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The quetzal’s escape

At a time when Antemidia was still called the Caribbean Atlantis, the siblings Ux-Ma-Ya and Tak-An-Tal successfully completed their quest for godhood. After that achievement, their family’s genealogical reef was blessed with the seafoam coat of arms and subsequently divided into two power lines: The first was called Uxmal and the second Takan.

After just a few sea currents, the Takans died out, causing historical sources to incorrectly refer to them as a marginal family line. The Uxmals, on the other hand, kept growing in power and soon began to play a crucial role in the politics of Atanga, the capital of Antemidia.

The Uxmals advocated for reduced taxes and greater freedoms, as they believed this would ease internal tensions. They also postulated that peace with their neighbors and intense focus on economic development would be beneficial. Most commoners knew them as the patrons of innovative people, as they generously supported new ideas.

One of their many highly gifted descendants was Tikalie Uxmal, a young mermaid who would soon become the country’s most famous elective princess.

Tikalie’s first name was inspired by the onshore city of Tikal. It wasn’t an odd choice; several families chose names related to ancient cities for their daughters. Tikalie’s mother, Natalie Uxmal, still revered the Mayan pantheon, and she often took her daughter to see the Mayan sights. As soon as the girl turned twelve, her parents sent her to the main center of spiritual development in the country’s inner ring—an ancient city currently named Aternidad.

There, Tikalie lived in one of the temples built from glass monoliths, and like all other priestesses, she wore white robes and a white veil covering her face.

She spent most of her days participating in group prayers and doing chores that kept the place running smoothly—tending to the sacred geyser spitting hot water bubbles into the water, cleaning, and cooking for fellow priestesses. Her free time was mostly spent on meditation.

She’d sit for hours in the alabaster room, chanting mantras and playing instruments. She had a profound love of sacred music, as it had the ability to put her into a specific trance, to take her to another dimension. The time at the temple always changed her, but she typically recognized it only by the end of the summer, when her stay there ended. Each time she returned to the capital, she felt like a different person. More loving and peaceful, but also more detached, distant.

After she turned sixteen, Tikalie joined a private education institute known as the High School for Elite Antemidian Sisters, often shortened to High SEAS.

In the High SEAS, there was never any time for idle chatter; everyone studied very hard. Gaining admission to this institution was an accomplishment in and of itself, and yet Tikalie still managed to excel beyond her fellow students.

She consistently scored high on tests, mostly thanks to her way of thinking. She always looked for patterns and systems and drew conclusions based on those. This problem-solving approach helped her come upon new solutions, and by the time she had turned seventeen, everyone called her a teenage prodigy.

She was the pride of the whole family, and everyone foretold a bright future for her. But Tikalie didn’t like to think about it. She didn’t have any specific career in mind. She studied hard just because she loved it.

Around that time, the currently reigning princess of Antemidia, Ustinya Arenas, had just turned twenty-five and was refused a place in the Council of Generals, due to her “lack of competence”—or so General Aalona told the media.

When new elections were announced, Tikalie wasn’t sure if she wanted to take part. There was a lot of competition between her companions at High SEAS—all had set their eyes on the post of the next elective princess. Tikalie didn’t feel like taking part in that contest; she disliked rivalry for the pure fact that she didn’t see sense in it. The world needed great people, and as long as they contributed to the world in some way, they were living up to their potential… or so she thought.

But her mother proposed her candidacy straight to the Council, and after the documents were submitted, Tikalie won indisputably. She could only gracefully accept the fact that success was hers once again.

By now, it felt almost natural for her to score yet another achievement. Victory was apparently running in her blood. She had to work for it, sure, but it always came easily, almost as if by blessing.

Needless to say, she kept paying for it by continuously losing friends, who just turned away from her out of envy, often without any explanation at all.

That was always painful, but Tikalie knew she had to let them go. Life was a journey, and not every companion would be there with her.

Sad or not, she kept her head high and her back straight. She had perfect posture, mastered thanks to endless hours spent sitting in meditation practice. And even as a princess, she never stopped wearing ethereal white robes, characteristic for temple priestesses.

She was a pretty girl, especially thanks to her galaxy makeup and naturally turquoise hair, which she typically held up in two high ponytails. Thanks to the court hairstylist, Azura, Tikalie’s hair was always an incredible work of art, adorned with intricate, silver decorations, thin braids, white feathers, lace, shells, and pearls.

Tikalie was stunning, yet she had no admirers. Many people felt completely out of her league or just considered her emotionless because of her calm demeanor and expressionless face, which they often compared to a porcelain mask.

*

During her reign, Tikalie treated development as a strategy game, and after a successful analysis of the failures committed by her predecessor, Ustinya, she managed to come up with new solutions that almost effortlessly set her country on the path of intense development.

This enhanced her status even more. She was very young, yet the society already called her a legend. She seemed perfectly made for her challenging new role, and even foreign diplomats had to admit that she was a great country representative, one endowed with much class. She was so distinguished and so cultured that she conducted challenging conversations with ease. She could freely express herself about a range of topics, her favorites being music, spirituality, art, and abstract ideas.

Initially, she enjoyed the blessings brought by her princely life very much. However, over time, things changed. Despite living in incredible abundance, Tikalie felt empty and oddly sad. Her best strategy was to distract herself, mostly by focusing on the goal in front of her. But recently, achieving more and more just wasn’t making her happy. Not anymore, and for a very good reason.

Because she was so outstanding, everyone around her had expectations of her. They always wanted her to do more, and then more. And what was good yesterday wasn’t at all enough today.

Sometimes she grew tired of spreading herself too thin.

Sometimes she just wanted to be alone, and at other times, she dreamt of a person around whom she could be... just her normal self, whatever that meant.

Unfortunately, nobody saw a fellow living being in her—not anymore. She was just a puppet, a puppet that had no right to feel, a puppet whose only purpose was to fulfill everybody’s expectations. What she thought and wanted just didn’t matter, for her life was decided by everyone around her. Her unfulfilled desires for very simple things, such as laughing with friends who wouldn’t be envious of her, plagued her soul like demons.

*

Of course, Tikalie tried to pull herself together through intense, even aggressive meditation practice. She believed that even greater discipline would help her awaken more deeply and would remind her that she could do well even without her dreams coming true.

But meditation didn’t work anymore, and she was becoming lonelier with each day, eventually asking the Council’s permission to exchange letters with other rulers from abroad.

They granted the permission, and soon, she became quite close with her two penpals: Princess Lumina Mond from Nerland and Princess Samantha Santoro from Atlantis. Both were fifteen, five years younger than Tikalie. Despite the age difference, though, they could communicate well, and they shared some of the same hobbies. Lumina was very interested in spiritual exercises, as they helped her get better at magic, and Samantha loved astrology and playing stringed instruments. Beyond that, the three shared same the hardships of being princesses.

Tikalie found herself very engaged in the two friendships, but the one with Samantha was a source of constant worry for the Council. Fortunately, General Asvald was aware that there were benefits of Antemidia and Atlantis maintaining good relations, and he let the two mermaids keep in touch. Soon they were almost best friends, and Tikalie loved reading her younger friend’s letters.

Samantha, known by her title “Spirit of Atlantis,” was creative and would write many pages, sometimes as many as ten or fifteen. She was putting a lot of effort into them, describing every single thing with much color and detail so Tikalie would have a complete picture of her life in Atlantis. In a weird way, reading those letters was like reading a book, chapter by chapter. Tikalie would often swim around her room, reading the letters and laughing to herself, entertained.

Lumina’s writings were much different. Never eager to disclose too much about herself, she wrote about her daily life in a concise manner, focusing on answering questions that Tikalie had asked. She was very attentive and remembered even the smallest details. She was also rather perceptive and could quickly and easily express in words every complex feeling that the young princesses were struggling with. There was something about her well-thought-out comments that made them feel like a soothing balm poured onto a broken heart. Tikalie looked forward to receiving her letters very much, just like the ones written by Samantha.

*

Since General Asvald saw how important the two friendships were for Tikalie, he decided to prepare a surprise he knew she’d enjoy for the calmer period after the Friendship Day.

This public holiday was something that Tikalie hardly cared about, at least not as a private person, because her only two friends were far away. As a public figure, though, she would be extremely busy. She had meetings with the leader of the Gulf of Mexico and of the Territory of Ancora, which was located outside the Leeward and Windward Islands. It was an eccentric country characterized by never-ending political troubles. Because of its instability, it didn’t really have any allies except Antemidia. Antemidia remained its ally despite everything, because Ancora was the only nation that had always stood side by side with Antemidia, no matter their internal situations.

The meetings between their rulers were always stressful because the whole region would talk about them, cautiously looking at Antemidia and their controversial ally. Fortunately, Tikalie always managed to come out of the meetings unscathed, keeping both the neighbor and the international community satisfied, which was quite a feat.

It was the same this year. Even though the newspapers just couldn’t stop talking about her excellent political discourse, Tikalie had already moved on, as she had meetings with diplomats from other countries too. In just one day, she managed to renew twelve trade agreements and eight military alliances, not to mention accepting almost thirty offers of foreign investment and cultural exchange.

Antemidia was getting more powerful than ever before. It was almost entertaining to watch and wonder how far it could develop, how much better it could get. It was almost a personal conquest, and Tikalie loved it.

It cost her a lot of effort and strain, though. Her back ached from wearing heavy ornaments, and at night she lay awake for hours, too nervous about everything to fall asleep. Her mind was going on and on and on, thinking about all the stressful things that would happen the next day.

She felt she was dealing quite well with everything, but time showed that it was just an illusion, and she was simply internalizing her stress. Locked like a demon in her frail body, it was becoming a destructive force, one making her fall sick with increasing frequency. But physical sickness was manageable; feeling like the world would collapse if things weren’t done perfectly and if life weren’t going forward according to the plan was not.