Sleep is like a buzzing fly in the middle of the night – a distraction to what’s about to change. I do know where I went wrong with having such a fitful night’s sleep and that is waking up in the middle of the night and then laying in bed for hours running through the scene of mother, father, and King Konadel. The Coral of Life and the imagine it evokes. It has to be magnificent but small enough for mother to conceal. Like Fincher. Magnificent yet nothing. Fincher will be forever out of my life. The Yazata is no longer a tiny glimpse of hope. It’s a shattered fragment of innocence that I could actually be the chosen soul the Good Spirit picked to keep the peaceful balance of light and dark on outer earth while it battles the Bad Spirit for balance inside the earth. And a line, it’s played over and over a billion times. It never becomes easier. That’s what father said. Has there been more than just one princess before?
The morning sun spills into my room. Katasavana knocks but barges in before I say a word. Sleep is gone, just as the fly hurries away as soon as you swat it.
“Miss? It’s morning and it’s time I help yeh get ready for yeh proposal. And I got this note from Fincher for yeh but he said I can’t read it or anything so I didn’t, I swear it, but it’s for yeh and he said to read it before yeh-”
“I’m marrying Prince Romulus no matter what,” I say so abruptly, I can’t quite believe I said it. “Give the note back to him because it doesn’t matter what Fincher says.”
Katasavana pulls the neatly folded parchment from her apron. “Miss? He said yeh would say that so then he said for me to say to yeh that it’s not about that but he has one more painting for yeh to see. It’s the last message he has. He said it was the bare spot on the wall, whatever that means, and he said it answers everything in that bare spot yeh wanted to know about so bad.”
I sit up and let me toes graze against the floor. My hand out, paper in. “Thanks,” I say quietly.
To prepare for a formal proposal goes something like this –
Bathe, hair brush, hair do, redo, brush once more, redo with hairpiece from Katasavana, then silk slip on, then proposal dress – blue and gray to match my eyes - then nail scrub and paint, then shoes, then breakfast but with a servant who has a steadier hand than Katasavana to feed me food so as not to spill on the dress, then drinks but just light with mother as I contemplate the events from last night, then to meet with father, then a practice of decorum, then a reminder of all the things to say when I think something different, then a reminder of all the gestures to make instead of what I want to do, and then a hug, a tear from mother and father and somehow from myself, then I stand in the parlor alone for twenty minutes as they head outside to the crowd, King Konadel, and Prince Romulus – all waiting for me to come out and in the meantime, I finally look at that little note Fincher wrote.
Stairwell, seven steps. – F
For some reason, my heart hurts to read those three little words because I guess, I thought there would be more. But my heart, it thuds too, though that’s when I look out the windows to the crowd. But I have time. I rush. To the stairwell. Hands grasping my dress high enough I don’t break the hem. From my room, seven steps. A huff of humor escapes my mouth. A smirk, it finds my lips. In between each step of the stairwell is a painting. It starts as a dark pink and red mass but as the stairs ascend, the pink turns into a variety of shades and defines itself into tentacles. So lifelike are the suckers, I press my finger to it. Paint still tacky, the pink sits on my finger tip. “Wow, Fincher. Beautiful.” I take a step and another until I find myself a little too far from the parlor but the mural extends to the stairwell’s wall. “The Good Spirit,” I mumble. Its size overwhelms me. Makes me realize I am but nothing in this world. Makes me forget about last night. About Fincher two floors up. About little starfish screaming, Help. But on the opposite wall, the pink fades to dark. Black and gray and drab green tentacles lock tight to the Good Spirit’s. The feeling of awe-struck turns to crushing fear. Fear from a picture? What paints can bring such tangible feelings? Another level higher and then a piece of hope strikes the painting. The Good Spirit, seemingly overcoming. Winning. Its size overwhelms me. Makes me realize I am but nothing in this world. Makes me forget about last night. About Fincher one floor up.
Just another floor and I could tell Fincher all that’s happened since I left his room yesterday. The wharf, the barnacle, the Coral of Life, the It never becomes easier. Just one more flight and I know he’ll be in his room. A smile on his face, Fincher style. Hands in his pockets, maybe paints strewn across his desk. A few more minutes I have, surely I do. So I take those steps. One after another, grasping my dress so I don’t ruin the bottom. A knock, a wait. I turn the knob, a creak open. An empty room.
And like his note, this too hurts my heart. My chest feels empty, numb really. A big moment to run to him and tell him maybe we should leave before it’s too late. The Tellos, their music crescendos swelling so much so it fills the halls. Faint on the third floor but present. And with the notes, I back out of Fincher’s room, that bare wall still missing color, and sprint down the stairs. Second flight, first. Down the hallway. Into the parlor just as the patio doors swing open. I let go of my dress and let it sweep the floor. Heaving for air through clenched teeth but smile covering up my rendezvous to Fincher’s. A curtsy to the line of Yleensa and Neresians waiting for me, a bow of my head. And like a good little Yleensa, I walk gracefully towards my future. Through the aisleway filled with eyes watching my every move. To the altar where Romulus stands, hands crossed in front, like a good little prince.
The air is brisk. The sun, bright. Clouds perfectly dot the blue sky. Smiles and soft music. A ring and a ring and now our proposal is formal. It’s final. A husband and a wife. A Neresian and a Yleensa. A hand in hand. A peck on the lips. People clap. They cheer. They laugh. Mother and father beam but with sadness in their eyes. Fincher, nowhere in sight. Katasavana passing champagne around the happy crowd. It seems like this moment will be one of those moments imprinted in my mind so much so, I’ll seek a Seer one day to paint it. To continue the Yleensa tradition of painting our histories. Our memories. Our lives. How short sighted is it though, to know I won’t last to seek a Seer to paint my history?
“Your steamer chest is heavy,” father says, locking the top. He passes me the skeleton key. “Send for some of the men servants, Katasavana. We’ll need muscle to move this.” She shifts back and forth on her feet, clearly wanting to offer her magical skills but the stare down father gives her, Katasavana decides it’s best to just listen instead of argue. She sprints out of my room and down the hall. Her little voice echoing, “Big boys! Come on we need yeh!”
Father shakes his head and sighs. “Where she gets those phrases-”
“We’ll never know,” mother says.
My wedding dress is packed neatly amongst my things. My little note from Fincher, I’ve tucked away in the sole of one of my shoes in the chest. Stairwell, seven steps – F. It makes me smile although faintly.
“Nervous?” mother asks, taking my expression the wrong way.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“Of course she is,” father says. “The ship ride will be new for you but riding with the Neresians means they can keep you safe at all times. A storm breaks the brigg? Boom, Prince Romulus will transform into a merman and hold you above the waves. A sea monster attacks? Boom, King Konadel will make it bend to his will. There is no nerves to speak about, my dear.”
I sit on the edge of the bed, letting my feet swing a bit. “What’s the Coral of Life?”
Mother and father have lost their decorum. Their ability to look one way when they want to look another. But they haven’t lost their ability to say one thing when they want to say another.
“Darling,” mother says. “It is but a rumor of the Neresians. Where-”
“Did you hear such a term? Was it Fincher? I swear, that boy sometimes is as aggravating as Katasavana-”
“And you love them both, right?” mother questions.
Father nods slightly and before he speaks, I say, “I heard you say it last night.”
“Aye, that boy. He taught you to sneak around the palace, didn’t he? I must have a talking with him. He is a great painter, a great Seer, but I’ll feed him to Oculo’s will and-”
“And you will do no such thing. Alessia is an adult and makes her own decisions, don’t you darling? She has decided to marry Prince Romulus and what a wonderful decision that was because she is doing exactly what she was born to do. Isn’t that so?”
Father and I don’t want to do what we should so instead we both find nothing to look at outside the window. No good little head nod for mother to be happy with.
A knock and two bows of large servant men. “King Nafar, we are here to assist.”
Mother claps her hands while her smile graces us all. “Wonderful. Let’s arrive to the wharf ahead of schedule.”
I always thought I’d cherish this day. Hold it so close and so dear. It’s one of those days I recreated with dolls and toys when I was a child and then later, daydreamed about. The color dress I would wear, the smile my love would have at the altar, one that now I realized was always Fincher’s smirk and not the charming, gleaming smile of a prince. I thought I’d wistfully hug my favorite servants goodbye but instead, I barely can bring myself to ask father to summon Katasavana, so I don’t. I thought I’d take a deep breath in as I stood at the front door and closed my eyes, memorizing every little scent. Every little noise. Every little part of the floor I’d grown so used to traveling. Smiles and laughter would adorn me and mother and father. People would wave and cheer and see me off. That the man I would’ve married would stand at the wharf, holding his arms wide to welcome me. The only thing about what I imagined and the truth is that the sky is perfect and the temperature just brisk enough to keep sweat from staining my simple pink dress.
“This is it,” mother says quietly.
Father only clears his throat as he wraps his arms tight around me followed shortly by mother. Two pecks on my cheeks and a few sniffles but no one dare lets a tear crest in public. In front of the burly Neresians waiting for me to step into the boat.
“Write,” mother says. “Write us as much-”
“As you can.”
I nod like a good little Yleensa and then father holds my arm as I step into the small boat. Two Neresians who don’t nearly look well-dressed enough to be a part of the royal family nor their servants feign smiles our way. Our servants gently lower my chest into the boat and before I finish saying “Thank you,” the rowers make way towards the ship.
“I love you,” I say. It’s all I can say, really. We wave back and forth for a moment and then we just watch the water create more space between us. But that’s not what pulls at my chest – the space between us. It’s that I can’t stop scanning for Fincher. To see him, to wave. What would I even do? Dive into the water towards him? Tell my parents I need to annul this arrangement?
Minutes go by and more minutes. The water is dark blue and what lurks beneath has always frozen me in terror. Not that Fincher has told me much but to see a long neck with spikes crest the water is enough for the mind to build upon. The carvings on the hull are much more elaborate close up and even the suckers on the Bad Spirit’s tentacles are lifelike but it brings a smile to my face because it looks a lot more like Fincher’s Good Spirit on the stairwell then it does the bad so maybe Romulus was wrong about what this ship is in ode to. But the tentacles, they are so lifelike. So much so, I press my pink-stained finger to it before I climb the rope ladder to the deck. The cord underneath is tough and splits into my palms but the sharp sting is quick and not so much a bother after a few rungs. But maybe it’s because being this up-close to a carving of such magnitude is distracting.
“Princess Alessia,” King Konadel says with an extended hand, helping me onto the ship. “We are delighted to be on our way. Romulus?” He turns around and shouts, “Romulus?!” He takes my arm gently but haphazardly and leads me towards the front of the ship. “Romulus is always up to something but I am confident, a young and beautiful wife like yourself with keep his fancy. I’m sure like his mother with me, you’ll be able to keep him from wandering too far. Romulus!?”
The deck is busy with men and women preparing sails and pulling anchor. Some smiles are friendly, others more of a scowl but it seems to me, they would be friendly if they were given the chance to bathe and have a comb to their hair.
“Ah, Princess. This is the ship’s captain. Captain Gabriel, this is the Princess Alessia. I assume I may leave her in your care while I find my son?”
“Of course, King Konadel.”
The King dips his eyes before he turns his back. The captain props his hand on the wheel and studies my whole being as if he can see through to my soul. I would love to shudder and cave to the pressure of feeling so naked but instead I curtsy and say, “Lovely to meet you, Captain Gabriel.”
His white beard and bright blue eyes match his hat and clothes. He waves his hand through the air “Call me Gabe, please, Princess.”
A slight smile from him, from me too though no words seem to want to come to my mouth. But Gabe seems to have plenty to share. “Do you know where we head?”
“To the coastline of Helve to settle a Neresian town.”
“Good,” he says with a pouted lip. “I see you’ve heard a portion of the truth.”
My brows would raise at such brazen words. To claim I don’t know anything as well as to admit there is something being hidden from a royal member of the Yleensa family. But instead, I glance towards the wharf. My parents are barely recognizable and if Fincher were somewhere out there looking for me, I wouldn’t be able to tell at all. “Should I know the other portion of the truth?”
He sighs. It’s kind and wistful and reminds me of the sighs mother gives towards Katasavana – loving and sweet and not a true sigh, just a breath of air and a wonder about the innocence yet wildness a child’s mind is. “What creatures of life do you know of, Princess Alessia?”
“Yleensa, some about the Neresians, a little about Seers but that’s all I’ve been afforded to learn.”
The corner of his lips rise while he fiddles his hand in his back pocket. “Take a look through this. And aim, oh, I’d say,” Gabe mumbles, “about there.”
The telescope to my eye, aimed right about there where Gabe’s crooked finger points and a gasp involuntarily escapes my lips. “Fincher,” I whisper. “Oh wow. Finch. You-he-how does he have a telescope too?”
Fincher smiles at me just the way he always does. He waves and he blows a kiss my way. And as I do the same, he clutches his fist to his chest. I do the same just as King Konadel bellows, “Onward!”
Gabe smiles brightly. Jovial. And I can’t help but let it spread to me. “How did you-”
“I am an Archangel. Another creature of life you may add to your list you’ve been afforded the chance to learn about.”
I can’t help but giggle as I look for Fincher again but-
“He is no longer there.” Gabe opens his hand and I set the telescope in it. “But my dear, I have it on great authority that you will certainly-”
“See him again?” I ask quietly as a sob just as sudden as Fincher appearing threatens to interrupt me.
A nod and a glimmer in his eye and a quiet, “Keep this between us,” and a slight wink.
“Princess?” King Konadel interrupts. “The Prince is busy readying plans for the settlement. Have you learned of this place yet?”
I shake my head but place a slight smile on my lips
“Ah, well we have much to talk about.”
I do know where I went wrong with having such a fitful day. And why my insides want to shrivel when I see Romulus. I do know where I went wrong as I watch the coast of Yleen disappear into the horizon. I do know but I have done nothing and will do nothing about it because this is what I was born for. But I should have believed Fincher. Shouldn’t have avoided him. Should have believed every single word he said and maybe, I wouldn’t have had such a fitful day haunted by the words of my parents. The Coral of Life. The, It never becomes easier. Should have listened to Fincher.