The Legend Of The Five Queens : Arabella's tale

Chapter 2: The Kingdom

The Princess taps her feet on the soft dirt as she lands in her kingdom. She decided it would be best if she lands behind the small shops to avoid being seen by others. She starts to make her way to one of the clothing shops at the back of the village. Grandella- the owner of one of the clothing shops- would surely not mind giving the Princess a new dress. Although Grandella will be worried about the Princess walking around with her dress being so torn and burned. No matter, she is royalty after all, and now that she has this magic stone in her possession no one can stand in her way. She starts to quickly make her way towards the little wooden shop being careful to not be seen. The back entrance of the shop becomes visible to her as she gets closer to it. The back entrance is a small delicate wooden door that's closed. Sometimes Grandella locks the back door and other times she doesn't. Hopefully today the door is unlocked, it would be a bit awkward if she has to wait for Grandella to unlock the door. To her relief the back door is unlocked, good this will be short and simple. The goal is to get in get a cute delicate dress and go to the castle to get a real Princess's dress. She opens the back door and swiftly makes her way to the counter in the shop. She quickly spots Grandella- a middle-aged woman with curly dark red hair that goes down past her shoulders. Her dress is a long dirty brown dress that is not of good quality, this woman loves that dress too much. The shop is small and cluttered with hanging dresses from the ceiling all marked with prices on a yellow tag. Grandella made all the dresses in the shop herself, she is amazing at making them.
"Psst Grandella," the Princess whispers just loud enough for the lady to hear. Grandella quickly turns around to her surprised the young queen is standing before her unexpectedly. She gasps and says, "Lady Arabella my God what has happened to your dress and what is that stone on your chest?" Arabella stands there speechless, she never thought of how she would explain to Grandella the event that occurred not too long ago.
"Trust me Grandella, you wouldn't believe me if I told you," lady Arabella says softly. Grandella takes another look at the stone.
"Very well. I am sure that I have something that should suit you temporarily," Grandella says as she shuffles through her various dresses.
The room is with bare wooden walls and a big table in the center of the room with a half-made dress, 3 other dresses are hanging off the ceiling in the back of the room. Grandella takes a look at the stone on Arabella's chest.
"That stone is very odd, is it burned into your chest?" Lady Arabella looks down at her stone and notices the burn marks around the stone.
"I found it in Mount Gorge. It just attached itself to me on its own. I don't even know why it did that"
"Maybe we should try to remove it just to be safe," Grandella says as she moves to put her hand over it.
"No, I do not want to try to remove it until I figure out just what this thing is. Maybe Cassandra will know something about it," Arabella takes a step back.
"As you wish Princess Arabella, I will keep this strictly between us," Grandella walks back to her hanging dresses and straitens them out on the rack. Arabella turns to looks at herself in a full-body mirror and inspects the dress. It is not something that the young Princess would wear but it is better than the last dress.
"Well, I must be going now. I want to see what my mother is up to," Arabella makes her way to the backdoor.
Princess Arabella exits the shop and takes a long deep breath of the outside air. Perhaps Cassandra can give her some answers about the stone.
The walk is a pleasant one, the princess eventually reaches the witch's shop. The front door is an old ugly black door with the bottom half of it being burnt. There are two old cracked windows in the front of the shop that shows off all the dark and mysterious items inside the building. Arabella opens the door and takes one careful step down to the floor in the shop. For some odd reason the shop went into the ground a bit, no one knows why it's just something that Cassandra wanted. Inside the shop, Cassandra sits in the back of the shop mixing potions. She has long curly blue hair that was originally black until she created a potion that can change the color of someone's hair into whatever color they want. People think Cassandra is weird because she is the only one with blue hair in all the kingdoms. Lady Arabella takes her time to carefully look at all the strange items that Cassandra has collected over the years, different weird-looking toys.
"Cassandra?" Arabella calls out. "Who's there?" The woman asks while looking at her new potion.
"I'm hurt Cassandra, you know who this is," Arabella says back. Cassandra stops what she is doing and turns around gasping softly.
"Oh, dear! My apologies I have been so busy with my new potions," Cassandra says. Lady Arabella giggles to herself and says
"Oh Cassie, I am sure you were," Arabella says while smiling at the witch.
"So, what do I owe the great Arabella?" Cassandra says as she moves her bottle of potion to the side. Arabella pulls the top of her dress down exposing the stone on her chest. Cassandra starts carefully walking to the princess looking at the stone.
"My God, I believe I have seen that before in my studies," Cassandra's eyes are as wide as they can be as she holds her hand in front of the stone. she then turns her gaze towards her bookshelf and summons a collection of books to her with her hand.  Her eyes glow green as the pages of the books flip as if she is reading all of them at the same time.
"Ah yes, I have found it. In the Tales Of The Unknown by 'Malin Akerman' " One of the books stays in Cassandra's hands while the others return to their places on the bookshelf.
"Who is Malin Akerman," Arabella asked as she looks at the open pages.
"Malin Arkeman was a man who studied things that the general public wouldn't, he had all these theories about different Gods who lived at the beginning of time. He also heavily studied powerful objects that are hidden on our planet. He also wrote about his discovery of the existence of 10 stones of power," Cassandra flips about halfway through the book, she lands on a photo that has a drawing of all 10 stones on a diagram of the human body.
"The stone that you have appears to be one of the 10 stones. The Fire stone to be exact. Each stone has its own special abilities. There is the fire stone, the water stone, the earth stone, the ice stone, and the lighting stone. The other stones have different abilities that are currently unknown. The stones are said to have a finite of power that can only be accessed by aging the users body. It's a trade that the god created when he made the stones," she explains. Arabella stands there taking all of this information in. She wonders just what she has gotten herself into by obtaining this stone.
So whenever she uses her new found power from the stone she is sacraficing her youth and beauty, seems like a fair trade. She guesses the god made this trade to keep the user from using the power carelessly. It won't be a problem Lady Arabella will mannage her power just fine and keep her beauty. Arabella runs her fingers on the stone again feeling its soft texture of it, she puts her hand down and picks up the book. Arabella comes across a drawing a photo of a strage being shaped like a man with 5 stones floating in a curcle in front of him. She stares at the drawing closing examining the firgure behind the stones, it's a tall man in a black with two curcle on both his arms and one on his chest.

"What's with these circles," she asks pointing at the circles drawn on the gods body,"
"According to what Malin wrote the god wore all ten stones at once that made him one of the most powerful beings in the universe," Cassandra replies.
"I don't have time to worry about other gods existing in this universe, I have a whole world to take control of," she thought to herself.
"Thank you for telling me all this Cassandra, I must return to my castle and put on a real princesses dress and think things through, this is all a little overwhelming for me," That was true, Arabella knows that she has to think things through. Right now she really just wants to get into her own personal tub and just think about all this new information. Cassandra gives the princess a hug and says
"You're welcome my lady, and remember your always welcome here. Unless your mother decides to kick me out," a small giggle escapes Arabella's lips.
"Well, my mother is quit busy with negotiation with the other nations. So you're the least of her worries for now," Cassandra pulls away and looks down at the old book. She closes the old book and walks over to her unfinished potion and picks it up.
"Well I have this potion to finish and you have to return to the castle," Cassandra states boldly. Arabella nods and walk out of the room heading to the door way. Gods? Different stones? It's all out of the norm, Arabella makes a mental note to not tell anything about what she just learned for she knows that no would believe her story. She doesn't want people to start spreading rumors saying she is crazy. Arabella opens the door and walks out of the witches shop and takes in the fresh air. The castle isn't that far from the witches shop and it should be a fun short walk due to everyone in the kingdom liking her.
She walks to to the castle greeting people left and right and smiling sweetly at everyone. When she reaches the doors that lead to the inside of the kingdom the knights guarding it stand up striate instantly.
"My queen what has happened to your royal dress," the guard on the left asks. Both guards are standing side my side each with a sword in their hands ready for battle. Lady Arabella runs her hand down the guards armored chest and says "oh wouldn't you like to know," the guard stands there silently.
"My lady-"
"Enough! I was teasing you, open the door," the princess cuts the guard on the left off.
"Yes my lady," he says. He and the other guard turns towards the front doors and opens then. Lady Arabella straitens herself up and proudly walks into the castle.