About Crystals and Stars (On hold)

4-2

A/N: Here you go. Second part of this chapter. Have fun!^^

The world started spinning, when her consciousness returned to her.

Within the darkness surrounding her, she felt like being tied to an endlessly turning wheel.

Her throat was constricted with nausea as she regained consciousness.

Turning to her side, she carefully breathed in and out. Her head felt heavy and throbbed in pain.

The wheel slowed down, giving enough space for the pain, that throbbed through her, starting from her stomach. With a moan she squinted an eye open.

She had no idea, where she was.

The blurry image showed a wall with dents and splints visible in the shower of daylight.

Turning around, she noticed, that she lay on a soft ground – a futon. She hissed when she rolled over her strong hand. Looking down, she saw it wrapped being wrapped up in bandages. Slowly memories of her hitting wooden pins to unlock prisoners' cages appeared in front of her inner eye. Was she in some kind of prison herself now?

She turned her body once more, this time more careful about her hand.

When she was finished shifting her weight to the other side, she saw a small room. Light broke in from under the irregular planks of the wooden door. There were sacks of rice and ground wheat in a corner. A stack of eggs was placed on some kind of cupboard. She smelled the scent of dried meat filling the room. Another wave of nausea hit her and she moaned.

Fortunately this wave faded into a bearable headache after a few deep breaths. At least she knew now, where she was. She had to be in some kind of storage.

Just then she heard a knock on the door. Rising herself into in an upright position, she called the person on the other side of the door in.

The door opened, blinding her for a moment with the bright sunlight streaming in. A figure darkened by the shadows cast from the light in their back stood within the frame. Blinking her eyes, she could recognize the figure was Jinya-sama, carrying his staff in one hand and a tray in the other. The rays of light were filled with sparkles of dust levitating around him.

"Good morning, Mayura-sama. I hope you are well rested." He walked into the room and placed the tray on the ground in front of her.

She looked at the bowl filled with rice and the tea standing beside it. She felt hungry and nauseous, looking at it. She should have ate something yesterday. "Where are we?"

"The storage room of a small tavern of Gaja. We were lucky, the escaped prisoners went riot, so that we were able to escape unnoticed. I wanted to make sure though, nobody could recall your face."

Her face?

With a gasp Mayura reached out for her hood, but instead of the roughen cloth her fingers touched her soft hair.

Shocked Mayura stared ahead. She was frozen. Who had seen her like this? Was it possible Jinya-sama knew about her true identity?

Perhaps – perhaps she was lucky and he hadn't heard about the princess of Narukami, having uniquely blonde hair fading into green. In the city of Narukami everyone knew. That's what she heard from Rokuro at least. Unlike her he could walk around, without being noticed as someone special. He wouldn't need to cover his face and hair to stroll around the city and had listened here and there of people talking about the princess with the fair hair.

She dropped her hand from her hair to her lap. Her eyes jumped to him. He was standing there with a stern face. Yet his eyebrows were slightly curved. In suspicion?