Aon Ór Crossroads
Chapter 1
C.J. Benvol
Copyright © 2019 C.J. Benvol
All rights reserved
First Edition
NEWMAN SPRINGS PUBLISHING
320 Broad Street
Red Bank, NJ 07701
First originally published by Newman Springs Publishing 2019
ISBN 978-1-64531-708-1 (Paperback)
ISBN 978-1-64531-709-8 (Digital)
Printed in the United States of America
Table of Contents
Ending a War or Ending the Universe
The First Year Is Always the Hardest, No Make That the First Three Months Are the Hardest
Loving Who You Are and Accepting Where You Came From
To all the hours spent at the swim and dive team practices and meets.
Swim Hard, Swim Fast, Dive Straight!
Life is war tangled into struggle, pain, and victory. War is the act of fighting against an enemy, but who defines what an enemy is? Could an enemy be nothing more than an adversary of our own making? Could a war be nothing more than a challenge, struggle, or obstacle that we personally face in our own lives every day?
We openly say that we live nothing but war-ridden lives. We are always fighting diseases, money issues, hunger, career issues that always seem to burden our lives with some kind of personal war or another. But it is how we face those little wars that brings true meaning to who we are and where we are willing to go.
Don’t hide from the wars that life presents you with. Instead, face them and fight them until you own the world you live in and can face the war of your own life…
—Alia Mardak
Ending a War or Ending the Universe
“Are we sure this is going to work?” King Kodarint questioned, doubting what was to come and if they were not all insane for releasing such a power onto the universe again.
Mralia looked to him, unsure of why these men would keep questioning their own decisions like this. “It has been well over a hundred thousand years since our people have seen peace in this universe. It has caused nothing short of an upheaval between the other worlds that reside within our galaxy. If we don’t find a way to make this work, then how will we ever find peace? Or worse, will we end up destroying ourselves until all of our people are wiped from existence?”
“She has a very solid point there, Kodarint. It is time for change. Unless you know of a way to find that peace that doesn’t involve this immense change, then we have to follow this course and trust that we are doing the right thing,” King Rytan agreed.
“But to release the Aon Ór,” King Kodarint shook his head, “we have all heard the stories of what it has done and what evils it contains when used by the wrong people. How can we be sure that this won’t end up the same way?”
King Rytan nodded his agreement to that. “While I would agree with you fully under any other situation, you know my people’s gifts at knowing how things will be. I have spoken with one of the chosen children, and she has assured me that we will do this, and it will work. Mralia is right, we can’t continue on like this. We have to let this war go, and if putting our people to sleep for the next five hundred generations so that these young ones can learn how to forget our grievances and learn peace is the only way to do that, then I say we should do it. I’m tired of losing those I love and care about because of this senseless war.”
King Kodarint sat back in his high-backed chair and looked to those around him. “Three moons ago, I watched my five-year-old kill a man without a thought as to what he had done. There were no feelings from him on taking a grown man’s life, and when I asked him how he could do something like that, he answered, ‘We kill them because we have to.’ I never thought that I would see the day when a child had no feelings on death. It was the saddest day of my life.”
Queen Mralia was very young, almost too young to fully understand this pain. Both of the kings were much older and could have easily been her father, but the girl’s youth seemed to bring something to this table that was refreshing. “We have been growing up watching our friends and family die for so long that we, the children, have just accepted it as a normal everyday occurrence. Now it is time to let this go and let the visions of our youth’s desire for peace and happiness rule over our people.”
“But to allow children so young carry so much power? Are we not just as responsible if this goes wrong?” King Kodarint questioned still not sure of this. “I want peace as much as you two, but to allow children that young and inexperienced carry the most deadly power known to exist…” It was hard for him. “It just makes me question if we are doing the right thing here. Forcing a child to have a child in order to bring peace to our home seems wrong.”
King Alfdus seemed to agree with him on that. “I believe and wish that we could let someone older and more experienced do this and lead our people into a new life. After speaking with the child that would guide us, I know that my visions of a young girl, given the power divided amongst the four, will in turn do what we need better than we have done ourselves. We need to believe in our hearts that this will work, and that one day, our worlds will be strong once again.”
“But children—”
Mralia cut off King Kodarint, a man old enough to be her father. “I can see the good in what is to come. I can