Chapter 3: Selene Aglarus (Part 2)

<Continues>

Selene is troubled by Siren's army. This army is not something her father would expected. It is not just a defensive force, but also a great invasive force. Selene uses her injuries as an excuse to delay her quest, and spend her time in Aquaria to investigate on Siren's army.

She spent her time walking among the soldiers for a month, and found out that Siren has created an army of more than two millions men and is mass producing Light Half weapons. These weapons make normal men become as dangerous as an adequate magic user, not to mention that Aquarian people are twenty times as strong as the earth walking people in physical strength. With this army, Siren is not just only be able to control the oceans, but also can be a major threat to all the dry lands. Beside of that, Selene also notice that Siren's war council has a regular meeting with some strange people every weeks. Those people are two times taller than the average statue of men, and always cover their faces behind a dark shadow. To her guess, these people could be the leaders of the Light Half, and they are behind an evil plan with Aquaria to seize over the control of this world. However, unless she can confront them and check her theory, there is no other way to know what they are up to. So she and Torum decided to kidnap one of them for interrogation.

They has acquired the moving pattern of those people by observation, and Torum disguised into an Aquarium soldier to get close to them. The shadowy people did not notice the deceiving words of a new guard, and was tricked into a secret tunnel, dug beforehand by Selene earth magic. In there, she closed the entrance with rocks, blocking their only mean to get out. When the shadowy people realized that they has walked into a trap, it was too late. Hiding inside the wall of earth, Selene observes them, and expects them to panic, so she can begin her interrogation with the advantage of fear.

However, the shadowy people are calm, and organized. There are twelve of them, and none shows any fear. They just sit in a circle and wait. Selene is not a person with much patience. Inside the wall, she speaks, concealing her body and her voice:

"I am the guardian of this realm, you are in my body, and you must answer me my questions if you want to ever see the light again."

One of the twelve men then stands up, walks into the center of the circle, and calmly speaks:

"We has been in the dark for thousands of year, long enough to learn that darkness and isolation are our ally, not the enemy. You show us no fear here, even if you wished so, Lady Selene Aglarus."

Selene is shocked, somehow these men has already figured out her identity and clearly stated that. She knows that hiding in the walls is not effective anymore, so she walks out and face the men.

"How do you know it was me? Who are you people?", she asks, with Torum standing beside her, prepare to protect his Lady from any potential threat.

"Earth aura is a rare power. There are only three persons ever have that power in them. The first one was Gaia, the goddess of earth, one of the twelve angels sent to our world to close the Gate of Hell. She has a daughter, whose name is Thalia. She was the second person to be able to bend the soil under her feet as will. Thalia's only daughter also has inherited her power at birth, and was the last Earth Mage we can ever see, since Thalia's tragic death. And it is you, Lady Selene." The man says.

Selene becomes angry, and she shouts to him "Liars, my mother's name is Ailaht, it is true that she was gone but she was not Thalia the daughter of Gaia. Why are you making up this lie? What is your purpose?"

The standing man still speak calmly, "We are proud Ice Giants, and Ice Giants never speak against the truth. It was your mother who hid the truth from your eyes, to protect you, for she loved you much."

"Liars, Ice Giants had been vanished from the surface of this world thousands of year ago. You are the spies of the Light Half, and you story does not make any sense. If you don't tell me the truth right now, I will let it be hidden from my eyes forever, along with your lies under the weight of this earth!" She cries.

"Then let the truth betray us, Lady Selene, for we never betray the truth." They all speak at once.

Selene is ready for her anger to doom them, for with only one finger, she can let the rocks above their heads crush all of them in a blink of an eye, but Torum, who was standing silently beside her, halts her.

"Stop Lady Selene, they were telling us the truth!"

"Why are you speaking for them? How do you know if they are telling the truth, Torum?" She says.

"Because me and Torim was fighting along side with the Ice Giants during the Damned War of The Fallen, and their statues truly fit the image of an Ice Giant. I doubt that the human of the Light Half can be at their size." Then he pauses to look at Selene again, and says, "And they were right about Lady Ailaht, I was there when Lord Solaris saved her from the wolves of Azaru highland, and brought her back to Skythea and wed her. Only me, Torim and Lord Solaris ever learned the truth that she is indeed the daughter of the Goddess Gaia, but she made us sworn not to speak her past to anyone else, because the remnants of The Fallen will find her and war would be brought to Skythea. Since then, she has adopted the name Ailaht, or Thalia spelled backward."

Selene looks at him in shock. From the words of her most trusted warrior, she now knows the truth. When she was a still a small child, her mother, Ailaht has passed away before she could ask her why she has the power to control the earth, but other children of Skythea do not. And since then, she has never stopped grieving for Ailaht's death, thus the question was put aside. However, even if the shadowy men were telling the truth about her blood, they are still too suspicious in their shadow cover.

"If you are really the Ice Giant, then why do you have to cover your face? Reveal yourselves!" She speaks.

"Because no one beside the lords should learn our existence, however, in front of the daughter of Lord Solaris, who will soon be a Lord, and in front of my old friend Torum here, we shall let you see our true face." The man says, which wakes up Torum's curiosity.

Then all of the Ice Giants laugh, blow away their shadow covers, and reveal themselves.

"Aluis! My friend, you are alive!" Torum suddenly cries and runs toward the Ice Giant who just spoke, hugs him.

"Yes I am, brother, it was such a long time!" Aluis says in tears.

Selene can not believe in her own eyes, the people in front of her match exactly the descriptions of Ice Giants in the books her father used to read for her as bed time stories. They are no doubt the Ice Giants as they claimed. More than that, Torum knows one of them, and the two are jumping in tears and joy.

Torum turns to his Lady and explains "Here, Lady Selene, is my brother in arm, General Aluis, we fought along side during the war. I thought he and his entire race were erased when people of the East betrayed our alliance."

 Then they explained more about how the Lords had decided to keep them in secret for thousands years. With the hostile situation has gone, they are know speak to each others in a more friendly tone. Selene asks them,

"Tell me general Aluis, what is going on in this place? Why did Siren build such a great army, armed with weapons from the Light Half?"

Aluis then says, "They are not weapons from the Light Half, Lady Selene, they are the modified version of them. And we, the Ice Giants, helped them to do that." then looks at Selene then continues, "The Ice Giants are like the Sky people and the Elves, we lives for thousands of year and slow at reproduction. Our population was never enough to afford our own army for the incoming war against Chaos. We don't want to be once against betrayed by the human anymore, so our elders had decided to join with Queen Siren and lord Thirdule of the Elves to create our own force. The force must be big enough for war and for protection of our kingdom against the treacherous human at the same time."

"Then why didn't you speak with my father?" she asks.

"We did, but Lord Solaris is a wise man. His land is surrounded by many human lands, and is an important trading knot of the entire world. If we execute our plan there, the human may turn on him, and it is dangerous for his people. More than that, there are more than half of his men are human too, so it would not be wise to raise an anti human army there."

"In your words, I see hatred, Aluis. Is that true that Ice Giant hates human so much?", Selene speaks her thought.

"I am not going to deny our dislike for human, but hatred is a big word. It is true that our mothers, our sons were massacred by the hand of them, but not all of them are bad. They still have more hope in their heart than in ours, and they are truly strong. Most of my valiant friends were among them. If we are going to win this war, we can not put the human aside."

"You are thoughtful, and your words are indeed wise. I have misunderstood Queen Siren, and I must apology to her." Selene says.

"Your heart is honest, and honorable, lady Selene. You are a true friend to anyone who befriended you. May you always find friends as true as you are." Aluis says.

After that, Selene opens the way out for the Ice Giants, and she herself goes to the palace, explains everything to Siren then apologies to her. Siren says to her: "Selene, my young friend, there is no need to apology. Your concern is very thoughtful. It really was my fault for being so oblivious to your thoughts. Things would go vague for both of us if Torum, your brave warrior wasn't there. I would like to personally thank him for everything."

Then Selene calls Torum in to meet the queen. He walks in, in his old and stained armor, tattered cloak but his eyes glitters. Even though he has been more than eight thousands years old, age doesn't seem to have any effect on him. He looks like a young human man at his prime, with long, curly black hair and a muscled statue. Siren has her feeling for him since she learned his battle alone with the Great Kraken for his brother. And when she was treating his wounds, he had never uttered any sigh of the great pain of many bones broken or the grief of his fallen twin. "A brave heart!" was what Siren thought of him. She also lost her dear brother, but she wept for months and left her people, her responsibility behind, while he just stand up again and again for his duty. He took his pain into action, and sworn to do both his job and Torim's job at the same time. Siren knows that she has learned more from this valiant man in a month than from her thousands years of existence. For that, her heart leans on his, and she really wish to be with him, but she doesn't know if he has the same feeling or not.

<To be continued>