Lina watched wistfully as the young prince Elliot mounted his steed in preparation for departure. Their fathers were not far off, trading formalities and wishing one other good fortune and health. Lina quietly stood aside as one of Elliot’s servants came to make sure the horse had been given a sufficient amount of water to endure the long trip back to their kingdom. After a small exchange of words, the man left, leaving no further eavesdroppers between prince and princess. They merely gazed at each other for a moment, unsure how to begin--unsure of what it was they wanted to say—but then a warm smile appeared on Prince Elliot’s face, and the tension immediately resided. The breath Lina had contained within her lungs escaped her lips. Playing on impulse, she smiled back at him with reassurance, knowing that this was not a parting but a small period that will come to pass by quickly. And until then, she would live her life from day to day, not counting the time since they last met in order to live more freely. She would learn to cope, and the day will come when she may reap her just rewards.
After the departure of the royal
company, Lina was finally permitted to change out of her more ornate assets
into comfortable, everyday clothing. Goosebumps rose as the feel of soft fabric
brushed against her delicate skin, and she mentally praised the Lord for
blessing the world with the wonderful creation of a material called cotton. Her
maid, after tying up the loose ends of Lina’s casual attire, proceeded to put
away the lavish gown.
“I should tell Gabriel and Sophia
the news!” Lina thought excitedly and made towards the door. When she was only
a mere few steps away from the exit, the maid returned and exclaimed, “Princess!
Don’t forget about your classes today. The king—your father—hired a new tutor
who seemed more qualified for the position than your last tutor…wait!”
While the maid was talking, Lina
managed to slip out the front door and was already sprinting down the hill side
as fast as her little legs could take her. The maid, as flustered as she was
new at the job, stood in ambivalence at the doorway, unsure whether to chase
after the girl or to go inform Elinor. But since Lina quickly faded from view,
the only option available then would be to go inform Elinor of her blunder.
The sweet maiden smoothed out the
wrinkles in her skirt, a habit that usually occurred when flustered, and went
to seek out the maid in charge, not fully aware of the consequences that
awaited her.
Lina made her way through the
castle garden toward the area of the wall she always used to escape. It was a
simple, small hole in the wall but was concealed by thick shrubbery, just large
enough for a small kid like Lina to fit through. As she got down on her knees,
though, an unrecognizable voice came from behind her, startling her to the
point where she jumped from fright and shrieked: Ah!
She fell on her behind with her
hands held close to her chest and her fists bundled up just beneath her chin, a
timid gesture. Her expression was similar to that of a bunny looking up at its
hunter in absolute fear. The man couldn’t keep from chuckling at how adorable
it all was. Lina simply stared at him in languid stupor for a moment while she
recovered from the distress, but then she frowned angrily, not finding it
amusing in the least, and snapped, “What’s so funny?!”
The man wiped away the stray tears
that sprang to his eyes from laughing, then he quickly humbled himself and
offered her a hand to help her up, bowing his head respectfully. “Nothing at
all, my lady,” he answered, “I am merely a fool who finds humor in the most
unfit of all situations.”
She took his hand, glaring at him
suspiciously through the corner of her eye, and allowed him to pull her to her
feet. He seemed to be a peculiar man, unlike everyone else who worked in the
castle. He didn’t carry himself with the same regard, nor did he seem to be
preoccupied with any errand or job, and instead portrayed a gentle and relaxed
demeanor. His gaze seemed to be fixed on her, though she couldn’t tell for certain
because his eyes were always strangely upturned. “I wonder if he can even see
me,” she pondered, observing how he didn’t blink or show any sign of eye
movement.
Lina brushed the dirt off the skirt
of her dress, but as she was doing so she realized that the man showed no
intention of going anywhere. “He was probably sent to get me…” she thought,
somewhat amazed to think that word of her escape had already reached Elinor.
She looked around for an escape route, but didn’t manage to find one. Maybe if I get him to look away…
“Do not worry, I have no intention
of stopping you,” he said, as though he knew exactly what she was thinking. She
glanced at him warily, unsure of his ulterior motives. “I have no intention of leaving you either, however.”
At this point in time, Lina could
hear the faint voice of a servant calling her name from around the corner.
Panicked, she proceeded to get on her hands and knees and squeeze through the
opening in the wall, thinking that the man wouldn’t be able to follow her through
anyway. As she got up and brushed herself off on the other side of the wall,
though, she heard the noise of two feet landing beside her, and slowly glanced
up to see him grinning amusedly down at her. “H-how did you do that!?” she
asked, eyes wide with curiosity.
He put his index finger to his lips
and glanced upwards, as if to delay, then replied, “Magic?”
She seemed to believe him for a
moment, but then thought herself to have been deceived and cast a look of
disbelief at him. Her eyes seemed to read: Prove it.
He shook his head. “I can’t do it
when people are watching or else you’d know all my secrets,” he explained.
She frowned, dissatisfied by his
answer, but his behavior had her curiosity. “Who are you and what were you
doing inside the castle?” she asked.
“My name is Cless. As to what I was
doing at the castle…well that’s a secret,” he answered jovially. “I think the
question in need of being asked here is ‘why are you leaving the castle grounds, princess?”
“I’m going to meet my friends,” she
answered firmly, beginning to make her way down the hillside using a discreet
path that avoided the guarded areas of the castle. Cless followed her as she
walked. She couldn’t think of exactly what she had to do in order to get him to
leave her alone. After a while of silence, she stopped walking and turned to
face him again. She didn’t want her own secrets of escape to be exposed. If
they reached the ears of the maids or she would never find her way out of the
castle again. She had to figure out a way to lose Cless, and she had to do it
quickly. “What do you want?” she inquired.
He actually didn’t want anything in
particular—just to meet her and get to know the feisty princess a bit better.
Rather than answering her question, he kneeled to be at eye-level with her and
reached out to touch the necklace resting around her neck. Pulling out the
pendant from it’s spot beneath her blouse, he examined it with tenderness and
familiarity, running his coarse fingers over its delicate body, examining its
shape and noting every tiny detail of it. Lina was unsure of how to respond to
this gesture, responding to it with a simple “Um…?”
Still holding the gem between his
index finger and thumb, he asked her, “Do you know what this is?” She shook her
head accordingly and watched as a smirk slowly appeared on his face. “It’s
called the Faery’s Tear,” he began, “It was once rumored to have granted a wish
to a young girl who died of disease a long time ago. You see, it’s because she
so strongly wished to live once more with her lover…though no one knows for
sure whether or not this is true. In fact, only a few people have even heard of
the legend in this day and age.”
“So how would you know this?” Lina
asked, taking the pendant back from his open hand to observe herself. She
seemed rather interested in the story, mystified by the power her pendant was
supposed to have. She had always thought it to be an ordinary stone but could
never bring herself to separate with it since as far back as her memory served
her.
Cless gestured to his bag full of
scrolls. “Because my job is to study the history of this land, my dear---…”
“Oh!” Blushing for having realized
she omitted her introduction earlier, she proceeded to do so. “I am Lina du Mar
L’ciel, daughter of King Frederick and princess of this land,” she said while
curtsying.
“…My dear lady L’ciel,” he said
warmly.
Lina grimaced at the formality.
“Please, just call me Lina,” she requested.
“Lina-hime-sama¹”
“No, simply Lina will do.”
He chuckled. “Then may I at least
have the pleasure of addressing you by Lina-san?” he asked. For some reason,
she liked the ring the name had to it, even though it was still formal, so she
nodded her approval.
“So will the Faery’s Tear grant my
wish?” she asked.
Her
inquisitiveness is so adorable that it is almost suffocating, Cless mused.
“Perhaps... I wouldn’t know how to use it, though. But if you’d like, I could
explain the legend to you…”
“Yes!” she exclaimed, apparently
ready to quench her thirst for adventure. He smiled, then began:
“Well, you see…”
Elinor was furious to learn of
Lina’s disobedient behavior. “I don’t have one, but two inept maids here who cannot keep track of a single child!” she
complained as she threw down the washing board that she had been using to clean
the clothing. “Who on earth is this girl, and why was she hired?” she wondered,
looking over the girl’s beautiful chestnut hair and enchanting golden eyes.
Judging by the look of her face, the girl couldn’t be more than sixteen years
of age. “She belongs in a brothel…” Elinor thought deplorably, secretly envying
the girl’s beauty and despising her naivety.
The poor maid continued to
straighten and smooth the wrinkles in the fabric of her skirt. “I apologize…”
she repeated, not knowing what else she could do.
Elinor sighed. There wasn’t much
anyone could do to keep the princess from getting out of the castle. The little
girl had so many escape routes that the possibility of catching her was nearly nonexistent.
She stretched her back and pounded her thick shoulders, sore from doing so many
chores, then turned to face this new maid. “Tell me, what is your name again?”
“Lynne,” the girl replied humbly,
not daring to look up from her position of inferiority.
“Lynne? Interesting name…” Elinor
commented, wondering why women this day and age still insisted on naming their
children with names characteristic of the previous century. “Well then, Lynne, you can stay here and finish my duties—laundry, polishing the floors,
and dusting the furniture—while I go look for the princess,” she stated firmly.
“Elinor-san, if I may speak…”
“Then you!” Elinor snapped, cutting
And with that, the strict maid
stomped out of the room, leaving the two others feeling less than two inches
tall.
“…and then she died, whispering his
name with her very last breath.”
Lina had been thoroughly engrossed
in the telling of the tale, for her eyes were fixated on Cless the entire time
he spoke. A world full of monsters and magic seemed a world too unreal to even
begin to comprehend, but her imagination was working intensely and painted
a surreal image for her young brain to
interpret. She imagined vast, uncharted lands that provided habitation for
creatures of all kinds. She envisioned what a dragon may appear to look like,
and even took into consideration the strange human forms they may cloak
themselves with to walk among humankind. Then she opened the door to the
possibility that a dragon may be living in the kingdom, disguised as a human,
and the idea incited a tiny squeal out of her. She imagined a life of thrill
and excitement as a freelancing sorceress, undeterred by laws and unafraid of
the unknown. Magic—it surely was a topic that merited curiosity, but it hardly
seemed possible, especially since her caretakers had always insisted on magic
being a mere myth of the past. If it did exist, though, she wanted to learn it.
“Is magic real?” Lina inquired
eagerly. Cless noticed the twinkle in her eye, and it broke his heart to have
to answer…
“No!”
The two glanced up to see Elinor
hovering over them, glaring down at them as if to send a thousand daggers down
their throats. She was furious not only because of Lina’s disobedience, but
also because this “noteworthy” scholar was teaching the child nonsense.
Grabbing Lina’s wrist and jerking the girl unwillingly to her side, she turned
her anger upon the man whom she would never bring herself to trust.
“How dare you attempt to corrupt the mind of her highness with words of…of
witchcraft!” she spat at him, seething through clenched teeth. His calm and unruffled
disposition only served to heighten her rage, and after a few seconds of
frustration and fuming, she simply stomped off in the direction of the castle
gates with the princess scuffling at her heels. “I really hate that guy,” she muttered, and Lina cast a confused look
up at the twitching maid.
Cless stood up, looking after the
two with an amused smirk on his face. “Yare yare²,
she certainly does remind me of someone…” he mused cheerfully, following them
at a safe distance. Peeping through one open eye, he let his sights settle on
the little princess who was being lectured by her caretaker. “It does look like
we’re off to a good start, though,” he noted with pleasure, looking forward to
what was to come in the future.
Elinor had the young princess
washed, dressed, and sent promptly to her bedroom as punishment for her
rebellious behavior. The girl, although discontent with the current situation,
was still fascinated by the idea of magic existing in the world. She had heard
stories from it here and there around the civilian areas of her kingdom, but
they had all been laughed off as mere jokes and tales to amuse the young.
She pulled the necklace out from
its spot nestled underneath her blouse and eyed it curiously. “So this is
supposed to grant me one wish…is it?” she wondered, rubbing the ruby side of
the jewel. She flipped it over then, eyeing the less radiant, amethyst side of
the jewel, and brushed it lightly with her fingertips.
Her heart began to beat loudly in
her chest, and she felt a nauseating sensation overtake her. For some reason
she felt an ache, a desire to find something lost when she stared at the
amethyst jewel. It seemed so close and yet so out of reach at the same time,
and she couldn’t figure out what it was that seemed so alluring about the
stone…
“You long for times long forgotten…”
a voice resonated in her mind, echoing as it faded away. Lina clutched the
charm to her chest, as if for protection.
A silence ensued. Then, seconds
later, the voice continued:
“Would you like to see…?”
Before Lina could respond, an
intense feeling of drowsiness overtook her. Unable to fight it off, she simply
gave into its will and fell fast asleep, entering the world of dreams and
fantasies…
Darkness
from twilight…
Crimson
from blood that flows…
Buried
in the flow of time, in Thy great name
I
pledge myself to darkness! Those who oppose us
Shall
be destroyed by the power you and I posess!
Dragon
Slave!!
The spell shot off from between her
palms, releasing the energy conjured up within her. An echo of a thousand
voices reverberated within her mind—an echo of a myriad lost languages and
voices of the greatest sorcery geniuses that ever existed, all channeling the
power of the mazoku lord himself into the medium—her body.
A different source of power,
though, was amplifying this energy. If the power already flowing through her
body was her blood, this separate source of energy was the adrenaline that
caused it to flow at a more efficient rate. As she became more aware of her
surroundings, she noticed four accessories fastened to her clothing—one on each
wrist, one resting at the base of her neck, and the last attached to the
belt—all glowing a deep bloody red.
I
feel like I’ve seen these before…
With the spell done casting and the
target demolished, Lina wiped the sweat off her brow and cast a satisfied glance
at these orbs that aided her.
“Ya ho! It’s a good thing I bought
these from ----”
The name was an inaudible thought,
an impalpable being with no substantiality. It was a gossamer thread of fate
that slipped from between her fingers. And yet, all at the same time it became
the most important clue she received from the dream.
The scene suddenly shifted, and she
found herself in an ethereal world. There was no base or ground beneath her
feet, and everywhere she looked she saw more of the same. The world seemed
filled with illusions of any and all sorts; her own body seemed less corporeal
and began to undulate before her eyes. She broke out in a cold sweat, even
though the air around her seemed neither cold nor hot but was incredibly stale,
and she found it somewhat difficult to breathe as she walked. As she neared the
end of the ‘road’, she saw a strange sphere of light that seemed to call out to—allure—her.
With the sphere suspended in mid
air just before her, she reached out and grasped it between her fingers,
absorbing the knowledge held within.
The
Claire Bible holds all the information in the universe…
What
do you wish to know…?
I wish to know…
You
wish to know
His
name…
Her eyelids eased open as the dream
sequence came to an end. Her eyes took a moment to adjust to the darkness of
the room, as her mind did to the world of reality. The world of fantasy had
begun to win her over. She was no longer alarmed to have these dreams, instead
accepting them with a kind of passive assent, a helpless acknowledgement as
part of her existence. What part they took, though, she did not know. At least,
not yet.
She reached over to the dresser
stationed next to her bed and took the lamp that rested there but couldn’t
quite find the lighter. “I know I put it on here somewhere…”
As soon as the words left her
mouth, she knocked the box containing the lighter onto the ground. She sat
still as a mouse as a shrill clang echoed throughout the room. No response.
Good. She eased off the bed and got down on her hands and knees to feel around
for the box.
“Light, which burns beyond crimson flame…”
Her breath caught in her throat.
The voice…voices sounded
frighteningly close but seemed to come from all directions. They oscillated in
volume, coming nearly to a roar at times and then fading back away to a subtle
whisper—a thousand languages all chanting a million words all at once…
“Let thy power gather in my hand…!”
Lina closed her eyes and
concentrated hard, just as she had in her dream. A strange sensation filled her
body, tingling particularly in her fingertips but extending past her arms and
originating from her heart. Excited, she finished off the chant, “Lighting!”
Unfortunately, however, the efforts
produced nothing. What she mistook for magic coursing throughout her body had
in fact simply been the excitement that comes with youth and imagination,
nothing more. Disappointed, not only in the fact that it hadn’t worked but also
in herself for believing that it would
work, she reached down again and immediately found the box she had been
searching for. It was ironic that she had been unable to recover it before—the
box had been resting right by her foot.
She lit the lamp carefully and
walked barefoot out into the hallway, at first peeping around the corner to
make sure she wouldn’t be caught. She originally wanted to sneak out, but after
what had happened, she felt content with simply visiting the washroom to
freshen up a bit. As she walked down the hallway she watched the shadows dance
in rhythm with the flame coming from her small lamp; the beat of drums were the
soft pitter-patter sounds coming from her feet against the red velvety carpet
resting upon the cold stone floor. Lina continued in this manner and entered
the last door on her right. She placed the lamp down and filled the washbasin
with a small amount of water from the fountain next to her. Splashing cool
water on her face felt a lot better than she thought it would, and it worked to
lift her spirits as well. Eyes shut, she reached over for the towel hanging
next to her and fumbled along the wall until her hands brushed against its soft
fabric. She wiped her face dry and glanced up into the mirror hanging above the
washbasin.
She nearly yelped as she realized
she was not the only person standing in the room. She then recognized the man
as the same person who had claimed to be her ‘guardian angel’ just the night
before. Turning to face him, she smiled in gratitude for his comforting
presence, but something about him seemed different this night, and dread became
the only visible emotion upon her face.
As he opened his mouth to speak,
she recognized it not as the voice of the man as she remembered it but as the
voice that had lulled her to sleep just earlier. She hastily replaced the towel
and bolted out of the room, but could only make it a few feet from the door
before her vision began to blur and she fell to the ground in a drowsy state.
She glanced up once more before her conscious slipped away from her and her
head fell against the floor.
The mysterious man stepped out of
the room and closed the door. A strange glow emanated from his hand and into
the door handle as he released it. He lingered there for a moment longer before
stepping away from the room, satisfied with whatever work he had done to it. He
then walked over to the girl’s weakened body and gently lifted her from the
ground, cradling her in his sturdy arms.
“Oh Lina-san…the body of a child is
apparently not enough to support the powers you once had…” he murmured
wistfully.
He carried her back to her room and
placed her back in bed. Had Lina been awake, she may have noticed the ornaments
attached to his garments: one on each wrist, one at the base of his neck, and
the last on his belt. All four had glowed in unison as he released the spell
from his hand earlier, a spell that restored the washroom to the way it had
been before Lina entered it, so that in the morning, when the first maid
stepped foot into that same room, she found her apron which Lina had
unknowingly used to wipe her face still in the same spot she had left it.
¹Lina-hime-sama – Literally translates to Princess Lina except with more
formality.
²Yare yare – This can’t be translated directly from Japanese, but it kind of resembles the more well-known “aiya” that Asians usually mutter in exasperation.
<--Back one Chapter Table of Contents Go on to Chapter Fifteen-->
View My Guestbook
Sign My Guestbook