An Island for a Cloud

9.3 Cloud arrives in the city of blue sky

Thank you very much for reading this chapter. If you spot any spelling mistakes or awkward sentence structures, please be nice and let me know :)

Aleuta

Jule no longer understood the world.

Not only was he attacked by a green-haired monster, who looked awfully like one of the frightful Flizers, he was beaten by it and lying on the filthy ground spitting dirt from between his teeth. When the creature raised the stick aiming for his head, for one fleeting moment Jule feared for his life. It was a feeling he had never experienced before and it left him slightly shaken.

When the creature was finally subdued and thrown on the ground, Jule's fear was replaced with humiliation, and there was no stopping it. He had been defeated and embarrassed before his friend, Reas, who stood nearby holding his bleeding lip. It would have been half as bad if it had been only Reas. Jule could have easily ordered him to silence and nobody ever would hear about Jule's moment of shame.

But as it happened, it was not the case.

The scene had been witnessed by Minister Phorsis, the High Priestess and his cursed uncle Stenen, the only three people on the entire island who Jule felt slight respect for, although, if asked, he would always deny it.

The reason that he felt some respect at all for someone went all the way back to his childhood. They were the only three people on the entire island that could overrule his mother when it came to Jule's upbringing. Not even his father had that much influence. When one of the three had chewed on his mother's ears and planted some idea, there was no way even for Jule to convince her otherwise. And Jule could convince his mother of about anything. It goes without saying, that none of their ideas ever went down well with Jule. It was their influence over his mother, although he was sure that she hated each one of them in her own way, that planted in Jule fear.

It is not often that fear and respect go hand in hand, but in the case of a child that was hopelessly spoilt, only fear could ever create some resemblance of respect. It was therefore, the more humiliating for Jule's to know that they had witnessed his fall. The humiliation naturally turned to blind rage and all he wanted now was to make the culprit pay.

He vaguely noticed someone fretting over him, helping him to get to his feet, brushing the sticky dust from his cloths and hair.

"Prince Jule! Oh my! How could this happen?" the man cried hysterically over and over.

Jule looked at the short plumb man, recognizing Minister Hybenlook in him, Reas's father. The meaning of his words barely reached Jule. He pushed Minister Hybenlook aside and moved toward the creature.

"You!" Jule shouted in anger.

The creature did not pay Jule any attention. Her evil eyes were set on the man who had disarmed her, his dreadful uncle Stenen. Jule was too angry to ponder on why he was in Aleuta and no longer wore the red uniform of Leivrat, but the Aleutan black.

"I will make you pay for this!" screeched Jule lauder and grabbed a stick from the ground that had slipped out of his hands earlier. He wanted to throw himself at the creature and beat her black and blue.

Perhaps it would have been better for the girl if Jule had had his chance to let his anger out on her there and then. He would have forgotten all about the girl in a few days, convinced everyone that it was him who had beaten her all along and moved on to make someone else's life miserable. There were plenty other children for him to torment. But as it happens, Stenen, while meaning it well, had made the things terrible irreversibly bad for the girl. One day he would, of course, regret it, but those days were still far away.