"I am sure you have many questions you want to ask me and Leon. With what just happened with you."
Then I remember the things that happened in my abduction. The questions I wanted to ask resurfaced in my mind.
"Tell me, has your mother told you anything about where she came from?" Grandpa asked me.
I tried to remember my youth, when me and mom were living together as common folks. We were mere peasants but we were happy back then.
I reminisce a time when I was five years old. My mother and I were outside our small home at night. We were watching the twinkling stars in the dark sky.
***
"The stars are beautiful mommy." My five-year old self said.
"Yes they are." Mother replied.
"But your are the most beautiful mommy. You look like a princess." I smiled at her. My mother giggled.
"Thank you baby girl." Then mother smiled sadly.
"Why are you sad mommy?" I asked looking at her worriedly.
"There was a time that I was called princess." Mother said while looking at the stars.
"Really mommy?" I asked excitedly. My eyes twinkling in excitement, wanting to know more.
"It was in a dream." My mother smiled. "I lived inside a big and beautiful palace. Common people adore me and nobles admire me. It was a time where I was living in luxury and don’t have a care in the world."
"I thought that life will be like that forever. That was before my father went mad with power. He waged war with the neighboring countries, wanting to rule over all the continent."
"That was when my life change. And for the worse. I lost my family and friends. We lost our country and nation. We were scattered all over the continent without a place that we can call home. Then my dream turned into a nightmare."
"Don’t worry mommy, I’m here." I hugged my mother tightly. "I will never leave you."
My mother smiled at me affectionately. "I know my baby girl." She pinched my cheeks and carried me and put me down on her lap.
"Here, I’m going to give this to you." Mother took of the necklace she was always wearing and placed it around my neck. I look at the pendant. There was a blue gem at the center of an exquisite silver carvings of roses.
"What is this mommy?" I asked her curiously.
"This is my only treasure." My mother said. "You keep it safe okay. You guard it with your very life. Never tell anyone about it. You hear me? ANYONE."
I looked at her with wide eyes and nodded. "Okay mommy. I promise."
"That’s a good girl." Mommy said and kissed my forehead.
***
My reminisce stopped there. The necklace that my mother gave me was always around my neck under my clothes. I do not know why I need to protect it. But I remember my promise and never told a soul about it.
"I can’t remember any specific details that my mom told me about her past and upbringing." I said. "She just took care of me as a mother would to a child."
Grandpa sighed. "Did your mother never told you that she was a princess of a lost country?"
I looked at grandpa confused.
"She might have mentioned something about being a princess. But that was in a dream." I mentioned.
"In the past, this continent had four countries, four kingdoms." Grandpa said.
"Four kingdoms?" I asked curiously.
"Yes. The three countries you know. Our own country of Alvannia, Grandcrest, and Jennova." My grandpa continued. "But what the young people don’t know, what only the old people now remember, was the country of Atlantia."
"Country of Atlantia?" I asked. I never heard of that country even once.
"Yes. This country was the biggest and most powerful of all the four countries in the past. It lies in the east of Alvannia and Grandcrest." My grandpa continued.
"But what lies in the east of Alvannia and Grandcrest is the Atlantian sea." I said while picturing the map in my head.
"Precisely, the Atlantian sea." Grandpa repeated the name of the sea.
Then it dawned to me, Atlantian sea, country of Atlantia. Does that mean the name of the sea derived from the country’s name?
"The country of Atlantia was prosperous. Their citizens can wield magic arts. Their intelligence are also remarkable. Like I said their country was the biggest and most powerful." Grandpa said.
"But then a mad king sat on their throne. That king saw their race as more superior and wanted to rule all over the continent. A war broke that lasted for five years. The continent was plunged into chaos and disaster. It was five years of hell."
I see my grandpa look melancholic. He must have experienced pain and loss in this war.
"Twenty years ago the final battle was waged in the borders of Atlantia. The battle in the Upgrove Plains. The forbidden magic was unleashed by the mad king. We made the necessary precaution with the help of Atlantian citizens that saw their king as crazy and mad. We never thought that the forbidden magic was that powerful. It backfired on Atlantia. The country crumbled, the seas came flooding in and claimed all of it. The whole country of Atlantia sank beneath the depths of the sea."
I process all of the information my grandpa was telling me. So there was a country much more stronger than Grandcrest. They can wield magic arts. But because they had a mad king that ruined it, their country now lies in the depths of the sea.
"But what does my mother have to do with the country of Atlantia?" I asked. "Don’t tell me that she is a princess from Atlantia?"
My grandpa looked at me with seriousness. "You are correct there."