STARLIGHT: LOVE'S NOBLE PURSUIT ✨ ✨

‘Thud!’ Her feet stamped on the earth with great force as she frantically ran for her life. Jumping over large shrubs and dodging tree branches, her heart beat quickened, desperate to escape the evil that lurked behind her. It wasn’t an escape from her stubborn past which continued to haunt her; rather, it was a run from her future. Suddenly she felt something holding her back, something pulling her from the side, restricting her runaway flight and tearing her racing heart apart. “Shoot!” Her dress had got stuck in a tree stump. She pulled with all her might, trying as hard as possible to ignore the unsettling presence that lurked behind her. She shut her eyes tightly and pulled even harder when she felt a cold, iron-like air brush the side of her neck, sending terrified shivers down her already frightened spine. Just like that, in the cold, eerie darkness of the night sky, the ripping sound of the dress echoed through the bushes, making the girl freeze. She turned around, expecting to face the dead—no, the dead. Instead she came face to face with a terrifying pair of jade eyes, carved into an almost black face. Those eyes were beautiful yet disturbing. Her heart lurched like a frog caught between heartbeats. Who was this? Why would he not leave her alone? The questions came again and again, yet no answer resurfaced. The stare of the figure’s face was raw and belonging to something undefined and dangerous—almost as if he had been melted under the heat of a burning furnace before. He stared blankly at her and searched her face, as though looking for the answers to the questions she asked herself. Then, suddenly, something cracked in the bushes behind her. She turned around swiftly to see what it was, but… nothing. Had it disappeared? Could it be hallucinations? No. It just felt so real. Almost like… she tried convincing herself, not giving herself the chance to believe otherwise. The girl sat up straight on her bed. Sweat ran down her face in thin lines of pure rivulets. She gasped and panted, trying to catch her breath as she surveyed the environment around her. Her room? “Ugh, it was just a dream again,” she muttered. But could it really be just a dream, considering the fact that she had it almost every night? Still, it was a dream. Brushing the corner of her eyes with her fingers and running them through her hair, she lay back on her canopy bed. Another night of sleepless existence, she thought freely to herself. Just then the door flew open and an elf walked in, panting, his long ears twitching. He was still in his sleepless robe, but his silver eyes showed nothing less than someone who had been wide awake. “Your Majesty, are you all right? I heard you screaming from across the hall. Was it the same as usual?” he asked in his usual crisp voice. “I’m fine. Really, Erlos, you can go back to bed,” the girl replied, signalling with her hands that he could leave. “Don’t look so worried.” The young elf’s ears twitched again before he curtseyed. “Your Majesty,” he said, and left, shutting the door behind him. The girl slumped back against her pillows. She knew her scream hadn’t been that loud, but because of the elf’s natural ability to hear from afar, he had still come. She thought something was wrong—or was it? Wrapping a pale white clean cloth around herself, she made her way to the window, letting her emotions sink her deep until she stared into oblivion. The night felt heavier than usual. Light from the full moon made everything a little clearer for the girl to see. The guards were on duty that night too. Their stand behind the palace gate, nearby was a campfire to keep themselves warm. At the other end was the fountain by the forbidden trees. Stories had it that a forest once lived there, and that was why it was always covered by dark nebula even when the day was sunny. The young princess never believed in such superstitions and in fact thought that if someone was ever locked up in there, it was as a result of some heresy. She unexpectedly had the strong urge to take a walk around the palace, but then she remembered that her mother was a night owl, and if she ever got caught snooping around, she would get the scolding of a century. So she stared blankly at nothing, waiting for the first sparkle of dawn. “A little higher, Your Majesty,” requested the maid who was assigned to dress her up. She lifted her arms a little above her waist, giving the young elf more room to adjust the corset. “Zap!” went the rope, and the princess immediately jolted, her chest constricting in suffocation. She pleaded with the maid to loosen her grip so she could breathe properly. “Why do ball gowns always have to come with corsets?” she questioned, feeling the tightness of the dress ease, at least to an extent. She sat in front of the dressing mirror while two other maids decorated her hair. Speaking of hair, one of the maids had loud red hair while the other was tea-green; both their ears poked out and twitched. The twitching was a reflex action of all elves and it always made the girl laugh, but this time it didn’t. She looked out the window into the castle walls. “Can’t I go out to paint for a little while?” she asked, not to anyone in particular. The two maids just stared at each other as if they had just heard something of great lunacy. The red-haired one cleared her throat and said, “Hurry, Princess, we have to get you ready as soon as possible. Your betrothed will be here any minute. You can paint later.” The princess said nothing. They hated her silence and she knew it, but there was simply nothing to say. Moments later they were all done, and they asked the girl to take a look at herself in the mirror and tell them if she liked it or not.