''Don't you remember, little flower?'' he asked, his voice low and melodic, ''Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.''
''Perhaps,'' I whispered, ''But Shakespeare was referring to a man...''
He cocked his head in confusion, his eyes growing darker...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Death makes me act weird.
Funerals are strange enough- putting a dead body six feet under covered in dirt- but sprinkle in a bit of my relatives? Well, now that's just a good time.
It was bad enough that I barely knew half of these relatives, yet they all looked at me now as if they were expecting something from me. And, I suppose, they were.
Which is why I decided to ditch my own father's funeral.
The funeral was in Scotland and, lucky for me, the drinking age was only 18. Sneaking out of my grandmother's manor house would be quite tricky, what with all the nosy relatives pretending they gave a damn about my father milling about down the hall. I paused for a moment, thinking.
There was a window in the bedroom I was staying in... and a tree next to the window.
I glanced down at the black funeral dress I was wearing. Not ideal tree climbing wear, I'll admit, but it would do for now. Quickly, I made my way to the window and pulled it open. The freshness of Edinburgh's afternoon spring air wafted into the bedroom, filling me with a strange sense of calm.
I was halfway out of the window with one foot firmly on a branch when there was a knock at the bedroom door.
"M'lady?" a deep, accented voice asked on the other side of the door.
Recognizing the voice, I knew I had very little time if I wanted to escape the falsity of my relatives and the unnecessary pomp of the ceremony. Both feet were planted firmly on the sturdy branch, the edge of my dress tearing a little on the bark of the trunk.
"Way to ruin a perfectly good funeral dress," I grumbled to myself, poking my finger through the hole in the black tulle.
The door opened.
"My lady? Is everything-" Cedric's dark- completely silver- eyes widened as they met mine outside the window. Standing on a branch. I smiled, sheepishly. "Damn it, again?"
"I'll be back soon, I promise-"
"No, no, no," my bodyguard cut me off, moving toward the window with a speed that was certainly not human, "you are not doing this. Not again."
I grinned a little, the fresh air blew through my long hair and my eyes met Cedric's once more. My bodyguard watched in a mixture of annoyance and exasperation as I gave him a little shrug before stepping off of the branch and landing lithely on my feet.
Glancing up at the dark-haired head that was poking out of the second-story window, I noted with some interest that he was trying to follow me. His dismount from the tree was much more graceful than mine. I groaned a little but continued running toward my mom's rental car.
I closed the door just as Cedric caught up to me. He smacked the window with his palm and tried for the door handle. I rolled the window down halfway.
"Really?" I remarked, "you think I don't know how to lock a door?"
