Ann Marie closed her eyes and breathed in deeply as the plane began its descent. 

She was home again.
An elation, like the cool rushing streams, flowed into her heart. She had missed so much her own tribal people, the jungle with its astonishing flora and fauna, the spectacular waterfalls and most of all she missed her adventurous life.
A native girl of the Arawak Tribe, the jungle, where the history of the people were rooted in the foliage earth and written, unseen words on the wind, the plains and the rivers, was her home.
The expeditions to ancient cities and sites in Central America with her English husband, David and his team of archaeologists were interesting pieces of her ancestral history, scattered like leaves across an entire continent. The old valuable artifacts of the Mayan and Aztec dynasties, ancient chambers where history was written on the walls and imprinted on the stone steps of temples, stories of Gods and Goddesses, rituals and sacrifices. The spiritual power of the Gods was a bond she shared with all her tribal people for it lived within her, an inheritance that had been passed down. Footprints that had stretched from Asia, across the Bering Strait over seven thousand years ago, to this land in South America with its lush savannahs and rain forest was home, unique in its own.
David took her hand and looked at her with a warm smile, “Happy now?”
She nodded and lowered her head on his shoulders as the plane touched down on the small interior airstrip. A feast, songs and dances welcomed the special couple and the village Chief’s son presented Ann Marie with a bunch of rare orchids. She inhaled deeply the blessed scent and tears gathered in her eyes for only she and him knew where in the jungle it grew. She hugged him warmly, for as natives they shared a story, when an angry spirit of the jungle had turned him into a beast. He had hidden deep in the jungle, where the orchids grew, cursed to live in that hideous form forever. Ann Marie with her compassionate heart had befriended him for her eyes saw beyond his ugliness. That special love had broken the curse and helped him regain his human form.
The celebrations continued into the night and she went to bed in her benab, the sounds of music and laughter lulling her to sleep, in this, her paradise. In her dreams, scenes of her adventurous life were replayed in nature’s secret little hideouts, treacherous trails and dark forbidden places in the jungle, bathing under the waterfalls and swimming with her river friends, the otters.
Such a wonderful life when she was free to spread her wings like a bird but came a change when David, the English boy she had rescued from a plane crash fulfilled his promise to her and came back. He wanted her to share his life so he could take her on travels across the world. They had gotten married and left the village but Ann Marie had missed home too much. A year later, one early morning in Guatemala, she had told David: “Something special has happened, I have to go back home.”
“What happened?” he had asked, concerned she hadn’t been too happy.
She had taken his hand and placed it on her abdomen.
“My home awaits a princess to carry on the legacy of El Dorado.”
It was wonderful news and touching her face gently, he had said, “If that’s what will make you happy, we will return.”
El Dorado, the City of Gold, a legacy of the natives, searched for by explorers, but was never found and became only a myth to the outside world. The old tribal leaders had summoned the spirits of the Gods to cast an invisible veil over the city to hide it from the lustful eyes of the world and bestow upon only two, the spiritual power to unveil the city through their eyes only. It was an inheritance that had been passed from generations and today, Ann Marie stood alone, the Queen.
She will walk on streets paved with gold, through this mythical city, where a throne awaits her and she would reach out to take the hand of the one she had chosen to be her king, to sit beside her, for even though he was an outsider, his love for her was true and through her eyes, he would see the city. Their unborn child will come into the world, gifted to be the princess of El Dorado.
Ann Marie awoke the next morning before the mist had cleared from the mountain tops and looked at David sleeping beside her. She smiled and touched his face gently, her King, her life and a Princess to be born.
A new day awaited her…