Potenkiah, the deathgiver

Chapter 5.3

Outside, the trees had turned brown and orange; the gardeners were struggling to rake the leaves that crunched under their feet. The cool autumn wind found its way under her dress, and made her shiver.

She kept walking towards her favorite square. It had a fountain where water trickled from stone to stone, and the sound it made comforted her. It was the perfect spot for reading. A few steps later she spotted Elisa Bandier’s unwanted presence, the visiting human, escorted by a military looking man in glasses. It could have been her father or a bodyguard brought over from her planet.

Instinctively, she hid the book behind her back and walked by, unseen. Then she concluded that, at the most, at that distance the human would only see she had something red in her hands, but would not be able to make out the details.

Elisa was pretty according to her species’ standards. She had olive skin, almond-shaped eyes, and dark hair. It was too bad she had an arrogant and frivolous personality. Paty Obrien, always the analytical one, supported the theory that since she was the only member of her species in the palace, her behavior was the result of loneliness. Annie, however, thought it was the result of jealousy over that which she could never have: wings.

Bridget kept shooting her furtive glances while she put distance between them, when a shadow passed by the corner of her eye, and she felt a tug at her hands.

“Hey!” she cried, turning around. Something or someone had snatched the book from her, and…

The enormous animal, the size of a foal, came to a halt, turned several times on its hind legs as if defying her, squeezed the red book in its muzzle, and disappeared into the bushes with it.

“Stop!” called Bridget, as she chased it through the trees. It was a young goldulp, a native mammal of her planet. The aforementioned specimen still had white fur and a flat nose, traits the cubs had, but its long pointed tail was already six feet long. “Stop, please.”

She had no idea where she got the strength to keep running; she kept thinking she would tumble on the grass at any moment. The chase continued down a road lined with bushes, past the last flowery square, and entered the forest on its way to the lake.

“Stop!”

The goldulp took a path to the north, and climbed a nearly inaccessible hill. On that spot, roots blocked the way, and the leafy red tree tops left the path in blood red darkness. She almost caught its tail several times, but the cub would suddenly turn, and her hand closed on thin air. She was about to catch it, when the goldulp slipped away between some shrubs.

Visitors should not be allowed to bring pets, she growled. It was said goldulps could only see three colors, and one of them was red.

“You furry little dragon… I’ll get you!”

She jumped in after it, and suddenly the ground disappeared from under her feet.

She screamed when she felt herself fall, until she hit the icy water. She sank helplessly, without the strenght to carry on. She held her breath and fumbled about looking for the surface, but a thick cover of leaves blocked the light and she didn’t know which way to swim. Her dress and her boots became a dead weight. Her lungs burned. She kicked harder, refusing to let herself be embraced by darkness, until she used up all her oxygen, and knew she was about to drown.

No guards saw me fall, did they?

Naturally, had someone in a uniform seen any girl in a similar situation they would have gone to the rescue, no matter who she was. It was ironic, spending her entire life pretending to be someone else to stay safe, just to find herself about to die because she’d tried to keep the secret hidden. And in the very lake she swam in during the summer, because she was not a bad swimmer…