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Queen Carac was a neat woman. With Caraca in her reigns and a halo around her head, she was powerful and imposing but less in the sense of a ruler, though she was a good one, or a legacy, though she was sure to leave one, but more in the sense of a grandma, sure and certain yet wrinkled and squishy. She was anything but a grandma or haggish-like, yet that was the exact word that came to everyone's mind when her picture was conjured. The mind chose to not see her diplomacy executed by clean tricks and calculated pawns, but an exchange in plates of cookies and tea parties instead. Though it was fully believed that she truly did frame her sister, and have her exiled in greed for the throne, she had somehow convinced her entire country that she was nothing but a pair of freshly manicured nails and not the claws that hid right underneath. Perhaps in that manipulation she was more villainous than her actual actions.
Queen Carac had been on the throne for the past 50 years. Now well into her old age, it was a known fact that she would soon de-occupy the throne. But then the question arose - who would be the next heir? Once upon a time, this queen had had a king and she had two children with him. A girl and a boy. Princess Aura and Prince Aurean. The Tyrian virus had killed Princess Aura at the age of two. The King had followed soon after. Prince Aurean, still alive, seemed the sensible and viable option for the next heir. But something about his libertine face and broken manners made officials cringe and reconsider. The Queen herself, though she would never say it out loud, seemed to agree that he was simply too Aurean to be a ruler. Messengers from Esterham reported that the kingdom was looking for someone outside the royal family to now be a ruler. It was also reported that upon hearing this news, Prince Aurean burnt down parts of the castle.
Nia often wondered about him. His story. She was absolutely caught up in him. This crazy man. Aurean. His stories worded him a spoiled, selfish man and perhaps he was just that but Nia couldn't help but wonder if he was just something completely different and opposite. For her, he was the prince who cried gold tears because he ate parts of the Crown as a child. Aurean was her fairytale prince. She thought about the crazy lady who'd once told her Queen Carac kept an untamable, immortal dragon tamed in her yard. The very dragon who brought fire to the land. She wondered sometimes if that dragon was Aurean. If Aurean was that dragon. If maybe the crimson fire it breathed was really Aurean's blood, symbolized. Or the scales were his armor shaped in words. Maybe that dragon was the only thing crazy enough to properly capture Aurean's crazy. A grownup, timber voice inside her told her to stop daydreaming. She had never met the prince. And if she played her cards right she never would. She didn't know his crazy. She didn't know his fire. She didn't know his armor or his eyes. She didn't know him and pretending otherwise was a waste of time.
She dropped the prince, but held on to the dragon. Nia didn't believe it, but neither did she disbelieve it. She felt the need to give each myth an amount of credulity and respect by believing that even if it weren't possible, it wasn't impossible. It would be hypocritical of her, she thought, to believe in the Cervauxian foxes but not the Rurg Dragon or the Licity Butterflies. She wondered if they were others out there who believed in stories the way she did. Who would believe in her Cervauxian foxes. The thought of it made her frozen blood thaw just a bit. She wondered if she would meet the person in the country's capital which was where they were headed. Esterham.
It sounded much too ... mundane. Meagre. A word that didn't match up to its rumors and fame. It made the eyes crinkle and her lips pout in consideration and cringe. If it were upto her, she would name it something that made the speaker taste the exquisite butter it's people made. And the cobblestone streets. And the glittering bay. And the shouts of sailors pulling in their ships. Something that sounded as magical as 'Cervaux' did. Not Esterham which sounded more like a distant breed of chickens. Her mother had told Nia that once when she was very little, they had gone to Esterham. Just the two of them. And Nia had loved it. Of course, Nia did not remember this. And she highly doubted if it were Esterham or the town square just outside of Cervaux that had a sprinkle of charm to it as if it had diamond sparkles cut out of paper stuck to the buildings and towers everywhere as if it were saying, look at me. I'm shiny. Maybe not. But I'm trying. I said LOOK AT ME. While the looker was obviously, not looking. Meanwhile their senses were probably caught up with Calix's broken voice and mishapen face moving around words about Esterham and its pretty little people. The voice that had ignited a spark in Nia's young blood that had been moving with excited velocity painting her Esterham. Perhaps Nia might have romaniticized it a bit too far. Perhaps she thought the butter was sweeter than what Calix said as someone who had actually tasted it. But she doubted that Calix, someone who had been to Esterham and lived for two years and not a highly implausible three day trip as a seven month old, might just have looked at the landscape with a dreary lens. And she who never ever overestimated things was right.
Trudging along the snow glistening in the night, Nia listened to her thoughts. The tiny little storymaker she'd pulled out from long sealed memories. The Nia who had dreamt of Queen Carac and Aurean and Esterham. That used to be all of her, she thought. Not just a tiny part of her, it was her. And now it wasn't. Now she looked at it as a piece of her that could entertain her now dreary mind as she walked to her death. In her mind, she sat like a grandpa in a sunken armchair in front of the fire watching a little girl dance and tell him stories and curse Calix for his blindness and giggle when she tripped over herself, wondering to himself what a stupid, little, gullible thing she was. Now when she thought about Esterham, she didn't think of the green trees that would give Cervauxia trees a run for their money or the smell of warm butter. She thought of the clack of soldier's footsteps on the streets, the bayonets in their hands. The shiny gates of the castle that hid the hellish dungeons beneath especially made for frauds like her. Unwillingly her gaze fell to the boy and she thought of Aurean. Her tattered heart tried to beat faster and failed.
A long time ago, when Nia was a young girl, a story came to town. A story that followed the news of Princess Aura and the King's death. The words captured the essence of a young prince who was kidnapped. By who? the wind seemed to whisper to her, as if it could hear her thoughts.
They still did not know. It was one of the great mysteries that had settled in the bones of the dead and the mud of the planet. A mystery unsolved. The entire country had been in panic. Everyone hustled, looking for the prince, under trees, over mountaintops, under petals, inside lost towers. After months of searching, a royal guard heard a cry of a babe tinged with royalty. Aurean was found in a hut a few miles out of Esterham. It also happened to be the very hut where the Witch of the West was rumored to live in. The country let out a collective exhale of relief. The Prince was returned. The guard was awarded. The people were happy. But Nia knew a different story. A story that fell behind the curtain of this one. A story that explained the boy walking behind her but it was far too insane.
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Author's Note: Hope you enjoyed!! Come back for the next part and please vote!!
Love,
Cora. ✮
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unraveled
Fantasy"I've seen rats with better attention spans than you," she said onto his face. And then the boy was there pulling her onto her feet and off of him. "But have you seen them with such beautiful faces?" he asked, standing up, brushing off th...
