The Queens Of Duren.

The Cell

Neha's POV
I'm looking at Annika thinking of how much I miss being able to hug and kiss her (I'm not able to do so as we are chained to different walls on opposite sides of our cell), how her beautiful blue eyes sparkle when she smiles and laughs, how those same eyes seemed to pleas with me when she was getting close to her snapping point when the court would argue for multiple hours without stopping. Our sweet little Aanya looked just like her, well, except for her eyes, she has my golden eyes. Our sweet little princess, no, queen, she would be queen since we disappeared and Duren wouldn't be able to go without a ruler. I wish we could've guided her to be the queen she is today, a great one, if the new prisoners we occasionally get are to be trusted. Yes, prisoners, after we charged the King of Dragons that dark mage, Viren, locked us up in a prison inside some mountain in Xadia. We were stupid to ever trust him, but we were desperate to get help for our kingdom as it was going through a draught at the time and we didn't have enough food saved up for winter.

"Neha, love, what has you thinking so hard?" I hear my beautiful wife ask from where she was chained.

"Anything and everything, Annie, anything and everything." I respond to the love of my life.

"As in?" She asks, pushing for specifics.

"Aanya, Duren, you, the draught, the stupid mage." I tell her, listing off a few of the many things that have been on my mind for quite a while.

"Explain your thoughts to me, love." She tells me, "You know I always want to know what is going through your mind."

"I just..." I start, hesitating to remind her of painful memories. "I wish we could've been there for her, Aanya, I mean. I wish we could've been there to guide her to be the queen she is today. We were idiots to trust that stupid mage. If we hadn't listened to him then we could've been there for her for the last nine years. Nine years, Annika, nine." I blurt out, my voice trailing off to a whisper at the end of my rant.

"Yes, if we hadn't listened to him we would probably be with her right now. However, it would've been selfish of us to not take his offer as half of our people would've died." She tells me, being the voice of reason, as always.

I think over her words for a minute or so "Words as honest as always, Annie." I tell my wife, making her lips twitch up into a soft smile.

"Zym, get back here!" We hear a voice with a Scottish accent yell and footsteps coming our way, and fast. Suddenly a blue blur flies into a wall at the end of the hallway that looks into our cell.

"Ha, gotcha." We hear the same voice from before and see a female moonshadow elf standing in the doorway of the hallway. She walks to the wall and pulls the blue blur which turns out is a small dragon. It is only when she turns to leave does she notice us.

"Uhh," she says looking between the two of us. "Wait," she says suddenly after a few minutes of awkward silence. "Ya'll look like two of the people Callum drew in his book." She tells us, "Hold on a sec," she says running back the way she came. "Hey, Callum! Get in here, slowpoke!" We hear her yell to someone outside before she walks back to stand in front of our cell.

"I'm coming." We hear a familiar voice reply to the moonshadow elf. The boy, Annie, and I all gasp in shock when he steps up besides the elf girl.

"Prince Callum?" Annie and I say in sync, both of us shocked.

"Queen Neha? Queen Annika?" The prince of Katolis asks, also shocked. "Aren't y'all supposed to be dead?" He asks us confused, if the look on his face is anything to go by.

"It's a long story, Prince Callum. One we would be much more comfortable sharing if we were unchained and far away from this prison." Annie responds to the prince while also hinting for him to get us out of here.

"Oh, uh, right." The prince responds, snapping out of his shock. "Rayla, can you please?" He asks the elf girl besides him who nods in response and walks forward with a sword in hand, probably to pick the locks.

A Few Hours Later

"And, so, here we are." My wife finishes up the story of what happened after we charged the King of Dragons while I'm sitting beside her just hugging the life out of her.

"Woah." Prince Callum responds. Annie and I laugh at his response, me kissing my wife's cheek right after.

"So," I start afterwards. "Tell us, how is our daughter? Is she being a good queen? Has the court, the advisors, and/or the regent have her meet any spouses yet?" I ask him a few of the many questions that I have concerning our daughter.

"Well, Aanya is doing good. She is an amazing queen, I'll tell you about her reign in more detail is a few minutes. As for the spouses, I'm pretty sure they have mention the idea to her but she shuts them up before the full sentence even leaves their mouth. The regent, well," he winces, "He kinda sorta tried to kill her saying that she was too young to rule and so she killed him in self defense." He finishes answering my questions.

"The regent did what?" Annika and I exclaim in sync.

"Um, yeah." Callum responds, "You might want to get used to hearing that if you want to hear the full story of her reign so far." He tells us hesitantly. We both nod.

End of Chapter.
1000 words.