The Bald Princess

~Nineteen~

Beauty is just a word, dame until you walk down the aisle with me.

Atarah

I never thought, I'd walk towards the woods again. With every step, I was getting deeper into the forest. It was still dark, my eyes could barely make out the way but my instinct led me in. I knew Warrior Duncan would be here. He must have also known by now about my arrival. He always knew what I thought, what I was going to do next; and I was sure, he also knew about my cause of arrival. After what felt like hours of walking, I stopped when I saw Warrior Duncan standing in front of me.

He was wearing his uniform— white plain shirt, dark pants and a red, stone studded overcoat. His hair were combed back sleekly. And just when my eyes met his dark ones, the moon decided to unveil itself from the cloud, making his face to shine partially under the moonlight. He was gorgeous. Like the Gods had hired one of his finest artists to carve his face. Gem like eyes, chiseled face, sharp nose. Though there was a scar that ran down his left eye to his chin, but it only made him more beguiling.

"Evening, Warrior Duncan." I greeted, bowing my head down and I heard him grunting. His eyes focused on me, his fingers holding on his sabre tightly.

Unlike last time, he was on his guard, alert and attentive— ready to attack. The softness that once embraced me in its warm aura had now gone cold. It passed chills down my spine. My eyes could barely look away from him, and not because he was gorgeous but because his eyes often made me see things that made me freeze. Some days his eyes held stars, some days they held storm and some days they held an universe.

"Never thought, I'll ever see you walking this route again, healer. What brings you here?" His commanding, low and professional tone made me blink for a second. Had I really expected him to be unguarded, relaxed and soft with me all the time we would meet?

I tried to act normal too. He looked very normal. Like he hadn't just revealed me a few days ago how we are soulmates and how he is a vampire, the real royal in the kingdom. But I couldn't act normal when he stood in front of me, staring straight in my eyes, right into my soul.

"You know what brought me here, don't you, Sir?" I asked thickly and he rose of his brows, folding his free hand back on his back.

"Yuri's words brought you here. Am I right?" He asked calmly, no trace of hesitation, angst or apprehension in his voice. Only if I had the confidence he had. His eyes told me how he had the authority to intimidate other by just looking into their eyes. I blinked out of his gaze, looking away from him. His eyes made me lose myself into them.

"Hm. She knew that I know you're a vampire, Warrior Duncan. She even told me that she can see people's past through their eyes and that she is an angel." He looked at me carefully, taking a small step forward but this time I didn't take one back.

"But?" Warrior Duncan asked as if he knew there was a but in my statement.

"But she is just nine! She jumped down the building because she thinks she is an angel with wings and can fly. One second, she acts like a child, so immature and the very next moment, she acts like she knows the truth, I'm still unaware about. You know of her, right?"

I asked and Warrior Duncan slowly, animatedly nodded his head, leaning against the tree as he placed his sabre down on the ground, making me gasp for the umpteenth time. He did this again. He placed his weapon down again!

"Yuri wasn't lying, healer, she is an angel and no, she isn't just nine year old. She is indeed the youngest angel of the heaven but she is not a kid." He said, amused and my cheeks heated up under his gaze. I licked my lips, staring up at him.

"And does her foster mother know that Yuri really is an angel?" I asked and Warrior Duncan opened his mouth to answer but closed it back before letting out an airy chuckle.

"Would you believe me, healer if I said there's no answer to your question?" He asked with his predatory smile, his fangs protruding out of his lips, making me lick my lips in anxiety. He made my heart to bounce inside my chest, he made me wish to liberate it so that it can find its peace. I blinked out his reverie, shaking my head.

"What?"

"Like I said, healer, there's no answer to your question. Yuri is an angel and there's no denying in that and even Fuji knows Yuri is an angel, she just doesn't know what rank. No angel tolerates abuses at such high rates, healer and that must have made Fuji think that Yuri is just an ordinary angel unknown to the fact that Yuri is Moon Goddess' daughter. No wonder, she is letting her husband to abuse her without actually thinking of any consequences that would accompany their karma." Warrior Duncan said, his eyes held the bloodlust. It looked like he wanted to harm Fuji and her husband.

"So Fuji is intentionally letting her husband to hurt Yuri? But why? Yuri is an angel, why would someone dare to hurt the resident of heaven, especially the Moon Goddess' daughter!" I asked, shocked and Warrior Duncan smiled, shaking his head.

"She doesn't know whose daughter Yuri is. And Fuji is not intentionally trying to hurt her but she is not either stopping her husband from abusing Yuri so that makes her even more responsible to Moon Goddess' wrath. Her soul will forever pay for hurting Yuri." He said with his lips curling up in a sadistic smile.

"Then why can't we stop this abuse? It doesn't matter if Yuri is an angel or a human, no-one deserves that kind of abuse and hatred, Sir." I said, my voice shaky but strong. Peculiarly strong. Warrior Duncan rose his brows up, his eyes suddenly lost its humour as he was staring at me with his daunting gaze.

"How hypocrite you are, healer. One way, you say no-one deserves the abuse, be it an angel or a human and the very next moment, you silently endure all the pain inflicted by people because certainly the concept of self love is for others and not for you, right?" He asked, his voice undesirably dark, stern and sharp. His words hit me harder than King Alfred's whip. I flinched back, my breathing getting harsh.

When I didn't had anything to say, he snorted angrily. The fire in his eyes burned me in places, I never knew were left unexplored.

"Have no answer now, healer? Or wait, self love is not a concept for ladies who have no hair?" His voice was low but it stabbed me harder than any weapon, making me wince. He was angry, I could tell.

"I know how it feels to hate yourself everyday, Warrior Duncan and that's the reason, I don't want Yuri to face the same. It doesn't take much time for us to accept the words the world throws at us. It doesn't take much time to turn people's hatred into self hatred. I have come to a point, Sir where I find my solace by blaming everything at myself and only I know how destructive it really is." I confessed under his spell. He didn't force me to confess but his eyes didn't let me keep the truth to myself either.

"Yuri is an angel who can only fight back when the pot of the enemy brims with sins. Fuji and her husband still have some space in their karma pot. And the day, even a single drop of their sin fell down from their pot, Yuri won't be nine year old girl anymore. She is an angel who examines people's karma to give them justice." Warrior Duncan explained, his voice was still fierce but less angry. I quickly looked away from his gaze when his eyes bored into mine. I was insecure of what else he would see inside me. I was dark inside.

"And what about Fuji's husband? Why does he hate Yuri so much. She is his foster child, after all. He is like a father to Yuri, then why mistreat her?"

"Fuji and her husband— Barato never adopted Yuri, healer. Fuji is a witch, an old unsuccessful witch. She got married to Barato a century ago. Like I said, Fuji was an unsuccessful witch and she couldn't predict much about people so when she fell in love with a random boy named Barato, she didn't realise even until her marriage with him that Barato is a demon who had escaped the Hell. And Barato used to abuse Fuji post their marriage but Fuji was so dependent of Barato that she didn't had the courage to leave him for his abusive nature instead she started fearing him, she started fearing his beatings. Yuri couldn't see her biggest devotee getting abused so she decided to help Fuji." Warrior Duncan explained and I furrowed my eyebrows, tilting my face as I looked at him in confusion.

"Fuji was Yuri's devotee?" I asked, shocked and Warrior Duncan nodded his head, his sadistic smile still persistent.

"Yes, she worshipped her as Mother Goddess' daughter but still doesn't know that Yuri herself is the Goddess, she worships even today. So like I said, Yuri came to the earth to help Fuji but when Fuji saw Yuri as a child, she felt an immediate connection with her but her fear from her husband was too high that she thought of using Yuri as her sheild. So now, Barato abuses Yuri instead of Fuji and Fuji has lost all her humanity because now Yuri's pain doesn't really affects Fuji."

I couldn't believe, the nine year old Yuri who was making faces while drinking the medicines was the daughter of Moon Goddess and is an angel. She was just in a body of nine year old, she herself wasn't a child. I blinked at his words. How overwhelming it was for me to know that many creatures exist in guise, we think are humans. How many more patients and people were hiding their reality? How many times did I come in contact with such creatures unknowingly?

"How do you know so much about Yuri, Fuji and Barato?" I asked and Warrior Duncan smiled, shrugging his shoulders. There was something in his eyes that told me his answer would astound the daylights out of me.

"Yuri and I share the same father. She is my half sister, healer." He said and I blinked at his words. Half sister? Moon Goddess' husband is a vampire?

"My father wasn't Moon Goddess' husband, healer. They just fell in love one day and had Yuri. My father was married to my mother who was also a vampire." He answered my unasked question and I didn't knew if he was okay with his father having another woman to love and make another child, leaving them alone. Or maybe there was a story that didn't made his father a villian.

"I wish you would've asked me questions directly instead of voicing them in your mind, healer, I would be more than delighted to share my story with you. But since you want to know, my mother and father fell out of love one day. They had lost the spark, they once had and decided to part their ways. My mother found a human to settle with, who provided her a daily requirement of blood and my father eventually fell in love with Moon Goddess and had Yuri. But a few years back, my father died because he mistakenly drank from the pure breed's blood without her permission" Oh.

"Is your..... is your mother alive?" I asked and he looked at up at me, his lips curled up in another smile, his canines falling out of his lips, making my heart to churn.

"Very curious, aren't we, healer?" When I didn't reply, he laughed. "Let's meet for dinner tomorrow and not in your infirmary, I'll take you outside."

My eyes widened at his offer for dinner. I licked my lips as my heart stuttered inside my chest. A dinner date with him?

"Yes, healer, a dinner date with you." He answered, making my cheeks to flood with color, making him chuckle. "I wanted to take you out on lunch but you have patients to look after. I think dinner shall be fine, right? I'll see you after your work tomorrow, okay? Until we meet, healer, take care."