Lucy yawned and the refreshing air of delicious food traveled from the nearby window and landed on her tongue. “I’m hungry,” she said.
Jackson’s laughter was lost amid the distant approaching sounds of a crying baby and incessant steps. In the distant, dosing princess was having leisure on a hoofing horse, as maids and guards walked beside her, in silence.
Lucy take a look at Jackson and said, “Must you laugh any time I say am hungry?”
“Must you yawn every time you smell the aroma of food?” he asked her.
She hissed. “What concern you about my life?”
“You love food too much,” he remarked.
“In this life,” Lucy lowered her voice, “If I don’t eat, what would I gain?”
Bella, kicking an empty bottle to the bush, looked at Lucy. “Foodie. F. F. O.”
Lucy hissed and yawned, “Thank you.”
“Close your rotten mouth,” Bella said.
Lucy frown at Jackson as he laughed and looked away. “You are dating Alice. Isn’t it?”
“What concern you about my life?” Jackson said.
“Everything, because you love girls too much,” Lucy said.
“You retaliate,” he said, “unforgiveness soul.”
“Do you think I don’t saw Alice on your chest this morning?” she asked.
“And so what?” he said, “what is the big deal in it?”
“Ah,” Lucy said, tapping his shoulder. “You are a prostitute. Prettiest prostitute.”
“Why are you seducing Alice’s boyfriend?” Bella asked Lucy.
“Why should I?” she replied.
“Don’t you call him prettiest prostitute just now? Bella said.
“That doesn’t mean anything to me,” Lucy said, “my boyfriend was pretty than him. Even more than a hundred times.”
Bella tapped Jackson’s shoulder saying, “Don’t mind her, Jackson, imbecile is handsome than her boyfriend.”
Bella darted to the other sides as Lucy picked a stone irritatedly. Throwing it. And the stone dashed straight and bounced on the princess’s head.
“Ouches,” The princess shouted from her dosing mood. “Who threw me a stone?”
Jackson stayed still when Bella and Lucy sprint to the left side and darted away, as a maid pointed her hand to them. “One of those girls.”
The princess gives the evil eye to them and then looked at the guards saying, “What are you waiting for?”
“Your highness,” The commander said, kneeing, and turned to the guards, “You, you, you, follow me.”
The guards darted down the road and turned to the left side, following their Commander. They saw nothing. “Move faster,” the commander said and then they ran more, looking for them.
Lucy and Bella’s hearts were pounding up and down as they lowered their torsos before a bush under a tall tree.
“You caused this,” Lucy said.
“No. You caused it,” Bella said, “Did I throw the stone?”
“You irritated me to that extent. How dare you compare my boyfriend with an imbecile?”
“I’m joking that time.”
“I don’t like that kind of joke.”
“Okay. I accepted my sins. I’m sorry.”
“Ssshhh,” Lucy whispered, “they are here.”
The commander ordered the guards to stopped and said, “check under that tree.”
And as the guards darted to the tree, they saw Lucy and Bella, kneeling shouting, “we are sorry.”
“Bring them here,” The commander boomed and slapped them as the guards brought them to him effortlessly. “Who stoned the princess?”
Lucy and Bella exchanged glances. Lucy is already wailing, biting her fingers.
“Are you deaf?” he roared, “who stoned the princess?”
“Me,” Bella said.
“No, am the one,” Lucy said.
“Why did you lie?” Bella asked, facing Lucy.
“You don’t have to get punished for my sins,” Lucy said.
The commander, staring at them in confusion. “What on earth are you showing me here? Did you want to die?”
“Lucy, stop lying,” Bella said, “I stoned the princess.”
“Bella, why are you acting this way,” Lucy said, “stop pretending.”
The commander looked at the guards. “Killed them.”
One guard knee and said, “Sir, don’t forget princess commands us to bring them alive.”
“Okay then,” he said, walking back and the guards tied Lucy and Bella’s hands, following the commander.
“Why did you lied?” Lucy whispered to Bella.
“I caused it,” Bella whispered back. “This won’t happen if I don’t irritate you.”
“What if they have killed us?”
Tears keep cascading down from Bella’s eyes. “I’m scared.”.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
“Your highness,” Jackson said, getting down on his knees. “she doesn’t throw it intentionally.”
“Leave here. You’re adding to my headache,” The princess boomed.
And the guards take out their swords to scared him away.
“Give me water,” The princess said, and a maid gave her one of her a bottle of water. She threw it away, yelling. And the maids exchanged glances in shock.
The commander and the guards walked brought them. “Your highness. They are here.”
Lucy and Bella screamed as the guards pushed Lucy and Bella to the princess’s front. She jumped down from the white horse, gazing at them.
“You have no manners,” The princess said, “And I will teach you today.”
One guard take out a long wire and commanded them to knees before the princess, flogging them till their clothes wrench apart and blood stained them.
“It’s okay,” The princess said, and the guard stopped.
“Your highness,” The commander said.
“Tell me,” she said.
“Why don’t you put them in the prison?” he said.
“That was what I thought too,” the princess said as she climbed the back of a guard to sit on the white horse. The horse snorted and hoofed.
Lucy fell flatly on the ground as the commander command them to stand on their feet, and Bella was sobbing like a small child, dropping down saliva. No one has ever beat her like this before.
“Carry them on the horses,” The commander ordered the guards. And they did as it was ordered.
Bella looked at Lucy on the horse. Blood was dripping down on her back, and Bella could feel that her blood had wet her body too.
The warming heat of shinning sun creates hell on Lucy’s body. She keeps breathing hard on the horse, hoping for safety as her sight looks blurred. And she remembered that she hasn’t eaten food since morning.
“Your highness, “The commander said, walking beside the princess horse.
“Tell me,” The princess said.
“I heard that Roderigo had died,” he said.
The princess was shocked. “What happened to him? Did Reuben died too?”
“No,” he said, “he had dug grave in honor for his bosom friend.”
“That’s so painful,” The princess said, “I love both of them even though the king hates them.”
“I love them too, your highness,” The commander said, smiling.
Did they mean what they just said? Bella thought to herself. Then this is a great opportunity for us to be free. She looked at the princess and said, “Your highness. We are relatives to Reuben.”
All the guards laughed, and the princess looked back, looking at the guards as they stopped laughing. “Is he your father or your grandfather?”
“Our friends,” Bella said, thinking how to explain herself more clearly.
“Your highness,” The commander said.
“Tell me.”
“Don’t listen to her. She wants to use tricks to gets freedom, your highness.”
“I knew when she first said Reuben was their relative. But now she said, Reuben was their friend,” The princess said.
Lucy was looking down, lamenting.
Bella looked at the princess. “It’s not what you think, your high-”
“Keep quiet,” The commander cuts in, “you are going to the prison.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
JACKSON’S POV
This afternoon, I sat beside the river, and the water was rolling beneath my swinging legs. I remembered another afternoon before my father died, when I wa sixteen years old. I sat beside the river as I sat here too swinging my legs above the water, and then my father darted to me saying, “Flee with your brother. Enemies might soon capture this village.”
“Where is my mom,” I said
“Your mom had died,” he said, “Santiago had killed her. Go, go, go.”
I remembered holding John’s hands, pacing into the forest for safety. Where we sat as brothers, weep as a teenager, and laughed as a friend.
I had missed my father so much, although I don’t know if he had died or not. I missed my mom too, who loves to play the piano every time my dad went to war, I don’t want to imagine her dying by the tyrant Santiago’s sword.
I remembered when I promised John that I will revenge. But he begs not to picked my father’s sword. He begged me to pick my mother’s piano instead if I want to see him smiling at all times.
Although my father had trained my hands, he taught it how to hold swords and how to slaughter men, for good three years, but I accepted what John want and surrender to the revenge to the universe.
But now, I can’t stand seeing my loved one dying in the Princess Palace. I can’t endure seeing the friends of the girl I loved to suffer.
And here, now, I saw some fishermen paddling their boat. Some ships were arriving from the city.
And in that ship, a pretty girl sat beside her father. Her face looks like Sophia’s face. I thought she was the one, but I realized she wasn’t as I saw her curly golden hair.
And on the other end, on the tree, I saw someone, a boy, staring at the boat too. Taking a pistol out, targeting them, but he didn’tshoot and quickly jumped down as he saw polices ship sailing near too.
Who was he? Is he the person Sophia was searching for? And why did he wants to shoot the father and her daughter?
I keep swinging my legs above the water, tired of thinking. Missing my Alice. Not trying to imagine how Lucy and Bella would suffer.
I don’t want to make John sad if he saw me fighting. Because he was all I had, he was so precious to me than millions of golds and silvers.
I breathe the air out and in. My face looked paled.
I keep staring at the ships and I saw the father hugging her sobbing daughter. What happened to her? I thoughts. Is she scared of the sea, or was she crying about things that are different from what am thinking here?
I closed my eyes, trying not to think about anything again. And within, my heart says I should drop my mother’s piano and I should sharpen my father’s sword.
And that was it. My inner man solved my problem at once. And then, I stood up, fearless as the son of Reuben.