DEMIGODS: The Lost Princess

Chapter 2.

It's the year 3022, the year Princess Elise is supposed to finally come back to the castle of Evoleurt. She will be presented to the people as the crowned princess and a year after will be betrothed to Prince Arres, next-in-line to the throne of Ssenippah.

The entire realm is busy preparing for the grand welcome to be followed by a big feast. Even the King and Queen of Ssenippah sent their best chefs and performers for the event as gift for their future daughter-in-law. King Kostos even declared a week-long non-working holiday for both private and public sectors.

Their union will hopefully put an end to the series of attacks their realms have suffered from the superpowers of Ynomrah and Ylimaf.

King Kostos couldn't contain his happiness. He's been wondering how his daughter lived for the past eighteen years, how she looks like now, how she speaks and how she smiles. He's so excited. This is the day he's been waiting for.

Queen Heran has been giving out nonstop instructions to the palace's renowned couturiers for the princess' ball gowns. She's very hands-on with everything; classy colors, finest fabrics, and most elegant cuts. The queen is picky even with the smallest of details because her daughter deserves only the best.

After living away from them for so many years, this is the best time to spoil her with much love and everything they can afford to lavish her with. They only have limited time to get to know and bond with their daughter before she lives with her new husband in Ssenippah. Her heart is already breaking just imagining that they'd have to part with her again.

***

Miles away from Evoleurt, living on the sparsely populated outskirt of Delis, a humble town of the Pihsdneirf realm, Eli again went out hunting with her older brothers Rhyss and Echo.

Her protectors renamed the princess as Eli and reared her as a typical mortal all her life outside Evoleurt.

Princess Elise or Eli grew up simply with a loving family of five. They don't have much, but Eli wouldn't want to have it any other way. She's very happy and content.

Her father Antall is a painter and her mother Sylva teaches ballet to little kids from well-off families. They manage to make ends meet by selling cows and chickens which they raise right in their backyard.

There weren't that many girls in their area so she grew up very closed with her brothers, adopting most of their ways that she almost acts and even talks like a boy. This would always flare up her mother's temper of course. She hates it whenever she sees that Eli's not being lady-like, especially that she refuses to learn ballet at all. Even with painting, Eli's very terrible.

Her mother strictly ordered her to stop going into the woods to hunt especially now that she's five days away from her 18th birthday.

"You will be a grown woman by next week, so start behaving like one, Eli. A woman shouldn't hunt." Her mother's words were firm, but she just can't take them seriously. She loves hunting with her brothers so much that it's second nature for her.

Eli just can't be the obedient daughter Sylva wants her to be, especially today that Echo said he heard that somebody saw a big wolf roaming in the woods the other day.

It's the same one who's been mercilessly killing most of their cows and chickens. It attacks only at night when everybody's in deep slumber. The very reason why she wasn't able to enroll in the university, since the cows they were supposed to sell for her tuition fee ended up as all bones and leftovers when they found them the next morning. She's so furious; she wants to kill the beast who cost them her education.

"Walk slowly. You can't let it hear you like that. It will either hide or attack you suddenly." Eli warned her brother Rhyss.

"I am walking slowly. But these sticks and branches kept on breaking under my shoes. They're noisy!" Rhyss complained.