Princess' Journey

Chapter 5

    Once we get to the back field, which is only a mile away from the main house, I feel exhausted. Sitting the cook under a nearby tree, Leka and I begin to dig. Him with his massive paws, and me with my now numb hands. The smell of blood slowly creeps toward me, begging me to drink it. I put all of my focus into digging the grave, feeling the frozen ground slowly give way.

    Why did mother have to lose her s**t on the coldest day of the year! I mean, it’s not like we live in Florida or anything. We live in God damn Colorado! I’m surprised there isn’t five feet of snow on the ground! Just as that thought crosses my mind, I see a small white flake drift down from the dark grey sky.

    “Oh! Well isn’t that just perfect! On top of a dead woman, a bloodied kitchen, and frozen ground, let’s add snow! What could be more fun than that?” I let out all of my anger from the events of the morning, but yelling is not enough for me. I pick up a nearby rock and chuck it at the tree that is sheltering the corpse. It hits with a sound that can only be compared to thunder. Just as I begin to feel my anger gaining control, I feel a warm breeze wash over me.

    “You have always been quick to anger, my Princess” a soothing voice says from behind me.

    I see the ground soften and Leka begins to make progress with our hole. I turn toward the voice and am met with green eyes glowing softly. 

    A small smile forms on my lips. “Thank you Papa.”

    My father has power over the earth element; he can do anything from causing an earthquake, to well, thawing out some frozen ground to help his daughter bury yet another body that Luther has destroyed. Papa puts his hand on my cheek, nothing but concern filling his eyes. 

    “Are you alright my dear? You’re looking rather pale this morning.” Not taking his eyes off me, his next question is “Leka, have you noticed anything strange with Alora this morning?” 

    “I have Sir. She, well, she seems to have changed since she got the smell of blood. I’ve felt her anger growing, as well as her desire. Her self-control has been slowly lowering as well. Which is odd, seeing as blood has never caused her this much concern before.”

    More anger wells up inside me “Leka! Just because you can feel my emotions does not mean you can go around telling every Tom, d**k, and Harry! I. Am. Fine!”

    I feel my blood boiling again, and my vision begins to turn red. I storm off back toward the house, only hearing my father when he tells Leka to follow me and that he will take care of the body. 

    The farther I get away from the blood, the more I calm down, until I feel completely in control of myself again. I walk all the way around the house so I can avoid the bloodied kitchen. Walking through the house, I can tell that all of the other housekeepers and staff are terrified. I don’t blame them though; hell, I am too.

    As I walk by two maids cleaning the hallway that leads to my room, their hushed whispers go silent, only to be replaced with “Morning Miss” and “I’ve laid your cloths on your bed.” I nod in thanks and gently close the door to my room. 

    Flopping onto my bed, and ignoring the fact that I have wrinkled the freshly pressed outfit that was laid out for me, I let out a long sigh, and pick up LJ. He is the plush wolf that Mother bought for me when I was five. He is custom made to resemble Leka, which is why I named him LJ. I always wanted a part of my protector with me.

    Even though Mother has changed, the memories of that day still are crisp in my mind. Mother and I were walking thru the square back in Romania after finishing a meeting with the council; we would always take a walk in the square after a meeting. Even at the age of five, I had already been to a large number of meetings. All of them were the same, the elders would talk to my mother about what is expected of me as the future queen of our race.

    I would attend a few classes (depending on who was my teacher for the day, my classes would consist of one history lesson and one elemental magic lesson). That day it happened to be Lady Mara; and she was exactly as her name states…bitter. Per usual, I passed my history class without complication, and also per usual, I dramatically failed my elemental magic class. Lady Mara is a master water worker and that day it was a slight drizzle outside; so naturally, the water element was strong that day. Yet, I still could not manage to do even the most simple of tasks. This class was shaping up to be just like every other one of my magic classes- a complete disaster.

    “Alora! How do you plan on protecting your people from outsiders if you cannot perform even the simplest of spells!” Lady Mara screeched at the top of her lungs.

    I had been yelled at many times before, I guess it was in hope of some sort of character builder; needless to say, it never worked. Mother never objected to the so called encouragements screamed at me, she would always sit in silence and watch me with a small smile on her face. She knew I was doing the best I could. However, the next words out of Lady Mara’s mouth are what sent Jessabelle from doting mother into full on protector:

    “From now on, Alora, I shall call you just that…Alora. You are not fit of the label of ‘Princess’ in my eyes, not until you can show me you are worthy. I will not bow down to someone who cannot perform a skill which should have been learned at the age of two. I would rather have my life ended than to follow a miscreant like yourself.”

    Right as she said those words, a large ball of flames whirls inches from her head, burning away half of her golden hair, sending it floating to the ground before disintegrating all together. Mother was at my side in an instant, shouting “How dare you speak to your princess that way! I do not care if she ever finds her powers, she is still your princess and you will treat her as such!” Looking down at me, Mother takes my hand and leads me out of the large circular room. She waits until we are out of ear shot of the council building before she starts to speak: 

    “My Lovely, do not fret, you will find your powers when you are ready. You are special my Love, and special powers take time.”

    With a sigh, I say “I know Mamma, I just wish I could bring Leka with me, he always makes me feel better. He makes it feel like I can do anything.”

    “I know Alora, but you know the rules: no Hellhounds on Council grounds unless permitted by the majority of said Council. It is just to keep the peace between those who believe they are powerful, and those who are powerful.” She looks down at me, “You would not want a fight to break out between hounds simply because their Vampires have a frugal disagreement, would you?”

    Shaking my head, I reply, “No, Mamma, I would not want that.”

    Shifting her gaze from me to one of the store fronts, she smiles and begins to pull me toward whatever it is she has just seen. Walking into the store, I notice all of the handcrafted dolls, each enveloped in her own beautiful gown. I walk over to one of the woman sewing what must be a dress for a new doll.

    “Oh! Hello Princess!” she says with a joyful smile on her face. Holding up the dress, “Would you like to see what it is I am working on?”

    In her hands is an exquisite gown, full of pearl flowers and small green leaves on a back drop of pastel purple. I wish I could own a dress that beautiful, I thought to myself. I must have been lost in thought for quite some time because the next thing I know, there is a small fuzzy object next to my ear.

    I hear Mother say in a raspy voice “Sure that dress is pretty, but will it protect you from those mean old Council folk?” 

    I look behind me and am greeted with a small, fury nose. It takes me a moment to realize what it is- since it kind of looks like a left over flour sack with some fur pasted onto it. I feel a smile spread across my face, “Mamma! It looks like Leka!”

    Sharing the same smile, she says “I know my Lovely. Now you can take Leka to your Council meetings. Only live Hellhounds are not allowed…they said nothing about stuffed animals.”

    Winking, she hands me the less than accurate Leka, but the thought she put into getting him for me, made up the lack of realism of the stuffed flour sack…I guess animals were not what that particular shop specialized in.