The Mearsmaine Chronicles 1 - The Return of the Queen

Chapter 11 - Let's Give Mr. Grumpy a Birthday Party

'Billions of people and weird creatures spread between the two worlds and had got to be stuck with you?' Elizabeth asked her black haired friend as soon as she opened her chamber's door.

Nathaniel threw her his ever sarcastic smile. 'You're right, you are a really lucky girl.'

Lizz gave him a mean look and, not bothering to answer, she grabbed her (or his) cloak and walked out of her room, closing the door behind her. She wrapped herself in the dark blue cloak, which went really well with her even darker blue dress. It was cold that day, since autumn had already arrived. Autumn... Elizabeth thought. I've been here for months now. Although «here» had basically become her home and she didn't mind it, not anymore. The girl gazed the elf walking shoulder to shoulder with her, noticing, for the first time, that he had a very elegant way of pacing around, his back always straight, chin up and his grey eyes looking ahead. The Queen composed herself, trying to imitate his way of walking and miserably failing.

Elizabeth sighed and Nate side looked the girl. They had both grown used to each other's company, since they didn't have much choice. Nathaniel, for some reason that Elizabeth completely ignored, had decided to follow her everywhere, since the moment she woke up until it was time for her to go to bed. The only break she got from him was when Lewis or Nigel were around: fortunately, that happened several times. In fact, Nathaniel was just accompanying her to their presence at that moment, as this was the day of the Royal Guard's parade and, as second responsible of the Guard, Nate had got to be there, side by side with Nightock. Truth be told, the black haired boy hated this day: he didn't see the use of a Royal Guard's parade. However, even though this was the first time Elizabeth was going to participate on it, she hated even more. Why is that? Because the Queen was supposed to receive the Royal Guard at the gates, thanking them for defending her and her people.

So, given the circumstances, both the elves were not exactly looking forward to that morning's events and, therefore, their bad temper was showing... Badly. As they walked in Nigel's room (although Nigel himself wasn't there), they found a blond naked Lewis sitting on the bed. Elizabeth looked at him, smiling: beauty must run through her family's blood. Even ignoring his drop-dead smile and big brown eyes that would make every single girl melt, if it wasn't too obvious that he was not into the feminin sex, Lewis was a very attractive young man: his handsome and happy face did go very well with his straight light-blond hair, which was always very well brushed, letting his frangs fall a bit over his eyes: this gave him a bad boy's kind of look, contrasting with his innocent face. Elizabeth's cousin's body wasn't painful to look at either, since you could see his more or less defined arm muscles and six pack in his pale nude skin.

Lewis smiled at both his friends. 'I had no idea you too would arrive this early.' He stated. 'If I had, I would have dressed myself. After all, we don't want to put nasty thoughts into Nathaniel's mind, do we?' He joked, winking at his best friend, who rose both his eyebrows at him.

Nigel went in the room at that moment, greeting the new arrivals and throwing himself on his small bed, beside the naked Lewis. 'I hate this day.' Nigel informed, not giving an explanation for that, though. One thing all of his friends had already learnt about the brown haired boy was that he basically hated everything that envolved getting out of bed.

Lewis smirked and gazed Lizz and Nathaniel. 'You two will get out now, because I won't show you anything else of my perfect body. Shoo!' Elizabeth made a very sad face, letting go of a giggle after, while Nathaniel rolled his eyes, telling his blond friend that he didn't need or want to see anything else.

Nathaniel leaned on the wall, outside the room, while Elizabeth stood in the middle of the corridor, looking through a window at the Royal Guard, which was already outside, preparing itself for the famous parade. Most of the men were being kissed by their proudful wives or girlfriends, or maybe just their momentaneous lovers. The girl bit her lower lip, a gesture that got Nate a tad intrigued, making him gaze the direction she was looking at.