“Princess? Your father, the king,
requires your presence in the upcoming hour, and you must be in a presentable
state…”
The little girl popped her head
out from behind a rosebush and stuck her tongue out at the servant unfortunate
enough to have been given the task of restraining, bathing, and dressing the
tomboy of a princess before the banquet that night when the king of Zelphia
would be arriving, along with his son of only nine years of age, Elliot. Once
they arrived, the king of this land, Frederick van L’ciel, planned to propose
peace between the two kingdoms, formerly tense at relations with one another, by
securing the alliance with a marriage between the young Lord Elliot and the
young lady of the kingdom Elsmaria. The princess was a tomboy of only four
years of age, but already she was adored and loved by everyone within the
kingdom, with the exception of her maids and nurses who had to tolerate her
rambunctiousness and frolicking from day to day.
The maid servant made a vain
attempt to pursue the playful child, but the child was already far beyond the
view of the human eye, so she returned to the kitchen wondering what kind of
excuse she could manage to offer the king for this inconvenience. The child
honestly brought her nothing but trouble, but she couldn’t help loving the girl
nonetheless; she had given birth to a daughter who died within the first year,
so the princess filled that empty cavity in her heart, and for that she was
thankful. “I suppose I’ll ask Elinor to help me out again…” she thought as she
rubbed the dirt off her hands with her apron.
“Then again…maybe that’s not such
a good idea after all.”
The little princess scurried off
to the marketplace, a location she had been frequenting quite often lately. It
was a lot more fun—a much better pastime than reading books about the
Kouma-sensou, the 100 years war, and other things that had happened in the
history of their world—and she had been able to make friends with kids of her
own age. She was unhappy being shrouded by the atmosphere of the palace, and
the only people she was permitted to speak with (no question about playing—they
didn’t do that within castle walls) were the plethora of maids and servants
assigned to watch and educate her. Needless to say, she lived a dull and
monotonous lifestyle with a daily repetitious cycle—a nightmare for a child of
her age. She needed to get out of that birdcage whenever possible, and today
was one of those days since Elinor, the strictest and most versatile of the
maids, was not assigned to the princess’s quarters but instead to the kitchen,
for the king had asked to have her specialty, quail with rose petal sauce,
cooked every Tuesday of the week. He loved every aspect of the dish: the taste,
the aroma, the sweetness and the delicateness of the soft rose petals. It was a
dish meant for kings, formerly made with dragon’s meat, but it had been long
since humans had last laid their eyes upon a living, breathing dragon, and since
then had declared the race to be extinct, so the recipe was altered to be more
suitable for quail.
But Lina, the princess, hated
quail.
So the little girl would always
sneak out on Tuesdays, bringing along a few silver pieces to pay for a meal at
the marketplace (though she had no idea that the food she received was hardly
worth even a bronze piece). She also played with two kids from the town, a
little boy and girl, and left them a silver piece or two since their father was
ailing and the mother had to care for the children and couldn’t maintain the
smithy. The mother had once asked where her parents were and if they might be
worried for her safety, but the girl told her that she had no parents and the
stork had delivered her to the wrong house.
The mother laughed at this and petted
the girl’s head. She must be the daughter of an aristocrat—she concluded,
having heard stories about runaway children who disliked their noble parents
because they had no time to care for the children at home. How else would the
girl come to have so much money to spare?
“What do you want to play today?” asked Gabriel, the son of the peasant family. He was dawdling his fingers idly and
rocking back and forth on his heels as he waited for the two girls to decide
what game they would play.
“Let’s play Dramatta again! Rawrrr
fear me I am the horrible sorceress Lina Invarse!” the princess said,
pretending to be a hideous serpent.
“But we always play that! And you know that my mommy hates it when we play
that game! She says it curses whoever plays it!” little Sophia protested. She
had gotten a spanking the last time her mom found out, and she was afraid of it
happening again.
Well it just so happened that the
princess’s name turned out to be Lina as well. She found so much amusement in
the fact that she and the legendary enemy of all mankind shared the same name that
she loved to pretend she was the legendary sorceress herself. It certainly beat
being a princess, that was for sure.
“Wasn’t the name Lina Inverse?”
wondered little Gabriel, finally getting up and brushing the dirt off his wool
pants, patched up here and there with the canvas of potato sacks. He was
getting bored waiting and honestly didn’t care what game they were going to
play—just so long as they found something to do before supper came around.
Turning to his sister, he complained, “Come on I wanna playyyyyyy!”
Sophia pretended to be angry and
said, “Do whatever you want,” but when Gabriel ran off with Lina into the
alleys, she chased after them in fear of being punished by her mother for not
keeping an eye on her brother. “Wait!”
“You WHAT?!”
The maid who had been chasing
after Lina earlier cowered beneath Elinor’s icy glare and booming voice. She
had hoped Elinor wouldn’t be in a foul mood that day, but alas, as always, she
was. She wouldn’t be able to get out of this mess tonight…at least, not alive.
But dying seemed like the better alternative now in comparison to suffering
Elinor’s wrath, so she wouldn’t mind having her carcass being strung to the
tree as long as she wasn’t alive to feel it.
“First of all, the princess should
have never even been able to leave the library if you (she placed emphasis on the “you”) had been watching her
properly. After all, an early education is key to a successful ruler,” Elinor
stated, going into that dictator pose she always used to lecture her
subordinates with—legs together, chest upright, chin up, and a firm disposition
all around, even at the tip of her finger with which she used to scold people.
“I will not tolerate this poor conduct; do you hear me, Helena?”
“Yes, ma’am,” she said.
“After all, who could imagine the
kinds of heinous crimes that are being committed along the streets of the
commoners! Oh, what would we do if…”
Helena
sighed. She wasn’t quire sure what was worse: hours of intense and grueling
labor or enduring one of Elinor’s speeches on how evil was always running
rampant in the streets and needed some serious purging, and how Lina was
destined to be the savior of them all. She usually ended up doing one or the
other, since she was the only person in the castle who sympathized with Lina’s
feelings of seclusion and wanted to give the child the freedoms any other child
her age would have. It was this act of generosity that caused her to suffer
painful circumstances, but she never regretted it, not even once. She always
felt that she was doing the right thing, or what was “just” in her eyes.
“Are you listening?!”
“Y-yes, ma’am.”
“Then repeat what I just said.”
“…The world is a place full of
vile and corrupt people?”
“Yes it is, but you are WRONG. As
punishment for your poor behavior as of late, I expect the entire kitchen to be
shined spotless by the time I return
with the princess. Is that clear?”
Helena
sighed. “Yes, ma’am…”
The children had been running
around playing for only about half an hour when the sound of trumpets blaring
an introductory statement pierced through the evening skies. Of course the kids
had been eager to find out what it was that merited such a grand fanfare, and
all three (though little Sophia protested at first) made their way to the gates
where people were forming crowds of spectators, equally curious to know what
was going on.
They managed to squeeze through
people’s legs to the front where they would be able to watch the procession up
close and personal, but as the crowd pushed and shoved, they became in danger
of being trampled by the horses that rode through. Mud was being tossed all
over their clothes, and all seemed over when Lina lost her footing and slipped,
knocking both Sophia and Gabriel down with her, taking them directly onto the
horses’ path.
But a kind soul from the crowd
reached out and pulled them out of harm’s way. He steadied them on their feet,
advised them to be more careful, and slipped back into the crowd. Lina was,
however, able to catch that he had raven black hair and burned the image into
her mind so she’d be able to thank him properly lest they meet again.
But they were all a complete mess,
and as Sophia and Gabriel cried at the top of their lungs, Lina could only look
on with burning tears in her eyes, for it was her fault they were in this mess.
Her knees were scathed roughly, and they bled. Furthermore, a stinging, numbing
pain ran up and down her legs as the scrapes were being infected by the mud and
the many microorganisms that lived within it. She hiccupped and wondered how
she would slip back into the castle in that state, then hiccupped wondering
what she would do when Elinor found her.
A white rose, along with a
matching handkerchief with gold trim descended and fell upon her lap, silencing
her meager sobs and turning her chin up to meet him. She saw the boy, a young
but fairly handsome young man mounted upon a royal steed. He had gorgeous
blond hair and the loveliest blue eyes, and by the way he dressed and
rode alongside the king, there was no doubt in Lina’s mind that this was the
noble prince Helena spoke so often
of. He smiled sweetly at her, causing her to blush lightly, and mouthed the
words: “Please don’t cry anymore, dear princess.”
Sophia, too, had been entranced by
his glorious vision, enough to make her completely forget why she had been
crying in the first place. Gabriel, however, was hardly pacified. But before
anything else happened, Lina felt a chill run up and down her spine when a
familiar voice rang out through the crowd, growing ever closer and ever
angrier.
“LINA DU MAR L’CIEL! YOU COME OUT
RIGHT THIS INSTANT!”
Everyone’s heads turned. The
princess was roaming out among the common grounds? That was absolutely absurd!
What would a princess—only five years old at that—be doing out where it was
dangerous?
Lina squeezed back into the crowd,
panicking for her life, heart racing at three times the normal rate to
compliment the waves of adrenaline coursing through her veins. She always
enjoyed this high she got from running away from Elinor’s grasp. She had only
been caught by the maid two times before: once when she had been ambushed quite
unfairly and another time when she had twisted her ankle quite painfully. But
all in all, this was the best game they had to offer her, and for some reason
she enjoyed being just one step ahead of the crowd…
Dodging carts this way and that,
she felt her senses suddenly heightened, along with an impeccably good sense of
intuition. She could see the cart wheels as they turned, reacting at the
precise moment and making it safely through to the other side, through the
narrow and dangerous tunnel beneath the carriages. She could hear the horses’ footsteps as they trotted along, and she was able to figure out the speed at
which the carriages rolled from that alone. And as her adrenaline soared, so did
her agility, and she flew from one end of the street to the other effortlessly,
as though she had been graced with wings to aid her as she evaded perils left
and right. Truly a gift, indeed.
When she was sure she was well out
of Elinor’s range of hearing, seeing, smelling, or whatever else the maid used
to track her down each time, she sat down and took a chance to breathe, gasping
for the desperately needed air she hadn’t inhaled during that entire course of anaerobic
exercise. Her feet and legs throbbed in pain, as did her head, and she felt a
light dizzy spell wash over her as the world began to turn a bright, blinding
white…
And she passed out.
Elinor was panting heavily. This
was no longer a game; she honestly needed to find the princess, and fast. Imagine
the humility that King Frederick would feel if his daughter were to not show up
at such an important time! Not to mention the poor impression King Alexander
would receive from the unkindly gesture. In fact, her absence alone might
threaten the already weak alliance the two kingdoms shared…
“You needn’t worry. She is already
back at the palace, overwhelmed by exhaustion.”
Elinor whirled around to face this
stranger who had just spoken. He was properly clad with an outfit that
indicated he was a well-educated scholar. Loosening her shoulders up a bit, she
asked, “Who are you?”
He smiled and nodded his head to
her, removing the hat from atop his head in proper respect to a lady. “I am
merely a humble tutor, currently here in town to seek a job. You see, I
happened to catch a glimpse of the princess as she made her way towards the
castle, the Western side with the large veranda…” he remarked cheerfully,
apparently very pleased by the rare, un-royalty-like behavior one would never
find in a princess.
That was all Elinor needed to
know. Picking up the ends of her skirt, she quickly curtsied, uttered a small
thanks, and stomped towards the palace gate. She seemed ready to kill someone,
with the way her face looked and the way she walked. The strange visitor shook
his head amusedly and turned to leave.
Lina opened her tiny eyes, at
first still blinded by the whiteness that swallowed her up earlier but soon
adjusting to the darkness that swept over the lands before her. She was in one
of the sections of the veranda…a large room surrounded by glass (as the rest of
the veranda was) situated around a single tree that grew in the center…
She recognized it almost
immediately. Somehow, by a strange twist of fate, she always ended up here time
after time again. It was almost as though the tree had become a permanent part
of her, and its branches would never let her go…
This was where she had first
developed a fear of heights.
Before, a year or so ago, Lina had
loved to climb up this cherry tree. Day after day she would play upon it,
climbing higher and higher until she reached the limit and couldn’t go any
further. But day after day she did not realize that, even though she was
growing steadily, the tree did not grow with her, and one gusty day, the branch
she was sitting on, the one she loved to sit on, snapped from beneath her.
She plummeted to the ground,
taking many thinner branches with her as she screamed at the top of her lungs.
If it had not been for the branches full of cherry blossoms to slow and cushion
her fall, she might have perished that very day.
So she developed a love for
flowers and a fear of heights.
Her father, the king, had wanted
the tree cut down immediately, but Lina still harbored a grandiose yet
complicated love for it, so he had the veranda annexed to it, building the
ceiling low in order to prevent the tree from growing larger, in case Lina
might attempt the same thing again someday. But she felt sad for the tree,
having to grow in this cramped space, not free to stretch its arms out in all
its splendor.
In a way, this tree reflected the
kind of person Lina was—hindered by fate. She, too, was caged within the palace
walls, and yearned to be free to be who she was; she yearned to be free from
the restrictions that deemed her the princess she was. And, like the tree, one
day she would have to shed her fears like it shed its leaves, and only then
would she be able to begin anew.
She jumped when she heard a door
shut from behind her. She fell down as she twirled around, frightened like a
little lamb until she recognized who the person was.
“Oh! It’s you! You’re the man who
saved me!” she exclaimed, recognizing his long, black, raven hair. She stood up
and brushed herself off (though the mud was deeply soaked into her clothes and
made it uncomfortable to move, for it was beginning to dry and crack into
pieces) and curtsied. “Thank you for your help previously.”
She saw him laugh a bit, black
eyes twinkling in the moonlight that lit the shadows on his face, and frowned.
“What’s so funny?” she demanded.
“Oh, nothing. I’m just surprised
at how cute you can be.”
Her cheeks flushed. She hated
being called cute, since it was a term used for children and she never thought
of herself as a child, despite the fact that she was one. She was about to
reprimand his mistake when she saw the strangest thing…
His feet never seemed to touch the
ground as he walked towards her.
She blinked once, twice, and then
rubbed her eyes, convinced that she must still be seeing things since his feet
appeared to be firmly planted on the ground in front of her. Afraid she might
say something to embarrass herself, she remained silent and let him speak.
He crouched down so he could look
her in the eyes. They were bright red, matching the orangey color of her long
hair, a peculiar color in their time. He wiped a couple mud stains from her
cheeks, along with the tear stains, and then inquired, “What is it you have in
your hand?”
She looked down, not knowing
herself what she was so tightly gripping on to. She slowly loosened the firm
grip she had on it, and the contents slipped out of her hand and onto the
ground.
It was the handkerchief and rose
the boy from earlier gave her. She blushed when she remembered his gentle
smile, and she was astonished to find that the rose was unharmed.
“That’s a very nice gift. Tell me,
who gave it to you?” inquired the man curiously.
“I…I think he was the prince of
Zelphia…” she answered sheepishly.
The man smiled warmly at her and
picked up the dropped articles, placing them back in the palm of her hand. What
he did next was astonishingly peculiar, however, for he reached over her
shoulder and took the silver chain from around her neck between his thumb and
forefinger, lifting the jewel that hung from it from its resting spot beneath
her shirt at her chest. He looked at it endearingly as Lina stared at him in
wonder, but before she could inquire he tucked the necklace back into its place
and began, “I wanted to ask you something…but there is no need for that now.” As he stood up to leave, Lina clutched the jewel at her chest and stepped
forward.
“Will I be seeing you?” she asked.
“Most likely,” he replied with a casual
grin.
She was satisfied with that
answer, but being the curious little kitten she was, she further inquired,
“What was it that you wanted to ask me?”
He paused at the door, turned to
her with a finger pressed to his lips in secrecy, and left.
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