A Peasant and A Princess

Chapter Four: Green

All I could see was the perfectly manicured grass of the palace gardens. It was green. So, so green. Greener than they had ever been before. Greener than the spring when I was eight, and it rained for days and days, and the grass seemed greener than Mother's emeralds. Greener my white dress after the day I tripped, and my whole sleeve fell into a bucket of concentrated green dye. Greener than anything in my memory.

The grass slowly became darker, and darker, but never seemed to turn to black. The grass seemed to solidify and harden, as it grew darker and darker and darker. Emeralds. The green green grass had turned to emeralds. I looked at emeralds, and in each one of the fist sized jewels was my face. I watched my face with so much intensity that my head felt like it was being pressed between boards.

Suddenly, my face began to shrink, and a realized that my body was being pulled upwards, out of the emeralds. I watched the emeralds shrink below me. I realized, as I flew upwards that the emeralds were positioned in lines. As I flew higher and higher, I realized that the emeralds, were not in infinite straight lines, but in a huge circle around a pit of black.

It was an eye. Suddenly, I could see all of the beautiful piece of art. Two beautiful eyes made of green green emeralds. Eyes that belonged to none other than the Mysterious girl who gave me a coat. Mallory Anne Huntson. The girl who refused to leave my mind.

**********

When I woke up, the world still seemed to be tinged with green. The colour was still vivid in my memory. I looked over at my clock. It was about three a.m. Around the same time of the fire. That had been over a week ago know, I realized. Had it really only one week since I met Mallory? I seemed like a mix between yesterday and infinity. Mallory. Mallory, Mallory, Mallory.

Why wouldn't this random peasant get out of my mind? I had never obsessed over someone like this before. Sure, when we had extravagant parties, and all Louisa wanted to talk about was the men visiting, I would comment some, and would occasionally think about them later on, but not like this! It was just Mallory, Mallory, Mallory! I wanted so desperately for her green eyes to disappear from my mind for even one second.

I hadn't realized I had fallen asleep, when the door creaked open. The smell of strong mint tea wafted into the room, and my eyes fluttered open involuntarily.

"Good morning, Your Highness," Whispered Jane. She seemed slightly amused at how quickly I had woken up.

I closed my eyes again, and the smell of the mint invaded my thoughts. I seemed to be at a wooden table. With a sweet chipper voice babbling about this and that. I opened my eyes again.

"Get another type of tea." I demanded. Jane grin vanished.

"Yes, Your Highness. Sorry, Your Highness." She scurried out of the room, and I closed my eyes once again.

**********

"So if her husband were a Viscount as opposed to an Earl, and she was still the daughter of a Knight, what would her title be?" Miss Edith droned. I had been studying the titles of nobles. I was supposed to have learned them all when I was seven, but with the introduction of the titles Belle and Forte,  Miss Edith had decided that I needed to relearn titles.

I wondered if Mallory's title would still be Miss if her sister were to marry a nobleman, or is she would become Belle.

"Princess Adelaide?" She asked. Her words floated by my ears without my hearing a thing.

"Princess?" She repeated. I snapped to attention, my notebook falling off of my lap. It fell on the carpeted floor of the library with a thud, that echoed in the empty atrium. I quickly glanced down at my fallen notebook. It had fallen face up. My hand shot down the grab the book before my mind could really process why I was trying to hide the pages. In the right hand corner of the left page, there was an artistic rendering of the letters M, A and L.

Since I like to pretend I have more readers than the nine so far, I'll ask you this, Please comment and tell me what you think of the story! Constructive criticism would be appreciated.