| ➳𝒮𝑒𝓇𝑒𝓃𝒹𝒾𝓅𝒾𝓉𝓎 𝒮𝓊𝒾𝓉𝑜𝓇➳ |

❤︎Chapter Fifteen

Well this was nice.

Cassius, Crystal, Azura and I had just gotten chased by a giant cat in a forest and hid for hours as the day passed us by. All we wanted to do now was collapse and fall asleep on the spot....

But of course, that wouldn't be a very great idea. We were surrounded by darkness with only a few torches to light our way. There was no telling where the next predator could be,  lurking around in the night in hopes there'd be something tiny and delicious to walk right into its mouth...

As frightened as I was at the idea and shaken at the fact that I'd just be in a life or death situation, I was still hopelessly exhausted. I begged the others to take a break, but they refused to stop for even a second. They knew that if they stopped moving, it would be hard to start again.

Despite their protests, I could read them easily. Cassius' golden hair was in disarray, his uniform torn where the cat had nearly sunken its claws into his flesh. He had mud and dirt stuck to his pant legs and shoes. Crystal was covered in mud and drenched in water from when she'd told me she'd jumped in a pond to avoid the cat until it'd lost its interest. Azura and I were miserable, we smelled like the flowers we'd hid among, but we hadn't managed to avoid the thorns when it was time to leave our hiding place. We were battered and bruised all over.

We were all so exhausted and hungry after the trials of today that I knew if we stopped for even a second, we may call it a night and get snatched by some sort of creature in our sleep.

"How can we even be sure where we're going?" I whined, trying to fight passed the horrible stinging from my cuts.

"There's a map that leads to the Fairy Kingdom. We should be there shortly." Cassius says as he holds his torchlight to the map he'd been carrying. It was a wonder he could read it — somehow after being chased by a giant animal and rolling around in dirt all day, Cassius has managed to keep it in his inner jacket pocket unharmed.

"How much longer is shortly?" I whine, reaching for a wound on my waist. I had the biggest gash there from the thorns. It had scraped clean through my dress and cut me there when I leapt down into Azura's arms. At the time, it hadn't hurt all that much, but now it was starting to feel like my skin was tearing open wider with every step I took.

My hand was drenched when I lifted it away from the spot. I look down at my hand, squinting in the darkness to wait for enough light to see properly. The golden light from the flames dance across the smudges of red in my palm, flickering over the color.

My eyes grow wide as I look down at where the same color was blooming through the side of my dress. Red was such an alarming color! It wasn't as if I hadn't seen blood before, of course I had, but...well..I wasn't used to seeing it coming out of me!

Cassius had been saying something in reply to me, but his words were starting to sound fuzzy. My feet stop moving and I stand in place, feeling like I suddenly can't move. I stare at my hand as if entranced by the blood. The wounds around my body were painful, especially this horrible one, but nothing unbearable.

Even as the world slows down and sounds around me start to fade, my mind doesn't stop. This was new. This wound, as strangely as it sounded, was a reminder of just how sheltered I was by my father. Locked away, shut out from the world, fussed over whenever I seemed to be unwell. I hadn't suffered anything more than a stomachache from a food my digestive system didn't particularly agree with. There was always someone there to check up on me, to make sure I was healthy. After my mother passed, my father didn't want to take any chances with me. It was why he always kept me in the castle, though he never wanted to admit it.

Yes, the world was a dangerous place, like my father would tell me when I'd ask to go out as a child. I had been attacked by a cat the size of a tree within a week of leaving the castle, and here I was wandering about a forest of flowers and plants in the middle of the night with what felt like a million cuts and bruises all over my body.

If my father heard of my condition now, he'd call off all of the suitor meetings and make sure I was home faster than he could snap his fingers, I was sure of it. Sure, I was in so much pain, and I was so tired now, but my memories of the passed few days made the pain seem further away with each passing moment. I got the chance to allow myself to be immersed in the sweet scent and soft, cotton-like comfort of a rose, like I was some tiny sprite that had shrunken down to an inch. Only, I was the same size! And I had just run for my life just a few hours ago! From, for the millionth time, a giant cat. I had only read things like this in storybooks. Textbooks. I had dreamed of experiencing such wonderful things, learning things in person, face to face, up close in personal. It was easier to engrave something in your memory when you were using every muscle in your body to run from it, rather than use your imagination to create a mental image from the words you read. As much as I loved using my imagination and was all for others using it, after so long, truly feeling felt so much better....

"M'lady?!"

I hear someone calling my name in the distance, but I can't respond. Everything has gone dark, my legs giving out as I succumb to exhaustion...