*giggles like a fool* We've gotten past the 200 reads mark! Thank you so much! I'm so giddy right now. I've had a stupid grin on my face for a week too.
Thank you EllenFairyBlue4 for nominating this story in the Fantasy and Humor categories for the Fiction Awards!
Alright, let me give you a heads up. I'm super tired but felt like writing. It's not the best, so I'll come back to revise it. Trust me this chapter needs some TLC.
The gods had exploded. The stars had exploded. The millions of particles containing the magic of Glamaia exploded. It was as if the end of time had come at a time where no end was needed, when all that was desired was soon to be lost. It was as if there was no need for this plane to exist anymore, that the gods have grown tired of their creations and sought to destroy and recreate their current one.
No one ever gives me credit for being the philosophical one in the family.
Either way, when the heat of a falling flame scorched one delicate cheek, Amancio's horse reared in fright, causing the sketchpad to catch flame and fall to the ground, soon to be a pile of ash. His steed stormed toward the forest-- which he was under the spell to think it was a cliff-- screaming, "I'M NOT READY TO DIE," as he entered---
And disappeared.
It could have been a trick of light. But with all the light of the orange flames hungrily licking the air, it would have had to have been a pretty damn good trick.
One moment he was there, trying to untangle his hands from the reigns which had twisted like a toddler in his hands. The next, he and his caroling was gone as if he were a wisp of the wind.
Maybe he really, really felt the Bern. (all pun intended)
Had I been a mere spectator immune to the assault fired onto me, I would have doubled over laughing on Yani who would have yawned at the antics of her mistress's knight.
But no, I was not a spectator nor was Yani yawning. In fact, she had gone into a panic, and was lifting her front hooves off the ground, neighing as she tried to throw me off. She was terrified, and I didn't blame her. I would have been scared to pieces too if I weren't a smart ass.
"Well, it looks like the forecast missed something," I comment while I hang onto my chocolate mare.
Hamilton was not amused. His horse, the only calm one, had rushed towards my aid, pulling the poor equestrian towards the direction Amancio had gone. To his supposed hill.
I saw the gears turning in his head as his shrewd eyes ran across the path before us, seeing something I was not. I yelped at the burning sensation on my arms, my fingers bloody and blackened. The thickness of the cloak and the lack of flames on it was enough to tell me it was enchanted-- no doubt Daniel's alternate plan, since he's the one who gave it to me-- but my bare fingers wouldn't be spared.
Bloody hell. The sky is burning.
Hamilton's hair was singed, parts of his bare forearms burning, but that didn't stop him. He opened his mouth to speak when a flame almost fell into his mouth.
He wasn't a flame eater nor a circus man, so he swerved to the left to avoid getting his pretty face burned. It didn't help that he pulled me with him, and I hissed as my cloak slipped further to expose my hands which were now burned.
"Bollocks," Hamilton murmured. "This wasn't supposed to happen yet!"
"What the hell do you mean?" I duck from getting hit by a flame drop. Poor Yani wasn't spared, her glossy mane singed and a few burns on her body. The poor girl shivered and I felt like throwing my arms around her and soothing each hurt. She didn't deserve this.
Whatever Hamilton mentioned didn't escape me either. "Yet?"
"Uh," he started, pulling away from a crackling orange flame. "You see, this happened outside my calculations."
"Excuse me?" I gritted my teeth trying my best to not jump onto the next horse to pull out the rider's hair. "Calculations?"
What kinds of calculations that involved a flame storm?
"Erm, yes. Calculations."
Was such a thing possible?
"You were anticipating this?!" I shrieked.
"I thought we were going south, away from this....phenomenon!"
I didn't know what was more bizarre. That Amancio disappeared, the bloody world had become hell on earth, or that we were seeing things that weren't there.
To be honest, I was too freaked out when I felt my skin boil under the heat. I doubted I was thinking clearly.
Yani, on the other hand, had enough coherent thought to break out of Ham's grasp and barrel us towards the forest.
"Princess!" Ham screamed behind me, deep voice several octaves higher. "Stay with me!" And followed after me.
Well, I considered. Hamilton van Eyke must be mad for hitting solid land.
He must have thought so too, because he closed his eyes.
I rolled my eyes, before the earth shook violently, my heart pounding what felt like the last traces of oxygen in my body. My eyes rolled into the back of my head, a layer of frost now covering my previously burned flesh. My teeth chattered at the fierce drop in temperature, the sound of clinking teeth drowning out all others.
I felt my body get thrown off my beloved horse, but I didn't care. My face was numb. My body was cold. I was floating into a perpetual darkness, void of all thought, of all light. I was paralyzed.
The darkness became a tunnel, sucking me into its icy walls, taking me somewhere unknown. I didn't have the strength to pull myself the other way, and it's not like I even had the heart too, my mind being equally numb.
I come out from my safe palace to chase a perverted knight and this is what happens?
With that last thought, I surrender to the pull.
👑👑👑
I woke up in-- surprise, surprise-- darkness. Not the garden variety, the one where there are a sprinkle of stars lighting the earth devoid of the sun's touch. Nope, this was the kind where you put your hand in front of your face and accidentally poke out your eyeball because of the lack of light.
This was the kind of darkness that would have probably extinguish Rebekahs bright beauty. She radiates like the sun even on her worst days, I shudder to think what would have happened to her in this perpetual darkness.
I cried out when I couldn't move my arms. My limbs were stiff and cold, making it impossible to get up. The surface I lay on was warm, but the air was frigid.
After blinking for another couple hundred times, I was finally able see shapes other than a blank darkness.
Surveying the area I recognised the shaking silhouettes of bare branches invading the black sky. There were fluffy black clouds-- nothing like the hellish rain that fell onto the earth like a blacksmith's fire gone wild.
Where were the others?
I winced as my ears popped, but I didn't feel any liquid trickle down the side of my head. In fact, there seemed to be little pain around my head at all. Was I suffering from a concussion? Was this all a dream?
Pretty messed up dream, if you ask me.
Yep, totally. The gods were laughing from their heavenly homes right now, pointing at the Giftless Princess and thinking up ways to make her life worse. Phase one: make her the laughing stock bu getting rid of her knight.
"I doubt that," a voice chuckled.
I sprang up, legs suddenly working, while my hand swung to my waist to pull out-- nothing. In a riding dress and cloak I had no way of carrying a blade. I was weaponless.
Not that it would make a difference.
"Who the hell are you?" I demanded, anxiety creeping up on me. I wanted to get out of this place, maybe knockout this faceless stranger in the process. Where was he? I swiveled around looking for him.
"The gods won't find entertainment through you, princess," the masculine voice ignored me. "They got other things to worry about."
I bristled as something brushed past me, too quick for my human eyes, but had I blinked I wouldn't have noticed the ominous precense.
It was in times like these that I wished I knew how to wield weapons.
Were you ever in a time like this in the past?
Good point.
"You know most people don't have conflicting conversations in their head," the man commented. Bloody hell... How did he... Once again, he was behind me. I blindly kicked out but I didn't hit anything. No surprise there.
"What?" I asked, not following.
"I meant to say that your subconscious is correct. You've never been in a situation like this." The deep, soothing voice reminded me of a warm, crackling fire, inviting and familiar. Very familiar in fact.
How terribly odd. Did I know any mind reading human?
"H-how would you know anything about that?" I inquire, shaken. It wasn't the part about talking to yourself that freaked me out-- trust me, I did that a lot-- but who the hell was he and what did he want from me?
"It matters not who I am, but I'm sure I'll come up in another chapter of your journey," he answered. I gasped at the feeling of cold fingers lingering on my right cheek. My heart beat sought to burst out, pounding furiously. If he heard, he didn't show it. "As for what I want... It's not much. I'll come collect, later. For now, that blonde of yours is coming."
I stumbled back, grasping over my erratic heart. The shadowed creature gave one more chuckle before he disappeared as soon as he came, in a gust of wind and frost, as an image conjured from my imagination.
Once again, it was silent, save for the rustling branches. The only breath was my own, but it was heavy and
The last time someone snuck up on me was three years ago. It was during a picnic and someone had invited Daniel, a young squire, to join us with the knights.
The trouble making child had found me in my secret haven, a meadow hidden behind illusioned boulders, complete with a waterfall and shady trees. Gavin, who was following him because he had stolen a sword shaped marzipan-- his favourite-- had seen me letting out a shriek when the squire pushed me into the freezing pool. My brother thought he was taking advantage of me (because why the hell not? Sure, go tell yourself a thirteen year old boy wanted to do something with a prepubescent princess) and beat him up to the point where Father had his eldest son locked up in one of the isolation towers. I don't think Gavin had recognised Dan as the same boy he thrashed years ago, during my coming of age ceremony.
Since then, to avoid anyone getting killed because of me and to avoid getting others punished, I've stayed out of harms way by making sure I constantly look over my shoulder. Unless I have my knights, who know not to do it lest they want to die.
Then, my breath was not the only remotely human sound.
"Princess? Princess Demetria?" A startled voice rang out. It was marked with anxiety and fear, and was even more familiar than the other guy's voice. This was something I heard back when I was a part of the living world.
Shut up, you aren't dead yet.
Was talking to yourself really a problem?
The footsteps were softened by the damp mossy ground, but were audible enough to tell me whoever this was must have some decent pair of boots. Perhaps they belonged to a certain sandy haired brooding knight?
And correct, was I.
The knight stopped by a tree, and surveyed the area before him-- just as he had when we first left the palace. Did that really happen this morning?
"Show yourself, demon," he growled. The swift sound of metal pressing against each other echoed through the dark forest. He was armed.
"Ham," I stepped forward, not wanting to get sliced into bits. "It's me."
The shrill of metal against metal permiated the quiet forest, but absent whish of a moving blade along with the trudging footsteps towards me told me I was safe from dying.
"Princess!" strong calloused hands covered my hands. "You're alive!"
I smiled wryly, despite knowing he wouldn't see it either way. "You'd be a sucky knight if I did. You owe me for not dying on you."
He shook his head, or maybe he was having a seizure, it was too dark to tell. "I would not be able to live with myself if I lived instead of my mistress." Such a duty bound lad. This time the grin on my lips was real.
"Oh by the gods I thought I was going to die here alone! Wait are we already dead?" I throw my hands up in the air but shiver at the cold air that came through the sleeves of my cloak.
I didn't see him but I could picture his frown at my antics. It was entertaining to get on his nerves, I have to admit. "No, we are not dead, but considering the slight detour, we might be. Rest assured, I think I've found the exit."
My heart jumped in my throat in anticipation. "Where?"
He turned to the side giving me a silhouette of his profile. With a jawline that could be used to cut jewels and long lashes wasted on a man, his added towering lean figure made him a formidable sight. When dressed to the nines in clothes befitting a young lord, he was eye candy. Actually, even in royal armour he still got love notes and eager...uh, participants. His overbearing nature was what drew the line between potential love interest (for me only, not for my sisters) and brotherly figure.
I wasn't peeved that it was Hamilton-- in fact I'd rather it be him I'm stuck with instead of any other person in a weird magicked place-- but I couldn't help but ask, "Where's Amancio?" The playful Vallasian-Glamaian knight might have been one of the ones trained under Xael's personal guards but he was still mine. Besides that, he was a dear friend.
Hamilton solemnly shook his head. "I haven't found him yet and I'm assuming you haven't either?"
I bit my lip to stifle a scream. Did I just lose a knight?! Another one?
Princess lessons dictated that a princess's worth is based on her conditions of her knights. I doubt a princess lost her knights within days of each other.
"We need the Maerithium," I bury my hands into my cold palms, and groan.
"I got that covered," he reassured me.
"And it's so hard to see," I complain, this time louder.
I didn't see this but his eyebrow twitched ever so slightly. "What? But it's very bright."
I blinked, rubbing my eyes. "It's as dark as hell here, and you're telling me it's bright? I don't think I was blinded, you know."
He cursed under his breath. "I'll explain on the way. I think I have an idea, and you like it. Let us go."
I clamped on to Hamilton's arm, willing him through fearful eyes to not get lost.
He got the idea. Grasping my wrist, he turned us around, taking further steps into the darkness.
Went over this again, while listening to Bollywood songs my mom pretty much forced me to download on my iPod. I wanna get back to my Kendrick Lamar or put on some k-pop but alas, the Indian songs are making me so happy for some reason. O.o
By the way, I put up an artbook. Would you all be kind enough to check it out? I have to make a piece for an art contest that's due tomorrow so I'll have to start it when we get home (which is at 9:00 pm aka 21:00, which is what I, the patrotic anti-Republican, pro-Bernie Sanders American citoyen go by) and I'll be bone tired tomorrow. Don't worry Vampiregaltop I gotchu.
Ah the things I do for art. My art tablet and computer have been acting up and somethings up with my favorite brushes too. Kill me 🔫🔫
Please vote, comment, all that good stuff. ✌See you all next week. Or tomorrow. Only Allah knows.