The Dark Princess
By julia.elizabeth
- 418 reads
It’s beautiful outside. The sun shines between the trees and into my eyes as I stand at the kitchen window, washing dishes. There is a blue bird sitting on the sill of the window, staring at me. I smile back as I reach into the soapy water.
“Sara can yo-”
“Ouch ow wi ow wi. Grams I cut my finger. Ouch. Can you help?” I sit down on the kitchen and wrap my finger in a towel. The room starts spinning so I lay my head on the cool kitchen tile.
“What? Let me see your finger.” I hear my Gram’s disbelieving voice as she comes into the kitchen and gets my finger. “No. Oh no.”
♦
“Oh, Quint she’s coming to,” I open my eyes to see a handsome face. His face is much too close to mine but from the closeness I can see he has big hazel green eyes, short brown hair, a neat close-shaven beard, and straight white teeth for he is smiling at me. His features come together quite nicely, but he looks about old enough to drink. Another man, must be Quint, comes to stand over me. He too is good looking with his gray eyes, black hair, and neat close-shaven beard; he looks about as old as the other man.
A long silence follows, the man and Quint stare at me and I back at them as the room now comes into focus. Most of the room is in darkness but what I do see is white and red. The room is some sort of infirmary with rows of beds like mine; my bed is small with railings on the side, and on the bedside table is a bowl full of reddish liquid: blood. I look down and see I am not in my usually dress and sandals but in a white hospital like gown.
Finally Quint tilts his head to one side and speaks, “I am Quint and this is my companion Bennet.” Quint pauses for a breath. “You have suffered great blood lost and…other symptoms the healers cannot put a name too. You cannot speak yet, as you very well may have noticed,” I had not, “but the healers said that will not last long.”
Blood lost? Last I remember I was washing dishes…It comes back to me now, I cut my finger and heard Grandma say ‘oh no’ and, and, and that’s all I can remember. I open my mouth to ask questions, but apparently Quint did not lie to me; I cannot speak.
Quint gives me an amused look, “I did not lie, human.” Quint gets up and walks to the windows and looks out.
“Morning?” The man Bennet asks.
“Just about, we really should be going. Call Leslie and tell her the girl is up so we can leave” Quint turns to Bennet who gets up and pats Quint’s back as he passes him.
“See you soon,” Bennet calls over his shoulder as an afterthought and with that, they are gone.
Leslie turns out to be a short middle-aged woman with a kind face.
“How are you feeling?” is the greeting I get. I just look at her, “Oh of course silly me, you have not yet gained your speech back yet. Well that is because of the medicine, it can take its toll. Of course losing your speech for a while is only a small token to pay seeing as this medicine saved your life.” All the while Leslie speaks, she fuses over me. Leslie fluffs up my pillows, readjusts my blankets, empties the bowl of blood, my blood, and brings me a glass of water. Leslie sits down in the seat that Bennet sat earlier and looks straight in my eyes. “Sorry I was not here to see you wake, I had another matter to take care of and had Ben and Quint take over in my stead. They happen to be the ones that got you here so quickly yesterday.” Leslie takes a deep breath now and with a straightening of her shoulders begins, “I do not know what they have told you, for I told them to tell you nothing till I got here but,” Leslie waves her hand as she stares off into space, like remembering and old memory, “they do not listen well. Dear human, this is going to be hard to hear as hard it is for me to tell you, but you have lost nearly half 3/4ths of your blood supply.” My eyebrows begin to rise and I think how am I alive?
Leslie notices my expression and puts a hand on my wrist and squeezes. This is a strangely comforting gesture. “Human child, fear not for our medicines do not deal with science, but with magic. It is through our magically advanced medicine, that you have lived, that and Ben and Quint’s swiftness in getting you here. Now to the fun part, Ben and Quint, and myself, are-” Leslie is interrupted by Quint and Bennet coming down the hall , once they get to my bedside, they part and a light in the form of a lady was there. As she stepped between them and up next to Leslie or where Leslie was for she has gone from my sight, I noticed this lady light is tall in stature. After my eyes adjusted to the brightness of her I see that she had big dark purple eyes, glass-like skin, curves in all the places that my lanky body lacks, and long thick lavender hair.
“Your majesty,” I hear Leslie from down below.
“Leslie! You have done a wonderful job! I was beginning to doubt whether I would see the human child awake or not.” The beautiful woman bends to the floor and pulls Leslie up and pulls her into a hug. Leslie smiles and happily goes into the woman’s embrace. After the brief embrace, the beautiful light lady sits down on the bed by my feet.
“She has not yet regained her speech, your majesty.” Leslie sits back in the chair by my bed, Quint sits on the bed next to mine and Bennet set himself next to Quint.
“Hello, I am Queen Andromeda Aquinas Reina of the Fae Folk.” Her voice sounds like a beautiful song that sings to my heart.
“Hi,” I manage to croak out, “I am Sara Waters.” My voice sounds like a frog’s but it manages to light up the Queen’s face.
“Excellent! Oh goodie, your voice has returned!” The Queen clapped her hands and shared a glance with Quint. Quint then got up in haste and left the room. The Queen moved down the bed closer to me and took my hand.
I look around and for the first time notice I am with strangers. “Where is my grandma and where am I?” My voice grows thick. With my voice coming back, so did my ability to think and to worry. I sit up only to be pushed down by Leslie. I am in a strange room, in strange clothes, with strange too-beautiful looking people. I snatch my hand back from the Queen, Queen of what exactly? I sit up regardless of Leslie’s gestures for me to lie back down and pull my legs up close and away from the Queen.
“Dear Sara, please relax,” The Queen tried to soothe.
“How? How can I relax when I know none of you? Where is my grandma?” I grow worried from the absences of my grandma and begin to feel as if she is not safe. Either she is not or I am not.
“Of course, dear child, you must be worried about your grandmother. After all, she did raise you. Fear not, your grandmother is at her house and she knows you are here under my protection. She-”
“I want to speak to her, I want to see her. I want to go home.” My throat closes and I choke back a sob. I ache with my grandma’s betrayal. How can she leave me here, on my own…unless she didn’t? “No, I don’t think she would leave me here by myself. Where is she really? Why can’t I be with her? Is she…is she hurt?” My voice chokes out the last word.
“I am no liar. I know this may seem strange, waking up in a strange room full of strangers but I do not lie and I do not appreciate you insinuating such!” Her voice rose in pitch and underneath her high pitched voice, a deep voice echoed her words. Bennet got up and laid his hand on the Queen’s shoulder; the Queen looked up at Bennet and gave a reassuring smile, and with that reassurance Bennet once more took his seat on the next bed over.
“Child your grandmother is at her house as I said,” The Queen’s voice is back to her soothing tone. “As soon as you are well I will send you to see her but now I need your full and upmost attention. Please keep an open mind and heart and I swear every word out of my mouth shall be true.” She pauses, and after a second I give a curt nod. “Good, well first off I am the Queen of the Fae folk, or you may know us to be called fairies.”
“Fairies?” I can hear the disbelief in my voice. “Like…live in the forest Fairies? Like winged, colorful, and magical Fairies? I…Tinkerbell? You are like tinkerbell?” I feel as though I am in a dream and I will wake up any second now.
“I do not know the reference but as you can see we do not have wings and we are not colorful, although I cannot say the same about some of us. We are however magical beings.” The Queen smiled at me waiting for my reaction.
“I um…not to call you a liar but you can see this is hard to believe. I…is this a joke? If you let me go now I…promise not to tell anyone, just please let me return to my grandma.” My worry only increases and I know I must be kidnapped. I don’t have anything they want, why would they choose me? Of course every kidnap victim must think that. I begin to cry and rest my forehead to my knees.
“I will admit this is not how I had expected you to act. I am inexperienced in this area of…” The Queen sounded genially sad as she searched for a word.
“Emotions?” Bennet offered.
“Yes. Emotions. Child I mean you no harm, honest. Yes having the truth exposed to you can be an…emotional thing. If you will please look up so that I may gain your trust and show you that Fairies are in fact real.” I wiped my eyes dry and took a deep breath. I looked up into the face of the Queen and wondered how a beautiful woman like that would be able to kidnap anyone.
“Ben will assist me in this demonstration?” With a curt Bennet stood up and walked to the front of my bed.
He spoke in a grave voice and with a deep voice said “Little human, I Am Of The Fae Folk.” Bennet then proceeds to go back to his seat with an amused look on his face. We all stare after him in a somewhat shock. The Queen is tight lipped and giving Bennet a stern look, Leslie hides her smile behind her small hand, and Bennet, well Bennet stares at me waiting for my response.
“Well I'm glad I got to see that with my own eyes otherwise I would never have believed it.” I ooze the statement with sarcasm. Bennet gives a loud laugh and throws his head back. The Queen gives me a shocked look and Leslie lets out a giggle.
“More than happy to assist, Human. More than happy.” Bennet’s smile lights up his whole face, it makes him look a couple of years younger, makes him look 18. Leslie and Bennet’s laughter ease me a bit; although I am in a stressful situation, I let a small smile slip. They have kidnapped me, but they will not make a fool out of me, and that is what I find funny.
“No help whatsoever, absolutely none. I will demonstrate for you…Sara.” The Queen’s use of my name makes me trust her a bit more. The Queen, while still sitting on my bed, makes a fist with her hands. “What’s your favorite flower?” The Queen raises an eyebrow at me and I immediately, without thought, respond “Tulips.” The Queen opens her hand and a Lavender, the same shade as her hair, closed Tulip bulb sits in her palm.
“There are 2 kinds of Fae: Fae of the Light court, and Fae of the Dark court. I happen to be Queen of the Dark court. However, just because my kingdom is the Dark kingdom, that does not mean I am evil. I know in ‘Dark’ has a negative connotation on Earth, but here ‘Dark’ is pure. It represents the truth of nature, intelligence, and, if provoked, it could mean destruction; whereas, ‘Light’ represents fire, ignorance, and greediness.” With that, the Queen smiled and the closed Tulip bulb blossomed in her hand. The Tulip began to spin faster and faster till it spun out of her hand and on the railing and the end of my bed. The Tulip multiplied into 5 Tulips which all and faces. The Tulips began to sing and dance to a magical song that seemed to transport me to a land of love, of stars and color, of peace and tranquility, of birth and life, of bright and loveliness-I was snapped back into reality as the infirmary door closed with a shut and Quint reentered the room.
Quint whispered something into the Queen’s ear and she nodded. Quint hurried out of the room and the Queen once more grabbed my hand and focused her big purple eyes on my brown ones.
“You do believe me don’t you?” The Queen’s need for me to accept “the truth” surprised me. Not as much as I surprised myself when I nodded that I did in fact believe she was the Queen of land Fae. I get this light feathery feeling and I just know that no matter how crazy she sounds, she is telling the truth. I am not a human lie detector, it’s just most of the time, all of the time, I get a light feathery feeling when someone is telling an unbelievable truth. The last time I got that feeling was when I was told that my healthy grandma, who used to run a mile every morning, had a stroke.
“Good.” The Queen smiled showing her teeth which were pearly white. She let go of my hand and left from the room. At the door she paused and looked back at me “I will send up some clothes for you to wear and you can join me in my chambers for a private breakfast.”
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Comments
Interesting...
This hits me like a story told from the other side of the Dresdan Files... Maybe I'm off, but that's what I thought of and it drove me forward!
I like the transition from mundane to supernatural; a mundane event--cut finger--throws us into the supernatural world waiting for her!
I am also a HUGE fan of first person :)
I'm from the US, so some of the sentence structure is a little odd for me. I don't mean that in a critical way, because it took nothing away from the story. I did find myself going back and re-reading a few sections just to make sure I read them correctly the first time.
In the story, she is referred to as human. Does she remain human and become the Princess of the Dark Court, or does she undergo some sort of change to be better accepted by the Fae? Or is she special in some other way that makes her humanity an asset?
Just some questions that came up for me.
It's a good piece, and I look forward to the follow-ups.
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