Jupiter Rising

Chapter Thirty Six- Hazel

Upon a moonless night, many decades ago, a young princess met a rather intriguing handsome man. He was charming, and his ability to enthral her at such a young age was somewhat easy. Embarrassingly so, but that's what a first dalliance with romance is like, you see the world in their eyes... and you believe every word they spin.

She had lived her entire life being perfect, and doing everything her Mother and Father told her. First in line for the throne, her duty, always to others. Princess Hazel ached to do something rebellious, but every step she took was observed heavily by her staff. Those her parents had hired to watch her closely. There was only one who gave her the ability to slip out of sight, her little sister Willow. She provided the perfect distraction on command, and her fake tantrums were well known in the Oak, her little feet and fists thumping loudly upon the floor to get herself seen and heard. They were the only two daughters of the King and Queen, and despite such an age gap, Hazel adored Willow, and Willow would have done anything her older sister had asked of her.

And so this night, Hazel slipped out of her chambers, and as she did so her little sister stuffed her bed with pillows so that she wasn't to be discovered by the staff on night watch. Hazel didn't know where she was going at first, but she had heard her father mention that a human had made a home far too close to the border of our world. A human!! Hazel was intrigued and desperate to set eyes upon him. She had only heard of them in the books upon her library shelves, and she was keen to see if they were as ugly as described.

The human however, was not ugly. Hazel sat and watched him from a tree at first, peering in through his windows and watching him eat his supper and sit beside his fire. She became so distracted by him that she slipped out of the veil and into the human world quite by accident.

Princess Hazel, heir to the throne of Olamoore, outside of the veil, and so close to a human that she feared he may hear her breathing. Her father would have had her chained up in the cells if he knew.

She would visit frequently and observe him, and each time she left she felt a little more obsessed with him. He was so dreamy, nothing like the Fae Prince's she had encountered at the balls.

One night, upon his windowsill, she observed him with a woman. They had dinner and spent the evening in deep discussion whilst laughing and throwing back liquor. Hazel felt so jealous she couldn't bear it. She was furious. If anyone should get to sit with this man and have dinner it should be her. She liked him first, she was the one who thought about him incessantly and wondered how he was when she wasn't with him, and yet he hadn't even spoken to her nor knew of her existence.

She had to find a way. Hazel was stubborn, and it was this one quality of hers that was about to get her into trouble. She didn't listen to Willows worries about her night visits nor her own gut instinct that this wasn't right. She just wanted to kiss him! One kiss would surely not hurt?! She would one day be Queen and this man would be forgotten, and she would think of it fondly as her one and only act of rebellion. She needed this. One night! What would it hurt?!

Hazel spent a whole day within the library, reading books with her friend Bell. Her friend had no idea that Hazel was working on using magic to transform herself into human size. Both were obsessed with the idea of love, but her friend had no idea that her energy was being siphoned a little. Hazel had worked out how to mix some ingredients together with Bells energy. She added two incantations, and mixed together with the prick of her finger, she had successfully created a serum that would change her for the night. It wouldn't last, but the night would do.

The night came. Hazel successfully transformed the moment she left the veil. She didn't know how to approach the little cottage or how to introduce herself, but she just knew she had to.