The Queen || ✔

Chapter 21: Queen's Happiness

Claudia

"What are they like?" Hera asked me interestingly.

We had just boarded the private jet and the flight was silent, not tense, but silent. I thought that she would be asleep, but she was wide awake, sitting across from me in the cream leather seat, and smiling attentively at me. She looked like her usual angelic self. My little lamb.

"My mother and sisters?" I asked her, making sure to tease her just a little.

"Duh, Ma! I want to know everything!"

"Everything?" I smiled, not realising how long it had been since I last thought about them.

"Yes, of course! What did they look like? What were their personalities? Who was nicer? Who was meaner? Who was smarter? Was your mother beautiful? Did you guys do anything together? How often did you fight with each other? Did you tell each other secrets? What did you and your sisters talk about? Who do you look like the most, your mom or dad? Your mom, her name is Sarah, right? I actually have a grandma? What..."

"... Hera, breathe." I said to her with wide eyes, bringing my hands up and bringing them down again, showing her how to breathe, in case my silly little lamb forgot. She giggled and also breathed in and out, in sync with my gestures.

"How long until we land, Blade?" I asked Blade who was sitting behind me, facing the opposite way. He was on Skype with his daughter, Elizabeth.

"Five hours." He said to me, sounding very cheerful, then turned back to his laptop. I looked at my little lamb and smiled.

"Five whole hours of storytelling, I don't even know where to begin."

"Start with my grandmother, Sarah."

I leaned back onto my seat and Hera also got comfortable.

"My mother was beautiful. An eye catching woman with an amazingly strong personality. She loved us like crazy, never letting us feel any pain whatsoever. She was tall, also dark-skinned like me, but had wider hips and a bigger smile. She was strict. Very, very demanding. If ever any one of us did something she didn't like, she wouldn't leave the situation unresolved. She would roll her sleeves all the way up to her shoulders and put her motherhood to work."

"Sounds like someone I know."

"Oh my, I don't even come close. That woman was crazy! Once, when I was still thirteen, a boy came over to the house because him and I had a project to work on together. I was expecting your grandmother to come back home late, but she walked in on us playing with wood glue."

"What did she do?" She gasped, placing her soft hand over her mouth in shock.

"She almost made the poor boy swallow up all of the glue left in the bottle, and then made me clean the whole entire house, and the dishes, and both hers and my dad's car, in three hours. If I wasn't done by then, she told me that she'd make me wish that I was never born."

"Did you finish?"

"Of course! And with three minutes to spare, I almost lost my life that day."

We both laughed out loud and my nose crinkled up from all the stomach sores I was feeling. I hadn't laughed out loud in so long, I forgot that such pain could come with so much joy.