Chapter 3 - A First Meeting

“Zebedee!” The familiar voice of a girl called my name, but all I see is darkness.

“Zebedee! Wake up!” The girl yelled.

I slowly opened my eyes, only for the sunlight to pour into them instantly, causing me to roll sideways and rub my eyes. When my eyes got somewhat used to the sunlight I squinted towards the direction the voice came from. The realization comes fast, as I see who is calling out to me, Angy, a younger version, from the time we first met when she was 12 and I was 8. The realization that I am dreaming comes quickly. It feels as if I am simply watching an old memory on a big cinema screen.

“Angela from two houses down?” I said while I continued rubbing my eyes, “What are you doing here?” I asked.

“Your mom told me to come find you!” Angy giggled with an open smile, revealing a missing tooth.

“Mom? What does she want?” I said in an annoyed tone. “And why is she sending some random kid to find me?”

I never got along with my mom, even before I got drafted into the military I didn’t like her much, but to be honest, I didn’t like anyone besides Angy really.

“Mmm, I dunno?” Angy said while touching one finger to her chin.

“You’re supposed to ask so you can tell me, dumb kid.” I said as I lay back down, Angy seemed offended by my remark.

“Hey! Why would you call me names?! And I am totally older than you too!” Angy shouted at me in a higher pitched whine.

This version of Angy is the one I am used to, childish, easily offended by my snarky way of speaking, and utterly clueless to the whims and reasons of other people.

I looked at her face, even being the child I was, I could tell she was holding back tears. I looked towards the ground.

“Alright, sorry A-” I stopped in my tracks as I looked towards Angy, only to see tears start streaming down her face.

“H-hey?! Whattaya cryin for?!” I said, even though I had a feeling she was just a sensitive person, The thought of an older girl crying because of my childish insult bewildered me.

At the time I didn’t know how to comfort someone, and honestly I didn’t even get why she had cried, I didn’t feel like I was wrong in anything that I said. I simply thought she was being sensitive. So I did nothing, I just watched her desperately rub the tears from her eyes as they kept flowing. The memory of the day we first talked stems from her crying, and me doing nothing. After that, I did everything in my power to make Angy happy. For 4 years I did just that, up until she was gone without a trace

…

Darkness fills my vision, but as I start to regain my consciousness I can see the bright sun piercing my eyelids and causing a reddish yellow glow to fill my vision. At the same time I can feel something poking my cheek, something sharp, but not like a knife, as it only causes my cheek to itch. And in an instant all the memories from last night fill my mind.

“Angy!” I scream as I remember the events that happened before I went unconscious.

“Wah!” A voice screams to my left.

Almost instantly my tunnel vision towards the thought Angy is broken, my gaze shifts to my left in the direction of the scream. Only a few inches from my face is a random girl, she looks strikingly similar to Angy, the same black hair and blue eyes, she looks young in comparison though. She’s looking at me with a shocked expression, only now do I realize how close we are.

I rise to my feet and look towards the end of the alley way, clearing my throat in the process, “H-hello.” I say trying to brush past the awkwardness.

In response the girls once shocked face, now looking up at me, bears a more confused look, as if she is analyzing my appearance. Before I can say anything else to break the silence, she begins to talk.

“Are you from here?” The girl asks.

“Am I from here?” I ask in response.

“The capital…” she clarifies with a twinge of suspicion. I squint at her, she seems suspicious of me for some reason.

“I’m from the outskirts.” I say plainly.

“The outskirts? As in?” She asks.

I click my tongue, “Hey Lady?” I say and she stares at me with a hint of curiosity in her eyes. For some reason the urge to be snarky and annoying burns deep within my heart.

“Wouldn't you like to know, you creep.” I groan and turn away, ready to walk away.

“Hey!” She grabs my shoulder, I turn back to see her face, red and twisted in anger, “Do you have any idea who I am?” She says in a shaky voice.

I scoff at her, “Huh? Why would I care who some homeless bum is?” I say as I get more agitated at her audacity and also ramping up my own purposefully obnoxious way of speaking .

“Oh yeah?” She says with a furious smile on her face.

I pause, she seems like she is trying her hardest to not assault me with words or even worse her hands, but the urge to push her buttons burns strong within me.

“Yeah… You bum.”, I say, my only goal being to make her even more mad.

“That’s it!” She goes into a blind rage, she starts to swing at me with her fists, but since she isn’t even looking at me while swinging she is missing every punch. Without much effort I caught her arms.

“Calm the hell down lady! You’re not even landing any hits on me!” I shout as she tries to break free from my grip.

Suddenly she grabs hold of my shirt and pulls me towards her. Is she pulling me in for a hug? Such a weird girl, I guess this is how people here apologize for being ignorant bastards, I close my eyes and get ready for a loving embrace, but I feel my stomach drop.

*Smash*

What’s that noise and what is this pain in my back, I open my eyes only to see the sky. The pain only gets worse as I try to get up from the floor.

“A-ah owwww.” I groan in pain.

Looking to my right all I see is the girl turned facing sideways from me, she has a smug look on her face as she lets out giggles from her dumb mouth.

“Y-you psycho, who do you think you are throwing people on the floor over words?!” I say while attempting to raise my voice but it just comes out strained.

“Oh, Who am I?” The girl says with a sparkle in her eye, “I’m glad you asked commoner!” She shouts, her voice echoing throughout the alleyway.

“It is I! The youngest princess of Eccacia! Princess Aloe!” She says, her voice brimming with confidence.

Silence fills the air after her proclamation. Looking at her it is clear she believes in herself, a smug look you only see on the face of royals is plastered all over hers, awaiting my response.

I am silent for a few seconds, “… Bull.” I say while stumbling to my feet.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Suddenly, right as I was able to get back to my feet, I am looking at the sky again as my back slams onto the ground.

“A-ahhhhh owwwww” I groaned loudly in pain. “W-what the hell lady?” I say while squirming on the floor.

“W-what do you mean bull? You don’t believe me, y-you commoner?!” Her voice shakes as she shows no remorse for absolutely demolishing my spine for no reason.

“You expect me to believe you? AH!” I scream as I move and pain jolts up my spine. “There’s already a youngest princess you idiot!” I scoff in between my groans of pain.

“You’re talking about that old bag?” A glint of rage in her eyes. “We have different moms so she’s the youngest in her bloodline, and I am the youngest in the bloodline of the current king and queen. Also I am younger than her by a few years, so I am the youngest!” She explains, clearly annoyed at the notion of anyone besides herself being the youngest.

“H-heh, just the kind of convoluted bloodline bullshit I expect from the royal family. O-owww.” I groan as I try and fail to get up. I am now on my knees frozen in pain. “S-seriously you might have paralyzed me!” I yell.

“Do you hate the royal family?” She questions me.

I instantly know my answer, but before I answer I look up at her, her face no longer the smug look of a royal, but it is as if she is genuinely asking me a question. At the same time her resemblance to Angy becomes clear to me, and the answer that was clear to me just a second ago doesn’t seem so clear to me anymore.

“Y-yes.” I say, even noticing the clear unsureness in my voice. The look on Aloe’s face changes, she has a doubtful look on her face, clearly doubting my answer, and without words is demanding a real answer from me.

“Well, There’s someone who I don’t hate, I think.” I say, unsure of my own feelings.

“Who?” She asks but it seems more like she is trying to get me to say it, not like she’s asking a question.

I take a second to answer “Princess Angela.” I say. A look of interest now on the face of Aloe.

“Excuse me…” Aloe stops for a second, as if she is making sure I am looking at her before she continues, and I do, “Are you Zee?” She asks me.

I imagine the look on my face was enough confirmation to her, as questions raced through my mind. How does she know my name? My nickname at that. Is it from the war? No way, I was a complete nobody in the war, my only Medal of Honor was the fact that I remained unharmed almost the whole time.

“H-how do you know me?” I ask, completely unsure of what kind of answer I’ll get.

“So you are... Zee huh?” She goes silent, she is clearly thinking about something, leaving me in the dark about whatever it is.

“Seriously, how do you know me?” I ask her, the urgency growing in my voice. She smiles.

“Even if you are happy and with a family, and I am dead and buried…” She giggles.

“W-wait! How do you know that?!” I exclaim loudly.

She continues her mocking recitation of my letter, “I hope you still read and cherish these letters to you, My Beloved Angy.” She is practically dying laughing at this point.

“Seriously I was wondering who it was sending all those lovey dovey letters to that hag! I guess it makes sense why you were out here passed out!” She says while catching her breath.

“So she was reading them all along.” I mutter under my breath.

My eyes are downcast, the shame of having my letters read by someone else hits me hard. I rise to my feet, ignoring the pain that is still there.

“What’s wrong? You gettin a little shy?” She follows me, her voice sounding as if she has a smug grin on her face.

Even if she tried to speak to me at this moment I feel like any word spoken and any sound from the outside world are drowned out by the images playing in my mind. Images of Angy reading my letters and throwing them aside, some of her laughing at my letters, it feels as if now I know how she felt about the letters. I didn’t know all this time that she was even getting them, but now I know she was, and now I know she never cared to write back. Was everything I held onto a lie? Was I simply wrong about our friendship? These questions keep running in my mind, it feels like they all have culminated into one single, glaring, and unfortunate question. Should I have even tried so hard to survive all these years?

Suddenly I feel a stinging pain in my cheek, and my head is jerked in one direction.

“Hey! I don’t care even if you are getting shy, but don’t ignore me!” Aloe says, her tone suddenly matching the commanding tone that Angy had last night.

Without speaking to her I continue trying to walk away, before I can even take a few steps she grabs my shoulder and yanks me, turning me to face her. She looks angry, but suddenly her expression changes, she looks shocked.

“Why are you crying? Did my slap hurt that bad?” She says, more puzzled than anything.

At that moment her resemblance to Angela suddenly became so obvious. The deep blue eyes, the same exact ones that I fell for and that I could spend every hour of the day and every second of my existence staring into, just to know for certain that they are looking right back at me. Her silky, jet black hair, Aloe’s is shorter than Angela’s but the color is nothing I have seen besides from Angela, seeing it makes me remember the last time I had seen Angela as a child, when she was getting pulled into a car, I was shouting but she never looked back at me, all I ever got to see was her hair blowing in the wind on an otherwise, beautiful day. Aloe’s resemblance to Angela would seem uncanny to anyone that doesn’t know their relation, which is unlikely considering they are princesses of the royal family, and I must be the only man in the world that didn’t know who these people are, at least publicly.

“You look a lot like her. I can’t believe I didn’t see it right away…” I say as my emotions start to get the better of me. Before I even realized it I wasn’t just holding in a couple tears, but the entire culmination of my life after Angela left, it wasn’t just tears, it was everything ever. And when I realized that, I lost my hold on it all.

I can see the expression on Aloe’s face constantly shifting between confusion and pity, and without any care in where I am, I cried aloud.

“Ah jeez, saying I look like her really pisses me off.” Aloe says as she lets out a sigh and takes my hand.

She drags me along, and looking at her back her stature suddenly becomes clear to me. I hadn’t paid any attention to it before but she is not even comparable to Angela in height, while Angela is almost my height, Aloe is clearly short, and while Angela stands tall and has broad shoulders, Aloe lacks these qualities, sometimes referred to as leader qualities. It’s like the facial features are the only things that they share, while they are polar opposites in everything else.

I let her drag me along for a few minutes, completely unsure of where she was taking me. Soon we were walking the crowded streets of Downtown Capital City, and surprisingly Aloe was not getting stopped by anybody. I looked around and people definitely recognized her, but nobody approached us, they all had the same uneasy looks on their faces. In my rumination I had stopped shedding tears but I also had stopped in my tracks, Aloe stopped as well.

“What’s wrong now?” Aloe says in an annoyed but concerned tone. I was taken aback due to her tone hinting that she isn’t just some snotty, preppy brat, and that she might actually have care for a commoner like me.

Before I can answer a man comes bursting out of a building.

“You! You royal fucking scum!” The man screams at the top of his lungs as he charges across the street, directly at us. “I’ll kill you all!” He yells.

“Crap! This again!” Aloe shoves me away and takes a fighting stance.

This is clearly an outburst, at least that's what they have been calling it since we have been back from The War. People going crazy for one reason or another, or for no reason at all. The sight of a royal is more than enough to set any vet off, they sent us off to war and threw us into bloody battles while they had big breakfasts every morning, and while they bathed in golden tubs, we bathed in blood, both from friends and our enemy. And I understand that anger, I just never went crazy over it, especially not over a princess who was simply born into such a unagreeable, fucking waste of space, monarch family.

The man still sprinting, gets a step away from Aloe as she throws a kick, he suddenly stops in his tracks, seeming fully aware of his surroundings, he ducks under her kick clumsily aimed right at his head. He grabs her, one leg hanging over his shoulder and the other struggling to keep balance on the floor, and he kicks her leg and throws her onto the floor, he rushes in quickly getting in a dominant position sitting on her abdomen. Aloe struggles to get the weight of a full grown man, and not only that, a trained fighter off of her. He throws a punch with all of his force right at her nose, as his fist connects to her nose a cracking sound echoes throughout the now silent street and her head bounces off the pavement. This kind of strike would take out a skilled fighter, and kill the average person, but Aloe, with blood running down her face, continues to struggle and claw at the neck of man, unable to reach his face.

“You royals bleed the same as us! Why did we have to bleed FOR you and your fucking throne!” The man who fights as if he is not completely crazy, talks as if his mind is completely gone, his voice cracking and fluctuating in force.

Aloe mutters something under her breath, but it is inaudible to anyone, “What did you say?” The man asks as he starts to gasp for air, his physical exertion catching up with him.

“Fuck you! Commoner!” Aloe yells.

The crowd of people watching this unfold all gasp loudly, and I for one stand there in the front row seats, my mouth completely gaped wide open. Saying something like that just screams tone deaf, why she would egg the crazy guy on is beyond me.

The man lets out a cry in frustration, and also in affirmation, as if this is the exact response he expected from a royal. He raises his fist to strike her again, and Aloe covers her face with her forearms, completely aware of the damage he can do with a punch now. The man goes in for the punch and before I know it, my foot is buried into his jaw. He lands a couple feet back and is in a daze. The crowd once completely focused on Aloe, then on the man, is now fully focused on me.

“Hey about time you help!” Aloe shouts while coughing.

The man stumbles to his feet, his eyes clearly aren’t there anymore, and he grabs his jaw as it starts to swell up. He first looks at Aloe as the fog in his eye clears, then he looks at me, and his eyes widen in recognition.

“You?” He says as he points at me and fills me with confusion.

“Me?” I say in a confused tone.

“Private Levin!?” The man shouts

Suddenly the urge to stand and salute fills my mind, as the familiar way I was referred to by my fellow soldiers in war is said once again. I look clearly at the man for the first time. His bald head is not one I am familiar with.

Before I can even think more, the man speaks, “You are the lucky bastard, the one who never got shot!” he shouts.

“What? You’ve never been shot? Were you even in the military, what a dweeb!” Aloe says while laughing a nasally laugh due to her dumb nose being clogged with blood.

“I swear you could breathe and it would annoy me. Shut the fuck up lady!” I shout at Aloe who is still on the floor.

“Watch out you idiot!” Aloe screams.

Before I can react to Aloe’s warning my vision in my left eye goes completely white and I am sent flying backwards. As I fall to the ground the pain in my face is excruciating, as if my skull was broken by that one single strike. I am still unable to see out of my left eye as the man marches towards me.

“Oh how I have wanted to do that you stuck up prick!” The man shouts at me.

“You walk around camp completely uninjured after a battle, you never ask anyone if they are alright, or try to give any of us a hand to grab or a shoulder to lean on!” He continues, “I have always wanted to kill you!” The once crazed voice sounds clear and resolute, this is no longer the voice of a man with an unreasonable hatred for a young princess, this is a man out for my blood, only because to his own knowledge, my own was never spilled on the battlefield.