The Princess and The Beast

Chapter 4

Like most days, I sat in the stoned frame of my window that over looks everything from the village that surrounds my home to endless trees that seem to travel for miles on end. As I sit there my mind wanders to my deepest thoughts and imaginations.

I imagine a perfect world where there is no wall, no separation between our village and the outside world, and even more perfect, no separation between species. My kind and Lucius' kind living peacefully amongst each other. A world where no is forced to marry but rather marries in passion and love for each other. I picture my hand enveloped in Lucius' as we say our vows to an everlasting life full of happiness and our families surrounding us sharing the same joy. In a perfect world I would see my father holding onto my mother as she cries tears of joy and he smiles longingly and lovingly at her remembering the time they shared their vows. I could see my brother happy for finally living for himself and not following what he's told. I imagine peace. This is what peace would be like. I grow content with these images that I had formed in my head and wished that I could open my eyes and feel relieved that my hopes and dreams are a reality.

A knock on my door causing the images of my peaceful world to disappear as I open my eyes to the dreadful reality that I have been placed to live in.

"Come in" my voice breaks the silence after no sound was heard after the soft knock and no one had entered my room. Just as I expected one of the maids slowly creaks the door open and peaks her head inside before the rest of her body follows suit. She was one of the younger maids anywhere around my age maybe even younger. Her soft doe eyes glance up to look and me before the return to her hands that lay in front of her, twiddling amongst themselves.

"Your majesty, King Volkihar-" I give her a look as she mentions my father and she pauses a moment as her voice starts to shake and her words begin to stutter.

"-your father sent me to gather you" she barely lets out as she lets out a breath of relief as she finishes her sentence.

I sigh as I get up from my comforting spot in the window frame and begin to walk towards her. She takes a slight step back almost losing her footing but is quick to steady herself. This poor girl, my father must've said something to raise her worries.

"Very well then, shall we go?" I inquire as she looks at me confused as if she expected me to give more of a fight. In any other time I would've told the maid to leave me unbothered and my father to hell with it but Nikolai is gone now and I made a promise to try to stay on my best behavior so here I am trying.

The maid gives me a soft smile before she nods lightly and opens up my door again and exits to lead the way. As we walk out of my room down the dark corridor my eyes travel the the many paintings scattered across the walls. Some of the art was gifted to us, beautiful recreations of all sorts of sceneries in nature. Others were portraits of the past and current Elders, my mother and father, Nikolai and I, and finally a woman. The woman in the painting was beautiful and I couldn't help to wonder if the painting even did her complexion justice. Her frame was thin with pinkish plump lips curved at the edges in a small smile, her eyes were small but wide and a vibrant red that were encapturing, and her hair fell in long dark ringlets that framed her porcelain like face. A gold plate was nailed into the stone wall beneath her frame.

Adela Volkihar

No one really spoke much about her. I would question mother and father about her when I was a child and they didn't have an answer other than she was my grandmother and she is gone. They never explained what they meant by she's gone. I just assumed it meant that she passed and how, I don't know. There would be gossip among the other kids that she is the princess from my mother's old stories but it seemed bizarre. They were stories she would tell us to provide us entertainment, they were stories and nothing more. Yet there was still a side of me deep down that was curious if the any of the stories could possibly be true.