The Dark Princess

Brooke

HA. HA. HA. Milo has passed out twice in the last chapter alone! HA! Sorry that you had to miss out on two and a half chapters of my non-full-of-myself humor. (By the way, this is Brooke.) Anyway, Milo tried to cover it up, but he's a weakling who passed out twice in one chapter. Wait, did I already mention that? Oh, well, no harm in saying it twice. Often you have to do that to effectively rub something in someone's face, but I guess you probably want to hear some of the story, right?

When Milo cried out, I admit I was a little worried. Based on what he'd told me, anything from the porrige magically geysering out of the bowl and into his face to the cell door collapsing on him to a tree falling through his window could've happened. I dropped the prisoners' dinner and ran back down the hall. Milo's back was facing me, so I asked what was wrong. All I heard was an agonized groan as he tried to turn and face me. Before I could really see anything, he collapsed, unconscious. His head was facing the side, so I could see a blood-stained twig coming out of where his eye should've been. More blood was dripping off the end of it at an alarming rate. I ran upstairs to find someone who could help, but naturally everyone was at dinner except for the servents. I couldn't see a soul anywhere in that corridor. I ran back down the stairs, wondering what I could do. I didn't know much magic, not enough to make it so he could ever see out of that eye again, but maybe enough to stop the bleeding.

I threw open his cell door, but hesitated to enter. What if his bad luck wore off on me? What if he almost died again, but I got in the way and died instead. Then again, I thought, what if Mary has me thrown into the dungeons because a prisoner died on my watch? This thought convinced me to go in, regardless of any other consequences.

I knealt by his side and flipped him over . . . and almost threw up on him. The wound was that bad. I won't describe it; for your sake.  I tried the spell. It didn't work! I whispered the words again and again, vaguely aware of the pool of blood swiftly gathering around his head. "Come on", I hissed under my breath, "this has to work!" I tried it again, and was relieved to find the pool of blood slowly shrinking back into the wound. I was suddenly aware of the green-blue light filling the cell. Of course! I wasn't concentrating my efforts on the wound! I used up a little more energy and pointed it all at the point the stick had punctured. There was a sudden flash of green-blue that momentarily left me blinded. When I had blinked away the spots in my vision, I saw that I had succeeded, and not only that, but Milo was waking up! I rushed out of his cell, but locked the door just a little too late, and he saw me trying to make a getaway.

"Wait!" he yelled, "what did you do?" I didn't look back as I ran for the stairs.

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Milo got an eye-patch, and his vision remained blurry in his unharmed eye. Well, not exactly unharmed. I avoided him as much as possible, and when I had to go down to the dungeons, I ingnored him as much as I could with him happily launching food at his wall. Though I couldn't resist laughing when a grape bounced and hit him in the nose. The scornful laugh made him smile, though, and ruined all my fun. Or rather, poking fun. His curse appeared exhausted after the eye incident. That is, until I lost my temper. That's actually the reason he finally finished his "mission".

I was told by Mary to go downstairs and feed the prisoners after about a week had passed since the eye incident. I reluctantly walked down the stairs, hoping that Milo wouldn't hit himself with a grape again. As usual, he was launching food at the wall. He stopped when he saw me at the door, and grinned as an evil idea came into his mind. Still grinning, he readied a spoonful of two-week-old mashed potatoes for launch. I realized what he was planning to do just as he did it, and looked up just in time for them to land in my face. I completely lost it. I spat the potatoes out of my mouth and flung it from my face, fury coursing through my veins. In case you couldn't tell already, I have a bit of a short temper. Anyway, I burst the lock with a short flare of white-hot fire and shoved the barred door open. "It's on, and this time, you aren't going to beat me." The words fled my mouth before I thought them. Of course they weren't true, at least, the last part wasn't. Milo was staring wide-eyed at me, thouroughly scared for his life. 

Now, the next part is a little embarassing, but don't you dare poke fun, because I'm a lot better at magic now.

I fired a concentrated beam of energy from my finger, and Milo ducked out of the way, still frightened for his life. What he didn't know was that it was just a highly concentrated beam of light, seeing as that was the first spell that popped into my head. All it could've done is momentarily blinded his one good eye, except he ducked out of the way, so it did nothing that could've even tried to help me. He naturally went to the door, and so I mentally pulled on it, and it responded to my will, closing but unfortunately not locking, seeing as how I had made the lock explode. Milo rammed against the door, but I kept holding it. He looked at me in astonishment. Apparently I was all alone in the catagory of people that could do that. He gave up trying to get out the door and faced me, holding up a finger. Darkness flowed from that finger, and I tried to put up a protective shield. It broke, literally making a sound like shattering glass, and some of the blackness came through, enveloping me in a grayness similar to the light of dusk. I held my ground, refusing to go unconscious like last time. I tried to dispell the darkness, but once again, my magic didn't work for some reason, and as Milo shot more at me, I finally succumbed to sleep.