Wild Jewel [Enter a world of Faerie Romance]

Wild Jewel - Chapter 1b

Chapter 1b

We stayed at the Kingdom for the rest of the summer and in the time I spent there; I ‘played’ with Leodáin – that’s how our parents put it. They never even paused for a minute to think that we might hate each other. If anyone wanted to ask us, we would have said we were fighting in a ‘friendly’ manner – so as to not upset our parents too much, but after a while, I started not to care anymore.

While Leodáin tried to get me to play swords with him, I encouraged him to play with dolls. Neither of us won, but he ended up pulling off one of my doll’s heads, and in return I put a spider in his bed. I didn’t have a fear of spiders at all, and he didn’t either really, but just the shock of one so close made his reaction just that much scarier. He first screamed, and then ran out of the room yelling curses about me. Revenge is sweet.

 Never understood why people despised insects so much, if you never provoked them, they were harmless and gentle creatures, just like the pixies.

Most of the time during the summer, though, I would play in the fringes of the forest, or near the riverbank until someone would notice my absence and bring me back to ‘play’ with Leodáin.

Almost every summer, we would visit the castle, and we never really got along, which our parents soon realized this but continued to persuade us to be lenient. Some summers I would convince my father that I was too sick to leave home, to which he would send a messenger to the Queen, informing her that we would not be arriving that summer. Again, every summer, I would try to spend playing in the forest, but sometimes it was too hard to sneak out.

Sometimes Leodáin would play with his friend, Philip, and though I would sometimes be jealous of my lack of attention, I tried to tag along with them – rarely – and mostly when the sun was smothered by clouds and rain. At one point, they wanted to play hide and seek in the forest, and, like any parent would do, my father encouraged me to play with them, and I unwillingly obliged, though as excited that I was able to play in the forest without having to sneak out.

No one understood the forests like I did and so when it was my turn to seek, I would find them almost too simply, as the sprites would help me seek them out. Eventually they got frustrated with my ‘good skills’ and challenged me by asking me to hide in the best place I could find, and they’ll both try to find me.

I instantly thought about the many possibilities and places I could find, but quickly and reluctantly wheeled off to find somewhere to hide. “No peeking!” I shouted behind me to the boys, to which they replied, “We won’t.”

Jogging away from them, I followed the sprites through the trees, until they found the best place for a hiding spot. They gestured to a tree with low branches that was easy enough to climb up with my limited strength. I pulled myself up through the moss covered branches until I was too scared to go any higher. I sat in a little crevice, watching every angle and listening hard for any of the boys approach.

I never heard them or saw them. They obviously didn’t think that I would come this way, or didn’t think to look up in the trees enough, but after a long while, I started to think that I had won.

To keep me from getting bored, the sprites danced for me, playfully, and I softly giggled and applauded their performance. They were my true friends. The pixies, sadly, couldn’t join me up this high, as they didn’t have wings like the sprites did, though they were twice as cheeky as the sprites were.

I continued to shuffle in my seated position as my underside started to go numb and my back started to cramp. When the sun started going down, I realized that I had won, but even with that knowledge, I couldn’t feel happy about it, as I was starting to get cold, my body wascramped, my stomach was growling at me and I realized my body had other needs as well.