. "They want me to go practice fighting again. I don't like fighting. Do I have to go?"
"Go practice, Fiducius. There may come a time when you need to fight to protect what you care about."
"Okay," he said with the tone of a reluctant child as he got up. Jumping up as he neared the door, he caught the edges of the doorframe, flipping himself upwards and out of sight.
Pribram rolled her eyes as she heard the steps on her roof. "Showoff," she murmured to herself, though the words had no bite. She looked back at the book she had been reading, nestled on its shelf with the others that outdated herself or most things in Subamara. Hopefully, there will not be a time when I have to reveal to him what his name means.
The political structure of Subamara might have seemed odd to an outsider, at least until they came to realize how much it relied on a supposed fate that was supposedly read and understood correctly. Their senshi, the senshi of Subamara, rarely lived to a ripe old age. When they died, or more likely, were killed to make way for a new Subamara, the child would appear within a day, already aged to a day within five years old, and the ones that found him were made his parents, and thus the king and queen. The senshi himself was never the ruler, only the eternal prince.
And then there was herself, Pribram, she thought to herself as she stood behind her charge, watching him lay out the cards carefully, brow furrowed in concentration. Pribram was a title, not exactly a name, and like Subamara, a new Pribram appeared from the wilds when the old one died. Was she a senshi? Even she didn't know the answer to that. All that came with her life was the name and the knowledge of how to read into the future. A skill which had to be taught to Subamara through the cards of the senshi.
"Pribram?" the young man in front of her asked. Fiducius was now seventeen years of age, a slender man, a bit under average height. He had an olive tone to his skin that contrasted with his dark, short hair and his sharp red eyes. A stark contrast from her, tall and underweight, a woman perhaps ten years older with long pinkish hair. "I don't think I'm doing this right."
"What makes you say that, Subamara?"
He scowled at the use of his title. "It's really bad. Don't you see the way the cards are falling?"
She looked over the cards in front of him. The reversed Wheel dominated the layout Subamara had conducted, coupled with the Moon. Several Swords were also present, and she could understand why he was concerned. The cards all indicated a bad future, a trial that would not be passed. Destruction. Betrayal. She looked over the cards, but the more she studied them the more she knew it to be a correct reading. "I'll start over," the younger man stated, sounding a bit nervous as he moved to gather up the cards.
"No," her word stopped him cold. "Keep going."
"But--"
"Keep going. You do not stop a reading halfway through, regardless of whether it is flawed or not. See it through."
He looked at her, then nodded slightly, pulling out the next card. A reversed Chariot. "Pribram?" he asked uncertainly. "What should we do?"
She looked over the layout of the cards spread over the floor, then turned away from him. "Gather up the cards now, Subamara. We need to speak with the king."
He didn't protest the name, swiftly gathering up the cards, tucking them back away in their case. "Should I release my power?"
She looked over at him, still clothed in the garb of the senshi of Subamara. The outfit was black and white, evenly divided down the middle and adorned with the symbols of cards, right down to the diamond and heart on his gloves and the club dangling from his hat. The spade was painted over his right eye, and he brushed at it absently. "What do you think this was?"
"I don't know. But we need to warn the king to prepare himself."
He followed as she moved down the hallways of the prince's keep, the footsteps silent on the thick rugs that adorned the floors, trying to give the place a warmer feeling. While the content of the keep was ultimately up to the prince, it was generally agreed that children should not be in charge of interior design, and so it had been the current king and queen that had stocked the place with items to their comfort. Fiducius didn't really care, and it was a waste of time and money to rearrange things anyway, so it had stayed that way.
The king and queen, his "parents", were named Aleron and Reseda. Before they had discovered the prince, he had been a falconer (a job which he still performed in his spare time) and she had been a florist. The traces of that old life were still heavily evident in their current one, for the keep always had a wealth of flowers, both live and cut, in the halls, and the tallest tower was converted into a falconry for four of the diligent birds. Their names, Pribram thought to herself, clearly defined what they were before they had stumbled across the little boy wandering through the wilderness. Every person in Subamara was so aptly named, excepting herself, who had only the name of her predescessors, the title, and Fiducius, who had a name he did not know the meaning of. Fiducius followed behind her, shorter legs trotting to keep up.
The hallway opened up into a large open room, lined with large, plush pillows for the comforts of any guests. Aleron was currently seated in the center of the room, speaking with two of his advisors, expression serious and focused as it usually was. "King," she addressed him. "May we have a word in private?"
He looked from her to Fiducius, smiling slightly as he saw the senshi. "Of course, Pribram. I can always make time for you." He nodded to the two men, who stood up and left the room. Aleron turned to face the pair, gesturing for them to sit. Pribram did so, Fiducius following suit. Oce down, the young man put his legs in front of him, laying over them as he stretched out. To Pribram, it was a clear sign of his unease, that he would always fall back on his acrobatic practice during a time of stress. "What can I do for you, Pribram?"
"The cards have spoken of a terrible event coming," she told him seriously. "Subamara has seen it. I have confirmed that the reading is true. A great disaster is about to befall our world."
Aleron sat up, frowning. "A great disaster? What sort?" He looked over at the senshi.
Fiducius shook his head, declining to speak. "We don't know yet. We will have to do more readings, Subamara and I, and he needs to rest. We have just returned from a reading and his stamina is not built up yet."
The king frowned. "But he's already seventeen. How many more years will he need?"
Fiducius ducked his head, cheeks burning with embarrassment at the criticism. "It isn't a matter of time, King," Pribram told him. "It is not something that can be rushed. More importantly, we need to prepare for a disaster."
"What would you suggest we do?" he asked seriously. "It doesn't seem that we know what we are going to prepare for."
"I would suggest preparing for the possibility of evacuation, King. For the worst possible scenario."
"An evacuation? To where? It wouldn't be possible," he said with a frown. "We don't have the ships for that. Our sail ships are fairly numerous, but...."
"Then as many as we can. It is a possibility that desperately needs to be explored, King," Pribram told him firmly. "Would you sacrifice all of Subamara simply because we may not have the ability to save all of it?"
"Do you really think it is that bad?" he asked slowly.
"I have studied many readings of the past Pribrams, King. I have never seen the cards speak with such dread. This may be something that extends even beyond Subamara. We need to be prepared for the worst. To flee Subamara, or even the solar system."
He shook his head. "I understand your concerns, but we can't make ships appear out of thin air. And I'm not sure our sail ships would handle travel outside of the solar system. I don't know that there are any ships in the entire solar system that can leave it. What are we supposed to do? We are not the technological resource of some of our neighbors. We can't develop that sort of technology, particularly not on a timeline I presume is not long."
She nodded. "What you are supposed to do is what you can. If it's not enough, at least we will have tried our best, without doubts that something different could have been done." She rose. "Subamara, please do not do another reading today. Practice your skills. I understand you do not wish to fight...but I think at this point it is unavoidable."
He managed a jerky nod, rising after she did. "I will go study the readings of the past and see what I can determine, King. Please do what you can."
Subamara watched as she turned to leave, then gave his adoptive father a quick bow, following her out. "Pribram?" he questioned as he followed her. "Do you really...do you really think Subamara is going to be destroyed?"
She turned back toward him with a whirl of her soft pink hair, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Don't be afraid of the future, Fiducius. Face it unflinchingly. If you have courage and strength and do not lose that even in the most desperate of situations, there is a way to turn even the most dire of fates. Hope is that thing which balances the inevitable."
"I don't know that I have that courage," he said, lowering his head. "I'm scared. What if something happens to you, Pribram? I don't want you to get hurt."
"That's not good enough, Fiducius." She wrapped her long arms around him, pressing him against her chest gently. "You have a good heart, but you have not yet learned to embrace all the people around you, and cherish them. Am I really the only thing that matters to you?"
"You're the only one that understands me, Pribram. You and your power. You're more like me than anyone else here."
"And you will meet others like you, Fiducius, who have your power. Love and cherish them, and learn to cherish all around you. Open your heart."
"You're such a nag," he mumbled, pressing his face against her shoulder. "Always telling me how I should be."
"I know," she said with a slight smile. "Unfortunately, our time is short. There is so much you yet have to accomplish to turn back the dark cards approaching us. Please be strong, Fiducius."
"I'll try."
