"Your Majesty, The light has reached the inner portion of the commoners' district!"
"We must take action this instant! Or the vampires may break in."
"The incident from 5 centuries ago cannot repeat itself. Especially since the princess' birthday is in four days. This is supposed to be her rite of passage. Her sixteenth birthday."
The King lifted his hand from the armrest of the large throne in his meeting room to pinch the skin between his eyes.
'This wasn't supposed to happen", the King gritted his teeth, "She was never supposed to let it out."
~
There was nothing: no blood, or corpse, or guards rushing to the area to check a certain body that was supposed to be there.
Emilia squeezed her eyes shut, and reopened them.
Still no body.
'What?', 'Where is that man?', 'Who was he?', questions seemed to rush through her.
She tried to recall what happened. A man about two years older than she had appeared under her bed, and fell off a balcony on the fifth floor, but left no traced of his 'death', if he even died.
'Guess I'll suppose you are male.'
She could at least remember how he looked like- his fit body, broad shoulders signaled that he was male... Yet its face seemed to be too feminine to be male, but to manly to be female.
Its eyes seemed to change from big and round to sharp and lean when he stood up behind the bed.
She slumped backwards, onto her mattress, staring at the frosty ceilings.
"Did he even exist?"
Or maybe she was just overthinking, and he was just her imagination, or she would not have been so calm... or would she have?
Emilia reached out to the far side of the bed. She pulled out a certain red-purple leather book, and began to read it, yet again.
~
The hole grew, and the commoners' district was practically flooded. But Emilia didn't dislike it... it made life seem more similar to the stories she was reading.
Waking up in the morning to the bright, yellow sunlight, occasional shades as the light grew brighter, and softer, the gradient of dark orange and yellow when it was time for dinner, and some kind of grey-blue light at the end of the day.
She found the changes fun to watch, since she had never lived with anything other than Icuvell's glow-stones. The cycle of light became something of a clock, or a schedule, to her. It was convenient.
~
Two days passed since the stranger left. Emilia had holed herself up in her chambers for two different reasons: the main reason was that post-party social interactions, which included greeting guests from outside kingdoms and potential suitors, was a pain, and she could just have the palace servants do it. And the other reason was that she wanted to skim through that suspicious book of hers, to check if a guy like him actually exists.
A large hole on the back of his shirt seemed to be for wings. And they sprouted from the lower abdomen, meaning that he was either some kind of bird-human or half dragon. But a half dragon probably would have caused a ruckus flying out of a secluded kingdom such as Icuvell.
Meaning that she could not possibly have hallucinated him, since she had never actually seen one herself.
Then saving himself from death and escaping would have been an easy task for him.
But... what would a bird-human be doing in an underground space like this?
With so many questions yet to be answered, Emilia continued to search through whatever the palace library had to offer, which, really, wasn't much. Full of legends surrounding Aoxis that had probably no connection to the actual legend whatsoever. After all, the King had ordered all information regarding it to be sealed, confidential.
They were still pretty fun to read though.
Sitting down at the the corner of the room, she continued to browse through her tall stack of books for any kind of clue, despite how sparse that would be.
~
"Your Highness..."
Soft whispers seemed to be seeping through the thick doors to he room. A person was faintly knocking at the door.
"Should we just open it"
"No. Definitely not. This is the princess' chambers, second in line to the throne... How could you think of entering without permission."
"Then what should we do?"
The whispers continued.
'They know I can hear them right?', A frown grew on her face. Well, she'd have to get up at some point.
She sat up, her eyes still sealed from her drowsiness, "Come in..."
The door creaked open, the sound of wheels and tapping feet entered... as well as some loud gasps.
"Your Majesty!"
"Uh huh...", Emilia slowly forced her eyes open.
The table. A table was in front of her. Her arms were crossed and she seemed to have been resting on them since night.
"Oh my..", Isabelle approached Her Majesty, "Emilia, we must prepare for the party in two hours. Today, we celebrate your sixteenth birthday."
Isabelle. That made sense. Had it been anyone else's voice that spoke the name 'Emilia' without any honorifics, she would probably have acted out.
Emilia groaned, and stood from the chair where she slept.
"I guess I should get ready then."
Two hours slowly passed by. The maids prepped her and made her pretty: She wore a puffy blue skirt that reached the top of her knees, the tail of her dress wide, and smooth. It had gold patterns stitched into it, which glimmered brightly, even in the glow-stones' light. They had given her gloves, as well. These especially long, thin gloves. Emilia never did understand why it was necessary for her to wear those on important days. Her hair was shaped into a bun, and clipped on with a navy blue flower-shaped jewel, her bangs and a small cluster of hair was left to rest at the sides of her cheeks.
They seemed to have put more patterns on it than it had last time.
'Can't wait for this to end already...'
