Looking down through the glass floor, I watched as the browns, greens, and yellows of the countryside passed underneath my feet. The grid-like layout of the rural region we were flying over, where millions of people were probably settling in for the night, or already fast asleep. Like my mother, who sat two seats ahead of me with her eyes sealed shut.
My father was awake and conversing quietly with my older brother and two younger sisters. I couldn't help but think they were speaking about my upcoming nuptials. What else was there to talk about?
Not over two months ago, my mother called me into her private throne room and discussed a plan involving me. She said I would have to marry Prince Myles Cider, the youngest prince of the North American Union, at age twenty-one making him four years my junior.
My brother, Aécio Junior, turned over to me and smiled mischievously. He had been trying to get under my skin since we departed the airfield, but I wasn't willing to give him the satisfaction. Yet, giving him a look had his muscular body rippling with laughter.
"What's the matter, little brother? You don't seem to be happy about meeting your new husband," he joked in English. We were all brushing up on the language since we knew the Northerners had limited understanding in Portugueses.
"Fuck you," I snarled.
He laughed harder while taking deep breaths to not wake our mother. It was funny to him that the non homosexual brother was being asked to marry a man. Aécio was happily married to his husband, Ruel, a close friend of mine. I had no problem like most of the world with homosexuality; it was the 28th century after all. I preferred the feeling of a lithe woman under me.
"Be nice," my father interjected. I rolled my eyes and went back to staring at the surface below. My youngest sister Alexa walked over to me, her head crowned by russet curls that bounced as she walked. She was only seven, but with every day that passed she made it clear who would sit on the throne. Not a surprise since she was born to parents in their eighties that could impart the knowledge gained by a little under a third of our general lifespan.
"I'm confused, will you be a prince of North America?"
"Not completely, I will have some of the same rights but without the ability to become their king. I'll still be a prince of the South," I answered. She nodded, satisfied with the answer.
"What does he look like," she inquired. I wondered why she had not looked that up for herself.
"He's a prince." I shrugged, unsure of how to answer. He wasn't an ugly man, his honey-colored skin was blemish less in the pictures I had looked up. In all the pictures, he kept his jet black hair low and his eyelashes were long. They jutted from the folds of his hooded lids, curling upward. My brother found him attractive. If only he was the one marrying Myles.
When I had researched him, I focused more on his accomplishments, which is where I found the most disappointing tidbit of information. All I could find were accounts of humanitarian work, which was fine but didn't make someone worthy of taking a throne.
The world was all about how you could dominate another. You proved your place by how you performed on the battlefield as a monarch. Some said we had regressed socially, that were merely barbarians living in glass cities. I believe that the world has become as it should, people showing how capable they were of defending the people who put their trust in you. Unfortunately, I would have to marry a man who had openly stated his contempt for at least the last six battles.
"I think he's cute," my sister Rosa barged into the conversation. She looked at me and was smiling as she moved her hands along her silk green dress to smooth out non-existent wrinkles.
"Well, maybe if you were of age, you could be the one marrying him. Doubt he'd want to be with someone who looks like you," I replied. She flashed me a vulgar hand gesture out of my father's view.
"I can't get over an hour of sleep with you idiots," my mother's tired voice gathered everyone's attention. Wrinkles barely contoured her forehead.
"They don't know how to shut the fuck up," I spat.
"None of you know how to shut the fuck up," my mom said, she adjusted herself in her seat and looked around at us. She had never been what one would describe as warm, but she was dependable. My sister would disagree, especially Rosa, 15 and following the same path as my soon to be husband.
"How much longer until we are at our destination, Ernesto," my mother asked the pilot by placing her finger gently on the touchscreen keypad on her armrest.
"It will be another two hours at this speed and altitude. I wish I could go faster, but this is the pre-approved route. Any faster and we will become a target for their Air Force," the pilot replied.
"Okay," my mother answered, but I could tell she wanted to get there faster. Violating the flight terms would not have started the relationship off on a good note.
"Mommy could you tell us the story of the water women again," Alexa asked. She loved the story we all grew up hearing. I found it to be boring, especially since so many people could have done what they did in minutes while it took them years. Maybe the story was amazing six centuries ago.
"Please don't," my father said.
"Shut up. So in the year 2104, scientists, politicians, religious leaders, and anyone with some knowledge joined forces to merge faith and science as a last attempt to stop the great flood that would engulf forty percent of the land on earth in five years. In one desperate attempt a Wiccan priest, chemist, and biologist created the first spell. We all know that as the will-o'- wisp, a simple light producing technique which launched months of research and led to many people trying for themselves to channel mana. Many religious leaders fought against people harnessing the power they thought should only be for the gods, but that didn't stop people around the world from learning how to manipulate mana. A Doctor after the discovery found that there was a part of our brain, nammed the Mana Node that's capable of pulling in ambient or potential energy that we can transform into kinetic energy to manipulate in infinite ways, as you all know. This started a campaign on finding techniques to harness that energy, which did not take long. Now in the old country of Vietnam, back before the continents became unified, three women who worked as simple poor shrimp farmers, used magic to make catching food easier. Over a few years they taught themselves how to transmute the mana their bodies were storing and combine it with the latent energy around them which lead to the creation of the Calming Wave Palm," my mother exposited as if it was the first time that we heard about the women.
"Mom, we learned this with the tutors," Aécio Junior said while dramatically rubbing his hands down his face.
"I said shut the hell up," My mom said before flicking her finger at him sending a marble-sized ball of hardened air hurtling towards him. I watched as it hit him on the forehead, leaving a cranberry red mark on his deep caramel skin.
"Anyway, the three women used the spell to push the waves encroaching on their village back seven months later and passed the knowledge on to their friends and family. Then the spell exploded when one of their nephews posted a video of him doing it on the internet leading to many Tide Workers around the world pushing back the sea. Then the original Antartians developed frost magic and rebuilt the glaciers, and ever since we have been harnessing what we call magic to improve our world and the surrounding space," my mother said and received an applaud from Alexa.
"I don't know why you like the story," I said to her. The magic pioneer age wasn't impressive to me. During that time, world war 4 and 5 happened because of stupid issues with religion. What animals we used to be, not that we had exactly grown much, but at least we fought to maintain our lands.
"Because it's a story of three poor common women saving the world. It is the job of a royal to save our lands, it's our job so there is no need to care if we do. Those women had no education of the complex theories behind using mana. They did what they had to preserve their way of life, their homes, and their families. Nothing really comes from royal ideas, it's the people who aren't pampered who get things done." Alexa looked at me with her head held high. My parents smiled at her answer, pride building at the unspoken future heir.
Not wanting to focus on the conversation anymore, I shrugged then looked back down at the ground moving underneath us. I turned some jazz on, which blasted into the ear pads I was wearing along the curve behind my ear that sent the sound waves directly to my auditory nerve. I was not the biggest fan of music, but it was better than listening to my family bicker.
Without distraction, I let my mind wander to what I would deal with when the plane landed. I didn't know the man I was to be marrying, and I was sure my parents were hiding some finer detail of this marriage from me and I hated being kept in suspense.