The trip back to Aqua Si wasn’t long, but I was still exhausted after the trip.
When we traveled to that small Animālis village, the plan originally was to try and get them on our side. To get all of the factions together to make sure the Tenebris tribe does not attack again.
Since that Animālis village was so close to the south, we figured we could get a defensive squad around the south to defend the rest of our world from the Tenebris.
“Do you need help, my lady?” one of my servants and close friends, Akua, asked.
“I just need to lie down for a bit,” I replied, waving her away.
“I can help you,” she lightly insisted, looking at me with her dark eyes. Her family had been close friends with my family, even if we were royal and they were servants. I remembered when I was younger, Akua and I were the same age, and often when my family would be discussing some important matters I would go and play with her and her father.
Even though I didn’t need help, I knew she would keep asking if I didn’t let her at least help me to bed.
“Fine,” I sighed, acting like I was more annoyed, but I did like it when she helped. She would make a fine wife and mother one day, living a life of humility and kindness. I just hoped she found the right person for her.
Akua walked into my small, humble, room. Even if I was royalty, we had the same Aqua room as everyone else. A cot on the floor, an altar for the gods, a small window with an intricate pattern on it, a small fountain to wash away our sins, and a sliding door made of wood and canvas to divide it from the rest of the palace.
After a day of riding and saving that village, I needed a nap.
Akua carefully lit the candles around my bed and altar. She fluffed up my small pillow and helped me out of my riding boots. “Would you like to change into your nightclothes, my lady?” Akua asked.
“No, it’s alright, Akua, you rest now.”
“I will be waiting outside if you need me,” Akua said before leaving the room.
Once alone, I let out a silent sigh of exhaustion. I was even more tired than I thought.
I carefully knelt before the altar first, saying a few prayers to the gods, thanking them for helping me on my journey, and asking them to bless my next one.
Then I lay on my cot for a while and felt my eyelids grow heavy before I drifted off to sleep.
As soon as I fell asleep, I heard voices.
Chantara Shimizu, princess of the Aquarian Empire, warrior, born with the power to control water, you have been chosen.
That was when I felt something in my throat. I tried to breathe, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t breathe. That had never happened before. I saw a figure before me in my mind’s eye, tall and slender, and made of shadows. It began to make its way towards me, slowly at first, then as if it were sprinting towards me.
I needed to get away, but I couldn’t move. And the panic and the fact that I couldn’t breathe made it even worse.
That’s when I woke up.
“My lady! My lady!” Akua was shaking me awake, and as I looked around I saw my room was flooded with water, coming up to Akua’s ankles.
“What…what happened?” I asked, looking around.
“It appears you lost control of your powers, for a moment.” A voice said. I looked in my doorway and saw the last person I wanted to see.
My father.
It’s not that I don’t like my father. I love him. It’s just that he’s protective and stricter at times.
But I understand why. I am his only heir to the throne and will be the Empress of our great empire when I come of age. Or, of course, he dies.
But I hope that doesn’t happen anytime soon.
I’m only fifteen years of age, after all, but it seems like people forget that at times. It’s like since I became the age of ten, people started to realize that I would soon no longer be a princess, but an Empress.
“I-I must have,” I replied, still gasping for breath. At least, that’s what it felt like in my dream.
“What is wrong, my lady?” Akua asked.
“I just…had a bad dream.” I avoided Akua’s and my father’s eyes.
“Leave us.” I heard my father say to Akua, who bowed her head and rushed out of the room, closing the sliding door behind her.
My father took a few steps into the water-filled room, then reached his hand out. As he closed his eyes, a sad look on his face as the water rushed into his fingers, drying the room quickly.
Although our power is great, creating water out of thin air, there is always restrictions to that power. You must either be in a calm or sad state of mind, creating water from the watery eyes of the weary.
And, of course, it dehydrates you a little so intaking water either through our hands or drinking it.
He walked over to my cot, where I was still sitting up, avoiding looking him in the eye.
My father knelt before me and studied me a bit.
I was expecting him to jump into a whole lecture about controlling my powers, or that a real queen would never do such a foolish thing, flooding my room. Instead, he surprised me.
“What’s wrong?” he gently asked.
What’s wrong? That was a phrase I hadn’t heard my father say in a long time.
It surprised me so much that all the emotions I had bottled up inside me for the past few days spilled out. I was so stressed and anxious about this trip and the trips that would follow, and of course, being queen and making my father proud, I hadn’t had a moment to myself.
I just needed someone to talk to. And my father had added so much pressure onto me that I didn’t think he was capable of asking a person about their well-being.
As tears welled up in my eyes, I told him everything that had happened in the past few days. He nodded as he listened, although I still wouldn’t meet his eyes.
“Hmm,” he said as he stood up and began pacing around my room.
I noticed now the grayness in his hair, the worry lines on his forehead, the small limp in his left leg, an injury from a battle years ago that didn’t quite heal up all the way.
He was growing older by the day, concerning me even more that I may come to the throne too young. And I didn’t want that. I wanted my father to be with me every step of the way.
“Stress and anxiety can cause anyone to lose control of their powers every once in a while, but you appear to be frightened, scared. Was there something about that dream that frightened you, really scared you?”
I didn’t like the look in his eyes, the look of fascination in my fear. He didn’t always understand me, but now this was just wrong. He was interested, fascinated by the fact that I had lost control of my powers.
“There was… a voice.”
“A voice?” My father was interested.
“It said I had been chosen.”
“Chosen?”
“Yes…” I said, still pondering it myself.
“What did the voice sound like?”
“Um…” that was what stopped me. I didn’t know what the voice sounded like, almost as if it had come from my mind itself. It had no gender, no distinct sound to it, it was just… there.
That’s when I realized something. Someone else had lost control today, a boy who had followed us from the Animālis village and was now wandering the streets of Aqua Si.
I stood up rather quickly and told my father, “I have to go.”
I practically ran out of my room, jamming my boots on as I made my way out of the palace.
I ran through the city, knowing that the Ignis boy would stick out like a sore thumb.
“Ignis boy!” I shouted, although that probably wouldn’t make a difference. If only I had learned his name…
I continued to run through the streets, making my way past crowds of startled people, confused at why the princess would be running around Aqua Si.
I turned the corner of an alley, looking left and right as I shouted again, “Ignis boy!”
It was no use. I’d never find him…
That was when I felt something small hit my head. Like a small pebble falling from the sky.
I looked up and saw the Ignis boy sitting on a ledge above me from one of the nearby buildings, juggling three pebbles and looking at me with a smile on his face.
He looked different than when he was in the village. When he was in the village, he seemed scared and confused, now he seemed carefree and did not worry about the world.
“Yes, Aqua girl?” he said, not looking up from his juggling.
“You seemed to have lost control of your powers back at the Animālis village,” I observed, “Is that true?”
The Ignis boy stopped juggling, catching all three of the pebbles. “Yes, it seems that is true.” Although he still had a smile on his face, I could see in his eyes that what I had said brought back something he’d seen back there. Or heard.
“Did you…hear anything, Ignis boy?” I asked.
“Please, don’t call me Ignis boy,” the boy said, waving his hand in an annoyed gesture.
“Then what should I call you?”
He looked at me then, a crooked grin on his face. His hair was a tangled mess only held back by a badly tied tail in the back of his head. His clothes, although having gold touches here and there like he’d said when we first met, were also covered in dirt and grime, a tear or two here and there.
I could see that stuffed down his boots were two knives, and he had two short swords strapped to his back, plus the glint of a blade within his long coat.
Although he was quite good looking, he had a narrow face and his ears stuck up from his tangled hair.
He looked like an elf to me. One of those tiny creatures from the myths that were said to have tricked people into giving them their most prized possessions.
He looked like he had wealth, but then why was he such a mess?
“Call me Ignacio.”
“Did you hear anything, Ignacio?” I tried again, calling him by name.
“And what is your name, my love?” Ignacio countered.
I was so taken aback by that and I still, to this day, don’t know why. Why would he want to know my name? All I was ever called was “Your Highness” “My lady” or “Your Majesty”. No one ever called me by my real name.
Except for that voice.
“I am Crown Princess Chantara Shimizu, heir to the throne of Aqua Si and the Aquarian Empire.”
To be honest, Ignacio did not seem surprised. He just nodded as if he’d known all along.
“What’s wrong?” I asked him.
“Well,” he started, “I knew you were some kind of royal or person of power.”
“How?”
“Well, your crown, for starters,” Ignacio said, pointing to the silver circlet around my head.
“It’s not much of a crown,” I admitted, feeling the heat rise on my cheeks.
“Plus the way you talk, the way you walk. You have the aura of a royal, my lady.”
I don’t know why this infuriated me this much. I had been so accustomed to only Akua calling me “my lady” for so long, and the way Ignacio said it was…different, almost mocking.
“Why did you call me my lady?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.
“Because you are a lady and the princess of this fine empire of yours.” Ignacio waved his arms around him at the towering quartz buildings, the pillars of water surrounding us. “Although it’s not my style,” he added.
“Please, don’t call me ‘my lady’,” I said, pinching the bridge of my nose, “Only people who are close to me call me that.”
Ignacio shrugged, “Fair, Your Majesty.”
I couldn’t make him stop calling me that.
I took a deep breath, trying my best not to grab the sword at my hip and slice this boy’s tongue out of his mouth. He was trying his best to annoy me, wasn’t he?
“I shall ask you again, Ignacio, did you see anything or hear anything?”
Ignacio sighed this time, looking far away. “The real question is, princess, did you see anything?”
I decided it was best to stop fighting with him. “Yes, I did. A voice spoke into my mind today as I was trying to rest.”
“What did it say?” Ignacio sat up, almost falling off the ledge before acting like he wasn’t interested.
“It said that I was chosen.”
“Did you see anything, my love?” Ignacio threw a pebble into the air with his right hand, then reached over and caught it with his left.
“Yes. A dark figure made of shadows. Tall, and slender. It ran at me.” By the look of masked fear in his eyes, I knew that Ignacio had seen it too.
“I did as well,” Ignacio said softly, almost a whisper.
“And then you lost control of your powers.” I finished for him.
“See?” Ignacio’s attitude changed instantly, lighting up. “It wasn’t my fault that Animālis village burned, wasn’t it? And you will believe me because you saw that figure too!”
As he said this, he waved his hands about, and that was when I realized the gloves that were on his hands. I had ignored them before, but it was the color that caught my eye. A dark crimson, almost the color of blood.
There was a rumor out there, a folk villain, an Ignis boy who stole from shopkeepers and banks, one that wore red gloves. They said he was quick with his hands and had an easy-going attitude, one that made you at ease for him to come in and steal your valuables.
This was an Ignis boy, who had an easy-going attitude and was proficient with both hands. He wore red gloves and appeared to be pretty rich but also poor. And being poor could make some people do unspeakable things, such as stealing.
“You…” I started, my eyes narrowing, “You are Red Hands. You have stolen from many, and caused many a great deal of suffering. Oh, how could I not see it before? You are a lying, filthy, thief!”
Ignacio-no, Red Hands seemed a bit surprised at my accusation, but excited, too.
“Oh, I’m so glad someone recognizes me before they’ve realized I’ve stolen things from them!” Red Hands nearly shouted, jumping down from the ledge he had been sitting on.
“Glad you’re a fan.” He said, slinging an arm over my shoulder.
I immediately shrugged him off and began to walk away. “Do not touch me, you thief.”
Red Hands seemed a bit hurt by the word “thief”. “Look, I don’t steal anymore.” he sounded completely honest, but I remembered where he had been standing when I and my squad came to save the village.
“Oh really? Then why were you at a jeweler’s shop when the village set fire?”
Ignacio bit his lip, “Oh yeah, good point.”
“So not only do you have a bad attitude, Red Hands, but you are a bad liar as well.”
“Just, don’t call me Red Hands, okay? It’s so cliche and corny. I don’t like it. I like Ignacio better, anyways.”
“I can see your parents raised you right,” I said sarcastically.
Ignacio still looked hurt, as if I’d touched a wound that had been healing for some time, but wasn’t quite healed up. But his humor came back after a second or two. “Lucky for you, Your Highness, I wasn’t raised by my parents. I raised myself.”
Although the humor was there, I could still tell it hurt him and I decided not to push any further.
I continued to try to get away from him. Although I didn’t know anyone personally who had been robbed by him, I had seen the aftermath of his robberies.
“You have stolen from so many,” I muttered as I pushed through a crowd. He was still following me.
“Only from those who had plenty more.”
I whirled around and glared at him. His gloating grin was still there, his amber eyes glinting with glee.
“What is so funny?” I demanded.
Ignacio bent over laughing, clutching his sides, obviously finding something hilarious.
When he caught his breath, he finally said, “I find it funny that you are caring about me stealing from people! You are a princess! Why should you care if I steal from people like shopkeepers!” He laughed some more, then looked up at me, his tone more serious.
“I steal only enough that it will keep me alive, and keep others alive. It doesn’t matter to me who they are, so long as they have more than me and can survive even when I steal from them.”
“And I,” I said, trying my best to make my short frame look at his stupid face, “care for all the people of this world, not just the ones in my country. I don’t care who they are, or what they do. They. Deserve. Better.”
As I started to walk away, an idea struck me. If we could get an Ignis on our side, we might win what we’re fighting for.
The Ignis tribe to the north weren’t so keen on helping us, but Ignacio couldn’t seem to get away from me. And because Igni draw their power from joy, this boy seemed like a very powerful Ignis.
He might be our only choice.
“Look,” I said, looking at his surprised face that I’d turned around and was talking to him, “You want to prove how you can be better than a common thief?”
Ignacio nodded, looking at me suspiciously.
“How bad do you want to take down the Tenebris?"219Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUHbzBKZbcS
