King of Alacrya

Chapter 4: The First Tour

The door to the warm, inviting kitchen closed with a soft click, but Tessia remained in the hallway staring at it for a long moment, her ears striving to hear that wonderful chuckle they had been blessed with hearing only a few seconds ago. Tessia's heart was beating hard against her rib cage, skipping a beat every single time she remembered that coy smirk that went along with the words, 'funny and cute'.

Funny and cute?

Those words stuck with Tessia as she wandered back to her room, her feet retracing her previous steps with ease as her mind drifted back to those shared minutes in the kitchen. Those precious memories played back on repeat whilst she slept and stayed at the forefront of her mind when she got ready for the next day in a daze.

Actually it wasn't the kitchen or the food, Tessia kept remembering.

It was the man.

"Tess."

The man who treated her with such concern and care even though they barely knew each other.

"Tess?"

The man who made her smile and then genuinely listened to her.

"Tessia, are you listening?"

The man with the blonde messy hair.

"Earth to Tessia."

And the piercing, incredibly golden ey-

"Tessia!!"

Tessia jumped back to reality with a jolt, the suddenness causing her to try and shoot to her feet, only for her knee to bang with a resounding thwack against the wooden table she was seated at in the dining hall. "What- What's going on?" Tessia gasped out as she rubbed her now painfully aching leg.

Claire stared at her from across the table with a confused expression, "I've been trying to get your attention for the last five minutes but you've been away with the fairies since you woke up."

"I was listening, I swear." Tessia falsely claimed, deciding to hide her face by looking down and shovelling a forkful of eggs into her mouth, knowing that her expression and rambling always gave away her deceptions.

Claire rolled his eyes at Tessia's futile attempt at lying, "Sure. If you were listening, where's Clives right now?"

Tessia's head rapidly moved to take in the empty seat beside Claire, "Wh-when did Clives le-leave?" She spluttered out around a mouthful of food, the surprise forcing out the question before she had time to finish chewing.

Claire looked mildly disgusted by Tessia's uncouth table manners, going so far as to lean back to ensure she didn't get sprayed by egg particles, "Ugh... are you a princess or were you raised by wolves or something?" Tessia's gaze narrowed harshly at her friend as she began to over-exaggeratedly work her jaw and swallow. "Ceara called up the groups." Claire jerked her head towards one end of the dining hall where Tessia spotted Clives queuing up with representatives from each group.

"What for?" Tessia asked after taking a sip of her orange juice to help her breakfast down and to regain some degree of dignity.

"Interview schedules." Claire said those two words with the same level of seriousness Tessia would expect her to use if she was announcing a war to the public.

"What are our chances of getting the first meeting?" Tessia inquired with a gulp, not able to pull her eyes away from the queue that moved forward with agonisingly slow steps. Each person that reached the front of the line was handed a piece of paper, so far every single one of them would read the content and their hopeful, anxious faces would fall before being quickly replaced with a neutral professional mask.