Loyal Riptide

Chapter 9

       Gordy stormed down the corridor in a mad rush to just get out of this fore shaken palace, the walls closing in on her and the air being a tad too dense to be comfortable. She can't believe what Asa did to Shiro and that he was in that hospital bed almost dead while she is left unscathed. She almost wished that he never showed up at the library with them that day or else none of this wouldn't have happened, but there would have been a dead princess in that foreign kingdom.

Her focus was too much inside her mind that she almost ran into Hizashi rounding a corner, the pile of neatly folded clean sheets she held in her arms almost toppling to the dusty floor. "Sorry." Gordy apologized simply, the palms of her hands facing outward if the tower of sheets were fall onto them. Hizashi shook her head making her red ponytail wave and crackle like a campfire, "no, it's fine. I really shouldn't be carrying this many sheets at once." She said, looking over the mountain of sheets in her arms. Gordy offered to take some of the sheets off her, Hizashi declining her offer but that didn't stop Gordy from swiftly stealing some of the sheets from the peak of the mountain. 

As they walked to a guest bedroom a few levels up Hizashi would talk about her day from watering the plants in the guest wing to answering the human prince's pile of questions he had for her when she came in to water the plants in that room. Gordy remained silent throughout their journey to the guest room and dropping off the sheets before Hizashi turned around and asked her a question. 

"Can I read to you?" Hizashi asked.

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       "He picked up the heavy book..." Hizashi read slowly, reading out every syllable as she read from a short children's book. In only a few short weeks from when Gordy first started teaching her Hizashi has gone from reading short sentences from those fortune cookies sold at the market to children's stories. Gordy used to cringe whenever Hizashi got a simple word wrong and would sometimes yell at her over it, but she learned that it wasn't either of their faults. To be honest it would be that arrogant adult baby the twins have for a father.

She looked over to a group of children being read to by one of the librarians and she can only think of how that used to be them, when times were much simpler...

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       The patting of the rain drops against the fogged up window kept a nine year old Gordy Loruda occupied from having to hear her mother scold the maid for washing the sheets all together so now they turned all a pale blue. Didn't bother her in the slightest since that means she'll end up getting those sheets for herself, but the shaky voice of the maid patted against her eardrums like the rain.

She always despised the rain and water for that matter all because it would always ruin whatever pleated skirt or bohemian dress her mother would make her wear. "You have to make yourself presentable to show others who you're," Her mother would tell her whenever she threw a tantrum over not wanting to wear a certain outfit, "you don't want others thinking you are one of those children that sleep in the market stalls." She informed her sweetly, her red painted lips smothering the mother she wish would come back. 

A quiet knock on the door snapped her attention away from the window and to the professionally carved oak door. With her father having business at the palace and her mother busy with the maid she made her way to the door she was ordered to never open to anyone. Brushing away a strand of her long teal hair she took a deep breath and opened the door. 

A scrawny boy that looked about her age peered up at her through a glazed over silver eye with deep blue hair that hung over the other eye. The boy only wore a tattered vest and pants that were both two sizes too small for him which were trenched with rain water. She should have slammed that door in his face since he was one of those children her mother warned her about, but a sense of yearning broke through her chest. Asa hasn't come over to play with her for days now and herself hasn't been outside or played with someone since, that sense of yearning to play welcomed that poor boy inside.