To Come Home

Chapter 8: Seeds of Doubt

*Five days before Phentyssa's escape from Phentyllia*

The day had started like any other; I was up with the sun's light, when the sky was at its deepest pink and the birds sang their most beautiful songs. The sun would shine its warm, delicate rays on my face through the open window, and the wind would elevate me. It was my favorite part of the day, waking up, that one moment of peace, feeling the nature, woken up by Her beautiful light and the elements. Everything looked beautiful and perfect. The first thing I'd do every morning when I left my soft and feathery bed was walk a couple steps over to one of three large trapezoidal-shaped holes in the stone walls we called windows, and I would just stare out to the distance. I could see the many servants watering the fruit and vegetable gardens from my window at this time, and just beyond them, past the tall blue gates protected by guards, was the Phenra forest, the largest forest in the Phentyllian Kingdom. It was the only forest with Phenra trees, the ones depicted on the Kingdom Crest with Sapphires; they had blue, sparkling leaves on just one day in the spring every year, it would always drizzle lightly that day and the leaves would sparkle like diamonds. Every other day of the year the leaves were a shiny, metallic-lilac. It was also the deepest forest known to be, plentiful in vegetation, but even more plentiful in mystery - probably the most explored place in this entire world, yet no one truly knows how deep it goes. It was somehow calming to me to wake you up every day to the sight of the unknown, it reminded that there was always more left to be discovered, the search for knowledge was an endless one; I've always thought that to be quite poetic, I could forever live with meaning in my life, a search... even if my tendency to curiosity did tend to get me in trouble a lot of the time.

On this particular day, I had a Historical-Religion assignment to complete so I had plans to go to the Reading Centre (R.C.) and meet up with Elina to work on it. I headed to my Dressing Chambers to put on one of many long, silk dresses and headed down the marble steps to breakfast.

"Your late," was the first thing my father said sternly to me when I swung open the tall, golden doors to the Dining Hall.

I proceeded to bow deeply to him as I did every morning before apologizing, "sorry father," I'd respond plainly as I sat down at the table across from my brother Pherio, eight chairs away from my father at the end of the table. Pherio was clearly amused by my father's anger with me, as was custom, he lived for my suffering, especially when it made him look that much better to father.

"It's inexcusable behavior of a High Society, especially a princess. And you shall refer to me as King Phiskus today."

"Yes, King Phiskus, my mistake."

"What to do with you?" he'd scoff rhetorically as he'd shake his head disapprovingly. My brother of course would revel in this, trying his best to hold in his smiles of amusement at my failures, it was just another morning. The long, mahogany table was covered in large golden platters of cut up fruits, as well as fruit pies; they were delicious as usual – Cook Adria was impeccable, the things she could do with fruits and spices were incredible.

After a silent breakfast, filled only with the sounds of utensils clattering on plates and mouths chewing, my father would leave the room to proceed with his daily kingly duties, and I would bring my plate over to the kitchen

"Why do you [bother] always bring[ing] your plates to the Cooking Chambers, you know there are people for that right?" my brother asked me as I left the table with as many plates as I could carry, as I did every morning.

"I'm going to thank Cook Adria for the delicious breakfast, so why not bring some plates with me too and help those so called 'people' in the process?"