Once Upon A Servant

Chapter 1: Journey

"Pull the sails up! His highness needs to get to the Kingdom on time does he not?" The Captain says to a young sailor boy. The boy nods frantically and runs to pull the sails up.

"Captain Mark, good to see you again." I say walking up to him as he turns. "Ah, Lira good to see you as well. How's being the King's Handmaiden going?" He asks scratching his long beard. "It's going quite well. He's still the same as always." I say.

He chuckles. "Yeah who knew one day your best friend would become king." He replies smiling. I smile back.

Yes my best friend was king. And I hadn't really planned on being his servant until he called for me to be in the position. I still remember the day he was chosen by the last king to take his place. The last king never had any heirs. But since John's family went to take the harvest and some food to he king every month, John became close to the king. He talked to him and sat with him. And the king grew to think him as a son. So when he was about to die he told the royal advisor to make John king.

And that's how my best friend, John became King of Crisnopa.

The sails blew in the wind suddenly as it picked up force. They flew about wildly. Dark clouds hung in the distance and the sails threatened to rip off.

Captain Mark looks to the storm and his eyes widen, "Jim! Get the sails down! Soren prepare the hull and pull everything above down in storage. We're gonna hit a big one!" He yells while hurrying to the wheel to guide us through the on coming beast. "Lira, go tend to his highness and stay there until someone gets you." He says. I nod and hurry to the bedchambers.

"Master, we need to secure somethings in here, a storm is coming." I say bolting the door and making my way to secure one of the closet doors. John hurries and folds the metal bolt down in its metal latch of the window. He then hurries and shuts one of the chests.

As we finish up the ship suddenly lurches to one side and I am thrown across the room. "Lira!" John screams grabbing me. I brace myself for a painful landing but John keeps his grip on me and pulls me into his chest, holding me close. As the ship turns again to one side almost turning over he still holds me with his strong arms.

The lamp above is thrown of it's hook as thunder rumbled and the waves tossed and turned. "We need to go check on Captain Mark." He says moving to the door. He unbolts it and turns to me. But he then looks around and grabs some rope, tieing one end around his waist and then tieing the other around mine. "Stay close to me, don't want to lose you." He says before opening the door.

Wind rushes in and rain pelts us down as we make our hard journey to Captain Mark. I know he told me to stay in the chambers until someone got us but you can't deny the king. If he's going out you go out.

Captain Mark scrunches his face as he struggles to keep the wheel from turning the ship the other way. "Captain Mark! How big do you think this storm is?!" John shouts over the wind. "Don't know your highness!" He yells. Suddenly the wheel makes a snapping sound and spins out of control. "Starfish..." Captain Mark says as the ship begins to turn.

It suddenly turns chaotic. Everyone is running around, rain is peltin us down and the wind is trying to take over. And it was winning. As Mark tries to fix the wheel I turn to see a wave as high as the castle towering over the ship. "Lira!" John yells as the wave comes crashing down.

Everything seemed to stop. It was all slow. And all I could do was stand, my wet blonde hair flying in the wind wildly as I stared at the dark water coming my way.

John grabbed me just as the wave came crashing down on us. And everything went black.