Miranda's Destiny - the unexpurgated edition Read online

  MIRANDA’S DESTINY

  By Candace Smith

  Copyright 2010 Candace Smith

  Strict Publishing International

  PRELUDE

  The ship traveled silently through space, and the look of hope was evident on all the pale faces. It had been well over a year since the planet had been discovered, but the evasive maneuvers necessary to protect them from their enemies had made the journey painfully slow. After several months, with no other ship appearing on the star charts, they felt confident they had not been followed. No one traveled to the primitive, dangerous outer worlds.

  The three couples held hands and, communicating in their telepathic way, they encouraged each other that their plan would work. It had to; it was all that was left to them. They slowly parted and retreated to their quarters.

  Mahana and Laryan lay back on their mattress, excited and more than a little nervous at the enormity of their tryst. The survival of their species depended on a successful coupling, and the mates felt the burden of this weight lingering in the background as the sexual heat of the moment was building.

  Mahana’s liquid blue eyes stared up at her lover, and her pale face showed a slight hint of the flush of desire as her lips trembled with passion. The smoothness of Laryan’s hand traveled down her flat chest, the surface of which was barely rippled with the tiny light pink nipples of their kind. The mere brushing of his porcelain skin across the slight protuberances caused her to writhe in ecstasy, and her azure eyes sparkled with anticipation as his hand continued to the bared vee at the junction of her thighs.

  Mahana’s small hand quivered as she reached between Laryan’s legs to find his finger-sized organ stiff and pulsing. He lifted his head, gasping and gritting his teeth in lust. The diminished size of their sex organs belied the unparalleled passionate nature of their species. The exotic advanced creatures had heightened nerves, exciting them and keeping them in a constant state of arousal for their mates.

  As they gazed into each other’s watery wide eyes, Laryan swept Mahana’s juices along her cleft, and slowly inserted a long slender digit deep within her hot channel. When his thumb gently stroked her tiny pearled clit, her fist tightened on his shaft and she moaned, “Laryan, how I love you.”

  He shifted his slender body on top of hers. “And I love you, Mahana, with all my soul.” He thrust deep within her, as her walls gripped and pulled at him, refusing to release him. He drove his need into her, and he felt his cock being almost unbearably squeezed and stretched with every plunge.

  Mahana answered his desire with her own clenching demand, until they could not hold back, and their eyes became blank stares as the automatic trance induced by their climax showed them a vision of the future while his shaft emptied into her. He fell onto her, spent. Their ivory arms held each other while they studied each other’s eyes in silence, understanding their vision and the decision the remaining clan had agreed to. Mahana was now pregnant for the first time in five hundred years. This would be their race’s last chance to survive, and she gently caressed the pale skin over her womb with a mixture of love and sorrow. She would have so little time to be with her only child.

  They were Atlantians, the last brave vestige of their dying kind. Only one insignificant planet in the far reaches of the outer world could support their species, but the child must be born and raised on its surface. Their parents could last only a few years, a decade or less, in the rich suffocating atmosphere, so their children were to be left behind on this unknown planet to be raised by natives. As the centuries passed and the Atlantian bloodline thinned, there should be three children in every generation that held their Atlantian parents’ gene. It was their species’ only hope of survival.

  The remaining six Atlantians, three mated pairs, had traveled the worlds for centuries, outrunning those who wished to see them extinct. The enemies had destroyed the temples and the halls of learning, and only a few scrolls were safely sequestered on the ship before their planet was swallowed back into the black fathomless universe. Finally driven to the outer worlds, they found the planet of hope they had been searching for.

  The three babies, two girls and Mahana’s son, were born the day after the clan reached the surface of the planet. Already, the adults could feel the weighted pressure of the atmosphere and the unfamiliar sensation as their bodies began to decay. They studied their struggling infants calmly, mentally scanning the tiny bodies trying to adapt and accept the challenging surroundings.

  Mahana’s son’s fist clenched her finger as his lungs worked desperately to process the heavy air, and her eyes filled with tears as she looked at Laryan. “He decays, my love.”

  Laryan gazed at her sadly and gently gripped her arm. “We knew to expect that, Mahana. Our son will survive long enough to procreate, but he will wither young and none of our babies will see a single century.” The couples held hands to comfort each other’s misery.

  Their leader, Yatsema, finally broke the silence. “It is time to separate. There is so much to be done before we leave this place. Does anyone wish to speak before we begin?”

  “I think we have planned as well as we can, considering the primitive environment. The signs and our teachings should provide the native species of this planet with the knowledge they need to ensure our genes survive until we return. Shall we discuss our visions?” Laryan suggested.

  The clan agreed it would be wise to have some idea of what the future would hold for their efforts on this uncomfortable world.

  “Mahana and I see our gene survives, but how it is transported from this planet and what the future holds beyond that, we do not know. We only know that our gene will survive to leave this place.”

  There was a collective sigh of relief, and Yatsema’s mate stared at Mahana, her watery eyes filled with hope. “Did you see the other genes survive, as well?”

  Mahana felt a wave of despair for her friend. At least she knew her ancient heritage would live on. “No.” She quickly added, “That does not mean your lines do not survive, only that our vision was limited to our own gene, because it was our combined focus.”

  Yatsema’s voice was slightly contemptuous as he revealed his vision. “I see this planet being swallowed not long after the Great Calendar’s cycle ends. The primitives here have a barbaric sense to the nature and balance of this place, and they are greedy and driven. If not for your vision of a gene surviving, I would suggest not wasting our time with the instructions. Thank the gods that apparently some of those among this species will protect what we leave them with.”

  Alderian was the last to speak, and the bewilderment of his recanted vision was etched in his pale features. “Our vision was of a battleship and a warrior standing in full armament before a sun and a moon, protecting them. We do not know what to make of it.” The Atlantians closed their eyes to meditate on this unusual vision. If the warrior was no enemy to the heavenly bodies, what role would he play in their future? In the end, they had no answer.

  “It is time to prepare our messages. We must meet back on the ship in nine years and nine months. If we remain on this planet any longer, we will be sacrificing ourselves for no reason. Agreed?” Yatsema searched the faces for any hint of indecision, and he was pleased to see the faces looking back at him were filled with hope and anticipation as they nodded. The mates gathered their infants with determination, and traveled to their assigned locations.

  It had been decided years ago which signs each artisan of the clan would leave for their children. The locations to which the Atlantian couples had been assigned contained the most advanced of the species of this world. They began the work that would take almost a decade to compl
ete, but many years from now the natives would believe these works took centuries, and conclude that they had been constructed many years apart.

  The children had been sequestered with kind families, and Mahana spoke with her son every day while the work was being completed. When the great stone beacon was finished, and it was time to leave or perish, she placed her small hands on his shoulders and looked into his liquid blue eyes. “You carry the hope of our people, Larinth.” She kissed his forehead and released him to the surrogate mother she had chosen.

  The beautiful stone carvings of massive proportion were arranged in a circle, like an altar, in accordance with the angles and formation the artisans had calculated. Tears flowed down the peasants’ faces, as they watched the keepers of the towers walk down to the beach and across the surface of the water, until Mahana and Laryan could no longer be seen.

  The pyramids were complete and in the lower level, far beneath the harsh rays of the sun and damaging dry climate, the sacred scrolls lay protected in their tubes. The dark Egyptians thought the authors of these great works, startlingly beautiful people with pale skin and luminous blue eyes, were gods, and they built shrines and statues of them. As the artisans left the great pyramid, they gazed back at the lights of the city one last time. “Be well, my child,” Alderian whispered, and then he took his mate’s hand as they walked across the desert sands and disappeared.

  Half way around this world, frenzied sacrifices were being offered as the last of the Great Calendar was carved. The masons, their beautiful ivory skin contrasting with that of the exotic ebony tribe, silently walked south. The Mayans followed for months until they reached the base of a mountain. There, the masons smiled compassionately at them, yet told them to follow no further. The tribe waited at the bottom, their dark eyes watching the carvers as they traveled to the summit until they were out of sight. One brave warrior dared to climb to the top, and returned to tell his people the masons had vanished.

  Years passed, and the legend of the artisans became distorted and blurred. The sacred scrolls from the pyramids were feared by the new rulers and considered dangerous works, filled with political and religious anarchy, and they were burned in Alexandria along with most of the teachings of the great philosophers who had struggled to learn from the artisans. One of the many wars broke out, and Alderian’s precious Atlantian gene was lost.

  The masons’ Great Calendar remained undisturbed, for the most part. Many years after its completion, a deadly plague disbursed the panicked tribe in all directions after claiming the gene carried within Yatsema’s great, great grandson. Credited to the Mayans, the Great Calendar ended in the pre-destined year of the artisans’ visions, but no one was left to explain what was to happen. Wild stories of the end of days circulated among the natives of the planet as they watched the ancient calendar nearing the last of its etched symbols. Yatsema would have shaken his head in disdainful sadness at their ridiculous conclusions. The calendar simply ended when the clan was to return for their children.

  The great stones of the beacon remained, weathered and worn by time and the elements. Stories of altars and sacrifices spread among the species as with each successive generation fewer people remembered the truth. It was dangerous to practice what little of the Old Religion the artisans had shared, and the believers were ostracized and condemned for their rituals. A wizened woman with knowledge of the stones traveled across the great ocean to the Americas, hoping to evade the inquisitors’ time in Europe. She was soon condemned as a witch, and killed. Her pale blonde daughter cried in her father’s arms. Laryan and Mahana’s gene had survived.

  No one remembered the true story of the great artisans, and the legends became nothing but myths, fantasized and scorned. A popular rumor spread of an advanced people traveling to the planet, only to sink with the mythical land of Atlantis into unknown waters. It was easier, at the time, to believe the Atlantians sank into the ocean, along with their fictitious homeland, than to understand the incredible truth.

  The great works of art, the signs so patiently designed by the artisans, remained. The pyramids in Egypt and South America, reminiscent structures of the crystal temples the Atlantians had loved on their home planet, the Great Calendar spanning thousands of years, marking their return, and the beacon of Stonehenge, where their children would be waiting, were all shrouded in mystery and half truths.

  Like dominos on their fallen collision course, the teachings were lost and forgotten. The scrolls had not survived the politics of their discovery, the magical wizened folk with the knowledge of the beacon did not escape the killing times, and the Mayan tribe had been separated or killed by the conquerors’ plague. If the Atlantians had not misjudged their length of stay on the planet by the two days it had taken to birth the babies, they would not have continued to slowly decay when they returned to their ship. If just one of these events had not happened, the child would have known.

  CHAPTER I

  Miranda gazed around the clearing and sighed. The basket of apples in her arms smelled sweet, and she looked over at her small orchard silently blessing the trees for their fruit. The sound of a fish slapping the water in the pond at the edge of the woods caught her attention. Leaves decorated the trees in the colors of Samhain, the sabbat quickly approaching, and Miranda and Tempest still had ritual preparations to complete.

  The weather was cool, but not too cold for this time of year, and she studied the orange and red leaves on the maple, reading their curls. November would be harsh this year, and Miranda made a mental note to bring the herbs inside. She smiled and thanked the goddess for Tempest’s insistence to grow them in pots instead of the garden. The rocker on the porch moved to the slight breeze as if to remind her, and she wandered over to it. I might as well get it over with. She sat down and closed her eyes.

  Tempest always did her reflecting after Yule, making her resolutions on the traditional first day of the year, and cleansing herself for the new wheel. Miranda thought it was too depressing to think about her lonely past in the isolated coldness of December. Her grandmother had taught her the rituals, and since she was a child Miranda had done her reflecting before Samhain. She welcomed cleansing herself of the sad memories of her life so she could meet and bless her ancestors with a clear mind. Miranda missed her grandmother terribly. She was the only one who understood and could explain Miranda’s differences to her.

  The wide planks creaked as she rocked on the porch of her little cabin in the woods that she had purchased with the money from the sale of her parents’ house and the insurance settlement after they were mugged and killed on a weekend trip celebrating their twentieth anniversary.

  Miranda’s trances and premonitions had labeled her ‘weird’ since she was a child. Thank the stars for Tempest. The spiky haired girl had been her only friend in high school, when the first whispers of ‘witch’ followed her through the halls from the cheerleaders and chess geeks.

  She remembered the day Tempest sat down in the empty chair next to her in the back of English class. The new student stared down at her desk with a resigned look on her face, and Miranda shrugged and returned her attention to the essay she was writing. She knew that before the last class was over, the girl would learn that Miranda was a freak, and she would choose a different seat the next day.

  Miranda was suspicious the following afternoon when the new girl once again plopped down in the chair next to her. Miranda glanced sideways at her, and the dark haired girl grinned, her green eyes peaking out from under her shaggy bangs mischievously. “A witch, huh?”

  Miranda prepared to defend herself, and answered calmly, “That’s what they tell me.”

  “Any chance you can get this dipshit teacher to drop the Shakespeare and throw us some Poe?”

  Miranda relaxed a little and stifled a laugh. “Shakespeare had his dark moments, too.”

  Emerald eyes flashed with amusement. “I’m Tempest.” She held out her hand.

  “I’m Miranda, welcome to Midpoint High.”
>
  Tempest smirked. “Spoken like an admiring alumni…which you’re not.”

  “True, I’m not,” Miranda agreed.

  Tempest was a new age outcast from Arizona, and became her best and only friend. No one messed with Miranda when Tempest around, and she usually was. Over the next two years, Miranda told Tempest some of her secrets, and she was pleased when Tempest never asked her for proof. She believed her completely, and said she just wished she could gain Miranda’s focus to experience some of her own potential.

  Tempest’s mother ignored them, and spent her time involved in a vague quest for her own truth. “I need to find myself, Tempest. I will never be whole until I do.” She would take off on strange weekend retreats, saying she was ‘searching for herself’.

  Tempest used to laugh and say she might as well stop looking. “Cripes, Miranda, she can’t even find my father. I don’t think she even knows who he is.”

  After two harsh West Virginia winters, the confused woman finally decided she would ‘find herself’ back in Arizona, and she told her daughter she was returning the day after Tempest graduated. She made no mention that Tempest would be accompanying her.