" B-but, isn't that aginst some rule?" Amber stared wide eyed at Prince Joesph.
Joesph smirked. " Maybe in some kingdoms."
" B-but, can't you get punished for that kind of withcraft?" Amber stuttered.
Joesph shock his head. " Don't worry so much, it a lot easier then it looks, and since I'm sure you've seen your mother do it before, I won't have to help you as much. Go ahead and give it a try."
Amber gulped and stared at a tree in front of ehr that was burning in bright flames, but wasn't turning to ashes. She was supposed to put it out, but something held her back. She knew exactly that it was fear, but she constintly told herself that it was just something small. Joesph was right, she had seen her mother do this a lot. Like when she cooked, or was drying clothes by a firepit, her mother snet a rain of magic crystal's to put it out.
" But how?!" Amber repeated the same question around the fifth time of her fourth leason in a week.
Joesph sighed and shock his head, staring down at her. " I told you a million times before! But I guess I can udnerstand your nervous stat. All you have to do is gather a happy thought and imagine that happy though shatter into tiny crystals, then send them against the tree. That clearer?"
Amber's body shock very nervously, she wasn't ready for something like this. She never wanted to have magic, she just wanted to be....normal. Amber felt un-easy with that word, thinking that if she told her mother that, she'd be crushed.
A happy thought. She looked back up at Joesph. " What should I think of?"
Joesph shrugged. " Anything that you can remember that made you very happy."
Amber thought long and hard. But the only things that came to mind were the things that brought her pain and suffering. Her mother leaving, her father gonig missing all those years ago, when she was brought to the castle, when she saw how weak her new friends were when they faced King Johnny and Lord Tala & Bryan.
A tear slipped down her cheek, but she didn't wipe it away. She looked back up at Joesph.
" Nothing. I can't think of nothing." She whined.
Joesph glanced at her, looking at her trembling figure. He placed his hands on her shoulders and rubbed the shoulder blades with his thumbs.
" What do you see?" Joesph bent down and whispered into her ear.
Amber shock her head. " I see nothing."
Joesph sighed, Amber could feel his breath on the back of her neck. " I meant what do you see? With your heart, not your head."
Amber thought deeply. Her heart. She let out a whine. " There's nothing! This is too hard, i should have never started doing this!"
She squirmed under Joesph's massage, but Joesph held her firmly. " Not your memories, your heart, what does your heart see?"
Amber let another tear fall down her cheek, but she thought. Her heart, not memories.
Then she spoke the answer out loud, without noticing it at first. " Emotion."
Joesph let her go and smiled as she turned around. " Very good. Now pick an emotion that you can deal with."
Amber thought for a second. " Friendship." She finally decided. " Yes, friendship."
VWVWVWVWV
" You got some nerve showing up here!" Tala glared as Alex entered the nearly empty court room.
Alex didn't speak a word. Tala had been bugging her all week about the argument she had with Johnny, somehow he'd found out about it.
' Or over heard it, you two were screaming your heads off! ' A tiny voice stated in her head in a matter-of-fact tone.
Alex keeped her head lowered and tugged at her red skirt. As punishment for freaking on the king, she was sent back with her old uniform, and she'd been whipped for it.
" I stand by what I said, you can't change the past." She spoke lowly and went to a closet at the very back of the room.Tala sent her a glare, then turned his attention to the other gaurds talk about the summer games starting tommorow.
" A female event though! Seriously! What girl in their right mind run in an obsticale course?" Bryan half shouted, rolling his eyes.
" Two that I know of..." Alex muttered as she came out with a broom, and started to sweep the floor.
Tala glared at her. " You shut up and do your job. You think you would have learned your place by now."
Alex sent him a glare. " Your one to talk. I don't think your job requires sitting on your ass all day!" She snapped at him, then shut up when she heard Tala growl.
" Shut it! Or I'll see to it that your more punished." Tala warned.
Alex would have snapped at him, but something held her back, forcefully. She knew know that is was her fear. Ever since she'd come here, she'd feared Tala so much. She hated herself for it aswell, but no matter how scared she was of him, she always stood her ground. The thing that she hated the most was that she has never feared anybody beofre tala. Tala was the only one.
" Calm down, Tala. Who's the two?" Kai snapped, then asked paitently.
Alex gulped and turned back around, facing the four at the table. She didn't have to shut up now, she smirked to herself. Kai was her boss after all.
" Me and Princess Mariam." She bowed her head, then turned back around, resuming her job.
Enrique stared at the other gaurds. " Mariam? But she- she can't! I thought royalty wasn't aloud to particapate."
" Their not, normally." Alex corrected, without turning around. " If you remember correctly, Max, I mean Prince Max said he wanted to do something different this year. That something was to let royalty particapate, along with having an event for us girls as well."
" True." Kai stated and scrathed his head. Then he stopped. " Alex, look at me."
Alex rolled her eyes, but turned around and looked at him straight in the eye. Kai cleared his throat.
" How did you find out about this before we?" He cocked a brow.
Alex smirked, waving her finger as if saying 'no'. " I wasn't the only one to find out, isn't that right, Tala?" She glared at him, then looked back at Kai, when Tala didn't give her a reaction. " We had the most interesting punishment conversation with King Johnny. He let us both onto a few things, isn't that right?" He glanced again at Tala.
Tala looked up at her, his expression blank for once. Bryan glanced at his fellow gaurd.
" Conversation? Doesn't she mean sentence?" He asked.
Alex shock her head and smirked. " Oh no. Not this time. But if it has to be a sentence on anybody, that would have to be on Tala's part."
Tala growled to himself, then stood up. " Out Alex. Now!"
Alex shock her head. " That's not your decision to make. Kai?"
Kai nodded. " Yeah, go with him. You can always finish up here after."
Alex placed the broom against the wall and left, Tala right behind her. Once the door was closed, he pushed her into an empty room and closed that door. He turned to face her, noticing she had her back up against a wall. He walked over to her and placed his one hand right by her left ear, leaning on it and blocking any attempt she had to leave from that direction.
" I thought we had a deal? You keep your mouth shut, and I don't tell Johnny about every little snapping you make!" Tala growled, glaring at her.
Alex smiled innocently. " But I never said anything about what the punishment was."
Tala snapped. " You have a very big mouth, and not that big of intellagence."
" I could have told you that the very moment I got here!" She snapped back.
Tala grabbed her by her throat, pinning her upper half to the wall. " This wasn't my idea."
Alex struggled for some breath. " Do you think I like it either? Besides, that sentence doesn't start until after the summer games!"
Tala let her go and she gasped in a big breath. " You know, on the other hand, having you as a personal little assistant might not be so bad."
He smirked widely as Alex paled. He leaned in closer to her. " What the matter?" he questioned and leaned into her ear.
" Know my plan already?" He whispered and kissed her neck, before pulling away.
Alex just stood there, all fear tearing her apart. She didn't want to look at Tala and show her that she was uncomfortable, that's exactly what he wanted. But not doing anything in reaction was something he probably expected too.
She toke a risk and looked up at Tala, to see him smirking, and very close to her face.
" Well? Do you have a problem with it?" He asked.
Alex gulped and shock her head. Tala smirked and chuckled. That's when Alex realized what she just said. She just agreed with Tala's twisted mind! There was something wrong with her. Tala was getting to her head, big time!
" Then you won't mind if I do this." Tala leaned in and kissed Alex full on the lips.
But Alex noticed that this one was soft, not rough, as if there was a meaning behind it. Alex pushed forward, kissing him back, giving her enough room to pull away from him, her eyes wide.
Tala smirked. " You look confused." He dragged his fingers on her cheek and off her chin, staring at the skin he touched.
Alex let out a whimper suddenly. She was blanking out, she honestly wasn't thinking straight.
Tala looked at her, now he was confused. Alex's eyes were closed and she was sort of leaning into the touch. Tala blinked, then smirked.
" Your like a puppy dog." He whispered and took his hand away.
Alex opened her eyes slowly and stared up, deep into Tala's icey orbs. " Tala..." The name slipped! Honest!
Tala smirked and took his hand away from the wall. " Not a word of this to Kai, even if he asks."
Alex looked down to the ground. Tala lifted her chin up with his fingers and stared at her intensly. " Understand?"
Alex pulled away and looked at the ground again. " Yes, I understand..." She whispered.
As Tala turned to leave, she followed thinking hard. Maybe it wasn't fear of Tala that held her back, maybe it was a fear of something she wanted to recive from Tala...
VWVWVWVWV
" Your going to get fatter, you know that, right?!" Ray questioned as Tyson chomped down on his food and devored it in seconds, not that normal for him, even if he did love eating.
Tyson shrugged, then pointed a finger at Alex as he swallowed. " So is she, and she barely eats anything."
Alex glared at him, folded her arms and looked down on her plate. He was right, she never did eat much. She looked down at her stomach and noted that Tyson was right, she was getting fatter.
Amber looked at Alex's stomach too and cocked a brow. " Well that's weird, how can you be getting fatter if you don't eat much?!"
Alex shrugged and took a sip of her water, then glanced around the hall. Her eyes wandered at how cramped the hall was. All the particappents for the games were here, and the royal table was doubled due to all the new royalty. Alex shifted and continued looking. Her eyes grazed the gaurd and knight table, looking at each of them, taking her time to notice how much of pigs they were, belching, slirpping and gobbling down everything is sight.
" I'm rather surprised they down eat the plates too." Ray commented as he followed Alex's gaze.
Little did he know, Alex was gazing at one gaurd in particular. She was trying so hard to read the calm expression on Tala's face, but it was either always buried into his plate, eating everything rather calmly, or turned to the side when he was talking to Bryan on his side, or Kai across the table from him.
Tala turned his head again, but stopped half way and stared back at Alex. Alex didn't break the uncomfortable stare she had herself locked into to, so Tala did, by starting to eat again. A small blistered hand waved in front of her face. Alex blinked and looked beside her, to see Amber staring blankly.
" What are you staring at?" She questioned.
Ray snorted. " Besides, it's not like those under-grown ogers are of any interest." He gave Tyson a high five as he took a sip of his water.
Alex shrugged. " Never thought the hall could be so packed."
" Yeah, the summer games is a really buissy time. For everybody." Tyson smiled.
Ray nodded. " 100. We end up getting a lot more dish duties then ever before."
Amber giggled. " I've shoveled so many holes and picked up so many rocks, I'm rather surprised my hand hasn't fallen off yet."
Alex gave an uneasy smile and picked up a piece of chicken. Food for thought, she thought to herself. And right now, she really needed that.
" There's at least three gaurds for ever royal brat at that table! So there's like thirty other people I have to wait on, hand and foot." Alex threw in, to show her friends that she was into the conversation too.
They all stared at her and then cracked up laughing. Alex sighed and rolled her eyes, taking a bite of her chicken.
The boys continued talking, but Amber was rather lost in a world of thought. She kept glancing over to Alex to see if she was alright. She didn't look the part, but Alex did always look glum.
" I don't ever remember seeing you smile at anybody." Amber stated as Alex finished nawing on the chicken bone.
Alex put the bone down, and didn't even look at her as she took a sip of water from her cup.
" I have nothing to smile about." She stated flatly, meaning ever word.
Amber blinked at her, the boys laughing and still in their conversation. " But you have some things to be thankful for. You got your brothers back home, you got us three for company here."
Alex nodded. " Yeah, but that's not anything to make me smile. Trust me on this one."
Amber nodded and went back to her food. But deep in the caverns of her mind, she was thinking about that. Trust her? On not smiling? That was weird to say, but Alex was a pretty weird person. So she'd just have to manage. Maybe by the time they get out, she'd be able to make Alex smile. Just once, and it be a true smile!
