Royal Strings {DISCONTINUED}

~{•Chapter Two•}~

Another day, another sparring tutor gone. Esmeray had always loved to mess with the tutors just enough to make them quit, until she found the one she liked. Esmeray had had over thirty writing tutors, sixty reading tutors, and over twenty sparring tutors. There was one tutor that Esmeray really liked. His name was Taylor. But he died in the first war he had participated in. The current tutor, Lilah, had quit due to Esmeray's careless mistakes on where to swing and stand and not caring enough to fix them. Now, Lilah had to go and talk to the king and queen to talk about leaving the kingdom on her first day, thus starting another circle of looking for another tutor that dared to take the job. At the very least, Esmeray didn't have to swing swords with scarred hands from guitar.

Though, Esmeray did know everything she was taught about sparring, she had a picky taste in tutors. Most of the sparring tutors she had were either too violent, or were just flat out dumb. But Esmeray burned through them like the amber flame burns through the cedar wood. Once Esmeray got close to her mother and father's throne room, she heard her, now old, tutor's voice and then her father's roaring yell. Esmeray never flinched at it as she knew her father would never do anything as much as a king would. But she did find it a bit nerve-wracking so she sped up her pace to her room so she wouldn't be seen and could hold the lecture off long enough to play a bit of guitar. That's when she found herself in front of her father, her king and her mother in the back; sitting on her golden throne that was just a bit smaller than her father's. Her old tutor was in the back with a look on her face Esmeray couldn't place, though it wasn't a positive one or maybe it was.

"ESMERAY! ARE YOU LISTENING?!" Her father roared.

Esmeray knocked herself out of her thoughts and looked at her father. Or maybe it was her king. She didn't know how to address him at this point.

"Yes father, apologies." She said calmly, showing too much emotion would result into something Esmeray didn't want to experience.

"WHAT ON GOD'S HOLY EARTH ARE YOU DOING?" He shouted "SENDING EVERY GODDAMN TUTOR WE OFFER YOU HOME?! DO YOU THINK IT'S FUN? DO YOU THINK IT'S ENTERTAINING?"

Esmeray took a sharp breath in before replying.

"No. Father, I don't."

"THEN WHY?!"

"Because evey tutor you give me is violent or plain dumb. I think you are so desperate to get me a tutor that you forget I have feelings and different learning abilities. If you would take three seconds to think, maybe we wouldn't be in this situation, father." Esmeray explained with a calm voice.

The room fell quiet. No one had really stood up to the king, let alone with calmness.

The king's face dropped maybe realizing Esmeray was right, maybe with shock someone had stood up to him. Either way, it frightened everyone in the room. Whatever would happen next wouldn't be a positive experience. Esmeray was already on her way out of the room due to the lack of response from her father.

"ESMERAY" He shouted. "YOU GET BACK HERE OR I'LL-"

"Alaric!" Her mother shouted. "She's merely a child. A seven year-old."

The king seemed to calm down by the time Esmeray had darted out of the throne room. She ran to her room and slammed her door, locking it. She slid down the door, hot tears streaming down her face. Her throat seemed to have a ball in it, clogging it to the point it made her throat dry. Her sobs filled the quiet room and her voice was small and weak.

"I'm sorry.." She didn't know who she was apologizing to. Herself? Her dad? Her king? Whoever it was, she knew they couldn't hear her. Perhaps, she didn't want them to hear her. For the rest of the night, Esmeray quietly sobbed until her face burned with salt and glowed with red.

Esmeray woke to her back against the door and a small, dying, pool of presumably tears underneath her legs. She had been hugging her knees the entire night, sleeping through the stormy night. No one had knocked on her door for the entire morning. Esmeray just wanted to pretend an argument didn't erupt between her and her father just the night before. Live in her own fantasy as she did when the occasional argument happened between her mother and father about having to have another child to help with the kingdom as 'a girl could never run an entire realm by herself' Esmeray always found that phrase dumb. Mother and Father didn't want another child but they wanted to help Esmeray with ruling the domain. Esmeray helped herself up and unlocked the door. She peeked outside and decided she needed space.

She ran to the courtyard and sat under the old willow that sat behind the castle. Next to it were bushes of yellow and white roses. The butterflies were not around as there was a storm the night before so the grass was wet and the air was dewy. She sat on the ground and breathed in the fresh, cold air and forced it out. Then in, then out, then in, then out. Listening to the birds and her breathing, it always helped with stress.

A little later, the king emerged from the rose bushes with a bright smile.

"Esmeray!" he said rather casually. "Me and your mother have great news!"