Faelme: Princess Evol and her Fairy Prince

Nice to meet you, Fiery Queen

Maeve knocked twice on the wooden door of the tree house and made a bird call.

Silence was the only answer she got as seconds trickled by. Maeve shifted on her feet, the total silence on the outer island always had her on edge.

She wondered how her loner friend could bear the silence all the time as the sole occupant of the island.

The door swung open with a creak surprising her. She peered inside the house, it was dark inside and kind of gloomy. Just the way she would feel living all alone and by herself.

Maeve went in quickly and shut the door behind her remembering that the owner of the house wasn't exactly fond of bright lights in her home.

As Maeve's eyes adjusted to the dark interior, she could make out the bare furniture in the single room living space.

There were two cane rocking chairs on each side of a round table at one side of the room.

A coconut shell with its freshly exposed contents was on it along with a jar containing several glowing bugs which served as the only source of illumination in the room.

It cast a pale green light around the room.

On the other side of the room next to the only window that provided ventilation in the house, there was a hammock made of vines, branches and leaves as a bed.

It was situated in a position that betrayed her friend's emotions and feelings. The bed was positioned in a way that the user could stare out into the night while sleeping on it.

Maeve could just imagine Deretah laying on the bed and staring at the stars every night.

The house was bare and sad, just like its owner.

Maeve finally faced Deretah as she left the side of the door to sit on one of the rocking chairs.

That close to the light jar, Maeve could make out her form clearly. She was clothed in a fully hooded long green cloak as always.

Maeve had never really seen her friend, only caught a glimpse of her the first time they had met. Since then, she had assumed that Deretah was a ‘her'.

She did sound like a female though.

Maeve knew Deretah was a recluse.

The whole –solely living by herself in the outer island– testified to that more than anything else and Maeve suspected that she was the only Faerie contact Deretah had, and definitely her only friend.

Well, if you could call them friends.

If Maeve was the one that was forced to live by herself for whatever reason, she would have gone insane with boredom and loneliness.

She could imagine herself lying on the sole hammock, listening to the night sounds around her and wishing on a shooting star that she had more people to care about her.

Maybe she would even cry herself to sleep.

So she wondered why Deretah lived here. Was she a human that had been stranded on the island and had been forgotten here? That didn't make a lot of sense to Maeve for some reasons.

The fact Deretah wasn't at all surprised by her wings and the fact that she was so tight lipped about herself didn't credit that fact.

The other option that made sense was that Deretah was an outcast from one of the three Faelme kingdoms, or at least Maeve assumed so since she could not believe that anyone would just up and leave civilization an company and go live in the outer island where they were prone to the risk of exposure to any wandering shipwrecked human.

Was she a fairy? That didn't seem right since it meant she could just fly back home. Moreover, no one had been banished from the air kingdom that Maeve knew of. And Maeve knew a lot.

So maybe she was a mermaid, or an elf? Her size wasn't right for an elf, so maybe a Mermaid?

When Maeve had met Deretah, the other had saved her from drowning.

Maeve had grown up captivated by the thoughts of the world outside Faelme. Her interest started with Curtis's stories.

She would listen dreamily whenever Curtis told her about the new things he had learned about humans from studying.

He had had that one phase were he was all about humans and he often said that he thought there were a fascinating race.

She was the only one who cared to listen to his stories since human talks were kind of a stiff topic at his house.

Oh she loved those moments, when he would finish a story or state a random fact and she would tell him how smart he was or how scholarly he sounded and he tell her, with a smile never failed to set her heart racing, that she was the only one that understood him.

Maeve felt her cheeks flame at that thought. She covered her cheeks grateful for the relative darkness of the room that hid her embarrassment. She glanced at Deretah and saw her helping herself to her opened coconut.

Maeve rolled her eyes at the other. Gosh, if she did not say anything, the other could conveniently ignore her presence.

She had such a cold personality!

Maeve decided to keep quiet for a little bit longer. Maybe today, Deretah would finally initiate a conversation. Meanwhile, she indulged in her own thoughts some more.

She remembered when she turned sixteen and how she had suggested to Curtis that they should fly to the outer island together but Curtis had declined. He had told her that he wasn't interested in exploring the human world anymore.

According to him, he had begun to study some more serious topics about them and especially their influence on the dark times and had decided that he would rather not have anything to do with them.

Maeve had thought he was just scared and had set off on her own to prove that there was nothing dangerous about the beach. Leading to her almost dying, if Deretah hadn't rescued her.

At first, Maeve kept her exploration a secret because of the embarrassing situation she got herself into. So as not to look stupid to Curtis.

Later she did it for the same reason, not to look stupid to Curtis, but this time because she knew how it would sound to him that she was meeting up with a stranger whose face she couldn't even recognize.

But Maeve had let her curiosity get the best of her and so far, nothing had happened to her.

Though she was not much closer to unraveling the mystery that was Deretah, she at least had a friend that was a great listener.

That was basically the essence of their friendship, Maeve talked about her day and life in general and Deretah listened.

She at times gave her advice, but those were really rare. But Maeve would take what she could get.

********

Curtis was on his way back to his quarters after seeing Princess Coral back to hers when he ran into Evol and her mother having a hushed but clearly heated discussion.

“Queen Layla, Princess Evol.” He said with a slight bow by the way of a greeting.

“Good day, Prince Curtis.” The Queen flashed him a brilliant smile, a very quick transition from her earlier frustrated look. Evol, however, turned her glare on him eyeing him angrily until her mother, not-so-subtly, nudged her making her force a polite smile on her lips.

But her big green eyes still blazed.

Obviously, the Princess hadn't forgiven his words from earlier. And she was making no secret of it.

Curtis thought she looked adorable trying to rein in her anger in the presence of her mother. He wondered how much more it would him take to shatter her perfect princess facade.

"Prince Curtis, please excuse my daughter's poor manners." The Queen said to him when time had passed enough that they realized Evol wasn't going to acknowledge his greetings. Not with words anyway.

The Queen paused for a moment to give her daughter a pointed look before smiling at him again.

"It is no problem, ma'am. It is always a pleasure to see princess Evol no matter how many times she pushes me away." He replied putting his charms to use and the Queen totally fell for it. Only Evol recognized his smile for what it was,

A mocking smirk.

The egoistical bullhorn was mocking her.

This vermin scum. This arrogance in faerie flesh. Evol thought as her mother shot her another look. The Prince had just made it seem like she had been ignoring his nonexistent advances.

He had never said a single sweet word to her, not like she wanted him to, but now he was making her look like the bad guy.

And this really wasn't a good time for him to make such a joke. Her mother would surely talk her head off later, chew her up and spit her in the incinerator if she didn't do something now to save her hide.

Feigning the best smile she could fake considering how mad she felt at that moment, she answered the prince. "We were not in the best of situations the last time we met Curtis." She intentionally addressed him by his first name, partly as payback for making her seem like the bad guy and partly to create an aura of familiarity for her mother's benefit.

“You should smile more often, Evol." Curtis replied back with a grin when he saw her narrow her eyes at him for also referring to her with familiarity.

The Queen, though, looked awfully pleased at their tiny jabs, mistaking the tension between them for something it was most definitely not.

“Uhm... I should just excuse you both." She said loudly to catch their attention, then she whispered to Evol, “Take all the time you need."

With a final smile, she walked away from them leaving them alone on the hallway.

“Prince Curtis, what do you really want?" Evol asked with clenched teeth once they were alone, irritated at the smug look he had on.

“Back to formalities now, are we?" He put his hand to his left chest and gave her the look of a kicked puppy.

Evol rolled her eyes at him for teasing her for his pastime while wasting her own time and was about to give him a scathing reply when noticed his eyes raking over her form from head to toe.

His eyes lingered on every inch of her as it travelled down her body and upwards again bringing them eye to eye.

To say that she was taken aback would be understatement. She was so caught off guard that she forgot what she was going to say. She had to stop herself from looking down at herself, she had never felt so self conscious.

Why was he looking at her like that? And what was the meaning of that smile he was giving her? And why the heck was her face so hot?

“How many hours did it take the royal healers to put you back together again?"

Her brain did not register his word for a full five seconds, and when it did she felt blood rush to her face. This time, from anger.

“ I– uhm— What?" Evol stuttered and got even more mad that he had just made a fool of her.

He made her blush one second, and insulted her the next.

She felt an overwhelming urge to flip him the bird but decided it would be of no use especially since he didn't understand what she was doing. It was a human gesture after all. So she settled for giving him her most poisonous glare which for some reason only seemed to fuel his amusement.

Curtis felt his breathe catch at the sight of the adorable tiny princess glaring at him. Her wide green eyes only making her look even much more cute as they danced with fire. This, Curtis thought, was finally the princess Evol he had been subconsciously searching for.

She looked liked a true Fiery Queen. That was the word that came to mind.

Curtis took one, two steps towards her. Towering over her like a wall, his woodsy scent teasing her nostrils and making her stomach riot in protest. It took all of Evol's willpower not to take a cowardly step back and just run away from his presence.

Dear God, he didn't stop there. He leaned down till he could graze his lips against the flesh of her ear lobe and whispered.

“It's nice to finally meet you, Princess Evol."

Evol saw red, there was definitely laughter in his words. What did he mean by '...finally meet you?'

Before she could think of a word civil enough to be uttered by a princess as a response, he carried his gigantic smirking self to his room, a door away.

Evol could not even return to her own room, where her mother was sure to be waiting for her, from how embarrassed she felt.

Prince Curtis had won this round, but she would win the next.

She promised herself that.