The Bastard Princess

15.

-HER-

I stayed still with my eyes closed. The heat of the desert started to lift slowly before the sand beneath me started to move. A crackling sound is all I heard before I was being sucked into the void. The pressure that I felt around me threatened to squeeze the life out of me.

I gasped for breath as the feeling of falling took over me. The wind rushed past my ears as gravity hugged me like an old friend. My ears were ringing and my stomach churned, making me feel nausea. As the pressure increased, I squeezed my eyes painfully. Pain danced on my forehead and goosebumps surfaced on my skin.

Just when I thought I couldn't take it anymore; I landed on a soft and cold surface. The crunching sound as I sunk deeper into the soft and cold surface confirmed my thoughts. It was snow. I slowly opened my eyes. Black dots floated in my vision while my ears were still ringing. My lungs denied accommodating air into them. I was gasping, choking and shivering at the same time.

The world was spinning around me and the blue sky seemed to part to let all the colors that existed in the universe descend down on me. I closed my eyes again and concentrated on my breathing. Slowly, nausea went away and my body started to absorb the coldness around me. I did not know how long I laid there with my eyes closed. It felt like forever but I wasn't complaining.

It was the sound of various voices and the hooves of horses made me snap my eyes open. I slowly sat up, unsure about my surroundings. I was in the forest. Several naked trees surrounded me but what caught my eyes were people.

There was a road just at the edge of the forest and it was filled with people dressed in nice clothes. Where am I? I asked myself abruptly. Did I get myself somewhere else? I looked around to find that red pouch in which the blunt dagger and the wooden box was.

I stood up abruptly, only to fall back on the snow. I hadn't gained the balance on my body yet. After trying and falling for a couple more time, I was able to stand up. When I started to walk towards the road, the realization dawned upon me that I couldn't go like this. Especially with my red hair. It drove people away from me. It made them more aware and suspicious of me.

Even though I did not have much energy left in my body, I decided to transform. Transforming into another human was one of those capabilities that my mother had genetically passed onto me along with her looks and a ruined reputation. Though, I didn't do this often because it was tiring and very hard. Just thinking about transforming made my body hurt.

I closed my eyes before imagining myself as a clay. I imagined the clay molding into a teenage boy with black hair and blue eyes. Soon, it started. My bones broke to rearrange themselves and my skin stretched and shrunk at certain parts of my body to mold me into someone I was definitely not.

When I was done, I found myself on snow again. I stripped from my dress before taking the red pouch and heading towards the road. The chilling winds of this cold land made me shiver and my teeth chatter. Not a thread of cloth was there on my body to warm me up. The snow crunched under my feet as I headed towards the road.

A golden carriage decorated with stones and other precious things was just passing by. The carriage looked so beautiful and attractive that it was hard for me to believe that it could belong to a mortal. The carriage was surrounded by many male subjects. They looked breathtakingly beautiful and the manner in which they moved and the aura that oozed off them, I knew instantly that they were devotees of a goddess, who was most probably in the carriage.

They hummed a very low and enchanting tune as they marched. I caught their eyes as soon as I stepped out of the woods. Judging by the look that climbed on their faces, I guess they didn't encounter naked boys on their way of destination very often. They stopped hesitantly before the one who was leading the group and carriage asked me, "Who is thee?"