Chapter 6
The baths. One of the more interesting levels, I admit, but so far, the moisture wasn't working real well for my wings. Well… they weren't working that well for me, either, since all I could do was glide…
"Hey! Prince! Check me out!" I shouted from the top of the small little waterfall in the first area of the baths. When they both looked up at me, I struck a goofy leader pose and grinned.
"What are you doing up there?" Farah asked, a small smile tugging at her mouth.
"I am Naomi Fox! Queen of the Baths!" I declared loudly, "and there's nothing you girls can do about it!"
"Are you implying that I am a woman?" the prince asked, smirking in my direction, folding his arms in challenge. I put one hand on my hip and leaned back, faking a yawn, waving my hand at him dismissively.
"A Queen should not have to answer to her subjects," I said in a pompous tone. Oh, that definitely spurred him into motion.
"Oh, we'll see about that!" he declared, and sprinted up the small stairs after me. I yelled out when I saw him coming after me and darted of in the other direction. He, however, caught up very quickly to me, tackled me and pinned me on the ground. "Surrender or die!"
"Never! You will never take my thrown from me, so don't even try, girly girl!" Bad move, Naomi. He gave me a menacing stare, and at first, I thought I'd said something stupid, until he started tickling me. That completely blew me out of the water, no pun intended, and I cringed, wiggled, squirmed and laughed until I thought my gut would explode trying to worm away from him.
"How about now, huh?" he taunted me, giving me a moment to answer.
"Is… is that the… the worst you got, you PANSY?!" He shrugged.
"Have it your way." He started ticking me again, but this time, he didn't get very far before Farah intervened, grabbing his arms and dragging him off of me.
"Naomi! Quick!" she encouraged. I just grinned slyly as the prince realized that he was being conspired against.
"Payback time!" I shouted, then jumped on him and gave him a nice, hard swallow of his own medicine. It was awesome, especially since he had some easy-to-find tickle spots. I tickled him right back until I thought he'd lose bladder control and I let off. Then I stood up and posed victoriously. "Victory belongs to me! Naomi Fox! Hail to the Chief, baby!"
"Farah! You traitor!" the prince cried pathetically. She only smiled and shrugged.
"Sorry."
"Ah, yes! My ally! You get nice a place on my council!" I declared cheerfully, pointing at Farah.
"I accept most graciously!" she replied over dramatically, bowing falsely. We both giggled. The prince just shook his head and got to his feet.
"Why do I get the feeling that you two will be the death of me yet?" he asked.
"Because you love us," I replied, hands behind my back in an innocent looking stance. He just shook his head and looked up towards the next gate.
"We better keep moving," he said simply. Farah and I nodded once before following him. But as the prince moved the statue blocking a large crack in the wall, she and I glanced at each other again. I could tell and we were going to get along just fine…
Since I was way outmatched compared to Farah when it came to body structure, I couldn't go through the crack. No, instead, lucky me, I had to follow the prince through the PIT OF DOOOOOM!!!
The second I walked in and that spiked thingy fell from the ceiling and started swinging, I turned white and immediately turned on my heel to leave. Unfortunately, the prince caught me before I got far. Somehow, he managed to talk me into it.
"Princy, if we live through this, remind me to kill you in your sleep one of these days."
"It's only a short distance, Naomi!" he argued, "and you have wings! How hard could it be?"
"Yeah, I have wings. Wings that don't flippin' work! How many times do I have to remind you of that little detail?! And you know I can't climb like you can!"
"You're making a big deal out of nothing."
"Nothing?! Maybe it's nothing to you! To me, it's get halfway up the wall and fall to my death screaming like a little girl! I'm not even half the athlete you are! Hell, I can't even jump over a gap!" At this point, he looked like he would like nothing more than to grab me and throw me up there himself, but he just let out an aggravated sigh.
"Get on my back," he ordered. I looked at him blankly.
"Huh?"
"Get on my back," he repeated, pointing his thumb behind him. "And hold on."
"Uh… okay?" I got behind him and hauled myself up onto his back, my legs around his waist and my arms around his neck. With me secured there, he put one foot on the wall as though testing to see how far he would get with the extra weight, and then stepped back and wall ran up. He couldn't go as far as he normally could, and he couldn't jump as far, so it took us a little longer to reach the top.
Getting to the door leading into the baths, however, was a completely different story. There were sand monsters in there, and with the spike pole swinging back and forth over our heads, I had no place to hide. Yeah, I was royally screwed.
It was a bit difficult for the prince to climb up over the edge and run out with me on his back, but after that, I didn't press my luck. I jumped off and let him start fighting the monsters while I just ran out of the way, hid in a corner and hope to whatever deity was listening that I wouldn't be spotted. After a while, though just when I started getting confident that I was safe, one of the harem girls discovered me.
The thing just teleported right in front of me, taking me completely by surprise, and all I could do for a moment was stand there and gape like someone had just switched my brain off. A bit too long, unfortunately… my brain started back up again with a vengeance just when it was too late to escape. I quickly ducked out of the way as the creature swung her weapons. I hissed and ground my teeth at her blade caught my arm and tore a gash in my bicep. I ran, holding my other hand to the wound. But I didn't get far before the Harem girl teleported again right in front of me. I skidded to a halt and tried to move my butt in the other direction as quick as possible, and managed to get out of that bind, but Miss Butt Naked just teleported again!
"Damn you! Would you just leave me alone?! I never did anything to you!" I tried to get away again, and again, and again, but this strategy just wasn't working! "Look, if you leave me alone, I know a nice clothes shop you could go to and get some real good bargains on some pants!" I tried, but of course, I didn't work. "PRINCE! A little help here!"
"I'm a little busy!" He shouted in reply. I glanced over, seeing that he was still dealing with the remaining Sand Creatures.
"Farah!" I shouted, "would you mind getting this chick off my tail?!"
"I don't have a clear shot!" she answered back.
"DAMN IT ALL!!!" I finally just grabbed the first thing I could get my hands on and threw it back at the meddlesome monster, hopeing that it would at least slow her sown. I stood and blinked at the pillow I'd grabbed slammed into her, and knocked her back into the water, where she basically disintegrated. "Uh…" was all I could say.
"There's something glowing up there," Farah told us when we regrouped, "I saw it from the ledge." I couldn't help but grin. It was a new sword! But I wasn't about to let them know that. Why ruin the surprise?
"Did you see what it was?" the prince asked. Farah shook her head.
"No, I didn't. And why are you grinning?"
"Oh… uh… nothing, I was just thinking about something stupid," I said, trying to keep from laughing.
"And what exactly were you thinking about?" the prince pressed me. I shook my head.
"Nothing. Just go get the shiny thingy on the ledge, ok?" I gave a quick encouraging smile before turning and walking up the stairs in the middle of the room.
"Naomi, wait!" Princy stopped me, "you're arm…" I suddenly noticed that I'd hand my hand over the wound from the Harem girl this whole time. I guess the adrenaline rush from trying to get away had numbed it temporarily. But now that the prince mentioned it, it started to sting.
I lifted my hand away from it, seeing the nasty gash there still bleeding. The only thing was, it wasn't blood. Or, it was blood, but it wasn't red… it was silver. Whatever it was, it was steadily dripping down my arm, leaving a glistening path behind it.
"What happened?" the prince asked me as he came over and looked at the oddity.
"…Just a scratch…" I answered in a sort of zoned-out voice.
"What is that?" Farah inquired, also coming over to see what the fuss was and seeing my arm. "Is that… blood?"
"I think it is blood…" I answered. "Huh… wacky." I jerked my arm away, covering it again. "Well, anyway, Prince, you go find a way up to the shiny. I'll clean this thing down here while you do that. Okies?"
"Uh… right," he answered. So while he and Farah worked to open gates to switches, drained the water and whatnot, I sat by the small pool of water that hid the switch that Farah stood on, cleaning the wound in my arm. The cold water made I sting at first, and it bled more than I would've liked, but it stopped after a while. After it was clean, I tore a strip of my shirt and bandaged it. It was a bit slapdash, but it was all I could do at the moment. I kept coming back to that whole 'Angel' thing. I mean, wings, silver blood? What next? Blue hair? I think it's definitely safe to assume at this point that the angel is supposed to be me. It doesn't take a German rocket scientist to figure out that someone on the other side wants me to be an angel. Well, in my opinion, they could've done a lot better. I mean, I can't fight, my grades in school leave much to be desired, I'm not cunning, I'm not strong, hell, I've never even set foot in a church before! So why the heck was this happening to me?
The Indian Princess and I just watched from a distance as the prince did all of his fancy acrobatic moves and made his way to the ledge where the shiny was.
"I think I see that glow you were talking about!" he called down to us from his high position.
"Be careful!" Farah called back.
"It would be so stupid if he missed one of those poles and fell back down here," I commented, smirking. Farah, however, didn't seem so keen on my idea of a joke.
"No it wouldn't! It would be awful! A fall like that could kill him!" she argued. I sighed.
"I was kidding. Lighten up."
"You think that's funny?"
"Forget it already. Sheesh… no sense of humor…"
"What did you say?"
"Nothing. Hey prince, did you get the shiny yet?!" I didn't get an answer, but I did hear some clinking. Yep, he'd found the sword. Now he could do even more cool badass uber cool prince stuff! Like smash walls!
I grinned like a fool until her rejoined us with his new sword in hand, his old one still on his back. He quickly looked at me.
"Naomi, there is a fountain back in that hall, if you're interested," he said simply.
"Fountain?" Farah inquired curiously, but she went ignored when I started jumping around.
"A FOUNTAIN! Well, what are you waiting for?! ONWARD, SAYS I!" I turned on the ball of my foot and started marching towards the hall that the prince had just emerged from, but he grabbed me by my collar before I could get far.
"Hold on, I think you should keep this to defend yourself with. It will make things much easier on all of us," he explained. I turned around, and he quickly put his old sword in my hand. I stared at him a moment, then at the sword, then back at him.
"Uh, ok, thanks! Now… TO THE FOUNTAIN! FOLLOW ME, MEN! I KNOW THE WAY!" I skipped into the corridor, whooping like the idiot I was until I reached the large hole in the wall that the prince had torn down with his new blade. I stopped and waited for him, and together, we descended to the Fountain of Mysteries.
Kiri: WHOO! FAQ TIME!
Naomi: at last! A place where we can critisize the authoress of this story for being a balloon head!
Kiri: HEY!
Prince: Yeah, it's about time you let us have some freedom! It was getting cramped in there!
Kiri: oh, quit whining. FAQ!
Q: so... is this gonna be another sappy romantic love story between the OC and the prince?
A: well... I'm a hopeless romantic, so I would love to make it one of them, but I suppose it really all depends on what my lovely readers want.
Q: What's with the silver blood?
A: Eh, not much, really. I just wanted to emphasize the fact that Naomi is changing to fit her 'Angel' role, but she really has no idea what the heck is going on.
Naomi: Because someone won't freaking tell us!
Prince: Yeah! Why all the secrets?!
A: Now now, if I told you guys, the element of surprise would be ruined!
Naomi: Screw the element of surprise! This is my life we're talking about! What the heck are you planning?!
A: That's for me to know and you to find out.
Q: Is Naomi gonna get to fly soon?
A: ...mmmm... maaaayyyybeeee...
Q: wil she get some kind of special holy power?
A: haven't decided yet...
Naomi: i better get something! I can't justy keep running around the battlefeilds like a headless chicken!
Kiri: Oh, sure you can. But that's all the time I have now. Until he next update!