I Of the Storm
Thatonescott
Prologue:
I have heard that trust is earned. I have found that that trust is as thin as the skin on my face. I have learned that trust is easily broken.
Tonight we will rise. Tonight the sun will fall. Tomorrow, their kingdom will be no more. Their prosperity, we will take it all. Those words echo through my ears and through the merciless night growing sharp in my eyes. I follow behind my savior in a daze, his long legs making it hard to keep up with his pace. I glance behind me to find the smoke still thick in the air behind us, the smell of burning flesh still impelling itself through my senses. Without warning, my legs twist and my body drops to the harsh ground. Though perhaps only in my mind, I can feel death surrounding me. Surrounding me, stinging my eyes, of which tears begin to emerge. My throat begins to close in on itself as a choked sob rips through me. A low swear breaks through the silent void in the night. Fingers touch at my right knee as a liquid begins to consume it. The night continues to pass, growing darker rapidly until I can't see anything but the pitch black of unconsciousness that I've grown far too familiar with.
Chapter One: Sipping Silence
Iy
Burn my sorrow away. Those were the last words my mother whispered before she fell to the ground. Just like all the other victims, the other bodies. Like absolutely nothing. Like her life and her legacy would never mean anything. She had warned me of this. That I was her only feat left in the eyes of the kingdom, that I was the only one who would mean a thing. I was the only one that in cause of war, anyone would even care to save. She was as right as the sky is high. She always was. That's what made her such a great leader. That's what made our kingdom prosper in her rule, as it only burned in my wake. Two weeks of being the leader and I let my mother die, I let my kingdom fall to the forsaken ground in a pile of ashes.
I open my eyes to a woman with skin of paste and eyes of frozen gold. Her eyes move from the paper in her lap to my eyes. Though I know it is impolite, and a sign of disrespect, I move my eyes from hers. I quickly take in my setting, a room of white. A room of no smell, no feel, only of white. It makes me wonder how much red is stained beneath the paint.
At that moment the door creaks open, revealing a boy with a clenched face. "Your Highness." He says in a strained voice, bowing slightly. I simply nod my approval. "I am mentor Miles, I will be your guide for the next few weeks." He takes a seat next the pasty woman. I immediately place their similarities. High cheekbones, golden eyes, and the same nose. However, they are different more than they are the same. While her hair, that has fallen in a perfect bob, is platinum blonde, his is a dark brown with wild waves. While her skin is almost porcelain and very chalky, his is much darker. His eyes are warmer than her's, his jaw stronger.
I remove my eyes from the boy, focusing back on the room. I am lying on an uncomfortable bed the color of the walls, but the room seems to be bare of furniture without it. I take in how uncomfortable and startling the white is, even the woman seems to blend it with it. The boy, however, is an anomaly. He does not belong, that is clear. I try to place his face as one of us, someone from my kingdom, but his features are too far-fetched. He is too unique. He is an outcast in every sense and you can see it in the way he walks, the way gnaws at his bottom lip, from every breath he takes. He's an interesting one.
I force my gaze from him once again and place them on the woman who has turned her attention to me, narrowing her icy eyes.
"Would you mind if I took a call, your highness?" The lady asked in a voice as sharp as glass, but as soft as cotton. There was obvious bitterness in her tone, and I found the same thing in myself. What's a ruler without her kingdom? I thought. Your Highness is not a title I have earned.
"Of course." I nod my approval, my voice shallow and small. As I am shallow and small. Never have I been capable of being strong enough to lead a nation, and my father told me that. He told my mother. She ignored him and put her trust in me, and for that she was gone.
"Your Highness?" The boy asks, panic in his eyes. The view of him in front of me is blurry, as if seen through foggy glass. I release my teeth from each other as I realize they are clenched. He hands me a box of paper tissue, and I realize that tears are falling from my face. Drenching my face in salt and sorrow. Staining my cheeks in pain. I close my eyes, taking a deep breath before reopening them. His face comes back into view, and I move my eyes to the floor, ashamed. Tears are for the weak. Not for royalty. Not for rulers.
I look up only when I feel something hot wrap around my fingers, his hand. His thumb rubs against the back of my palm, terror and pleading showcased in his eyes.
"I'm sorry I couldn't save your mom." He whispers, his head hanging in shame. As he tries to pull his hands of fire from me, I hold on.
"Thank you," I sigh, letting the pieces fall into place. He saved my life, he saved me.
"Your hands are cold." He tells me, his eyebrows furrowing. "Do you want me to bring you more covers?" His eyes are caring and concerned, and watching his emotions play through them seem to captivate me. Yes, he is very interesting.
As the door swings open and the pasty woman comes through the door, we immediately drop each other's hands. I wipe my face with the back of my palm, despite the tissue box lying beside me. My hand tingles from the sudden withdrawal of heat. He clears his throat, jumping to his feet. The woman's eyes question him sternly.
"If you'll excuse me, I must get back to help father." He insists, his face pulling up in a small smile as he offers me his hand and I shake it. He kisses the woman on the cheek as I watch in astonishment that her skin does not peel away. He moves out of the door quickly and the woman's eyebrows pull together. She lets out a breath of air, before turning towards me.
"You must excuse him." She breathes, "He is, how do you say, missing marbles." She points to her head, and I almost laugh. Laughter is not something that have produced since I became Queen. She looks at me expectantly, as if waiting for something.
"Ma'am?" I ask, wondering what I missed.
"Are you coming?" She asks, as if I am the dumbest person the world.
"Oh!" I exclaim, mentally face-palming as I scramble out of the bed that has probably left bruising on my spine. One of my legs nearly give out on me and I catch myself by holding on to the railing attached to the bed. I notice my knee is wrapped in gauze, even so blood is still beginning to soak through it.
"Not too quickly." The woman says gently, though I catch her smirk as she turns away. I hold on to the walls as I follow her out of the door. When we enter the hallway, I almost stumble into the wall. For a split second, the walls are all a vibrant deep red and I can see my mother slumped against the corner along with all of whom I love and have promised to care for, but then the walls are just as painfully white as the room was. I struggle to try and keep up with the woman, who did not even stop when I gasped. She remained her pace, never slowing for my benefit or her own.
"Excuse me!" I exclaim when I'm sure I'll pass out if I go any further.
"Your Highness?" She asks, spinning around with an evil grin on her face.
"May I ask your name?" I ask, breathing heavily.
"Of course, Your Highness, I'm Head Owner Banks, but you can just call me Miranda."
"Miranda Banks? As in Barry and Miranda Banks of Fevel?"
"Yes." She states simply, her smile falling and becoming bitter.
"Well, Miranda, where are you taking me?"
"To earn your keep, dear." Her lethal smile is back.
I stay silent, following Miranda as she thankfully slowed her pace.
We exit the white building and I take in the green scenery outside that seems like an entirely different world than the blank building. Even Miranda conflicts horribly with the colorful environment, just as much as Miles did with the colorless room. Thinking of him brought back the thought of his brilliant vibrancy that could not be hidden behind the clothes he wore or the blank mask on his face. His eyes showed it all. However, even though they were obviously related, I'm sure that Miranda would not even stand out of she wore tie die and dyed her hair every color of the rainbow.
Miranda lead me around the building, towards the back where a brown house sat, it seemed very in touch with its environment, but I still found it odd that it was placed so close to the huge, white building.
There was a small two person airplane peeking out from the side of the house and it filled me with an unknown emotion.
"Will I be flying home?" I ask, both relief and fear in my tone.
Miranda lets out a soft cackle that sends an unwelcome shiver of repulsion down my back.
"Home? Baby girl, you have no home. This is your shelter." Another shiver shoots through me. I am homeless, and an orphan. The thought hits me abruptly as I have never had to worry about not having a home or a provider. I had a kingdom, my only job was to protect it and I failed miserably. I swallow, unable to say anything. I close my eyes for a second and the disgusting image of my life, all up in flames. My throat seems to stick together when I open my eyes, seeing that Miranda is far in front of me, not stopping or looking back.
I can't find it in myself to chase after her. I can't find it in myself to stand up anymore and crumble to the ground, just like my world did.
Thinking back on last night, or what I suppose was last night, my mind begins to shift. The screams and shrieks of my people, of everyone that I failed. Everyone pushing and panicking, trying to get out of the burning castle. The explosion had started from the castle's garages, cars and gas all set ablaze, fueling the fire to eat up the rest of my home. I was in a meeting with Sr. Tack, I wonder if he made it out.
When our territory linings meeting was disrupted by the explosion, all the guards came rushing in to rush us all out of the room and onto the roof.
Everything else was a haze.
I got to the roof, but not many guards made it out behind me. A large plane was hovering above us, I remember ducking as a blaze of fire shot out of nowhere and took down the plane. My ear filled with more screaming. A couple of guards had dived over me to protect me, and some had gotten hit with the plane's debris and were groaning and bleeding across from me.
That's where I remember Miles coming in, an unfamiliar face with a blindfold around his eyes. That's why I didn't recognize him at first earlier, but I remember his shape, his hair. He grabbed my hand and pulled me back down the stairs in a hurry and I wondered how he knew where he was going. I was quite honestly terrified that he was leading me back into flames.
He steered me around the garage and out of the building. I remember holding my hand over my mouth as a sob escaped me when I saw what most of my kingdom had already become. Ashes. I watched as the building split in two and toppled over itself, setting the grass beneath it on fire.
Then Miles pulled at my wrist again, urging me on. It was a long walk trying to keep up with him as he lead me to a plane, the one beside the house, I now realize. I think I passed out after that, waking up bewildered in a white world.
The events leading up to this moment where I lay in the grass in ragged clothes with ants biting at me was enough to paralyze me. Not because it was traumatic, though it was, but because it made no sense.
I didn't even know how the fire was started. An accident, surely, but what about the airplane? Someone obliviously shot it out of the sky with a first era weapon. Since such weapons have been banned for ages, I'm not sure how someone would even obtain such a thing. There's no wars and no major fights, so why would anyone need one? Who would even continue to build such monstrosities? Of course, the world is not perfect, and it will never be, but we refuse to go back in time. I'll die before I sit back and watch history return. Unnecessary violence and deaths by guns every minute of every day in every part of the world. It was ridiculous, perhaps the near end of the world last era was for the best. Sure it's considered a tragedy today but it's shaped us beautifully. There's still some issues I'd like to be worked out, but I like how things are. People aren't as petty as they were back then, we do not fight for such ridiculous things. A war has not come about since the second era started, I have a great, great grandmother who came here to colonize around three hundred years ago. Her name was Annie and she was already married to my great, great grandfather when she came, though they were very young. They'd gotten married only a couple of weeks before the fire. Their story was passed down to me by my mother and to her by my grandmother and further on. There was a picture of the two in my bedroom, in my burning kingdom. She sort of looked like me, she gave me my blue eyes, making me a deep rarity since my hair was a vibrant red of her husband. Neither of my parents had red hair, but both of their eyes were blue. I'd read that having both red hair and blue eyes was one of the rarest combinations in the world. I wonder if that had changed since the last era.
"You okay, Your Majesty?" A soft voice asks. I look up, surprised to find a young girl with beautiful, tight brown curls in her hair. I almost groan in protest when I see that her eyes are also golden. How many of them are there?
"Yes, sorry, I was daydreaming." I reply with a grimace.
"Yes," she chuckles, "my mother can be very challenging."
"Your mother?"
"I'm sorry, I'm being rude. I'm Citrus Banks, I'm sure you've already met my brother."
"Miles?"
"Yes, Ma'am."
"Ma'am? I'm only seventeen."
"Yet still an elder, and a respected ruler in my eyes."
I swallow at her polite tone and tilt my head back to keep the tears from coming out. I hold my hand out and she takes it, pulling me up. I survey her as I am back on my own two feet. She is obviously younger than me, but quite tall. She wears a black skirt to her knees with a gray tank tucked into it. She smiles at me, and releases my hand.
"We're going to be friends," She says lightly, "I can feel it."