The Five [EDITING]

Chapter One: Waking

ALIENA

   "Princess? Princess, can you hear me?"

   I came to, gasping as I sat up sharply, nearly knocking heads with my maid and friend, Nania. Good that we hadn't knocked heads, seeing as mine was already pulsing sharply. I winced. Even as I did, I felt a wetness flow out of my nose and over my mouth, turning icy cold in the bitter wind. Quickly, I wiped the liquid away only to stare in surprise at my snowbear mits and the blood that tried seeping into the fur. Violent red on white.

   "Princess? Oh, Aliena, you've got a nose bleed." Nania quickly rummaged in her sack, then came out with linen squares. She handed one to me and I put it to my nose as quickly as possible as she asked if I was alright.

My head was still reeling from the images and so I replied with a question of my own, "What happened?"

   "We were walking, Princess, and you---"

   "Walking?"

   "Y-yes, Princess. To see the wolves, remember? Anyway, we were walking and you simply.... you collapsed, miss, and I was unable to wake you." As if speaking iy  suddenly reminded her, her voice went fearful again. "Oh, Aliena, are you alright?"

   The ache in my head was abating and once I moved my nose to a cleaner part of the linen, I was pleased to see the bleeding had slowed. "Yes. I believe so." I told her. "Help me up?"

   "Oh, but perhaps you should---"

   "It is cold, Nania. The snow is soaking through my furs."

   She quickly agreed to helping me stand, fifty years of putting the royals comfort before her own desires or opinions making my words move her instantly, then she stood herself before grasping my arm and pulling me to my feet. I felt a slight dizziness but it left shortly afterward. The ache in my head pulsing with each movement.

   We moved across the snow to the shelter we'd made with the travelling furs. Inside, Nania helped take off my snowshoes and then loosen the layers upon layers of fur needed to keep one warm at all times this far north. Satisfied that my nose was no longer bleeding at all now, I handed the bloody cloth to Nania and she left the shelter to get it some distance across away from our camp. By the time she returned, the ache in my head was gone and I had my furs hanging while I was curled up in the bedding.

   She secured the fastenings in the leather against the growing wind, then sat herself down, taking her own snowshoes off, then tackling her furs. Once they were hanging next to mine, she crawled carefully into the bedding next to me and touched my face with an icy, wrinkled, calloused hand.

   "What happened out there, Aliena? I was afraid I would be unable to wake you."

   My fingers went to the glass eye that hung from the chain around my neck. They clutched it against my chest, feeling my still-pounding heart vibrating through it. "I believe I may have had a vision." I admitted, my voice only able to be described as awed.

   Nania let out a gasp. "Tis true then! You have a spirit of a snowbear inside you!"
   I waved away her comment. "No man or women can have a spirit inside them, Nania, you know this. Do not believe those old rumors." At the age of eight, I had accidentally come across a snowbear den and in my shock, had leaped away only to find myself falling through ice. Never will I forget the heart stopping cold of the black, salted water, or what it felt like to be absolutely sure that I was going to die.

   I had somehow managed to pull myself from the water onto the ice, but soaked as I was, it did little to warm me; I passed out from cold and exhaustion and remember nothing else.