A/N: Heyyoooo I'mbackk sorry for the long wait :( I've got another chapter coming up soon! I've already finished around half of it and I still have the flow so it shouldn't be too long! Love yall! - LittleMissAlleyCat
~ Chapter 23 ~
Chances
His heart fluttered.
Her dress was an iridescent palette of glimmering blue. The finest fabric found in their country; softer and more delicate than the wings of a butterfly.
On her feet were crystal heels the color of melted snow; the caressing light from the chandelier spun into glowing reflections onto the smooth marble floor.
Golden strands were clipped back into a soft bun atop her tiara, loose curls framing her face; her eyes seemed larger, her jawline more feminine. Tiny diamonds were woven through her hair, illuminating her crown and creating an otherworldly appearance.
Stretched from ear to ear, bright and white and the most valuable treasure in the room was her smile. Sincere, innocent, dazzling.
The laugh that rang clear through the music was like a cascading waterfall. Bubbling and clear and life-giving. Whenever it faded he longed to hear it again.
Her.
Her.
She was an angel. An angel whom he was graced with the pleasure of dancing with.
His heart fluttered.
In a euphoric haze of bright, laughing eyes and melodic laughter he was swept away into the streets of the kingdom, paper lanterns that glowed like darting fireflies on a warm summer night dotting the deep blue of the sky.
The smoky smell of grilled meat with its juices bursting out with each bite and syrupy desserts topped with snow-white powder sugar and brightly colored confectionaries that were enchanted to pop in one's mouth filled his lungs wafted, mixing and complementing one another to create an unreplicable scent of festivity and joy.
Next to him, Bubbles—having left her delicate glass slippers back at the castle and instead opting for a pair of short brown boots—giggled, her dress flaring with each step. The tiara was gone, too, her hair now resting in soft bouncy curls over her shoulder.
On his other side were Robin and Mike, Bubbles' childhood friends. Robin was clad in a modest red and white dress, while Mike wore a tunic, his jacket draped over one arm.
If Boomer tilted his head up, he could see dancers and costumes and gymnasts flying down the streets, their vibrant clothing casting dark shadows onto the cobblestone; the contrast bringing out their large, sweeping movements. He never wanted to blink, never wanted to lose sight of the hypnotic scene for even a second.
Bubbles pulled their group to the front of the crowd with excitement, desperate to get a better view of the performers, her smile growing ever larger, the corner of her eyes crinkling until he could barely see the baby blue.
A laugh escaped his lips when sharp tug dragged him back. He tried to shout for help and grab onto someone, but the music swept his cry away, mixing it with the hollers that wafted from the parade.
His view of Bubbles' glimmering golden hair was blocked by a mass of bodies, and he couldn't help but feel like he was drowning in a pit of writhing darkness as the light faded away and the darkness of an alley closed in. Pale skin and zaffre eyes restrained him.
"Boomer. What are you doing out there with those—" the girl scrunched her nose in disgust as she tried to think of a degrading enough adjective with her limited vocabulary skills." those putrid Selodians?"
He blinked, trying to adjust to the dim environment. "I-I what?"
The girl let go of his shirt, throwing her hands up in frustration. Her pale yellow curls looked like lightning against the dark walls. "Ugh! Do they have something I don't?"
Hand on his chest, Boomer coughed, standing upright. "Brat, could you maybe stop—" Another cough; her thin eyebrows angled down in irritation. "Trying to ruin my life?"
"Could you maybe stop trying to ruin mine?" She hissed.
"I'm not doing anything to you!"
"Exactly." The princess growled, pointed teeth flashing. "Why won't you pay attention to me?"
"Because you're a psychopath!"
"I thought we were friends!"
Boomer inched back towards the main street. "Emphasis on 'were'. We stopped being friends when you tried to strangle that boy from Aleton."
She moved forward and blocked his path, the whites of her eyes glowing in the moonlight. "That was three months ago! And he wasn't even hurt that bad!"
"Just leave me alone, alright? I've found better company." He felt something rising up in his throat and tried to force it down.
"How is the idiot princess of Selodia better company?"
"She's a hundred times kinder and more patient than you'll ever be."
"Hah!" Boomer felt his veins burning with anger at her snort of laughter. "What use is that? I'm prettier, smarter, and better than her in every which way."
"Enough is enough! I've tolerated your tantrums and screaming and—and spoiled behavior since we were twelve! I'm done." He pushed past her, sighing with relief as he entered the circle of love and laughter and life again.
The girl watched with furrowed brows and clenched teeth as he disappeared into the crowd, his glimmering golden hair blocked by the mass of bodies.
She wrinkled her nose. This wasn't the first time the young girl had stumbled across a dead body, but it still left a slimy taste in her mouth.
Sighing, she set her precious woven nest of firefly-mushrooms on the snowy grass and hiked up her dress. The oozing blood stained the slush a dirty red, and she was cautious to avoid the patches.
She squatted next to the dead girl, who was little more than a grain of pepper in a bowl of salt which the world sat in. Short uneven hair covered the corpse's features and pale-tanned skin, the deep claw marks in her leg clearly from a common lynx.
The girl with shimmering bronze ringlets placed a finger under the body's nose, performing the mandatory step her father had drilled into her brain. There was never any breath, but she still followed the rules every time. However, a small puff of warmth just barely—just barely but still—kissed her skin.
A wave of shock traveled up her spine, causing her to nearly fall back in surprise. Procedures, steps, rules, precautions, guidelines flew about her mind, and for the first time she struggled to remember what all Outer Ring citizens had to.
Her hands moved of their own accord, flying around what was no longer a corpse—no longer an object, but a girl not much older than her, balancing on the edge of life, ready to soar off any second.
Buttercup burst upright in the bed, her stomach simmering, her hair plastered onto her forehead with sweat, and dressed in a nightgown that was not hers.
A cool ray of sunlight shone through the slightly open crystal windows, pooling onto the covers. Her eyes fell to the glass of water perched upon the nightstand. Her mouth was burning, too. Flinging the covers off, Buttercup dove for the liquid-relief, dousing the roaring fire inside her lungs.
A bundle of needles stabbed her left leg. She cursed and glanced down. There were bandages winding up from her the middle of her calf up to her thigh. Her brows knit as the memories flooded back.
Clenching her teeth, she sat back down, her fingers slowly peeling away the white cloth inch by inch. Her flesh was left pink and raw, a thousand tiny creatures prancing across the surface. As if a painter had used her skin as a canvas, three pale streaks ran along her leg, stark against her tan.
Soft creak of footsteps sounded against aged wood, and in a blur of black Buttercup's head shot up. The shut mouth to the room open slowly; revealing a fair girl with wide eyes. There was a gap in time as both stared at one another.
"You're awake."
"Yes."
The girl swallowed.
"Why am I here." Buttercup said, masking her surprise at the raspiness of her voice.
"You're—you were injured." Her burgundy gaze jumped to and back from the bandages on the floor. Buttercup resisted the urge to roll her eyes.
"And who are you."
"I'm, uh, I'm Klaeir. I live here."
"How long?"
"Since I was born."
Irritation flurried inside of Buttercup as she repeated her question. "How long have I been here?"
"Half a night and a day. Two days."
How did I heal so fast? A voiced murmured inside, but was quickly pushed aside as she remembered yet another thing.
"How far away is Selodia?"
The younger girl's brows twitched. Her mouth opened and closed like a fish as her face turned blank.
"Y'know, under King Utonium's rule? One of the four kingdoms." Buttercup felt her heart beat faster with each word, the ignorance of this dumb little girl carving a hole in her mind.
"Oh! The Denounced! That's where you're going? I wouldn't recommend venturing out there... but it's a around three days on horseback."
Three days. Three days was not enough. Buttercup gripped the bedsheets. Three days was not enough. She had to get away. Three days was not enough. She needed to escape; needed to start over.
"What's in the other direction, then." Three days was not enough.
Klaeir spoke as if she had memorized the path from a textbook, her face going blank once again, but this time in trance.
"One day north is Solitius, Town of the Middle Ring. Three is Wohlhabendi, City of the Inner Ring. A week is Mediphantia, home of the Royal Family. Eleven days is Mittlence, Sister Town to Solitius—"
"Mediphantia?" Hope and possibility ignited the fire again and burned the roof of her mouth. A new kingdom.
"The epicenter of all magic. The city of life." Klaeir nodded.
Buttercup didn't hear what she said. The memory of a castle she had been building for years under layer upon layer of clouded seawater resurfaced, bobbing on roaring waves that now turned into ripples of thought. A castle inside in a city, looming over the mountains, looming over the world, yet invisible to all. A faded, crumbling vapid wonder of walls and doors and rooms and miles, thousands of miles away from everyone else snug in an alcove between houses. A world inside a world existing for mere seconds as others strode past.
" I'm going to Mediphantia. Where's my horse?" She breathed.
"You're leaving? You just woke up!"
"I appreciate you taking care of me, but I think I can decide what I want to do, and when I want to do it." Buttercup snapped, anger flaring again.
"I guess," Klaeir sighed, her shoulders slumping with the weight of the world. "I'll go prepare your things."
Her enormous, drooping puppy eyes made Buttercup squirm in her skin. Bubbles would make that face whenever she was sad. Guilt rushed down her throat, making her swallow uncomfortably.
"Thanks." Buttercup, a fidgeting mess of dark hair, clenched teeth and confused, angry looks, muttered as her gaze shifted out the window, focused on the bright purple birds clustered on a branch, heart shaped turquoise markings decorating their puffed chests. She'd never seen such a variety before.
Klaeir's head popped back into the room.
"By the way, what's your name?"
Startled, Buttercup took a moment to consider the question.
"BC."
She checked and double checked and triple checked. The map Klaeir had given her pointed in this direction. Buttercup adjusted her satchel, fingers tapping against the strap as Spitfire neared the edge of the woods. She looked up at the brightness through the trees. Seven days.
Seven days since she left the Outer Ring. Seven days of traveling alone, seven days of strange creatures, seven days of the unknown. Ten days since she left Selodia. Ten days of confusion, ten days of hope, ten days of the impossible. This had to be it. Klaeir had told her.
She prodded Spitfire gently, and felt the breeze of beginnings before she emerged from the trees, her heart swelling with an unknown feeling, a feeling that she bathed in and longed to keep forever.
Cliffs rose up from either side of her, water gushing out in the lake below. From the edge of the forest a long bridge stretched out in front of her, a pathway suspended in the glimmering reflection of the sky. In the center of the clarity and rebirth, was Mediphantia, all Klaeir had told her and more.
Straight ahead were the houses, mansion, shops, schools. A shimmering sea of clean walls and red-tiled roofs. Weaving in and out among the buildings were the residents of Mediphantia, some milling in the markets, some with children, and others leaping from house to house, tinted wings keeping them afloat.
Pure, warm-cold white spires pierced through the clouds, red and orange flags swimming against the winds, fluttering with pride against the blue of the sky. A tremendous castle with hundreds of rooms and thousands of windows with the light shining through and mixing the colors of the glass was erected in the center of the city, it's glow reflecting off into the city.
Buttercups breath caught in her throat.
This was it.
- end of chapter 23 -
