Enchanted

Part 2

Close to death

The music stopped, all eyes were on the carriage, guards brought Jason, the King, and Queen of the Northern kingdom and Princess Sarina to the stage where Jason's parents had stood up out of their seats. The towns people were backing away frighteningly, gasping at the horses. They looked as if they had been beaten, you could see their bones under the thin layer of skin and the carriage looked as if it was a one-way ticket to hell.

There was a loud gasp and a struggle in the crowd then someone ran to the horses obviously crying. The door swung open and two people stepped out. The woman's skin was stretched out over her body so you could see every bone, she looked positively sick. The man was broad and muscular though he looked starved. One look at the two and Queen Ellen let out a terrible wail and ordered someone to fetch them food, water, a stool for each, and for the doctor. A short pudgy man ran into the building at the far-right corner and came out with a suitcase, two other men got chairs from a nearby table and set them behind the two. Moments later four women came with food and drinks for the unknown quests to have while they were being checked up on by the doctor.

"Ellen dear, you are too kind, and I fear that is why we have come," The woman spoke with a voice not much unlike Roses but there was something dark in her voice that you could not miss.

"Shush now, Ember when the doctor is finished checking up on you, we will take you and Theo back to the castle so you can rest, eat, drink you need it. I don't think I have ever seen someone so skinny," Ellen said to the woman before her, as she rushed toward her. She looked at the men that came with her dear friends and said: "You too need to eat, and rest, you shall be given a sleeping courter, for as long as needed".

"Thank you, ma'am," said the footmen and coachmen at the same time before they bowed and took leave for the buffet.

Queen Ellen walked to Rose next who was trying to calm the houses down. "Rose is it? Why don't you feed and water them? When the doctor is done, he can tend to the houses wounds".

"Your majesty I'm sorry but I was not taught how to heal an animals wounds," Said the doctor timidly.

"S-so they'll die?" Queen Ember said sadly.

"Oh! No please no I know how to tend to their wounds. I can help them," tears were falling down Roses cheeks as she begged her Queen to let her do a mans job and heal the horses.

"Go on then, do it," Queen Ellen said, looking at Ember, a warm smile spread across her face as she gazed into her friends eye.

* * * *

"Why didn't you tell me? We could have sent out a search party," King Remus asked his old friends, King Theo and Queen Ember, as they walk to the stables after lunch. Theo and Ember had arrived the day previous and after a quick checkup with the doctor and something to eat were sent straight to bed. When they had awoken at lunch, they ate with Ellen, Remus, Jason, and the family from the north, then got word that the horses were in the royal stables and started walking down to see them at once.

It was a bright sunny day with barely any clouds, not unlike the day before, the grass was green and the bushes pruned to perfection, bees were buzzing from flower to flower, and the birds were chirping. The only negative thing about it was the conversation, first, it had been about war, then about politics, and now the worst of all, a stolen child.

"We didnt know what to do, and we didn't want to bother you with it," Ember had started to say before getting cut off.

"Bother us with it! YOUR CHILD WAS STOLEN!... forgive me. Ember, Theo, you are like family to us we would have sent as many people as we could to look for her," Ellen had lost her temper and was struggling to regain it. She plucked a flower as she walked by, a buttercup, Ellen had told Jason when he was younger than her mother had always had buttercups around the house to brighten things up. Jasons grandmother had died before he was born so he never got to meet her, so hearing these stories about her always made him feel better.