Risteard’s Unwilling Empress

1. Earth: Twenty-four years before

1

Earth: Twenty-four years before

The figure dressed in black slipped around the darkened trailer that was attached to the large truck. He held the parcel tightly against his chest, as if afraid that it might disappear. He paused when he heard the sound of a cough coming from the large tent followed by several voices. The bundle in his arms moved slightly, jerking his attention back to his mission.

He didn’t have much time. Stepping up to the trailer, he gently laid the tightly wrapped bundle on the step. For a brief moment, his hand hovered over the pale cheek. Sorrow and regret pulled at him, two emotions that he had never felt before.

“Be safe, my daughter, I will come for you when you are older if I can,” the soothing deep voice whispered in a strange dialect.

His vivid blue eyes darkened with sadness as he pulled an envelope from his shirt and tucked it in the blanket before straightening. He stepped back into the shadows of the trailer when the sound of the voices grew closer. It would be dawn soon and he needed to leave before it became light enough for him to be seen by the figures beginning to move around the clustered group of motorhomes.

He had just stepped behind the side of the trailer when he heard the door to it open. A slow, startled gasp followed by a hushed cry swept through the air. Leaning back, he waited to see if he had made the right decision.

“Walter!” a woman called out. “Walter, come here!”

“What is it, Nema?” the deep voice of the man called Walter asked.

In his mind, he could almost see what the woman had discovered: the same pale, delicate skin, the same vivid golden hair, and the promise of his own blue eyes, the only thing that his daughter had inherited from him that was obvious. Clenching his fists, he forced his body to remain still, silent, as he waited to see if they would accept the precious gift he had laid at their door.

“It’s a baby,” Nema whispered, her voice full of tears. “Isn’t she beautiful, Walter?”

“Now, Nema,” Walter started to say before his voice faded. “What’s this?”

The faint beam of a light came on followed by the whisper of paper. For a moment, only the faint sounds of a dog barking in the distance and the low-pitch croaking of frogs from a nearby pond broke the silence.

“What does it say?” Nema quietly asked.

“Please keep our daughter safe,” Walter murmured. “She needs a loving home where she can be accepted for who she is. Her name is Ricki. I give my heart to you to hold and protect… Please, care for her as if she was your own.”

“Oh, Walter,” Nema sniffed. “She’s beautiful. We have a daughter, a beautiful daughter of our own.”

“Nema…,” Walter started to say before he stopped with a sigh. “She is beautiful, just like you. We’re leaving in just a couple of hours.”

“We aren’t going to…,” Nema whispered hesitantly as she gazed down at the sleeping infant in her arms.

“No, I know of an attorney who can take care of the paperwork,” Walter replied in a gruff voice.

“Ricki,” Nema said tenderly. “Ricki Rose Bailey.”

“Nema,” Walter said.

“Rose wouldn’t mind,” Nema replied. “She would have loved having a baby sister named after her. I know she is looking down on her now and smiling with pride.”

“Ricki Rose is a beautiful name,” Walter replied in a tight voice as he thought of the beautiful daughter that they had lost a year ago at birth. He had come close to losing Nema as well. She had to have emergency surgery to prevent her from bleeding to death. As a result, they would never have the child that they had dreamed of. His fingers trembled as he hesitantly reached out to touch the sleeping infant’s cheek. When he looked up, he saw the hope, fear, and tears in his beloved wife’s eyes. “Just as beautiful as you are, Nema. I love you.”

Nema looked up and smiled. “I love you, too, Walter,” she whispered before she tsked. “Can you see if Mary has any formula? I need to get the things we had for Rose out. Oh, Walter, we have a little girl!”

Walter gazed at Nema’s tiny figure. At barely over three and a half feet tall, she looked no more than a child from the back. He appeared to tower over her at four feet one inch. A sigh escaped him as he thought of the two boxes hidden in the back of their bedroom closet. She had refused to let him give the baby gifts away, saying she wasn’t ready to let go. He knew she hoped they would one day adopt a baby, but he had doubts that any judge would allow them to.

It wasn’t because of the fact that they were both dwarves, but because of their lifestyle. As owners of the Cirque de Magik, a small but unique circus filled with unique characters from around the world, they were constantly on the move. He had taken every bit of money he had inherited and earned during his own life as a member of the circus to buy this show from its previous owners in the hope of making it one of the best shows ever seen.

A slow smile lit his face when he heard Nema singing softly. “I’m a father,” he chuckled. “We have a daughter.”

The figure standing in the shadows moved silently away as the door closed. The tightness in his chest eased slightly as he strode away from the roadside show he had discovered earlier. He had spent most of the day listening and watching from a distance. Deep down, he knew that this was the most promising place for keeping his daughter safe from those that would kill her like they had her mother.

He paused for just a brief moment to look at the strange collection of tents, trailers, and carnival sideshow exhibits one last time before he turned. Where he was going was no place for an infant. He did not see the two men studying him as he disappeared into the early morning mist.