Juliet's Trail of Petals

Chapter 1: Part 2: Peace

When I leave the place where me and my fiancé are happy, I wake to the scent of the oils my beloved puts in her hair to make her smell like the lilies on the flower crown she gave me but a week ago. As I stand to look outside of the window to the right of my bed, I glance at Harrieta as she lies in a mess of my sheets and blankets. I notice the delicacy in her pose and the way her skin shines in the sunlight as she sleeps. The way she clenches the bedsheets where I laid before, and how long and pretty her lashes are. She captivates me. Every inch of her is perfect, like she is incapable of harm, and yet so powerful she could force an army to surrender with her gaze alone. The way her freckles lie on her pale face representing the sheer number of hours I've spent thinking of her. And her chest moving up and down synchronized with her deep and shallow breaths. And as my thoughts linger down her chest and to her waist, I remind myself that I wanted to check the time of day and the sundial in the garden. When I check to see how bright it is outside, however, I realize I could hear my father yelling and getting louder with the heightened sound of his enormous steps that he takes towards my door. I realize it's only around mid-day from what I can see through my window since the sun is still in the middle of the sky, so he must be mad that Harrieta had not gone to work yet.

I brace myself for the bang on my door, when I know that Harrieta's peace and mind will once again be disturbed by my father. As he does so, and the sound of thunder roars through my room and up the stairs where she lay, the delicate rose in my bed springs up, and I answer the door to my bedroom.

"WHERE IS SHE? WHERE HAS SHE GONE? LET ME INTO YOUR ROOM IMMEDIATELY!" He screams as if he thought I would allow him to enter my bedroom to once again torment and spit more venom at the already falling petal.

"Will you relax and speak to me like a king and not a child? If not, then I will not speak to you for the rest of this evening or until you decide you want to speak to me like a man and not a baby throwing a temper tantrum," I said as calmly as I could manage with my blood boiling hotter than that of the suns face and my face turning more red than the freedom roses in the garden.

"Where is she Al." He said through gritted teeth and eyes like that of a snarling cayote.

"You no longer have the right to call me Al, only those who give proper respect to my future wife will be declared as close to my heart, you will call me by my given first name. Besides, It doesn't matter where she is. She is no longer of your concern. From now on the future Queen will live as a princess should. She should not serve food, nor clean dishes as long as she's alive and also be future or current ruler of this land," I know he has nothing he can do but ask questions and become angrier at my saying this.

His face grew to be more red than the plumpest tomato picked last harvest, and I could see the volcanic ash and smoke spilled out in the form veins. But as soon as he opens his mouth to yell and spit at me, I hear the steps of an angel walking down the stairs and towards the door where me and my father stood.

"Please your highness, I just want to live at the side of this land's future king, and my future wife. If you could grant me that wish I would be eternally in your debt," She bows and my father smirks because he knows she's too kind to contest his answer.

My father's expression is one of pure satisfaction, and so he begins to open his prod mouth. Except he is once again interrupted before he can get a single word out, but this time it's me who would do so.

"Excuse me but that is no longer up to him, Harri," I say as I turn to face her, feeling bad that I had snapped at her "in case your memory is slipping as fast as your hair is graying," I say with a sarcastic hiss like that of an angry cobra as I turn back toward my father "you put me in charge of the castle's staff. We both signed the bottom of the parchment that said that very thing. If I choose to allow Harrieta not to work, she will live as my fiancé, and future queen, is to live. Just as mother was to live with you before your coronation."