Promise: the Beating of Our Hearts; Chapter 2 CHAPTER 2: A Most Intriguing Proposal
The scholar paced at the hideout, nervous. During the day blossoms on the plants had opened, and their scent caressed the air. Even without the glow of the firefly globe both free fireflies and the moonlight-like crystalbeams floating through the tree branches provided light enough to see almost everything, once one's eyes adapted. The gentle blue shafts from above were soothing, mystical, but even this was not enough to calm Milo's flying heart.
"Where could she be? I'm so nervous I--"
"Milo!"
The distant call made his heart choke him. "Kida?"
It was not until she was close he could hear her uncaringly brush the foliage. "Milo, I have something very important to tell you!"
The linguist pursed his lips and closed on fist while the other took the pouch. "No, I was wrong earlier. I have something to ask you, and you're not doing anything until I ask. This is more important, unless maybe the volcano is going to erupt again..."
Holding her left hand behind her, Kida's face grew extremely concerned. "Milo, what is wrong?!"
"Hopefully nothing, but…" He groped for the queen's ring, and then paused when he found it. This was a moment that would change his entire life, a concept that suddenly seemed so hard to grasp. "What I'm saying is…" The cartographer replaced the pouch and got down onto one knee, holding up the ring to her. He hung on the moment.
Kida cocked her head as she looked at the ring and at him. "It is a beautiful ring, but… What is it you meant to say?"
"Oh! I meant--I mean…" He took a deep breath. "Kida, will you marry me?"
He watched as her eyes widened in amazement, her lips parted. Wordlessly, she crouched, her eyes level with the ring and his. The look in her eyes as she continued to look at the ring seemed strange. Milo could only guess she was realizing what the ring truly meant, glittering in the darkness.
Yet a shocking thought went through his head. "Is she judging the ring as she is me? What if something like this is faux pas in Atlantean culture?! Milo, you should have checked! Why isn't she saying anything?!" He watched in fear at Kida's silent visage.
Slowly her eyes turned to his, unbelievably wide. The linguist heard her take a slow breath, her lips changing to a smile the way a caterpillar changes to a butterfly. The bottom of her eyes glistened, perhaps with tears.
Before Milo could react, Kida threw her arms around him. However, it was enough for the both of them to go crashing down.
The queen pulled her arms out from under the scholar and got to her knees quickly. "Are you all right? Did I hurt you?"
Milo propped himself on one arm, rubbing the back of his head. "Will you marry me?" He chuckled, persistent, and glad to have managed to hold onto the ring.
"Yes!"
"Then I'm definitely not hurt." They smiled, amazed at each other, silent for a moment after he sat up more.
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Milo cleared his throat. "Did you have a question for me or some news?"
The look of realization on her face, the amusement, was a puzzle. She held out the back of her left hand, upon which was a pure blue tattoo. Two comet-like shapes curved, swooshing as if to meet each other at the circle at the center. Milo examined it a moment before looking back up at her.
"…I was about to ask you the same thing."
Milo burst into laughter. "And I worried I was rushing into things!"
Kida smiled, moving forward to hug him, and he gratefully returned the embrace. "I had feared I was misinterpreting your actions as affection when they were not."
He shook his head after they separated, and was delighted. "…So it's the girl who proposes in Atlantis?"
"Propose… marriage? …No, men do as well." She gave him an odd look.
Milo smiled. "Interesting. In my country, only men propose."
"Strange. Why is that?"
"I have no clue. I'm just thrilled we both had the same idea…!"
"Yes." Kida smiled dreamily as she moved to sit beside him.
"You realize this ring is yours, right?" Milo asked, holding it up.
"It is not just a symbol?"
"Well, it is symbolic, really, but we each wear one on our left hand on this finger… You don't show someone the ring in proposal, then keep it, I mean." He took her hand and gently slipped it onto her ring finger before putting on his own.
She looked at it, still in awe. "Then it is like this tattoo."
"I'll be getting one too?"
"Yes, in the same place."
"First thing tomorrow?" he smiled, somehow not remembering the pain of the tattoo he had acquired on his shoulder just recently.
"Along with the preparations for the wedding tomorrow evening," she purred.
"Tomorrow night?!"
Kida shrugged slightly as she spoke, still smiling. "Yeees… What is the problem with that?"
"It's-- It's so quick! Don't you wait for maybe a few… Months, first?"
"Some do. Some do not. You marry when you are sure of your love. I want to preserve our love immediately, and cherish every moment as we are one in spirit."
"But don't a lot of preparations need to be made first? I mean, after all, you're royalty."
"I know little of royal weddings. How could I know much? I am familiar only with the weddings of my friends. Some are peaceful and quick. Others are jovial and take years of planning. I do not see a need for such extravagance to make our wedding perfect."
Milo smiled lovingly. "True."
Kida put her face close to his, and he could feel her breath caress his cheeks as she whispered. "…And we will rule together. When our blood blends in ritual, you will be my king."
"King?!" In surprise, he raised the arm he had been leaning on, falling backwards and causing Kida to catch a laugh with her hand. Milo had never even thought of the throne. "No, no, you've got it all wrong. I can't be king!" He wondered how any discarded linguist and boiler room attendant could possibly make a decent ruler.
"Of course you could be king! You saved our home! You cared enough for our people to protect them. We would have been lost without your knowledge and courage! Why could you not?" Despite her incredulous tone, she smiled with enthusiasm, a direct contrast to the expression of a shocked Milo. "You must have been a great scholar! You found your way here," she motioned while cocking her shoulders.
"No," he awkwardly scuttled back. "There's no way I could ever--"
She looked at him amorously. "Why could you not?"
He saw the look in her eyes, a look of loving pride in him, a look of faith. Milo wondered how he could possibly tell her how little respect he had received, what a poor job he actually had. "I…." He fumbled for a distraction in hopes of gathering his thoughts for a good response later. "Well… You see, on the surface--"
"Yes, tell me of your world. Help me to understand."
It would be distraction enough, at least for the moment. There was so much to say to here, but he feared she might have second thoughts about marriage if he told her about his disappointing past. "And yet…" he mused, "that look in her eyes…"
. . . There were the notes to be studied, her own language to learn, but there was something more important at the moment. There was nothing imperative but to be together in this world suddenly charmed with some virtuous, benevolent magic. Everything, even the seeming randomness of the city's decay and nature conquering it made perfect sense. The secret of life seemed within reach. His very breath was like music to her, the beautiful tempo of the wind of life.
Yet his seeming fear of becoming king was disquieting, especially since she had little clue as to what he was hiding. Still, however, curiosity drove the discussion onward, and it might perhaps reveal some cultural aspect as to why, and to understand more about him in general.
Kida looked at the scholar, and the pent-up curiosity moved her. Taking the glasses from his face and putting them on as she had before, she asked, "How can you possibly walk wearing this?" Even while sitting, she groped the air, as everything seemed closer, yet she could not touch anything new. "It is a humorous view. Is it used for entertainment? How do you read with this? How does--"
"Do they," he corrected, taking them back gently. The queen crossed her arms. "They're called, 'glasses.' They help me see."
"How? The world is distorted so much." She tilted her head.
"Well…" He ran his hand across the back of his neck, twisting as if to pop it. "My vision isn't all that great. You see, I'm farsighted. I hear it has to do with the actual shape of the eye. The glasses correct my vision."
Kida peered close to his face, then took the glasses again, and put them at her side. "Can you see me?"
He blinked. "Sure, I can see you, but you're a little blurry to me. Now, you see the pillar over there? The cracked one that's still standing?" Milo pointed to an object a distance off.
“Yes.” She held out his glasses for him, feeling a slight vibration under her feet. It was familiar to her and she thought little of it.
"That I can see perfectly. I can even read the writing. The side facing us says, 'ahdluntisug.' Atlantis. I see better at a distance. It's kinda hard for me to read without my glasses," he said, putting them on.. He kept glancing down at the ground. He was feeling the vibration, too.
Kida hesitated before asking another question, taking advantage of the fact Milo was asking none for some reason, perhaps from trying to avoid what he was concealing. However, before Kida could say anything, Milo jumped back in surprise, staring down at a small creature that had popped its head out from the soil where he had been sitting.
“What—What was that?!”
“It was only a sabari,” Kida shrugged, more interested in talking more about and with her love than about the animal.
“It… It looked like a naked mole rat, but… with green and black scales!”
“A naked Mole raht?” Kida cocked a brow.
“It’s a pink furless rodent that digs tunnels like moles. …The animal, not Mole the geologist,” he said quickly as his new fiancée gave him an odd look, clearing his throat afterwards. “…You looked like you were going to ask me something?”
"Yes. Now, voyager, if you could be anywhere, where would you be? Tell me about it.” She scooted closer.
"Oh," Milo started, looking over his glasses at her, "right here. Nowhere else, just right next to you…"
She smiled, touched, but continued with an arched brow. "I meant on the surface."
"Oh! Yeah. Of course, um… Well, I really don't know. Probably the pyramids. They're huge tombs filled with historical writings."
"You… wish to go to a tomb? Is it to worship the spirits of the ancestors?"
"No, not like that. Just to learn about their culture firsthand as opposed to the books I have. Just to see it…!"
"I understand," she said after a hum.
"Stonehenge would be wonderful, though, too. It's a huge stone monument of sorts, we think, but little of it, even the way it was made, is known. That would be great."
The huntress cocked her head, intrigued, yet her mind still examined him. "He is nervous. I can see it in his eyes and the way he gestures… Why will he not ascend the throne?"
"I've seen pictures…"
Kida changed the subject slightly. "What are stars like? The murals seemed to depict them like shimmering gems high in the heavens."
The scholar laughed a bit. "They kinda look like them, but they're not. You only see them as pinpoints of light in a black sky. But you know how something farther away looks smaller than it really is? Well, stars are massive spheroids bigger than the earth in space and are composed of helium and hydrogen and burn at unbelievable temperatures, releasing vast amounts of heat and light energy, among others, through the fusion of the hydrogen atoms. They are billions of miles away from the earth."
Kida looked blankly at him, blinking.
"Um… Fireballs bigger than the world."
She nodded, and fell silent for a moment, thinking, before her eyes lit up in wonder. "…I do not remember what stars look like…"
"Hmmm. Yeah, I guess you can miss some things down here." He paused. "But you know what? We have an entire world to explore down here together. Atlantis has been restored to the five rings Plato talked about."
"Yes," she smiled, hoping he would bring that up. Kida stood, then bent down and took hold of Milo's wrist, pulling him up. "Let us explore our new home!"
He smiled to her as she took off, him in tow. Milo broke away momentarily as he could take her hand as she led and glanced back. They laughed as delightedly as any couple could.
. . . "Be careful. I almost hit my head on that rock when I found this earlier today."
"It's dark. What ro-- Owww!!! Um… Well, I guess I found it." Milo straightened his glasses after rubbing his forehead. His eyes had not yet adjusted to the light of his crystal. "Where are we heading, anyway?"
Kida laughed through a closed-mouth smile. "You will see!"
She pushed hard on a stone door, using her shoulder, and an ancient smell greeted him as it ground open. They entered together when she took his hand.
Milo's eyes grew large and an astonished smile appeared as he saw seemingly endless shelves of writings in various forms. "Jiminy Christmas! It's… It's huge!"
"Yes, though I suspect from the smell many of these tomes will not be readable any longer."
"Maybe, but… My gosh! What a start this is! This-This is great!"
Kida smiled. "I thought you would like it."
"Come on! Let's look at a few of these before scouting out the rest of the rings!"
Thus they searched for answers, keys to the past. Milo and Kida revealed mysteries to each other as they explored antediluvian pages and faces, enlightening themselves about the past of their home inside the ancient library.
. . . The couple stood at the water's edge, hand in hard, and looked on as fireflies would settle on the water, surface tension holding them perfectly to create tiny glowing water lilies. It was beautiful irony.
The linguist glanced around and saw an elevated walkway some ways down spanning the water. "Guess we better head down if we want to cross."
The warrior looked directly at him, smiling mischievously. "Why? The mural here is still half-submerged. It was once too deep for me to reach. I very much wish to see it. Let us simply swim across." She began to step into the water.
"But Kida, our clothes would be left over--" Suddenly, she grabbed his arm, pulling him into waist-deep water. "…And… Now our clothes are soaked."
The queen shrugged slightly. "It saves us the trip back later. There is much to explore."
"I--" He looked down at his already half-soaked clothes. "Okay." Milo watched as Kida took a deep breath and slipped perfectly into the water. He took a deep breath and followed, frog-kicking after her.
The only light from the surface was the shimmering gold dots of the fireflies that had alighted on the surface. All useful illumination came from the gems that hung near their hearts as they swam. Milo found it somehow strange to have his own crystal. The linguist saw his fiancée pause at the mural, running her hand over her the pictures she never hoped to see. Their light glinted off the tiles of the mosaic harmoniously.
Yet, despite it all, Milo still worried. "…So much to tell her about the surface and my background, but she'd never understand I never made it out of the boiler room until I came here… They talked about me flushing my career down the toilet." He shook his head. "I had a paycheck, not really a career… How could she possibly understand I wasn't so great? How do I tell her? I'd break her heart."
Kida was giving him a strange look. Milo did not realize he had paused, so he rushed over and began to read. He quickly found his lungs burning, and motioned for her to go to the water's surface with him. They broke into a small patch away from any fireflies.
"It's daily life!" He gasped.
"The writings?"
"Yeah! They're descriptions of how Atlantis functioned before the Great Flood."
"What else? What do they say? How did we live? What did we do?"
"I don't know yet. Let's go!" Milo quickly gasped in a deep breath and submerged again. Kida joined him at the mural. When he looked over at her, she was smiling to him. The scholar smiled back and went back to reading as best he could, as he couldn't keep his mind off of her. His concentration was shattered when he saw her move close out of the corner of his eye, and something soft and warm pressed against his cheek. In great surprise, he let some of his breath free, bubbles escaping into the water when she kissed him. They ascended as if in hopes to catch up with Milo's soul. He let a few more escape as he let himself float downward dreamily for a moment. Milo looked up at her, and she smiled, motioning upward with her eyes. Absolutely taken by her, he followed back to the surface.
Based off the Disney Picture "Atlantis: the Lost Empire." Fan fiction storyline and title are my (Rebmakash's) property. Milo Thatch, Kidagakash, Sweet, and other characters, names, concepts, and all Atlantean in this story are property of the Walt Disney Company.
Continue Reading Return to the Library Return to the Outer Rim Disclaimer: Atlantis: the Lost Empire, and the characters, language, symbols, storylines and titles are property of he Walt Disney Company. This site has been created for entertainment, non-profit purposes only. See sources.
Permission must be granted by the fan authors/artists before their material is to be used. Credit must also be given to the respective author/artist in question. Do so via their e-mail. Questions? Comments? E-mail me at Like_A_Star8800@yahoo.com.
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